RFC Europe playtesting feedback thread

[Wessel V1]

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.

You are right about that. The point is, that it isn't possible in the game to represent that. We have to penalise Byzantium to give Bulgaria and Turkey only a chance to let them do what they did in reality. Besides, it creates a nice challenge, a truly skilled player can show his skills if he makes a powerful Byzantine empire. It's not bad to have a civ like Byzantium in the game, it adds flavour and a bunch of new challenges.

 

[KaiserKevin]

I just noticed Byzantines units cost twice as much (if I'm correct) >_>

80 hammers for an Orthodox missionary as Byzantines, 40 for Catholic as Poland. I don't think starting out with a large empire that gets torn in half after 100 years is worth that penalty.

Romes unit production looks stifled as well, but still there's not much balance for the Catholic/Orthodox spread. Russia and Kiev should have Orthodoxy spread easier for realism, or have Constantinople spawn an Orthodox missionary for free every X turns for balance.

I had a Papal problem again, this time it appeared that Rome sent a pikeman or two out to lay siege to Ragusa, they were just standing outside the city on the southern part. I think they might be going to war with one of the independents (before I had independent conquer Rome during auto-play)

 

[3Miro]

- Protestantism was successful only in places where it found support from the government. France is a good example, with the Protestant-Catholic tide changing as the kings changed their religion. It makes sense to give the player ability chose, otherwise suppose you are Spanish and forced to convert.

- The AI chooses to join the Reformation randomly, but biased towards the real historic choice (i.e. high chance for England, almost no chance for Spain).

- If we make strong Byzantium, then the game would be unbalanced. The Byzantines start with many cities and techs, if we do not punish them in terms of production and science, then they can very easily take over in no time.

- Every nation in RFC and RFCE had unique modifiers on the tech rate, production rate, city growth and so on.

- Faith benefits would have to be rebalanced a bit, especially for Arabia. I think they were initially set for 10 - 15 city empire, Arabs have more.

- All Byzantine cities start with Orthodoxy, so there is no need for massive missionary production. Other than couple of cities on the Balkans and maybe one in Asia, you shouldn't be building more cities anyway.

- The Pope can go into Independent's territory, so the units there do not mean war. However, I am not sure why Rome was independent. Are you sure it wasn't because they collapsed or something stability based?

 

[FakeShady]

You are right about that. The point is, that it isn't possible in the game to represent that. We have to penalise Byzantium to give Bulgaria and Turkey only a chance to let them do what they did in reality. Besides, it creates a nice challenge, a truly skilled player can show his skills if he makes a powerful Byzantine empire. It's not bad to have a civ like Byzantium in the game, it adds flavour and a bunch of new challenges.

Yes, you're right about that too.

BUT

Something must still be done to let the Byzantines have so playablilty in the late game I hope this doesn't get ignored.

 

[Opera]

- Protestantism was successful only in places where it found support from the government. France is a good example, with the Protestant-Catholic tide changing as the kings changed their religion. It makes sense to give the player ability chose, otherwise suppose you are Spanish and forced to convert.

But what about protestant missionaries production? It sucks to have to build a seminary, which is state religion dependant. Also, when I founded Protestantism, I was Orthodox, so I wasn't given the choice to follow it. I know why but since I *founded* it, I should have been able to; except if I was muslim, i guess...

 

[kochman]

But what about protestant missionaries production? It sucks to have to build a seminary, which is state religion dependant. Also, when I founded Protestantism, I was Orthodox, so I wasn't given the choice to follow it. I know why but since I *founded* it, I should have been able to; except if I was muslim, i guess...

I agree about protestant missionary production. Protestantism spread pretty rapidly because it appealed to the people...
I believe it has a higher spread rate w/o missionary though, so perhaps this counters that?

I don't know, just guessing.

I think who becomes catholic/ortho/protest is pretty cool, because it is conceivable that certain nations were more likely, even if they didn't. I love when I get a Orthox nation in the middle of it all too...

I have a question. Are there a set number of auto-spawn possibilities? I ask because I have spawned the Dutch a lot... and I swear I have seen the exact same spawns a few time, down to the turn that certain wonders are built, wars being declared, etc.

 

[youtien]

Rolled an emperor English game. Bad start: York razed, Flipped only Calais which had only 1 crossbowman that soon destroyed by French. I am going to reroll.

How about this: let spawning civs gain additional settler and other units if they don't get enough cities supposed to flip to them? This can help balancing a bit.

And English should spawn with some ships.

 

[youtien]

By the way, now workshop need guilds, will this be a large penalty for English? Besides, English UP says workshop give +1 hammer, but in fact it is +2.

 

[Opera]

Well, protestantism may spread faster but if it hasn't been changed, it won't spread to any city which already has a religion in it; passive spread doesn't affect cities if they already have a religion...

And yeah, like youtien, I flipped Calais but it had only 1 crossbowman against 5 armored lancers. Better yet, I flipped Caen... without any defender

There's something else I don't get. When playing as the Norse, I tried to capture Liubece (sp?) but as it was size 1, it got razed; then as the English I try to capture Dublin, size 1... and it isn't razed automatically. Why?

 

[Opera]

Sorry for the double post.

 

[Wessel V1]

Dublin probably had some culture, so it didn't get razed. AFAIK, the criteria for city-razing are the following:
- City has 1 pop
- AND city has no culture (/ no cultural expansion?)

I wouldn't get to upset by the way, Liubice is not on a river, and therefore considerably worse than a nearby city that is on a river. If I'd have the option to keep it, I wouldn't do it anyway.

 

[JediClemente]

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.

Hm. I'm sorry but I don't see it at all.

It's something way more complex than the personal view of the monarch. In fact, that can only be said about Henry VIII. And that's an argument equal to "the Civil War started because of slavery".

No, it really was just a pretext.

BTW Protestantism triunfed between most german princes because it allowed them even more political independence than they had under the Pope (and the Emperor, being catholic). It was indeed the last struggle of a long conflict during the Low Middle Ages.

Concerning religion in RFCE, I like it as it is now. I don't see it as close to reality as you. As for replayability, a lot of things can change between two games.

Yesterday I started a game as the Dutch and guess what. Byzantium was still alive in 1580 and had conquered ALL their warmap!!!! Including Bulgaria, Africa up to Tunis, all the Middle East...

 

[Opera]

Dublin probably had some culture, so it didn't get razed. AFAIK, the criteria for city-razing are the following:
- City has 1 pop
- AND city has no culture (/ no cultural expansion?)

I wouldn't get to upset by the way, Liubice is not on a river, and therefore considerably worse than a nearby city that is on a river. If I'd have the option to keep it, I wouldn't do it anyway.

Not upset, just curious, since it happened with some other cities before. I didn't know the culture rule. Thanks for pointing it out

 

[Ekolite]

Hm. I'm sorry but I don't see it at all.

It's something way more complex than the personal view of the monarch. In fact, that can only be said about Henry VIII. And that's an argument equal to "the Civil War started because of slavery".

No, it really was just a pretext.

BTW Protestantism triunfed between most german princes because it allowed them even more political independence than they had under the Pope (and the Emperor, being catholic). It was indeed the last struggle of a long conflict during the Low Middle Ages.

Concerning religion in RFCE, I like it as it is now. I don't see it as close to reality as you. As for replayability, a lot of things can change between two games.

Yesterday I started a game as the Dutch and guess what. Byzantium was still alive in 1580 and had conquered ALL their warmap!!!! Including Bulgaria, Africa up to Tunis, all the Middle East...

I'm English and have never studied medieval history in any depth, the only example I'm particularly familiar with is Henry the 8th, which is why I said ''as far as I know''. Regardless, I think there should be less RL bias in the spread and adoption of religions. I see no reason why Spain and Portugal couldn't occassionally be muslim for example - it adds more variety.

I had a CtD recently as Spain, does the game often crash? It is the first time it has happened to me, but then I haven't played a huge number of games.

 

[3Miro]

I'm English and have never studied medieval history in any depth, the only example I'm particularly familiar with is Henry the 8th, which is why I said ''as far as I know''. Regardless, I think there should be less RL bias in the spread and adoption of religions. I see no reason why Spain and Portugal couldn't occassionally be muslim for example - it adds more variety.

I had a CtD recently as Spain, does the game often crash? It is the first time it has happened to me, but then I haven't played a huge number of games.

Any player at any time can adopt any religion (including Judaism), AI or Human. The point is that some of them have very low probability, since otherwise Spain would automatically lose the UHV (for example).

 

[merijn_v1]

Did you notice the Musketman is accually stonger than most of its unique replacements?
The musketman has 11, 1 first strike and +25% city defense. So when it's defending a city, it has 13.75 (16.5 with fortify bonus).
The Carolin has 12 and first strike immune. So city defense = 12 (15 with fortify).
The Tercio has 11 and + 50% vs. heavy cavalry. So city defence is 11 (13.75 with fortify bonus).
The Musketeer is the same a the Carolin, but without first strike immune and + 1 .

I think the city defense bonus of the Musketman has to be undone.
or
The Carolin, Tercio and Musketeer should get the same bonus. (And IMO the Carolin a first strike)

 

[JediClemente]

I've never liked the musketman units.

Also have in mind the Tercio is supposed to be the strongest unit of the period. It is clearly NOT.

Musketeer has little sense for me. +1 movement is not an useful bonus.

Regardless, I think there should be less RL bias in the spread and adoption of religions. I see no reason why Spain and Portugal couldn't occassionally be muslim for example - it adds more variety.

That's equivalent to having Cordoba conquer all of Iberia. It's happened some time.

 

[KaiserKevin]

Small note, every game I have an independent archer next to barbarian Palermo and he does nothing, ever. I took Palermo as Vikings and went to war with the guys independents while Palermo was undefended, and he just sat there. Does he start there at beginning of game or does AI land and archer there?

 

[dragodon64]

Did you notice the Musketman is accually stonger than most of its unique replacements?
The musketman has 11, 1 first strike and +25% city defense. So when it's defending a city, it has 13.75 (16.5 with fortify bonus).
The Carolin has 12 and first strike immune. So city defense = 12 (15 with fortify).
The Tercio has 11 and + 50% vs. heavy cavalry. So city defence is 11 (13.75 with fortify bonus).
The Musketeer is the same a the Carolin, but without first strike immune and + 1 .

I think the city defense bonus of the Musketman has to be undone.
or
The Carolin, Tercio and Musketeer should get the same bonus. (And IMO the Carolin a first strike)

I suggest not only removing the +25% city defense bonus from musketmen, but also adding 2 first strikes to the Carolin and an extra strength point to the Tercio. I think replacing the Musketeer's extra movement point with a +25% against gunpowder units might be a good idea, too.

 

[merijn_v1]

I'll change those Musket units this way.

Musketman:
11 --> stays 11
1 first strike --> 0 first strikes
+25% city defense --> removed

Carolin:
12 --> stays 12
0 first strikes --> 2 first strikes
first striks immune --> stays

Tercio:
11 --> 12
50% vs. heavy cavalry --> stays

Musketeer:
12 --> stays 12
2 --> stays 2
0 first strikes --> 1 first strike
0% vs. gun --> 25% vs. gun

Please commend these changes.