RFC Europe: Small bugs/fixes

[pku_dwest]

Actually I agree, but only with the fact that achieving the first culture expansion is way too easy
I was thinking of increasing the amount to 30 culture, and moving the "build" culture option later on the tech tree

This does not solve the real problem. It does not change the position of culture in the game, only give Norse a penalty. The speard of region must be considered. Other civils have missionaries when spawn and the cities can get region easily. So the penalty of this change for other civils is much less than for civils without region and can not get region easily. Logically, if you adopt this change, you have more reason to decrease the cost of pagan shrine or give some additional bonus for it.

I understand that you want to let regions have some advantage than without regions. But the advantage is too much: 25% bonus for building from civ, 15% research bonus for monstery and big chance of speard.

 

[AdrienIer]

Would you think a free golden age after you have 50000 (or something like that) culture in your cities would be a good long term advantage of culture ? To represent a sort of cultural golden age ?

I disagree with you about your "just build more units to fight the barbs" comment. For example, as France you don't have time to build too many extra units if you're going for the UHV, and the early barbarians hit you hard. It's better to have a smaller garrison in your cities, and a mobile army with cavalry units to fight the barbarians wherever they attack (and for that you need culture to gain time).

 

[pku_dwest]

Would you think a free golden age after you have 50000 (or something like that) culture in your cities would be a good long term advantage of culture ? To represent a sort of cultural golden age ?

I disagree with you about your "just build more units to fight the barbs" comment. For example, as France you don't have time to build too many extra units if you're going for the UHV, and the early barbarians hit you hard. It's better to have a smaller garrison in your cities, and a mobile army with cavalry units to fight the barbarians wherever they attack (and for that you need culture to gain time).

I can not understand what you mean "you don't have time to build too many extra units if you're going for the UHV". Why I don't not build too many extra units? To achieve the first UHV, I must train as many as possible units. Although I even do not research the cavalry tech, barbarians do not trouble me. You say "early barbarians hit you hard", I never have such feeling. After I set down paris and another city, I train 4 Axeman and 1 archer before the necessary buildings. So barbarians are welcome.

 

[AdrienIer]

That was my experience from 2 or 3 betas ago, since recently I only played France in RFCE++ where you also need to fight the lombards to win the UHV, and every unit you have has to be sent to Italy to conquer Genoa, Milan and Florence.
Perhaps France has changed in the latest betas in normal RFCE, because what I experienced last was a hard struggle against time and barbarians to get all those provinces. All my units were in the southwest conquering Bordeaux, Toulouse and Barcelona or in the southeast conquering Milan Genoa and Florence, and the barb attacks on my German and Atlantic cities were more than annoying.

 

[3Miro]

@pku_dwest: why do think that making culture less relevant is necessarily a "problem"?

 

[AbsintheRed]

What's the overall opinion on this?
Do you guys think a little extra defence from culture would be better for the mod?
It seems for me that this is pku_dwest's only issue with the current culture system

 

[ezzlar]

Nope, never agreed on that feature.

 

[AbsintheRed]

Nope, never agreed on that feature.

Sue Firaxis
Anyway I also don't think it's necessary in our mod
Based on the last few posts my guess is that 3Miro is also against it

 

[3Miro]

Sue Firaxis
Anyway I also don't think it's necessary in our mod
Based on the last few posts my guess is that 3Miro is also against it

Too much defense means less devastating wars. We removed the culture defense specifically to give newer civs a chance to conquer old cities. Heavy culture cities like Constantinople, Cordoba and Jerusalem used to be unconquerable.

 

[pku_dwest]

I'm not suggesting add defensive bonus from culture.
I just suggested to reduce the cost of culture because culture is useless. Then you said culture is not useless and the cost should not decrease. And then I continued to prove culture is useless and inferred that something should be changed - reduce the cost or add some bonus. I think the logic here is simple and direct.
Pagan shrine and Shrine of Uppsala are related to the cost of culture because their main effect is cultural. I pointed out that they are not wealthy to be built. Then you said Norse should be forced to built them to expand cities to 21 plots. Then I pointed out convert hammer to culture is a better way. Then you want to cut it and I think it is obviously do not solve the problem.

 

[pku_dwest]

It is a typical case for game balence.
Some design does not work. In this case, it is that pagan shrine and Shrine of Uppsala are not wealthy to be built. There is a better choice to get a similar benefit in the game.
Then, something should be buffed or nerfed. Whether buff or nerf, the result should be that the choices are all atractive but players must make decision.
Now for this case, it seems that you tend to nerf something to make neither choice is atractive but one must be chosen. I don't like it.
I insist that pagan shrine and Shrine of Uppsala should be buffed.

 

[3Miro]

It is a typical case for game balence.
Some design does not work. In this case, it is that pagan shrine and Shrine of Uppsala are not wealthy to be built. There is a better choice to get a similar benefit in the game.
Then, something should be buffed or nerfed. Whether buff or nerf, the result should be that the choices are all atractive but players must make decision.
Now for this case, it seems that you tend to nerf something to make neither choice is atractive but one must be chosen. I don't like it.
I insist that pagan shrine and Shrine of Uppsala should be buffed.

OK, I see your point now. However, unlike BtS, we are not making a game where all options are equally viable, we want all players to be as unique as possible and hence some options should be good only for some players. Players are generally supposed to convert to a religion as soon as possible and then happiness and culture should come form the religion. Some players like the Norse and Lithuania are not supposed to convert immediately and Kiev may have to wait some time before they get a religion. Those players should have an alternative way to get culture.

As you pointed out, they can build culture, but we agreed that we shouldn't have that ability that early on. Building culture will come later. Thus the Shrines is an opportunity for players to get some culture and happiness even without religion.

I will look at the building cost again, maybe the cost of the Pagan Shrine should be lowered, but the Shrine of Uppsala work well for the Norse as is.

 

[pku_dwest]

OK, I see your point now. However, unlike BtS, we are not making a game where all options are equally viable, we want all players to be as unique as possible and hence some options should be good only for some players. Players are generally supposed to convert to a religion as soon as possible and then happiness and culture should come form the religion. Some players like the Norse and Lithuania are not supposed to convert immediately and Kiev may have to wait some time before they get a religion. Those players should have an alternative way to get culture.

As you pointed out, they can build culture, but we agreed that we shouldn't have that ability that early on. Building culture will come later. Thus the Shrines is an opportunity for players to get some culture and happiness even without religion.

I will look at the building cost again, maybe the cost of the Pagan Shrine should be lowered, but the Shrine of Uppsala work well for the Norse as is.

Consider Norse, when beginning Norse have 3 city, the capital and the city converted can get 21 polots. And there are 4 cities around to be conquered. A player try to decide what should be built first, shrines or berserkers? Obviously berserkers. Should shrines be built after enough berserkers trained? No. There is a better way. Conquer the city on Ireland, then adopt region and train missionaries.
What a bad thing! You desigh something for Norse, but all other things are better. You can remove the region in the city on Ireland just like postpone the convertion from hammer to culture. But I can conquer some french cities to do the same thing.

Why I want to make such strange choice? Because region is over-buffed. I understand you want to make region better than non-region. But region is always better than non-region and it is much more better than original version in BTS because of the spread odds. In this way, non-region must be buffed too. It should be a little better or at least a little worse than region without spread. Then Norse can get a reason to choose pagan style.

 

[alpav]

Ok I have a possible idea but do not know if it is too time consuming or irrelevant to the problem. If anyone has played mods for Medieval 2 Total War, when they add in pagan factions such as Lithuania they have the choice to convert. However if they do not convert they have access to special pagan warriors. Maybe this could be implemented. perhaps a gerneric "Pagan Warrior" unit would fit.

 

[AbsintheRed]

Why I want to make such strange choice? Because region is over-buffed. I understand you want to make region better than non-region. But region is always better than non-region and it is much more better than original version in BTS because of the spread odds. In this way, non-region must be buffed too. It should be a little better or at least a little worse than region without spread. Then Norse can get a reason to choose pagan style.

Ok I have a possible idea but do not know if it is too time consuming or irrelevant to the problem. If anyone has played mods for Medieval 2 Total War, when they add in pagan factions such as Lithuania they have the choice to convert. However if they do not convert they have access to special pagan warriors. Maybe this could be implemented. perhaps a gerneric "Pagan Warrior" unit would fit.

Actually there was a discussion about adding some extra bonus for the paganism civic, thus to nations that choose or destined to stay longer pagan
It was several months ago, so I don't remember exactly where we had that conversation, but will try to find it

EDIT: alright, found it: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=294981&page=6

 

[pku_dwest]

Actually there was a discussion about adding some extra bonus for the paganism civic, thus to nations that choose or destined to stay longer pagan
It was several months ago, so I don't remember exactly where we had that conversation, but will try to find it

EDIT: alright, found it: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=294981&page=6

I read the posts. Some of the points are very atractive.
For example, just add an bonus for Shrine of Uppsala that melee unit trained in a city with Pagan Shrine gain 2 exp. If you think this is too powerful, the bonus of happiness can be removed.

 

[Daffy]

Not really an issue but I figured I'd mention it
I just started a game as Austria iwth the release version. Austria spawns on top of a cottage/village which can be razed for money before founding Wien/Vienna. This cottage/village is not visible in my game, the tile looks like any other unimproved grassland tile. The cottage/village can be razed however.



I moved the spawn stack so that it's better to see, thought the cottage might just be 'covered' by one of the units. Something about the 'civ specific' artwork for cities possibly?
And another thing unrelated, this new palm tree feature that was implemented. There are now palm trees along the adriatic coast of modern day Croatia? I thought the romans completely cleared the whole area of forests/trees which is why the area supposedly is somewhat 'rocky/barren' and highly eroded today. But I've never actually been in the area so it's just hearsay. I learned a while back that not everything we were taught at school was always 100% correct

 

[AbsintheRed]

I read the posts. Some of the points are very atractive.
For example, just add an bonus for Shrine of Uppsala that melee unit trained in a city with Pagan Shrine gain 2 exp. If you think this is too powerful, the bonus of happiness can be removed.

Actually - if we decide to add an extra bonus for pagans - I would rather add it the to Pagan Shrines, not the wonder
So it benefits all the pagan civs, not only the Norse or whoever manages to build the Shrine of Uppsala
For example all new units built in a city with a Pagan Shrine get a free Woodsman I or some kind of mobility promotion. Only if you have the Paganism civic of course

 

[merijn_v1]

Not really an issue but I figured I'd mention it
I just started a game as Austria iwth the release version. Austria spawns on top of a cottage/village which can be razed for money before founding Wien/Vienna. This cottage/village is not visible in my game, the tile looks like any other unimproved grassland tile. The cottage/village can be razed however.



I moved the spawn stack so that it's better to see, thought the cottage might just be 'covered' by one of the units. Something about the 'civ specific' artwork for cities possibly?

I see where the bug is. It has something to do with the new cityart. I will post a hotfix when I fixed it.

 

[AbsintheRed]

Not really an issue but I figured I'd mention it
I just started a game as Austria iwth the release version. Austria spawns on top of a cottage/village which can be razed for money before founding Wien/Vienna. This cottage/village is not visible in my game, the tile looks like any other unimproved grassland tile. The cottage/village can be razed however.



I moved the spawn stack so that it's better to see, thought the cottage might just be 'covered' by one of the units. Something about the 'civ specific' artwork for cities possibly?

Indeed, this is most likely a bug with the new city styles.
The village improvement is there, but it seems the civ specific version of it doesn't show up somehow
Merijn, can you look into this?

EDIT: crosspost

And another thing unrelated, this new palm tree feature that was implemented. There are now palm trees along the adriatic coast of modern day Croatia? I thought the romans completely cleared the whole area of forests/trees which is why the area supposedly is somewhat 'rocky/barren' and highly eroded today. But I've never actually been in the area so it's just hearsay.

This is a problem with the spread of forests, I also noticed in my recent testgames
Those tiles are not intentionally forested areas, just check it in a Byzantine or French game
Because these Light Forests are restricted to only a few areas in the Mediterranean, it's much more noticable if they spread out
Check the Norh African coastline too, there are some very high forested areas which isn't intentional either
Anyway, I already reduced their spread chance, but it's not implemented in Beta 14, sry