RFC Europe playtesting feedback thread

[jessiecat]

Yes, Yes, the UHV is hard, we'll change it, now back to the topic of Iberia.



Can these changes be in the next version?

Everybody doesn't necessarily agree with all the changes you propose. For myself, I do agree with the city positions you propose except for Tanjah and Burgos. And I don't agree that the terrain needs changing right now. We all have ideas to put forward but we can't expect every one of them to be adopted just because we wish it so, can we?
BTW What does we'll change it mean about the Norse UHV? Has Sedna agreed to change it? And who is we?

 

[Michael Vick]

Yes, I don't know, and I don't know who we is, I just said that to get it out of the way. You don't agree with the terrain???

 

[Wessel V1]

... I just said that to get it out of the way. You don't agree with the terrain???

I agree about most things you say, since you sound like an expert on these subjects, but please don't try to make Spain the center of attention. It's a wonderful country although I have to admit that I've never been there before, but it's not the center of Europe, since there is no center of Europe. Don't feel offenced, it's absolutely not what I was trying to say, but we have to pay attention to everything, and if we pay attention to all things at the same pace, then the results will be better and the mod will become official sooner.

 

[Michael Vick]

Not offended, and I'm just working on Spain right now, I'll probably eventually have these same issues with some other civ... Not England though, you guys have pretty much perfected that civ. (right on city name maps, reasonable and fun UHVs, their own special barbarians... I'd have to say England is the most fun civ to play right now in this new version, Good job so far)

I just think that the most important area of Spain is a bit messed up, both with the city placement and the terrain. Have you seen my map screenshot in the other thread? It's pretty accurate IMO. I'd be happy with that change and the Tangier-Cadiz issue. Maybe my philosophy contradicts with yours but I'm basing my suggestions on the locations of these cities in real life, how it affects the civ is my second priority. If a closer tangier is such a problem then I would rather have it gone and replaced with an indy like Fez that flipped to Cordoba in order to keep it away from Iberia.

Sorry if I've been pushy. I, too agree that that the Norse UHV is hard.

 

[jessiecat]

Not offended, and I'm just working on Spain right now, I'll probably eventually have these same issues with some other civ... Not England though, you guys have pretty much perfected that civ. (right on city name maps, reasonable and fun UHVs, their own special barbarians... I'd have to say England is the most fun civ to play right now in this new version, Good job so far)

I just think that the most important area of Spain is a bit messed up, both with the city placement and the terrain. Have you seen my map screenshot in the other thread? It's pretty accurate IMO. I'd be happy with that change and the Tangier-Cadiz issue. Maybe my philosophy contradicts with yours but I'm basing my suggestions on the locations of these cities in real life, how it affects the civ is my second priority. If a closer tangier is such a problem then I would rather have it gone and replaced with an indy like Fez that flipped to Cordoba in order to keep it away from Iberia.

Sorry if I've been pushy. I, too agree that that the Norse UHV is hard.

I hope I didn't offend you. That wasn't my intention. I've been involved with this project almost since the beginning, over a year now. I've had lots of ideas for this mod which I would have liked implemented. Most of them haven't been adopted while many others have. It can be disappointing when what you think is a good idea isn't accepted. That's what happens in a team project. I can live with that.
I think I'm a lot older than you and have been travelling in Spain regularly for the past 30 years. And I do have degrees in geography and history, if that means anything. So I guess I'm entitled to an opinion too. I'm also very interested in the Muslim civs so most of the research and development of them has been done by me. Like you I'm keen on giving as much historical authenticity as possible to this mod but we are always limited by the needs of gameplay and balance.
We've disagreed on a couple of things but there's no harm in that. It's all part of the process. We decided in the beginning to give our modding colleagues the final say about changes as they have to physically code them in. No decision-making process is perfect but it's the best we've got. And we all accept it, I hope.

 

[Michael Vick]

I assume Sedna is one of the mighty modding colleagues of which you speak, what does he have to say about the Spain issues?

 

[Michael Vick]

I base RFC you can't switch to a Civ that rises "too soon" after you. However, this is not based on time but on Civ order. That is, normally you can't switch to the very next civ to rise. Normally, that order is the same as the order in which they spawned, but by moving Spain (and Moscow) later, it sort of broke that . Thus, Cordoba can't switch to Spain because Spain still comes directly after Cordoba in the list of Civs (even though it doesn't come right after in time). Probably easiest just to change the way that calculation is done (and make it a set time period, like "no switching within the first 50 turns).

Is it possible to make that change in the code myself?

 

[ZachScape]

For a little background info, here is the current situation:

Spoiler :

I'm playing with Austria. First thing I did was blitz Poland to capture a city NE of Prague and razed a city east of that. After the peace (which made Poland a powerless, instable mess for the past 300 years), I created an alliance with Germany and Venetia (Austria). After that, Bulgaria vassalized to the Byzantines and the Byzantines created a defensive pact with Hungary and Kiev. A little later, I taunted the Byzantines into declaring war on me (so I could capture all of Hungary), which engulfed all of Europe east of France. It recently just ended by Germany making peace with the Byzantines (the last group to make a peace treaty). I annexed Hungary's two cities, and shortly after, Venetia asked to be vassalized. When I made peace with everyone, I extended my Defensive Pact with the Norse. Then I captured two independents south of me, which brings you up to speed.

Now here's my question:
Based on the picture, does it look like Germany is going to invade me? We are friendly and they risk going to war with the Norse, Venetia, me, and possibly Poland if I get them to vassalize in time.

Spoiler :

This is my seventh game in RFCE, and by far my favorite.

 

[Verily]

I just started a new game as the Spanish, and I must say that I like the new spawn date very much. However, I have one immediate comment: Burgos is an absolutely awful city. Please, either do not have it spawn, replace it with some other city (I don't see why it represents Navarre, having been a part of Leon and not Navarre), or move the surroundign resources so that they are within its fat cross.

Personally, I would most prefer the middle solution. Bilbao came into prominenace a little bit late but would still IMO be the best choice. Pamplona would also be a decent choice; someone mentioned replacing Zaragoza with Pamplona, and if you do so please also delete Burgos.

Why do I say this? Because pointless filler cities are a drag on performance, both in terms of the actual running of the game and on the AIs' ability to be competitive. Useless cities like Burgos and Augsburg actively weaken their AI, which we should not encourage.

 

[jessiecat]

I just started a new game as the Spanish, and I must say that I like the new spawn date very much. However, I have one immediate comment: Burgos is an absolutely awful city. Please, either do not have it spawn, replace it with some other city (I don't see why it represents Navarre, having been a part of Leon and not Navarre), or move the surroundign resources so that they are within its fat cross.

Personally, I would most prefer the middle solution. Bilbao came into prominenace a little bit late but would still IMO be the best choice. Pamplona would also be a decent choice; someone mentioned replacing Zaragoza with Pamplona, and if you do so please also delete Burgos.

Why do I say this? Because pointless filler cities are a drag on performance, both in terms of the actual running of the game and on the AIs' ability to be competitive. Useless cities like Burgos and Augsburg actively weaken their AI, which we should not encourage.

I agree. The new spawn date is fine. As I said before, it should start with Leon as capital with A Corunna, Pamplona and Toledo flipping in the locations suggested by Micheal Vick and I. Forget Burgos and Zaragoza as indies. If people want to build cities there, that's up to them. We've already got Barcelona pre-built. We don't need those 2 as well IMO.

 

[operafantom]

I've just seen the manual of the mod, it's great . I started to play Spain, and I think also that this spawn date is better. But when it starts Spain has too many cities. I had a lot of units, war with Cordoba immedietaly, and in 20-30 turns they collapsed (I conquered Cordoba hehe). Around 1300 I already vassalized Portugal, had the whole Iberian and destroyed all the other religions. In some turns I reach divine right then switch to theocracy, and the two UHVs are done. But it was a little bit too easy. Wouldn't be 3-4 cities enough at the start?

 

[Wessel V1]

Currently, I'm playing as the Kievans, since I wanted to see if it's really possible what I imagined:

Because Ukraine is surrounded by flat lands, and has enough food to easily work all tiles without farms, I wondered if it is possible to construct the perfect cottage economy. Imagine how powerful this could be: 10 or more cities, more than 200 tiles, with only towns, that can produce 2 food, 1 hammer and 7, or next to a river, 8 gold. Nobody can ever beat that science machine, and it has a decent production as well, and don't forget the specialists.

Unfortunately, it's easier said than done. There are some influential factors that prevent growth: hapiness and health limits, religious isolation, and the Mongols. Luckily, Arabia will always trade away it's resources, and Byzantium will trade you as many techs as you want. Other notes:

- The city that is supposed to flip, is usually razed by barbarians.
- Byzantium had a very high tech rate, in 1200 AD they were still tech leader. Is that new or have I been away for too long?
- There were no solid civs, 4 or 5 were unstable for quite a long time. France collapsed when I spawned because Paris was razed. Bulgaria also collapsed before 1000 AD.
- There is a hidden psychological force that prevents me to reject threats from Venezia.
- The first Mongols appeared not quite where I expected them, they spawned near my most western borders.
- Moscow has disappeared! Is it a change in spawn date or is it something else (I'll check the WB when I come home again)
- Cordoba is winning the war against Spain, but is also unstable.

So, when the hordes are gone, I think I'm going to expand very quickly, and then build towards the cottage dream.

 

[Michael Vick]

I just started a new game as the Spanish, and I must say that I like the new spawn date very much. However, I have one immediate comment: Burgos is an absolutely awful city. Please, either do not have it spawn, replace it with some other city (I don't see why it represents Navarre, having been a part of Leon and not Navarre), or move the surroundign resources so that they are within its fat cross.

Personally, I would most prefer the middle solution. Bilbao came into prominenace a little bit late but would still IMO be the best choice. Pamplona would also be a decent choice; someone mentioned replacing Zaragoza with Pamplona, and if you do so please also delete Burgos.

Why do I say this? Because pointless filler cities are a drag on performance, both in terms of the actual running of the game and on the AIs' ability to be competitive. Useless cities like Burgos and Augsburg actively weaken their AI, which we should not encourage.

Yes, we really need to get rid of Burgos. If we must have that amount of cities I suggest including Zaragoza, Toledo, A Coruna, and Pamplona. Or maybe the above except Santiago de Compostela instead of Zaragoza. Maybe we could have yet another extra city for them if they didn't start with two settlers on Madrid but spawned on Toledo.

I don't think it would be very hard to code Toledo flipping as their capitol, in some of my games in the last version I'd found Lisbon before Portugal came and it would flip as their capitol without any problem. Other times I'd found Vienna as Germany and I'd get the same result. I think just spawning on the right city does the trick. Could we give that a try next version?

 

[sedna17]

Bah, Spain is more trouble than it's worth. I propose we chop off the entire Iberian peninsular.

 

[Michael Vick]

I agree completely. Now with Spain out of the way we can really make this mod interesting. Who else supports the inclusion of the United States of America and possibly even a Canadian civilization? UU is the Navy Seal, UP is all grasslands provide +10 Fast Food UHVs: By 1800, control every tile on the map.
By 1800, have the highest obesity rating of all civs.
By 1800, Found every corporation.

How about it?

 

[jessiecat]

As long as Canada won't be sharing a border with the US anymore, I'm in.

 

[Michael Vick]

It's a go, RFCEurope + USA. A request though, can Barack Obama be the leaderhead?

 

[Feyaria]

I agree with Burgos, it has no food resource. A better city would be 2 north, 1 east with fish + crab.
Also, Zaragoza would be better 1 north, less overlap with Madrid and Barcelona.

 

[steampunk1880]

You know how when a settler is selected it shows circles for good places, emphasizes resources and shows the fat crosses of already founded cities? Didn't someone once suggest also adding color coded shading to the tiles to show your civ's stability penalties for founding on that tile? Also it would be helpful if, for all those civs that require "holding" territory for victory to have some sort of highlight on those areas it needs to to capture/colonize. Playing civs like Genoa and Venetia right now is a pain having to periodically exit out to refer to those (rather helpful) maps you provided me with.

 

[sedna17]

You know how when a settler is selected it shows circles for good places, emphasizes resources and shows the fat crosses of already founded cities? Didn't someone once suggest also adding color coded shading to the tiles to show your civ's stability penalties for founding on that tile? Also it would be helpful if, for all those civs that require "holding" territory for victory to have some sort of highlight on those areas it needs to to capture/colonize. Playing civs like Genoa and Venetia right now is a pain having to periodically exit out to refer to those (rather helpful) maps you provided me with.

I'm not actually sure what is possible. I think it would be possible to add the UHVs to the "strategy layer" similar to what the BUG people have done for dot-mapping. That would be pretty cool, but it's not a priority right now -- perhaps in a later version.