RFC or Realism Invictus?

[Knux]

Hey everyone. I decided to try Civ 4. While Civ 5 is quite fun, its historical innacuracy and unrealisticness (that's a word, right?) dissapointed me.
Since I have to install a mod to achieve full historical accuracy, I'm asking you guys which one: Rhye's and Fall, or Realism Invictus?
RFC seems to be the most popular, but Realism Invictus also looks good, and I really want to try that Huge World Map.

Thanks in advance.

 

[The Diocletian]

RFC, preferably it's modmod Dawn of Civilization.

 

[AdamCrock]

If you would like to play as close to history as possible than You ought to choose RFC Are You up for the challange or are You just another chicken in the wall ?

 

[donblas]

Consider this a vote for checking out both. I'm a big fan of Realism Invictus myself, but playing 1 game of each and figuring which you prefer might be best.

 

[gps]

I would also recommend to try both, however I am not sure any of them will achieve full historical accuracy.
What you should know is that both mods have a bit of a different philosophy. RFC adds some new, interesting rules and mechanics (stability, unique historic victories, plague, location specific city names, Civs starting in the correct time, Civ specific and historically correct spheres of interest and expansion, etc.) plus a real world map. The rest of the game is almost unchanged and there are hardly any (or for BTS actually no) new Civs, leaders, units, buldings, etc. added. RI on the other hand is kind of a "kitchen sink" mod that adds lots and lots and lots of new Civs, leaders, techs, civics, wonders, units and other stuff - and can be a little bit excessive on the hardware requirement side, and maybe also a little bit overwhelming for some players. RFC is available for all Civ IV versions while RI is only available for BTS. RFC has been finished some time ago while RI is still WIP. I personally prefer RFC, but it's basically very much a matter of personal taste and focus.

 

[Drakarska]

Count me as a fan of both as well. Been playing a lot of RI 3.2 lately (hmnn, just noticed it's been updated to 3.25), and I find it deeply immersive. Agree with gps as well about the hardware req, especially on the worldmap scenario. I would recommend a mid-range set up for it, especially towards REN era and later.
Hmnn, just saw TD's reference about the modmod DOC. Looks like I'll be doing some dl'ing later tonight . My thx 'Dio.

 

[Knux]

Thanks for the feedback. I decided to try both, so far I'm preferring RFC. I have yet to try Dawn Of Civilization, but from what I've seen, it looks pretty good.
I'm really liking RFC's potential for "alternate history", and the historical spawn dates contribute a lot to realism.
Also, another question: I have 8GB of RAM, but civ4 only seems to use 2GB. Is there any way to make it Large Address Aware?

 

[s.bernbaum]

If you are running a 64 bit system, it should recognize up to 4 GB of RAM. As, far as I know that is the max. I have read comments in CFC about software that will allow CIV to use up to 3 GB on 32 bit systems. You can use the CFC search function for that, if it applies to you. I run on 64 bit systems (both Mac OSX and Windows 7) and CIV uses 4 GB on each (I have 8 GB).

 

[The Diocletian]

Although, be warned that Dawn of Civilization makes some major changes to civics, etc. If you aren't comfortable with that yet, I'd use vanilla RFC as a stepping stone.

 

[ZeekLTK]

I'm really liking RFC's potential for "alternate history", and the historical spawn dates contribute a lot to realism.

That's what I thought, but all I've found is frustration.

It's just "too scripted" in my opinion.

For example, I was playing as Babylon and doing very well (if I do say so myself).

I had destroyed Persia, India, Ottomans, Egypt, and Ethiopia. All that was left was a very weak Arabia.

However, I had done this by keeping my civ fairly small, because I knew that all these other civs (Persia, Arabs, Ottomans) were going to pop up, so I wanted to make sure I was ready for them.

After I defeated the Ottomans, there weren't going to be any new civs popping up, so I figured it was safe to start expanding. I took over all of the northern Middle East, from Constantinople to the Indian subcontinent and then I even took a few cities in Africa.

And then I lost.

Because my "stability" crashed. Apparently, I had expanded "too far" outside of my "historical borders".

That's so stupid. I was doing so well, I had destroyed all of my hostile neighbors aside from Arabia, who I had boxed in down where modern day Yemen/Oman are. Greece was literally the only other country anywhere near me, and I had great relations with them. It was such a good position to be in.

So what were my options? Destroy the Arabs and then just sit there piddling my thumbs with 3 cities waiting for Europeans to eventually expand out and meet me? Why couldn't I try to colonize the Americas? Or go further into Africa? Because that's not what really happened? Then what is even the point of playing if you can't really change anything? Lame.

 

[gps]

And then I lost.

Because my "stability" crashed. Apparently, I had expanded "too far" outside of my "historical borders".

So what were my options?

Well, make sure your stability is high enough to compensate. Basically you can do whatever you want in RFC - you only have to keep your empire stable. Keep commerce up, make sure you produce enough culture, build prisons, trade with other civs, chose the right civics, etc. - there's a lot you can do to increase stability.

 

[Knux]

Huh. I didn't find it particularily hard to keep my stability high, even when I was plopping colonies all over Australia and South America. Playing as Germany.

 

[Drakarska]

Hmnn, same here.

@ Zeek; Can you post a save bro? or perhaps expand the detail a bit more? perhaps we could give an assist or a thought or two towards your game play and get you back in the DOC saddle again .

 

[ringwraith18]

Realism Invictus is a cracking mod. Unlike (as far as I know) RFC, Realism Invictus changes some of the very basic mechanics of civ.

For example, each citizen consumes 3 food, so early game you can forget about cottagespam since you'll be needing as much farmland as you can get to support your farms/commerce tiles. But once you start hitting mid-game techs, your farm's food output skyrockets, freeing up farmland to be converted into cottages/workshops, which causes natural late-game growth.

It also adds a fair few resources, which when combined with late-game techs boosting improvements' commerce yields, means that resources remain valuable late-game as opposed to simply being a plot that isn't occupied by a town. There are also certain buildings that use resources for small bonuses to commerce, which makes resources in general more useful.

There's a whole range of other improvements too, combat is totally reworks but it basically comes down to having a wide range of units rather than a single type. You still spam infantry, but you'll want to make sure you've got 3-4 skirmishers, archers, spearmen, light and heavy horsemen in there too. Buildings are also reworked into "tiers", so for example in ancient times you'll build an Aquaduct that gives +2 health and becomes obsolete at "Sanitation". The "Sanitation" tech then unlocks a Hospital building, that gives +3 health and becomes obsolete at "Biology". Biology then unlocks Health Centre that gives +4 health. I made that example up off the top of my head, but it makes sense to think of the buildings in Realism Invictus in that way.

However I would also add that I get huge lag when playing R:I. I do have a pretty crappy laptop but I can run vanilla civ 4 fine on large maps but it grinds to being unplayable even on medium maps by about 1/3 of the way through R:I. I assume that this is less of a problem for people with respectable gaming rigs but still it's something to be aware of.

 

[Knux]

That's what I liked about RI, though: Agriculture actually mattering, just like in real life, and resources being more than just a Health/Happinness/Gold bonus.
Maybe I should just play both and treat them like different games.

 

[MyOtherName]

Huh. I didn't find it particularily hard to keep my stability high, even when I was plopping colonies all over Australia and South America. Playing as Germany.

It's been a while since I looked at the stability maps, but I vaguely recall that those are the sorts of places European powers are "supposed" to be colonizing, and thus won't cause much of a stability hit, whereas trying to conquer all of Eurpoe will cause massive stability penalties.

 

[Knux]

It's been a while since I looked at the stability maps, but I vaguely recall that those are the sorts of places European powers are "supposed" to be colonizing, and thus won't cause much of a stability hit, whereas trying to conquer all of Eurpoe will cause massive stability penalties.

Ah, that makes sense. I think it also helps that the colonies were founded in the Modern Era and not earlier.