RFC Europe playtesting feedback thread

[JediClemente]

The Pope collapsing is a bug. That's just it.

The game is already fine with a Papal Rome. You should not be able to take the city. What's the point anyway?

 

[wolfigor]

I'd say something like declaring war on Rome makes every Catholic nation declare war on you and some kind of super-crusade starts up.

That wouldn't really have happened, though, since Rome was attacked by it's own Catholic buddies a few times. The Spanish sack of Rome in the 1500s comes to mind.

Being able to DoW Rome would make possible to reproduce the Investiture Contest, especially the conflict in 1075 between Pope Gregory VII and Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor.
Control Rome could then become one of the targets for German UHV.

If the Civ conquering Rome will be then able to launch crusades, force alliance/peace/war/embargo then things would become more interesting.
However making it too powerful would unbalance the game and make it too non-historical.

In conclusion I think that the best is to have a chance of 1 in 10 games of Rome to collapse so the other civs can conquer it.

The problem is, that you can't keep the Pope alive without one city atleast. And without the Pope having Rome the catholic faith bonus that gives you 50 gold from time to time wouldn't be existing because the Pope has no income. But perhaps the Pope can go to exile to another catholic civ and borrow one of their cities as long as Rome is captured.

Well... in the code there isn't any check for the Pope state to be alive or not.
For example even if Rome collapse, the crusades are called anyway.

 

[kochman]

The game is already fine with a Papal Rome. You should not be able to take the city. What's the point anyway?

Is this a serious question?
Of what benefit is it to take Rome?

 

[Wessel V1]

Except for the 20 gold per turn you'd recieve, I don't see Rome as particulary strong. It's a nice science boost, but not so strong as corporations.

 

[kochman]

I've said it before... if you control Rome, you should also control the papacy, which would make it incredibly valuable.

But, even without that pretty obvious situation... based on normal gameplay, 20 gold/turn isn't bad. It also has good hills for production and some seafood... plus, isn't it just nice to control the entire peninsula instead of having this big culturally powerful city taking some tiles you want? And providing catholic nations with OB agreements a jumping off point for an assault on you (the AI does, every so often, use this ability... though I haven't seen it from Rome specifically).

 

[Zipzapzup]

What i think is that the Pope must be a more demanding power, like attack this, open borders here, make peace, spend money, built catholic buildings in this city, spreed catholicism here, prosecute this city, give this city back to his owner, etc. Don't know if that is very historically but it fits to my understanding of the church and the Pope in the middleages. And it would help to make the game more interesting because its a thing with random elements. Furthermore there would a possibilty to annoy the Pope and feel the consequences, which is nearly impossible at this state of beta. Another idea would be that you can become the favorite of the Pope and propose resolutions.

 

[JediClemente]

I've said it before... if you control Rome, you should also control the papacy, which would make it incredibly valuable.

Yeah... I was talking about RFCE as it is.

You guys must realize Rome was intended to be unconquerable in the mod. It's a bug.

Programming that kind of behaviour "give advantages if you control Rome; relocate the Pope to another city [...]" is hard and doesn't provide any relevant feature.

It's not worth it.

 

[civ_king]

Pope needs to be more powerful pre-Reformation

 

[wolfigor]

Yeah... I was talking about RFCE as it is.
You guys must realize Rome was intended to be unconquerable in the mod. It's a bug.

I agree that the mod is build with Rome as unconquerable, and the fact that Rome sometime (rarely) collapses is a minor bug.
I wouldn't even consider useful to fix the bug, better to keep the possibility for Rome to collapse to give once in a long while the opportunity for a different game.


However, this is a feedback thread where we can also suggest changes to improve the mod.
At the time being the Papal State is a black (grey) hole at the centre of the map with minimal interaction with any other Civ.

It would be nice to define more "interesting" powers for the Pope (as suggested by Zipzapzup) and that various Civs to compete for the control of Papacy.
papacy could be controlled by conquering Rome or by winning periodic elections (using faith points, and money).

 

[Jusos2108]

This bug has been reported earlier, but I am going to report again as it seems that no one has really noticed it. The bug is that when citizens are automated, they work completely wrong tiles, as shown in the screenshot below. Before the next release, please fix this problem.

 

[ThatDude]

This bug has been reported earlier, but I am going to report again as it seems that no one has really noticed it. The bug is that when citizens are automated, they work completely wrong tiles, as shown in the screenshot below. Before the next release, please fix this problem.

Looks like they are trying to work a hamlet to turn it into a village, which makes perfect sense.

 

[AdrienIer]

Yes, but there are other workable tiles with a village that have +1 gold which should be worked.

 

[ThatDude]

Ah, got that mixed up. But: The relative benefit of working a cottage instead of a hamlet is greater (that is, you get a 100% increase instead of 50% [50% and 33% on a river, respectively]) and it's quicker. Also, cottages and hamlets have to be worked sooner or later, and sooner is usually preferable.

 

[Jusos2108]

Ah, got that mixed up. But: The relative benefit of working a cottage instead of a hamlet is greater (that is, you get a 100% increase instead of 50% [50% and 33% on a river, respectively]) and it's quicker. Also, cottages and hamlets have to be worked sooner or later, and sooner is usually preferable.

Except that's incorrect, because you get the +1 commerce if you work the village all that time what it takes a hamlet to grow into village and also villages need to be worked sooner or later, so that they grow into towns, which give even greater boosts if using the correct civics. Your logic is a bit twisted, although I do understand your point, however, in this situation it doesn't make any sense. Furhermore, the automatic workers also prefer shoretiles over a village...

 

[ThatDude]

But missing out on commerce in the early game to grow cottages and hamlets later pays off because in the early game you won't get as much boni from buildings.

 

[Jusos2108]

You can always work the hamlets and cottages later, because the development time is a constant. Anyways, we are getting off topic here, because my point was and is that the automated citizens work the wrong tiles.

 

[Wessel V1]

This is one of the things solved in the Better AI mod, and I believe it took them quite some time to figure it out.

P.S. This is a small hint, I suppose.

 

[ThatDude]

Now for some real feedback:

The Anglo-French relations kinda bug me. What happens in the game is usually this: France hold Cherbourg/Caen/Evreux and possibly Calais. So when England arrives on the scene, these cities flip and France declares war on England. That is totally not what happened in reality.

More fitting would be to start with England as a (voluntary!) French vassal (which they were IRL); over the next few years, relations should deteriorate, culminating in war somewhere around 1337 (vassal or not). (If this is possible to code it would be good if France could only ask for resources from Normandy.)

Depending on the relative stability (and perhaps the city garrison), some cities in the west (especially Bordeaux) might flip to England before that. Calais, on the other hand, didn't become English until 1356

This would more closely model the history from Duchy of Normandy to Angevin Empire.

(And it doesn't really help that France is incredibly unstable.)

 

[Verily]

Except the human player can never be a vassal to anyone (it's hardcoded into the game), and in any case being a vassal causes civs to behave strangely.

 

[ThatDude]

While the human players can never give up their sovereignty to the AI via diplomacy, they can be set as vassal with the VassalOfTeam in the World Builder file (capitulation only) or with assignVassal in the DLL (capitulation or voluntary).

But the bottom line is: Don't start England and France with war.