RFC Europe: Roman Roads and Starting Map

[Michael Vick]

I looked at Michael's map. I shouldn't be the only one expressing opinion, so please others do that as well. 1. I am sure the location of the roads (as well as most of the rest) is historical, however, there are way too many roads. We should only keep some of the very main ones, ensuring the Byzantine cities are connected, one trough France going all the way to Rome. One following the coast, going to Iberia and couple of cities there. One connecting Rome to Constantinople. There is an extra road in the middle east outside of Byzantine area, that for sure should go. No Roman roads in northern Balkans either. 2. Nis is on the wrong spot. Anyway there are many cities that had much more impact on the region than Nis. If you want another city in the region, move Nis one tile west and call it Serdica (modern day Sofia). Also, Tomis will have no effect anyway, Bulgaria builds it anyway. 3. There are way too many cities in Iberia. I know that they were there, but so were pretty much all European cities. Settlers increase the importance of an already existing city and do not build cities per say. Right now Iberian nations have virtually no freedom in building cities, it is all prebuild. 4. Byzantium, with that many cities, will instantly die. There is no economy that can keep up with this many small and distant cities. If we give them a city in Iberia, it should be at most one. Tunis may stay (will flip fast anyway), but give them no more than one other city in the Italian region (islands and so). I don't see the point of Memphis, I know the Pyramids were there, but they have long ago lost their importance. 5. Overall I think we are getting back to the stage of way too many cities in Western Europe. We were there and then came back and severely reduced them, so I don't know it is a good idea to come back and re-add them. We should carefully consider things anyway. 6. Many of our Italian friends will disagree with Italy's new situation. I remember them having quite a few heated discussions until settling to the current situation. (PS Michael, in the future, if you wish to contribute map changes, start as Burgundy (the first playable nation), not the Franks, go to WB mode before doing anything (don't even settle) and save the file as World Builder Save, from the WB menu. Right now it is very hard to incorporate anything from your file. The Byzantines have played a turn and as soon as the Byzantines act, they introduce changes that I have to now manually undo one by one.)

Agreed on most of your points, a couple of questions before I make a new map.
-Are the little towns as improvements a good idea? Should they be kept?
-The ruins?
-No roads in the Northern Balkans at all???
-I'm thinking Valentia, Neapolis, Tunes, Dyrrachium, Trebizond and Memphis for the additions to Byzantium, is that ok? I know It wouldn't be terribly accurate but to help gameplay couldn't we give Byzantium a stability benefit from the pyramids? Maybe even the Sphinx via the Stonehenge replacement mod? (Napoleon's artillery once used it as target practice , and it adds a nice historical touch to Egypt)
-Could we have some religion already in the new cities?

I promise to reduce cities by atleast half next map.

(Right, sorry. I just wanted to play as France to test the changes)

 

[jessiecat]

Agreed on most of your points, a couple of questions before I make a new map.
-Are the little towns as improvements a good idea? Should they be kept?
-The ruins?
-No roads in the Northern Balkans at all???
-I'm thinking Valentia, Neapolis, Tunes, Dyrrachium, Trebizond and Memphis for the additions to Byzantium, is that ok? I know It wouldn't be terribly accurate but to help gameplay couldn't we give Byzantium a stability benefit from the pyramids? Maybe even the Sphinx via the Stonehenge replacement mod? (Napoleon's artillery once used it as target practice , and it adds a nice historical touch to Egypt)
-Could we have some religion already in the new cities?

I promise to reduce cities by atleast half next map.

(Right, sorry. I just wanted to play as France to test the changes)

I agree with 3Miro. Keep the roads and pre-built cities to a bare minimum. Your little towns look good but what purpose do they serve? Do they act as cottages? What ruins? The Romans didn't settle in the Balkans very much except Rumania. So you don't need any roads north of the Danube.
And forget the Pyramids and Sphinx. Heliopolis and Memphis were only ruins in 500AD. The Arabs looted them for building stone when they founded Fustat in 641AD. Fustat remained the capitol of Egypt until it was moved across the Nile to Al Qahira (Cairo) in 1168.

 

[Myri]

More cities add playability. One reason the ai is no challenge in civ 4 is stupid city placement.

bye Myri

 

[3Miro]

- the towns are OK, they have little gameplay effect, but look good on the map.
- same with ruins (actually ruins have no gameplay effect)
- before Bulgaria, the northern part of the Balkans was Roman, however, it practically had no infrastructure. Justinian had build some forts to try and keep the Slavic invasion out, the forts were poorly guarded so he was unsuccessful, but you can put one or two forts if you like. And yes, Romania was never Roman.
- I will read up on Dyrrachium, might not be the best choice.
- Wonders give stability only if you are the one to build them. Besides what would the effect of the Pyramids be, +2 ex pts for Artillery units? I know we all like the Pyramids, but they really player no role in anything important in the middle ages.

Myri, cities reduce your options on where you can settle and once the cities are there, the AI will have to capture them by war and at war the AI sucks just as much as city placement.

 

[jessiecat]

- the towns are OK, they have little gameplay effect, but look good on the map.
- same with ruins (actually ruins have no gameplay effect)
- before Bulgaria, the northern part of the Balkans was Roman, however, it practically had no infrastructure. Justinian had build some forts to try and keep the Slavic invasion out, the forts were poorly guarded so he was unsuccessful, but you can put one or two forts if you like. And yes, Romania was never Roman.
- I will read up on Dyrrachium, might not be the best choice.
- Wonders give stability only if you are the one to build them. Besides what would the effect of the Pyramids be, +2 ex pts for Artillery units? I know we all like the Pyramids, but they really player no role in anything important in the middle ages.

Myri, cities reduce your options on where you can settle and once the cities are there, the AI will have to capture them by war and at war the AI sucks just as much as city placement.

Eh? I think you are mistaken. It was conquered by the Emperor Trajan in 106AD and became the Roman province of Dacia. It was extensively settled by legionaires and their families for 150 years until it was finally abandoned in 256AD. Even the Romanian language is derived from Roman, as in the name "Romanian". I recommend the excellent Wikipedia article on the history of Romania.

 

[3Miro]

Eh? I think you are mistaken. It was conquered by the Emperor Trajan in 106AD and became the Roman province of Dacia. It was extensively settled by legionaires and their families for 150 years until it was finally abandoned in 256AD. Even the Romanian language is derived from Roman, as in the name "Romanian". I reccomend the excellent Wikipedia article on the history of Romania.

I guess you were right. I must have been confused because it was so late. In any way, I don't remember ever seeing a Roman Road in north Bulgaria (I have not been to Romania).

 

[jessiecat]

I guess you were right. I must have been confused because it was so late. In any way, I don't remember ever seeing a Roman Road in north Bulgaria (I have not been to Romania).

No problem. As I said in my previous post, I agree with you about having a minimum of built roads and cities.
The human player should be given the option as to what is built. BTW how's Alpha3 going?

 

[AnotherPacifist]

If people are concerned about too much advantage from Roman roads, one can always put some breaks in the roads (so that trade routes aren't automatically created) and let the human/AI repair them. England should get some broken roads too.
This would actually work well for quicker settlement of cities, so I vote for more ruins, but not more indy cities.

 

[3Miro]

For the time being the Roads will only be normal Roads. We can upgrade them later.

Alpha 3 is under construction, I hope to have it out Friday evening. (however, it will probably not contain as many changes as Alpha 2 did)

 

[Michael Vick]

I would make a new map... but I have severely screwed up my BTS folder while working with another modmod. All of the mods in the folder are regarded as invalid, I can't even play the original ones that came on BTS. Is there a way to uninstall/reinstall BTS because I'm not getting any options on the menus and the instruction booklet doesn't say anything.

 

[3Miro]

I would make a new map... but I have severely screwed up my BTS folder while working with another modmod. All of the mods in the folder are regarded as invalid, I can't even play the original ones that came on BTS. Is there a way to uninstall/reinstall BTS because I'm not getting any options on the menus and the instruction booklet doesn't say anything.

You should be able to go to Control Panel: Add/Remove programs and then Uninstall BtS and Civilization. Then reinstall them.

 

[Michael Vick]

Seems a bit obvious now that I think of it, thanks

 

[rob-art1985]

I think there are too many cities in France! Don't know all and don't have the latest RFC-version (because I still have BTS 3.17), but Toulouse, Tours, Marseilles, Bordeaux and Calais? What do the Germans have instead? Augsburg! Yeah... Great.
I have often seen it, that the Germans get conqered by Burgundians ore French quite after they spawned, because these Civs became too strong. So I suggest, Tours and maby Toulouse should not already be in the map. But I'm very much in favor of setting Aachen (don't know the right spot, should be 4 of Köln) which flips to Germany, while the Germans only have 2 Settlers in the beginning

 

[youtien]

In my games, Germans always get destroyed, Frankfurt usually razed by barbs, or captured by Burgandy. And they sometimes even convert to Judaism. So, maybe, more indy cities in Germany, and they get more chance to respawn. Or, let indy cities have a chance to "rise" to Germany civilization.

 

[Wessel V1]

That sounds like the French game I'm playing now. Something strange happened: France collapsed and became stronger because of that! Around 850 AD, barbarian berserkers (and probably some other types, I only saw a berserker and a galley when I opened the WB) destroyed Boulogne and Caen. So, France collapsed, since they only had Paris left. ~10 Turns later, they respawned with Tours and Toulouse. This belongs in the playtesting thread though so I'll continue the story there.

 

[micbic]

@Michael Vick (or whoever else can tell me): Where can I find your map?

 

[Michael Vick]

The old (first) one is out of date, I have to make a new one.

 

[jessiecat]

The old (first) one is out of date, I have to make a new one.

Nice to see you back, MV. If you're making a new map make sure its on the Alpha4 version because the North Atlantic area has been changed to accomodate Iceland, Greenland, Shetland and the Faroes Is. Though that shouldn't affect your roads, ruins etc., of course.

 

[3Miro]

No one makes any more maps until Alpha 5 (hopefully this week).

I can accommodate only one terrain change per version, I cannot "merge" two maps from two different people.

Sorry for the rant, Hungarians and Russian both have updates for Alpha 5.

 

[Michael Vick]

quick request, can we put the atlantic islands back to normal? They almost never got settled anyway and now they just look weird.