RFC Germania

[merijn_v1]

I don't know what exactly caused it. I got it during autoplay. In the Frisian game, it happened a few times. I think there was a gap of about 15 turns between each one.
I also got it during the Polish autoplay. It usually happens a few turns before I spawn.

I didn't play the game. I was only loading some games for testing. I will play a French game up until about 1100 AD and see if I still get that error.

 

[merijn_v1]

Some concept ideas for Colonies, Companies and Mercenaries. (I know it's early for these kind of things, but I had to write it down somewhere)

Colonies:
As the focus is on Germany, the colonies aren't as important as in RFCE. But for the civs that did have colonies, I think they are too important to leave them out. So how can they be included into the mod, without getting all the focus?

I was thinking of the following. Colonies can be build as projects, like RFCE. Each colonial civ can build just 1 pre-determined (depending on the civ) colony.

A colony provides some resources, like RFCE. These resources are only obtainable by the colonies and every colony has it's unique resources. This means that the civ gets a monopoly on these resources.
Colonies also cost some maintenance. The effect will be that you loose some gold each turn, but you get some happiness and/or health back (through the resources). You get more resources of the same type. That means you can sell some of the surpluss of resources. The value of the colonial resources should be about the same as horse/iron.
Ofcourse, colonies aren't cheap. I was thinking about 1000-1500 hammers. The colonies of Venice and Genoa are a bit cheaper.

So what is the actual effect of a colony?
It provides some happiness and/or health. And a gold bonus/loss. (Depending on if you sell the surplus of colonial resources)
But it takes up much time to build them.

For the non-colonial civs it provides a health/happiness bonus, but it will cost you some gold, if you decide to buy the resources. Otherwise nothing happens.

I think this is a nice way to include colonies, they are important for the civs that build them, but not as much for the other civs and the civs that build them don't get a too big advantage.



Companies:
As I mentiond before, I think we should use companies instead of corporations. They are more balanced than corporations. And because this mod is based on the SoI engine, the code is "already included".
You can see a list in the spreadsheet.

Mercenaries:
Mercenaries were quite important in Germany. As many famous mercenaries came from Germany, I think they should recieve an even more special threatment than the other RFC mods.
Not only should you be able to hire them, you should also be able to get some money for hiring them out. This can also provide a base for some interesting UHV or UP.

 

[merijn_v1]

Another bug:
I moved the Burgundian spawn to 843 AD. (It was wrongly 943 AD) But when I play the scenario, I got a message: You have been defeated.
Before the change, it worked fine. I did saw them in my Polish and Frisian starts.
I think this counts too for the Vikings. In none of the Frisian or Polish starts, they did spawn.
So all the additional civs that start in 843 beyond France, Saxony and Bavaria don't spawn.

Is there something that only 3 civs can exist at the first turn? (Vanilla SoI also has 3 starting civs)
Or should all civs that start in 843 AD on the first turn be on top of the civlist in the XML?

 

[The Flame8]

The colony thing I agree upon as they are important. Perhaps the occasional event also to sacrifice soldiers to protect the colony?

Mercenaries will be very important! Civs like Hesse have huge impacts from Mercenaries and I loved mercs in vanilla RFC (though it was glitchy).

I'll check out the bugs

 

[constantinople]

I agree with the mercenaries concepts. It should also be coded that when you are at war, mercenaries appear for hire more often.

Maybe for colonies, instead of needing Atlantic Access, it should be you need X coastal cities. The variable is less strict for Venice and Genoa.

 

[trexeric]

Also, I think colonies should only be buildable in coastal cities.

 

[Bair_the_Normal]

Building a colonial project should only require a harbor and a lighthouse [or their equivalents] for simplicity's sake. Thus, only coastal cities can build them.

 

[merijn_v1]

Even if a coastal city wasn't a requirement, the would be build in coastal cities most of the time. Of the colonial civ capitals, only Paris isn't coastal. But it's indeed a good idea to make it coastal city only. To make sure it really is build in a coastal city.

Making a harbor a prequisite is indeed the easiest way.
But there should also be some kind of hidden tech/resource, so only the colonial civs can build them. (A tech is probably the easiest and safest way)

A little related to this, I was thinking of changing the tile east of London to a sea tile. This is much better for the gameplay.

 

[merijn_v1]

Fixed the Burgundy/Vikings bug.

It turned out that the civs that spawn at start should be on top of the civlist. I made the civlist chronological, so now they are on top of the list. (and the choose a civ screen is also chronological)

 

[The Flame8]

Great thanks!

 

[constantinople]

Maybe we could add a national wonder that requires a port and lighthouse that allows you to build colonies. We could call it "Colonial Dock" or something. It could be similar to a trading company but it provides Atlantic access.

 

[merijn_v1]

I think a colony should get the folowing prequisites:
- A hidden tech. Each colony gets it's own hidden tech, given to the civs at spawn. This to make sure that each colony can be build by just 1 civ.
- A normal tech. This to make that the colonies can't be build at spawn.
- A harbor. To make sure that it's build in a coastal city.

The last 2 can be replaced by the colonial dock. (As that requires a specific tech and a coast, it combines both) But I'm afraid that the AI won't build the colonial dock, as it will probably undervalues it, as it has no other thing that allowing a colony. And the AI doesn't know it does something else. So I prefer the other method.

 

[constantinople]

Hidden tech - I have no idea what you mean
Normal tech - yeah, what I was implying was the colonial dock requires Astronomy or something
Harbor - I think it should require multiple harbors (aka coastal cities), that way civs with only one coastal city can't build colonies.

 

[merijn_v1]

I mean that you "don't know" that the tech exist. It's not in the civilopedia, you can't researched or trade it and it doesn't show up in the tech screen. There is no legal way to get it.

The tech itself behaves like all other techs. The only difference is that it works without you noticing it.

As a non-colonial civs. You don't have the tech, you can't researched or trade it. So you can't build colonies. You "don't even know" it exists.
As a colonial civ. You have the tech (from spawn). So you can build colonies. But you also "don't know" it exist.



I made a color map of the civs. In general, I'm pleased with the color distribution.
Take a look at the minimap.

But maybe there are to many red colored civs. Not a big problem, as most of them are not in the same area. I'm only concerned about Savoy, Hesse and Switzerland. (Poities, the small red part on top of the screen and Setia on the mainscreen) They are quite close to eachother. (especially Switzerland and Savoy)
Does anyone know an appropriate alternative color for them?

Lower Saxony (lighter green near Hamburg) and Lorraine (The vanilla Spain color on the mainscreen with Dijon as capital) do have temporary color. I don't know which colors are appropriate for them. Please help with suggestions.

 

[constantinople]

I don't know about that, I think it would be fun to colonize the seas as Savoy. As I said before, we shouldn't hold historical accuracy above everything else.

I think Switzerland should be light red. Savoy could be white or a shade of red. Hesse could be a dark blue.
I agree, the civs are pretty close to each other. Savoy may have been small but they don't deserve to be boxed in. Burgundy could be moved further south.

 

[srpt]

hidden techs are a great modding tool. very good for UPs. you need a special piece of python to make them hidden though and I'm not sure it is in your mod. the python makes it so any tech with grid coordinates: (0, 0) will not appear in the the civilopedia. you can find it in CvPediaTech.py, in the Screens folder in RFCCW. search for "invisible dummy tech".

hidden traits are good too. many UPs in SoI are traits.

 

[DC123456789]

I don't know about that, I think it would be fun to colonize the seas as Savoy. As I said before, we shouldn't hold historical accuracy above everything else.

I think Switzerland should be light red. Savoy could be white or a shade of red. Hesse could be a dark blue.
I agree, the civs are pretty close to each other. Savoy may have been small but they don't deserve to be boxed in. Burgundy could be moved further south.

I agree. Instead of limiting to certain civs, I think any civs with enough coastal cities should be able to colonize. It's fine if certain civs get hidden buffs to build the colonies faster for historicity, (I'm thinking about Venice's and Genoa's Mediterranean colonies here) but it should not be completely banned for other civs.

 

[merijn_v1]

My thoughts were: Colonies should be in the game. The should play a (moderately) big role for the colonial civs, but a minor role in the overall game. How can that be done?

So I came up with what I discribed. It's not that I want complete historical accuracy, but I don't want to focus on them too much because the focus should mainly be on Germany. I thought I found a nice solution for that.

I have my concern about a minimum of harbor requirement. It's likely that the colonial civs can't (or won't because of the stupid AI) have enough coastal cities. (Think of Genoa) So the colonies will end up in the hands of other civs in most of times. It's not that bad if the non-colonials get them sometimes, but I think they shouldn't get it the majority of the times.
We can make the required number of coastal cities low. But then you can remove the requirement altogether, as it makes hardly any difference.



Hidden techs/traits are indeed great for modding. I already coded 3 UPs (France, Burgundy and Sweden) that way. Frisia will also get one that way soon. I wasn't able to do so if I had to hard-code them, like RFCE.


Don't worry about the boxing too much. I just enlarged the cultural area, so you it's better visible on the minimap. The real situation will probably be very different.
-I gave the Swiss the red color from their flag. But as that color isn't defined, it can be made lighter of darker. I'll "play" a little with it to see what's best.
-Same story for Savoy.
-Dark blue for Hesse would indeed work. I'll use the type of blue in there coat or arms.
-For Lorriane, Yellow would be appropriate. But then it has the "same" color as Baden. (The yellow in the screenshot) We could make 1 a dark yellow and the other a very light one (like China in DoC)
-Red is would also be appropriate for Lower Saxony. (Based on this) But I think they can have it, even though many civs already have a red color. Hessen will get a blue color. So the only civ with a red color nearby them is Denmark. But the red of Denmark is quite distinced from the other red colors. So that wouldn't cause many problems.

 

[merijn_v1]

@ Flame

I literally copied the spawning date from the former list in one of the opening posts. But I find some dates a bit strange. Can you tell why you put some civs on certain dates? (especially in the list below) For those I can't find anything that could serve as the "spawn" of the civ.

My suggestions: (I tried to find something historical close to the current starting date)

• Lorraine: 961 -> 959. The establishment of the Duchy of Lorraine. (Or is 961 the closest year to 959 due to the gap of 4 years between turns?)
• Genoa: 1097 -> 1005. The Republic of Genoa was established in 1005.
• Venice: 1105 -> 843. The republic was established long before the start of the mod. In 810, Venice became the capital. Also before the starting date.
• Baden: 1133 -> 1112. Establishment of the Margraviat of Baden
• Sweden: 1141 -> 1210 (RFCE(++) starting date) or 1252. (presumed foundation of Stockholm)
• Denmark: 1149 -> 1167. Absalon fortified Copenhagen in 1167, the year traditionally marking the foundation of Copenhagen.
  This can cause some troubles with the Lombard spawn however. In 1167, the Lombard League was formed. So Lombardy also spawns in 1167 AD.
• Teutonic Order: 1221 -> 1224. Slightly more accurate.
• Austria: 1301 -> 1278. Establishment of the Habsburg Dynasty/Duchy of Austria.
• Savoy: 1361 -> 1416. Establishment of the Duchy of Savoy.
• Swabia: 1449 -> 1488. Swabian League established.
• Lower Saxony: 1521 -> 1356. Dissolution of the Duchy of Saxony (normal Saxony in the game) in Lower Saxony and the Electorate of Saxony.
  In game turns, Saxony should spawn as the Duchy of Saxony. Later in the game, they should move towards the Electorate of Saxony. The original territory of the Duchy of Saxony will become Lower Saxony.

 

[The Flame8]

I am perfectly fine with all those spawn date changes.

The dates start at 843 and go up by 3 I believe (I'll have to double check). Then they go to 2 for the rest of the game. I'll get the excel file I have laid out later today