RFC Europe playtesting feedback thread

[dragodon64]

Hungarians were a very disliked yet large section of the empire that the ruling group (Austrians) was unable to suppress like it did with Croats, Czechs, Serbs, etc because they were so numerous. The shift from Austrian Empire to Austro-Hungarian Empire was mainly to placate a significant but unpopular part of the population in the form of a "dual-monarchy," where one anti-Hungarian Habsburg would be Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary, for military and foreign affaris, while each half would have its own parliament governing domestic affairs.

 

[fireclaw722]

I've noticed that at the Austrian Spawn, Hungary has expanded into their spawn zone so they start at war. 9/10 times, the Austrians vassal or control almost all of the Hungarian Empire(not ahistorical by any means).

France has a great knack with taking out Burgundy, but Burgundy ends up settling(or conquering) parts of Germany, making France collapse.

Ottomans mostly conquer Constantinople and collapse Byzantium, but seemingly wants to expand further into Europe rather than the Middle East(even when Arabs are collapsed).

Arabia almost never(although if Byzantium leads it's own war against the Arabs) collapses, even when Jerusalem is taken by the crusaders.

During the Crusades I've seen ONLY Venice redirect the crusade anywhere else(Constantinople or Cordoba), and it mostly doesn't get redirected(maybe once every two or three games).

I've haven't seen Genoa do anything but sit around and look pretty(not really, because they are often conquered by France). At least, as it seems, Venice expands into southern Italy, leaving Spain to Sardinia and North Africa.


I don't mean to sound like I'm complaining, but I'm just saying what I'm seeing with Alpha10.
Overall it's good(as some of the empires are getting at there historical peaks), but needs some tweaking(as all mods and modmods do).

 

[3Miro]

The AI would redirect Crusaded only as Venice -> Constantinople and Spain -> Cordoba. In history there was only one real deviation of Venice -> Constantinople.

 

[youtien]

This is an Emperor Spain savefile, in which we have 5 mercs able to hire at once. Pamplona is taken by barbarian and has Judaism, plus Cordoba just completed La Mezquita. A really good start for players. Additionally, Arab collapsed around 1000.

 

[kochman]

The AI would redirect Crusaded only as Venice -> Constantinople and Spain -> Cordoba. In history there was only one real deviation of Venice -> Constantinople.

There was also the ill fated Crusade to take over Egypt first... which failed in the Nile Delta of course.

 

[corovanrobber]

Can Arabs collapse at all?

 

[Ekolite]

They collapse fairly frequently in my games so yeah.

I think the Norse UHV should be changed, revealing all ocean tiles is extremely tedious to have to do. I think ''control Britain'' would be better, with a date set after the english spawn.

In all my games so far, the AI has rarely attacked me (although often declared war). When they do attack, almost without exception, their army consists of a single trebuchet.

No-one conquers the barbarian city on Sicily except the independents of Tunis.

 

[dragodon64]

I think island settling/conquering still has a long way to go. Venice does a decent job for conquering the holy land (even saw one where they conquered from Cairo to Sour, including the desert regions), but I've yet to see them control Rhodes, Cyprus or Crete. I've never seen Genoa found a second city, either (sometimes they conquer Milan or Marsiglia). I've seen the Turks do a pretty good job in 2/3 games, including one where they conquered to Tunis, but only had Edirne in Europe. Kiev looks fantastic, whether it completely succumbs to the Golden Horde or builds an uberpowerful early Ukraine.

I really like the development of most of the civs. The maritime ones need the most work, but overall still a fantastic play.

 

[KaiserKevin]

Aside from potatoes I see the resource 'relic' which I don't know has been implemented yet (haven't seen it) but it is listed under at least one type of building (Reliquary) Is there a way to get relics?

Finally played long game as an Orthodox nation (Byzantium) focusing on faith points and Orthodoxy really sucks compared to the rest. At 120 faith points I had +22 Stability (meh) and -84% civic upkeep but I still wasn't making nearly as much coin compared to my other mega empires of different faiths. Compared to having +1 population in all cities each turn (Islam) or completing tech/wonders in 3 turns (Protestant ) it just doesn't compare.

For my nitpicking I'd suggest changing 'become a saint' for the GP to either 'become a martyr' or 'become a religious leader' as not all the religions present (especially protestantism) hold the title of 'saint' in esteem.

I did appreciate how far the Roman names for cities went.

 

[merijn_v1]

Aside from potatoes I see the resource 'relic' which I don't know has been implemented yet (haven't seen it) but it is listed under at least one type of building (Reliquary) Is there a way to get relics?

Finally played long game as an Orthodox nation (Byzantium) focusing on faith points and Orthodoxy really sucks compared to the rest. At 120 faith points I had +22 Stability (meh) and -84% civic upkeep but I still wasn't making nearly as much coin compared to my other mega empires of different faiths. Compared to having +1 population in all cities each turn (Islam) or completing tech/wonders in 3 turns (Protestant ) it just doesn't compare.

I did appreciate how far the Roman names for cities went.

For now, the only way to get Relics is to build the Teutonic Knights Corp. IMO some wonders should provide relics too.

I think you picked the wrong Civ. Byzantium is a "different" civ in our mod. It has to be instable. You also can't grow big because the penalties are bigger than the other civs. But the have an advantage at the start instead.

 

[kochman]

I think you picked the wrong Civ. Byzantium is a "different" civ in our mod. It has to be instable. You also can't grow big because the penalties are bigger than the other civs. But the have an advantage at the start instead.

Wasn't it more instable due to outside factors, than internal ones? Factors like the Bulgars and the Turks constantly trying to conquer them?
All in all, I think they did a fine job of holding on as long as they did!

 

[Opera]

So I just tried a protestantism game with England... Unfortunately, I was orthodox so I guess that's why I didn't get the choice to spread Protestantism to all my cities. It wouldn't be as much annoying if I could create missionaries... But I can't, because I need a Seminary, which requires State Religion, even though I have the civic that allows missionaries to be built without monasteries...

I think that's a weird behavior. I guess it has to do with obsoleting monasteries... But then why make seminaries state religion dependent? In any way, either all missionaries should require state religion (directly or indirectly) or none should.

 

[Ekolite]

I think who adopts protestantism should be completely random, and not based on who did in RL. Potentially any European kingdom could have adopted protestantism, as far as I know it depended mostly on the personal views of the current Monarch. For example, during medieval England the religion endorsed by the state alternated several times because different monarchs had different preferences.

Similarly, there's nothing wrong with orthodoxy occassionally spreading to Hungary, Austria, Sweden etc.

If you make the game too close to RL, replayability will suffer hugely.

 

[Opera]

I wasn't saying that

I was saying it isn't 'right' that you need to adopt Protestantism to be able to build a Seminary to be able to train a Missionary.

 

[Ekolite]

No sorry, I didn't mean it to be an addition to what you were saying. It's a different point.

I also dislike how many civs spawn with missionaries.

 

[Panopticon]

The roots of Protestantism go deeper than personal choice of the monarch - though that paradigm is certainly better than personal choice of the population, which is how we view conversion nowadays. The countries that chose Reformation were the ones with stronger centralised governments, less dependent upon religion or the Church to maintain national unity. This led to other developments and divergences later in their histories, and it probably explains Weber's thesis on the work ethic better than religion. Correlation does not imply causation.

It is no coincidence that almost all of the European monarchies today are either Protestants in historically stable states, or accidents of history in small or turbulent states.

 

[kochman]

The roots of Protestantism go deeper than personal choice of the monarch

True... that was just the case in England really, with the flip flopping of Henry VIII and his descendants.

You say that states that were stable with strong central governments generally became Protestant... Well, that is not correct really.
France was stable and had a strong central government. Stayed Catholic.
Germany was a bunch of city states, virtually always changing allegiances, etc. Very unstable, largely became Protestant, except for the places that were stable, controlled by the HRE, which by and large stayed Catholic.
The Netherlands... in those times, hardly at all stable... became Protestant.
Then take Switzerland... very complex.

 

[FakeShady]

Wasn't it more instable due to outside factors, than internal ones? Factors like the Bulgars and the Turks constantly trying to conquer them?
All in all, I think they did a fine job of holding on as long as they did!

And yet another pro-Byzantine post gets ignored. Such posts need to be noticed man. I have long said and i shall say it again, Byzantine shouldnt get such unbalanced penalties. I rather you 'weaken' them at the start (as if the plague doesnt weaken them at the start already) but put their growth back to normal because its just unfair. Maybe weaken them technologically at the start. The longer the game goes, the more unfair it is to the Byzantines. There are many people out there who doesn't play for the UHVs, like me, and i prefer to play all the way to 1800 and win by score or culture. Unfortunately that is just not possible at all for Byzantium.

 

[Panopticon]

Obviously any country that was converting from one religion to another was unstable at the time. The institutions that affected the choice of whether to reform religion or not made a difference to the ability of the old system to reform politics or not when the industrial age and the era of revolutions came about. Not really when the Reformation was happening though, because democratic consciousness wasn't strong. France was pretty divided up until Louis XIV and his contemporaries. Eventually, the quasi-feudalism was swept away by the Revolution. Same for many of the other places that became republics.

 

[kochman]

I disagree regarding France, the only one of my examples addressed.
They were pretty united on the Day of the Placards, for example... It wasn't as strong as it would later be, of course, but that doesn't mean it wasn't strong. Louis XIV was of course the most absolute of its monarchs, but before that it was still pretty centralized...
Compared to the fractured Germany or the Netherlands that was run by the Spaniards until they rebelled... France was the very picture of stability.

Proximity to Rome is a pretty important factor as well, to be honest, other than a few portions of Switzerland, everything that was close by stayed Catholic. The influence of the Pope in those countries, and the feelings of being used by Rome in the further away nations played a part. I mean, Luther's main points were often about German money going to make the Italians rich(er). Good point. It led to a feeling of being used... easy to get the people whipped up about that. Many times the monarch's followed the irresistable tide of their people.

As for Ireland remaining Catholic... your theory certainly fits there as well.