RFC Europe playtesting feedback thread

[sedna17]

sedna, I think something broke with the last SVN revision.

I started a test game with the Dutch and they didn't appear until 1741!!

BTW surprisingly enough, Hungary had won the UHV; Ottomans, Spanish and English were like worse than Mali in RFC. France keeps too strong, building most of the wonders in the last test games I tried.

Apart from the Ottomans everlasting hopelessness, Spain and England need to be more aggresive against independents. And nobody takes barb Palermo.

Perhaps it's that indies are too strong.

Edit: Ah, I've seen the Dutch date thingy was on purpose. Nevermind, then.

Yeah, sorry about the Dutch thing. I set them to start late just to run some test games, and didn't correct it before committing. I've run a number of test games, and the Ottomans are significantly better in most of them (though not all). The Spanish tend to be very bipolar -- if they collapse Cordoba early and take over Iberia then they are a world-leader, if they don't, of course they suck. The English are consistently a bit weak. I haven't looked at France's wonder-fest, but I am happy to see them more consistently in the top civs.

You are correct that no one ever takes barb Palermo. A failed experiment to get Sicily into the action.

 

[Krschtschn]

I tried Cordoba for the first time today and ran into some trouble with the UHV. I did not get the 1000 AD condition for the largest city, so i checked the WB and it turns out i did have the biggest city (as I expected).
The problem was that it was on the wrong plot. I founded the city 1S of the starting position and it was still called Curtubah, so i thought it should not be a problem. After reloading the 999 AD save and using the WB to move the city back to the starting plot, i got the UHV.

My point is that it is irritating (and maybe frustrating) for a new player to find out that you cannot move the city and win the UHV despite getting the correct city name. Could you please change the settlermap or the UHV condition check to make that coherent?

 

[3Miro]

I tried Cordoba for the first time today and ran into some trouble with the UHV. I did not get the 1000 AD condition for the largest city, so i checked the WB and it turns out i did have the biggest city (as I expected).
The problem was that it was on the wrong plot. I founded the city 1S of the starting position and it was still called Curtubah, so i thought it should not be a problem. After reloading the 999 AD save and using the WB to move the city back to the starting plot, i got the UHV.

My point is that it is irritating (and maybe frustrating) for a new player to find out that you cannot move the city and win the UHV despite getting the correct city name. Could you please change the settlermap or the UHV condition check to make that coherent?

Changing the name is a good point. If it is a problem, we can reword the condition to specify the plot.

 

[mikeemike]

I am fully in favor of increasing the tech rate of all civs just by a bit, maybe 5-10%. I find that in almost all of my games I am taking too long to research techs, and when advanced civs (especially Sweden) spawn, they overtake my points and tech. In fact, not once have I played a game in the last couple months where Sweden has NOT founded Protestantism.

 

[jessiecat]

Changing the name is a good point. If it is a problem, we can reword the condition to specify the plot.

Or make the condition be for Cordoba whereever its founded. 1 tile east is better placement anyway IMO.

 

[FakeShady]

i noticed the "PLAY NOW!" and "custom game" options can be clicked on alpha 10 to play a un-RFCE game

 

[JediClemente]

I am fully in favor of increasing the tech rate of all civs just by a bit, maybe 5-10%. I find that in almost all of my games I am taking too long to research techs, and when advanced civs (especially Sweden) spawn, they overtake my points and tech. In fact, not once have I played a game in the last couple months where Sweden has NOT founded Protestantism.

With the last SVN versions, I think I've never seen Sweden founding protestantism.

BTW increasing the tech rate is not a good idea, there are already far too advanced civs as it is. You should trade techs and try to build Cluny.

 

[Krschtschn]

A small problem with Alpha 10: The Dutch still spawn at 1741.

Changing the name is a good point. If it is a problem, we can reword the condition to specify the plot.

I think it would be better to change the citynames for the fields around Cordoba. If there is just one Cordoba or you specify the exact plot for the condition should not make a difference, but specifying the plot would look strange.

And i found a wrong tooltip. The discription of Platearmor says that it allows to clear woodlands and forest. The latter is wrong, as you need machine tools to cut down forests.

 

[micbic]

i noticed the "PLAY NOW!" and "custom game" options can be clicked on alpha 10 to play a un-RFCE game

Not that it works. You start at 3000 BC w the current techtree, and use always the Burgundian settlermap, in a way "hey you start here letcha call it Dijon, the city 3S is named Lyon etc"

 

[youtien]

Played 2 monarch games as Burgandy and Arab last night.

As Burgandy I settle SEE at start post. River is too important.

Arab tech still goes uber-fast at Monarch level. I managed to get flintlock before Seljuk spawned.

Limit wonders by religion is good, but I still can build catholic/orthodox wonders at Sour and Jerusalem.

Conquer no more than Antioch, Haleb and Alexanderia from Byzantine. I founded a city in Cyprus (not good) and one in southern Italy, then conquered Naples.

I built the Garden of Al-Andalus at Alexanderia, then it became a whooping 24 pop city. After I built Belem Tower there, I moved capital there, and cleared mud to build watermill nearby. Cairo at 3S3E.

Just don't research chivalry, I can get all other techs, then get it by L' encyclopedia. Now it is 1395, Cordoba died, I have nearly all of North Africa, founded one city in Azores (near AA) too. Going for industrial rev., stopped playing(no fun). Stable.

The new Round Church is good, the new free tech wonder is also good.

The new health system is reasonably good. Players would get more kinds of health resource outside their core area, but AI won't.

Suggestion: wipe out house of wisdoms, or nerf it. 100% is too strong.

 

[Opera]

Or make the tech that obsoletes them more important to get. Chivalry isn't too high priority, it can be avoided.

 

[Wessel V1]

Or make it obsolete when one of the following (...) techs is researched, so you simply can't advance without making it obsolete. If that is codable, of course.

 

[sedna17]

I agree we can make House of Wisdom obsolete at a better point. Perhaps Education -- that's a nice gateway tech and delaying getting it means delaying universities.

On the general issue of Arabic tech rates: I lowered the penalties Arabia and Cordoba had applied against them, because it really messes with diplomacy to have tech costs be too disparate. In my experience, Arabia is now under sufficient pressure that most of the time it collapses (when controlled by the AI), but I didn't play a full test game as the Arabs thereafter (so thanks for your good report youtien). We can't have things be too easy/no fun humans. Spreading Islam to 25% was certainly pretty easy when I did try it. It's a good general goal, but it could be higher.

 

[jessiecat]

I agree on making the House of Wisdom obsolete with Education. Much more logical.

I'm partway through a game as the Arabs and yes, Jerusalem, Damascus, Sour and Alexandria are wonder factories and I'm way ahead on techs even after the H of W became obsolete.
Some quibbles though. The Seljuks are tough and they've conquered most of Anatolia which is fine but I was still battling them when the First Crusade arrived in 1089 -Too early by 10 years. In history the Seljuks had settled in Rum before the First Crusade and were allies with the Arabs.
And the crusaders are still stupid. One treb and knight attack on Jerusalem then they fled toward Damascus where I picked them off with macemen. Three times in a row! the AI still doesn't understand how to use seige weapons. Mind you, I already had the Krak des Chevaliers built in Jerusalem before 1070 anyway so they had no chance.

 

[JediClemente]

I think the problem with Arabs is that they're balanced as the AI, not as the human player.
Also wouldn't put the "House of Wisdom obsolete" later than it is.

Have in mind it will affect Cordoba too.

Yes, you can still build some wonders in Jerusalem or Alexandria, but well... it was better to keep it as "religion in the city" instead of "official religion".

Crusades should really be tougher. BTW, is Jerusalem in the Arabs' respawning area? Perhaps it shouldn't, so a christian civ conquering it and collapsing them doesn't lose it instantly when they get back.

 

[Opera]

I noticed a python exception when playing as Bulgaria. I didn't take any screenshot though... As far as I remember, it concerned resurrecting a civ and the iHuman variable. If it helps, I had killed off both the Hungarians and the Byzantines... So I was thinking that, perhaps, the game was trying to resurrect them but failed due to some error in python.

Also, in that game, I conquered Constantinople on my second turn because it was only defended by war galleys. Not sure if that's a problem or not. Also, no Byzantine city in Greece and such had any defender, all were empty.

(It all makes it much easier for the Bulgarians, and very fun too)

I always see Kiev collapsing or being outright annihilated by barbarians too.

Why is it (nearly) always Venezia that is chosen to go on crusades?

Also, is the Inn (or is it Tavern?) really useful? I never built one, seeing how it doesn't give much benefits for its cost.

I was friendly with Moscow when all of a sudden, they DoWed me. I guess that's because Bulgaria is on their war map but still, that's weird.

Would it be possible to have details about the dynamics of civic stability too? It's really annoying to not know which ones are conflicting, etc.

--

Finally, just to say that I won the historical victory as the Bulgarians on monarch, my first win ever at that difficulty in RFC Europe

 

[sedna17]

Re: Crusades

We do currently have the crusade happen at fixed dates. I would think that a little bit of variance would be preferable, so reduce "gaming" the system by human players. It's easy enough to defend against now -- even easier if you know the exact turn. So it's good we had the first crusade programmed to come a few turns too early and take you by surprise Jessiecat

Two other proposals to make the crusades more challenging for the human: (1) reduce the warning given to one or two turns (it is currently three turns) and (2) make the crusaders have more troops when coming against the human (scale this with difficulty level). I think the level is about right for AI-on-AI violence.

Re: Wonders

I will reduce the speed with which Arabia and Cordoba can build wonders. I think I meant to change it, but messed up. It's currently set at faster than France/Burgundy, which helps make it easy to collect all the wonders in your few Catholic cities.

Re: Jerusalem

Jerusalem is in the respawn area of the Arabs currently. If I ever get around to my plans to write a more complex respawn-probability code it could certainly change then.

Re: Bulgaria

The early Byzantine plague probably depopulated those cities right before you showed up. Here's another case where this is nice for the AI (gives the Bulgarians a chance to be a significant threat to Byzantium) but makes the human UHV too easy. My opinion is that the correct solution is to make the UHVs harder/more constrained.

Re: Venice and Crusades

Venice doesn't always get the crusade -- but it's normally either them or France. I guess they typically have the most voting power? Certainly for the first crusades the civs that haven't been around for a long time (like England) are unlikely to be chosen.

Re: Inn

Probably not very useful right now, you're right.

Re: Civic Stability

A display of civic stability would be most useful, I agree. It's definitely on the to-do list. It would be a bit easier to put it in the manual than in the Civilopedia, so I think it will appear there first.

 

[Wessel V1]

The solution of making the number of crusaders dependent on the difficulty level for the player seems appropriate to me, it's a fine solution.
Perhaps we could do the same for Bulgaria: the strength of the first (Byzantine) plague is dependent on the difficulty level, so it has nearly no effect on Emperor, which makes it much harder but also more challenging.

 

[Jusos2108]

Re: Bulgaria

The early Byzantine plague probably depopulated those cities right before you showed up. Here's another case where this is nice for the AI (gives the Bulgarians a chance to be a significant threat to Byzantium) but makes the human UHV too easy. My opinion is that the correct solution is to make the UHVs harder/more constrained.

The reason, why all those Byzantium cities are empty, is that the first plague comes back to these cities. Meaning that when I play Byzantine at first the plague spreads to almost every city in couple of turns. The small cities in Greece get over it quickly and the plague usually mulls around in Constantinople, then it spreads back those Greece cities that just had it.

This is really annoying for human player and devastating for the AI (respreading means unit casualties). It almost useless to give Byzantium any starting units, since AI will definetly lose most of them during the plague.

I really don't know why this happens. I always thought that the plagues aren't suppose to spread back to cities that just got rid of it.
Anyway, the solution might be to nerf the first plague or simply just to make Byzantine cities larger at start so that the plague stays for a while. Don't know if it would help though.

 

[sedna17]

The reason, why all those Byzantium cities are empty, is that the first plague comes back to these cities. Meaning that when I play Byzantine at first the plague spreads to almost every city in couple of turns. The small cities in Greece get over it quickly and the plague usually mulls around in Constantinople, then it spreads back those Greece cities that just had it.

This is really annoying for human player and devastating for the AI (respreading means unit casualties). It almost useless to give Byzantium any starting units, since AI will definetly lose most of them during the plague.

I really don't know why this happens. I always thought that the plagues aren't suppose to spread back to cities that just got rid of it.
Anyway, the solution might be to nerf the first plague or simply just to make Byzantine cities larger at start so that the plague stays for a while. Don't know if it would help though.

The plague should definitely not be "re-spreading". Must be a bug. Sounds like a sporadic (and thus annoying to track down) one.