RFCE 1.3 Playtest Feedback

[merijn_v1]

what happened to the Counter-Reformation/Reformation-wars?

In my game as Prussia I was pretty happy that I didn't get DoW'ed by half the known world after researching Printing Press (and a huge war broke out just the next turn) but now in my game as Spain, I research it and....nothing.

I don't get any options on how to approach the new faith, no one declares war on one another....Why was this removed?

We didn't change anything in there AFAIK.

with almost 12h between these posts, I hope it is okay to make a new one instead of keeping to edit the other one:

First off:
The game with Scotland was pretty fun until I lost:
Feels pretty bad to lose this way

Never knew there was a rule you had to wait for 12 hours before you post again.

In another thread, I suggested that maybe Burgundy should be included in the UHV. Maybe not really historical, but it will avoid (to a certain extend) situations like this.

Anyone got some numbers for me for their 2nd UHV?
How many turns are it from my spawn until the time runs out?
How much points do the different things give me?
I got:
- OB = 3 points/turn
- Join them in a war = 2 points/turn
- several resource-trades = 2 points/turn ??
- trading techs/maps/gold = 0 points
How do diplo-modifiers ("+ 1 for open borders, -1 for "you recently made an arrogant demand"....) affect this (if at all)?
Do several wars give 2 points each?
Do more resource-trades result in more points?
-
Those wars against someone who has the same faith as you are too penalizing, I feel.

Attitude: -2 for Furious, -1 for Annoyed, 0 for Cautious, 1 for Pleased, 2 for Friendly
OB: +1
Def. Pact: +2
Traded resources: (Num Export + Num Import) / 3
Common war: +2
War with France: -10
Different state religion: -3

Then: have another look at the pic above, how come Sweden can fulfill its UHVs while all other civs can't? (Is there some "switch" somewhere in a settings-file to enable AI-UHV-victories? I feel like they could use the occasional Golden Age if they manage to complete 2 out of their 3)

Probably a bug. Will look into it. Do you have a save?
The reason why it's disabled is that the AI isn't aware of the it and won't go for it. So the chances the AI gets one is very low. To speed up the game, all checks are skipped. Even if it was enabled you will never see the AI recieving a golden age because it hardly ever gets even 1 UHV, let alone 2.

PPS: if you make corporations like in DoC, please give us some way to avoid them, since the +unhappiness/unhealthyness is really destabilizing.

I don't know if Absinthe will even include the and . Personally, I don't think they will fit.

 

[Chep]

- save for AI Sweden with possibility to win UHV attached, thanks for the explanation, AI Hungary&Venice "often" (~20% of the time) got 2 UHVs, but yeah if it slows the game down it is not worth it.

- reformation/counter-reformation: okay maybe I just played too much DoC. about 5-10 turns later you do get the option to accept or persecute the new faith as a catholic civ. I just thought other civs would be more likely to immediately declare war, but probably not needed.

- Scottland (thanks for the numbers!): not really sure how you'd want to include Burgundy and maybe we should accept some sort of luck-dependency. In my 2nd attempt France vasallized to Germany before collapsing allowing me to get this UHV in 1536 (pretty close considering I tried to follow them into every war and gave them lots of resources).
UHV could be changed though, imho. Since you basically need to declare war on England (Arabia will collapse too often/soon to be enough as a common war target with France), you'll probably have dealt with them by the time of UHV2 is done and even if Denmark/Norway settle a tiny city in the Isles/Ireland it is far from hard to take that, meaning you just have to wait from ~1550 to 1670 (and then conquer those 1-2 provinces you're maybe missing) afterwards.
Also: UHV1 could be a "by" instead of in, imho, you won't be able to do it before 1060 and after that no one will flip your cities, so no real reason to wait once you got them built.
And: Northumbria changing its status/flipping: I don't get this one, since the city flips it is seemingly best for Scotland to just raze it and rebuild it (if possible) in 1074 (after the English flip), so why even make the province "historical" in the first place for that time period? To trick the player into playing through that short window of time twice?

- civics: Common Law seems really weak to me. I honestly don't see a reason to switch out of Feudal Law / Bureaucracy ever with basically every civ. (Morocco, Lithuania & Burgundy could probably use it for its culture-UHVs but won't get it in time, and everyone else doesn't need the culture boost that much) maybe it could get a buff in some way? + GP points / + cottage growth / +....I don't know, something to make it interesting lategame.
Mercantilism will need changes when you implement any corporation-changes (I suggest giving a bonus based on your colonies)
And Divine Monarchy seems OP with the current stability mechanism, giving you almost unlimited happiness. DoC caps it at +4, I think, something like that seems prudent to me.

- stability: I really dislike the fact that I get penalized for letting my cities grow and that the nature of the mechanics leads to weird jumps that can mess up the entire empire, when nothing much happens. Plus it really helps the bigger empires while crippling smaller ones.


(I hope you read my other posts as well, especially those on starts with (almost) no civics/religion preset, the Pope collapsing and the Prussian situation and bringing in random events)

PS: Double posts are usually considered bad manners, but if you don't mind, I'll just keep posting my feedback here, still trying to keep it a low number of postings but focusing more on grouping the feedback in a meaningful way.

PPS: I think DoCs way of having a "discussion" thread where you can suggest gameplay changes, complain about starting situations and so on AND a separate "Bug"-thread might help you guys too.

 

[gilgames]

I had an interesting experience:

revised the game to 1092 svn, but messed up my game, so exited to main menu, and THEN i got the ctd problem!!! i was surprised.

 

[Chep]

I am starting to think I shouldn't have returned to this mod :/

The Ottomans are hilariously broken.
You start with:
-3 turns of Anarchy (once again almost no civics selected)
- no possibility to produce your UU until at least 1410 (since you have no Sulphur anywhere in your core)
- are behind in terms of technology compared to the other civs
- your UP is way too weak (I got 2 Janissaries by 1420)
- you can't finish your friggin UHVs because your stability is permanently -20 to -30 and since your UHV1&2 have pretty strict timelimits you cant afford to take 1 city, let it come out of rebellion, starve it down, build Manor, Courthouse (dont have stone -> forget about Castles) and then go to the next one.

I had this mod in such good memory, I really, really loved it. It might have been a bit on the easy side (roughly on the same level as SoI, imho) compared to DoC.

But now some of the mechanics are just there to be annoying & counter-intuitive, make it a lot harder for small empires (my Spain still got +40-50 stability, all the colonies and owned half of France on top of Iberia, almost as before), and worst of all, a lot of the stuff just feels half-finished & not really thought through

I applaud you for trying to continue this mod, but at this point I can only hope you'll reach a level similar to the one it once had again in the future.

 

[youtien]

I am starting to think I shouldn't have returned to this mod :/

The Ottomans are hilariously broken.
You start with:
-3 turns of Anarchy (once again almost no civics selected)
- no possibility to produce your UU until at least 1410 (since you have no Sulphur anywhere in your core)
- are behind in terms of technology compared to the other civs
- your UP is way too weak (I got 2 Janissaries by 1420)
- you can't finish your friggin UHVs because your stability is permanently -20 to -30 and since your UHV1&2 have pretty strict timelimits you cant afford to take 1 city, let it come out of rebellion, starve it down, build Manor, Courthouse (dont have stone -> forget about Castles) and then go to the next one.

I had this mod in such good memory, I really, really loved it. It might have been a bit on the easy side (roughly on the same level as SoI, imho) compared to DoC.

But now some of the mechanics are just there to be annoying & counter-intuitive, make it a lot harder for small empires (my Spain still got +40-50 stability, all the colonies and owned half of France on top of Iberia, almost as before), and worst of all, a lot of the stuff just feels half-finished & not really thought through

I applaud you for trying to continue this mod, but at this point I can only hope you'll reach a level similar to the one it once had again in the future.

Maybe it is because of religion. Try beeline divine right and build the free religion wonder?

 

[gilgames]

no, the new stability system is crap, that ruins the gameplay experience! and also ottomans havent been balanced to the new setup. They were weak in 1.1 and its the same here, only their environment become more harsh!

 

[Chep]

Maybe it is because of religion. Try beeline divine right and build the free religion wonder?

I actually did try that, but it was built long before I finished researching DR.

And sure, Religion might be a part of it, but it's just the fact that you will have unhealthy&unhappy cities with lots and lots of foreign culture in them. (plus maybe the fact that other civs have control over parts of your core, if that is a fact here as well)

As gilgames says, they were relying on a lucky start even before but haven't been adopted to the new stability mechanism and similar changes at all.

 

[AbsintheRed]

Alright, back from Belgium, let's get back into fixing a couple things

 

[Shadow Warlord]

I am starting to think I shouldn't have returned to this mod :/

The Ottomans are hilariously broken.
You start with:
-3 turns of Anarchy (once again almost no civics selected)
- no possibility to produce your UU until at least 1410 (since you have no Sulphur anywhere in your core)
- are behind in terms of technology compared to the other civs
- your UP is way too weak (I got 2 Janissaries by 1420)
- you can't finish your friggin UHVs because your stability is permanently -20 to -30 and since your UHV1&2 have pretty strict timelimits you cant afford to take 1 city, let it come out of rebellion, starve it down, build Manor, Courthouse (dont have stone -> forget about Castles) and then go to the next one.

I had this mod in such good memory, I really, really loved it. It might have been a bit on the easy side (roughly on the same level as SoI, imho) compared to DoC.

But now some of the mechanics are just there to be annoying & counter-intuitive, make it a lot harder for small empires (my Spain still got +40-50 stability, all the colonies and owned half of France on top of Iberia, almost as before), and worst of all, a lot of the stuff just feels half-finished & not really thought through

I applaud you for trying to continue this mod, but at this point I can only hope you'll reach a level similar to the one it once had again in the future.

Well, you're asking a guy who was on a modding hiatus for 2-3 years to instantly make this mod as good as DOC.

You're also playing the SVN version. Bugs/unbalanced gameplay are to be expected because nothing is finalized yet. If the current version doesn't work, you can always wait till they update and fix some of the issues, or revert to a more stable version.

That being said, my few playthroughs so far haven't been too overwhelming in terms of stability difficulty (the worst was as Norway having Dublin secede right before the 1st UHV deadline...while it was also building Vinland) but nothing a few reloads and revising your playstyle can't solve.

 

[Swarbs]

Alright, back from Belgium, let's get back into fixing a couple things

Hurray!

Any joy with finding a solution or mitigation to the CTD problem?

 

[Bardiche]

I have followed this for a while; allow me to comment a little as well. I played with revision 1148.

Feedback:

Denmark starts basically without any civics selected, causing you to have to suffer through 2-3 turns of anarchy at gamestart. Is this really intentional? (SVN 1148 & current)

I can see both sides concerning whether civics should be selected or not. However, it was a pain indeed to keep stability ok when trying to achieve Danish UHV 1. One needs to expand too quickly to survive without rebellions. One could say, of course, that this is intended.

Morocco:
(probably other civs as well)

since they start with almost no civics selected (except for Religious Law and I think one other), you again have a start where you have to suffer through unnecessary anarchy.
The problem here: after the anarchy you no longer have the option to run Religious Law, even if you didn't change it (probably since you lack the tech to run it)

Also, I don't really see what their UP does Oo

edit:
could we maybe also get some time after our start until we get affected by negative stability?
I just started as Morocco (1040), conquered Sevilla and had it immediately revolt to independency with all my troops (1077) because my stability went has my cities at "-1 | -18".
I havent had any chance to build something yet, had 3 turns of anarchy (2 civics + 1 religion) and then less than 10 turns of effective game time. this punishment seems incredibly severe.
(save attached)

Aragon:
I feel like 12 seaports is a bit much, since it means you have to deal with the Burgundians, Ottomans/Byzantium AND found cities like a madman (which in turn will hopefully have enough production to build it in time.)

(edit: 1148, since I was told that is the last stable version without CTDs)

Morocco's stability might be a problem indeed, for one can expand only much slower than it seems right.
Also, when I played for Morocco, the great merchants, scientists, etc. were displayed only as useless red bubbles.

Concerning Aragon, I think that twelve sea ports are fine. Where I agree with Chep though is that much is dependent on the starting situation - and the starting situation on the Iberian peninsula is highly unstable. I would even call it problematic - one half of the time, either Cordoba or Spain is collapsed by the time Aragon and Portugal spawn.

Also, concerning Cordoba, its respawn as Tunisia simply does not work. One reason is that Tunis is a small, Catholic city, quite underrepresenting Tunisia. At least with the introduction of Morocco, the Muslim states deserve a little more revision.
Just out of curiosity, is it intention that these states do not have Arabic Medicine researched?

- civics: Common Law seems really weak to me. I honestly don't see a reason to switch out of Feudal Law / Bureaucracy ever with basically every civ. (Morocco, Lithuania & Burgundy could probably use it for its culture-UHVs but won't get it in time, and everyone else doesn't need the culture boost that much) maybe it could get a buff in some way? + GP points / + cottage growth / +....I don't know, something to make it interesting lategame.
Mercantilism will need changes when you implement any corporation-changes (I suggest giving a bonus based on your colonies)
And Divine Monarchy seems OP with the current stability mechanism, giving you almost unlimited happiness. DoC caps it at +4, I think, something like that seems prudent to me.

(I hope you read my other posts as well, especially those on starts with (almost) no civics/religion preset, the Pope collapsing and the Prussian situation and bringing in random events)

Common law makes sense in the context of other civics, no?

Speaking of Prussia, isn't production boosted by workshops built on moorland?

The Ottomans are hilariously broken.
You start with:
-3 turns of Anarchy (once again almost no civics selected)
- no possibility to produce your UU until at least 1410 (since you have no Sulphur anywhere in your core)
- are behind in terms of technology compared to the other civs
- your UP is way too weak (I got 2 Janissaries by 1420)
- you can't finish your friggin UHVs because your stability is permanently -20 to -30 and since your UHV1&2 have pretty strict timelimits you cant afford to take 1 city, let it come out of rebellion, starve it down, build Manor, Courthouse (dont have stone -> forget about Castles) and then go to the next one.

Again, Muslim states need a revision. One gets only few Jannisaries indeed. Could one, maybe, give the Turks the possibility to draft Jannisaries from cities with foreign religion and under certain preconditions?

Well, you're asking a guy who was on a modding hiatus for 2-3 years to instantly make this mod as good as DOC.

If I may express my opinion - DoC is great - but there really is no need to try to make this mod like DoC. One can lend ideas from there, but if all mods are the same, it will be boring.


Playing as Norway, I had a curious experience about which I would like to ask. All units ending the turn on the north-western-most field, in Iceland, disappeared from there and appeared somewhere else - seemingly randomly - on the map.

Also, some wonders demand a certain religion in a city, while others (as the Notre Dame or the San Marco) do not; is that intention?

Finally, should Lithuania really be pagan? Mindaugas was baptised (as one can see on the leaderhead's cross).... Maybe they should spawn earlier?

 

[Swarbs]

I can see both sides concerning whether civics should be selected or not. However, it was a pain indeed to keep stability ok when trying to achieve Danish UHV 1. One needs to expand too quickly to survive without rebellions. One could say, of course, that this is intended.

Manor Houses before Huskarls is key for Denmark imo. A Manor House in every city and the stability problems are pretty much gone.

Tho' I do agree that the first civic and religion switch should be revolt free, so the player is free to choose their civics at the start.

Morocco's stability might be a problem indeed, for one can expand only much slower than it seems right.

Not all that slow imo - it took the Almoravids and Almohads a good two centuries to meet the first UHV so the stability and timing is about right imo. Again, the key is to get the Manor Houses in early and go slow.

Concerning Aragon, I think that twelve sea ports are fine. Where I agree with Chep though is that much is dependent on the starting situation - and the starting situation on the Iberian peninsula is highly unstable. I would even call it problematic - one half of the time, either Cordoba or Spain is collapsed by the time Aragon and Portugal spawn.

I agree here - that's why I think we need an 1140AD scenario start, to keep balance in Iberia and other places as well. Too many AI civs collapse under the weight of early barbs, which makes some starting positions all screwed.

1140AD makes sure everything is balanced for Portugal and Aragon, and will also help other late civs by helping to ensure there aren't massive dominant civs around when they spawn. It's also 180 turns in, so about a third of the way through which makes a nice split in the timeline.

Again, Muslim states need a revision. One gets only few Jannisaries indeed. Could one, maybe, give the Turks the possibility to draft Jannisaries from cities with foreign religion and under certain preconditions?

Agree here - I think the Turks should still generate Jannisaries the usual way, but should also receive one bonus Jannisary for every foreign religion in a city they capture. So if they take a city with Catholicism and Orthodoxy in it they get two bonus Jannisaries. That will let them build up a big army quickly and mirrors how the first Jannisaries were formed from foreign prisoners of war.

If I may express my opinion - DoC is great - but there really is no need to try to make this mod like DoC. One can lend ideas from there, but if all mods are the same, it will be boring.

I don't think he's saying Europe should be like DoC, but rather it should ultimately be as polished as DoC.

Personally I prefer the mechanics and focus of Europe ahead of DoC, but I think it's fair to say that DoC has reached a higher level of development with many of its concepts and mechanics.

 

[Baron03]

Civics could use a little bit of changing. I prefer how RFCA handles it where new ones aren't necessarily better, and a different combination helps a certain playing style. Some quick changes that I suggest:

Despotism: -30% maintenance cost from distance to palace, or -30% trade route yield. Gradually becomes less stable with more cities.
Divine Monarchy: +50% great general emergence (there are so few great generals, and they're not even civ specific). And cap the happiness bonus like Chep recommended.
Feudal Law: replace the 20% military production with "units produced with food."
Rename Bureacracy to Nobility with complete new effects at medium upkeep: +20% wealth and production in capital city. Specialists +1 gold and culture. +15% great birth rate in all cities? Requires Aristocracy tech instead of civil service.
Merchant Capitalism: +100% unit maintenance cost (can this not apply to mercs)?
Common law: take out "+100% culture" and replace with something... +100% great person birth rate?
Trade economy: +10% wealth in all cities or +50% trade route yield in all cities.
Guilds: keep previous and add +25% city maintenance. Increases likelihood of a company spreading to your cities (since they will be revamped anyway). Or bonuses that companies provide are doubled or increased by 50%?
Mercantilism: add some wealth bonus for harbors? and +1 gold per colony built. City maintenance +25% to "maintain" colonies financially.
State religion: +1 gold per priest.
Remove organized religion and replace with "Clergy". Requires Monasticism tech. Effects become: +50% great person birth rate. Monasteries produce +1 happiness or +1 happiness in city for state religion? And if possible, great people are more likely to become great saints.

Nobility sounds better for a mod that has a great deal of medieval history and it will actually be used without the city stability limit. "Organized religion" sounds odd to me, but "Clergy" isn't too much of an improvement. The new stability system is fairly difficult to manage. Playing as the ottomans is impossible.

 

[merijn_v1]

I agree here - that's why I think we need an 1140AD scenario start, to keep balance in Iberia and other places as well. Too many AI civs collapse under the weight of early barbs, which makes some starting positions all screwed.

1140AD makes sure everything is balanced for Portugal and Aragon, and will also help other late civs by helping to ensure there aren't massive dominant civs around when they spawn. It's also 180 turns in, so about a third of the way through which makes a nice split in the timeline.

There is a 1200 AD scenario in the pipeline. In fact, I already have about 80% coded on my computer. But it won't be uploaded before the release of 1.3, which is unfortunately postponed by those annoying CTDs.

 

[Swarbs]

There is a 1200 AD scenario in the pipeline. In fact, I already have about 80% coded on my computer. But it won't be uploaded before the release of 1.3, which is unfortunately postponed by those annoying CTDs.

Will Portugal and Aragon be playable starts in that scenario? Imo they are the ones which most need a balanced starting situation to have a chance of survival, but they both spawn before 1200 AD.

 

[merijn_v1]

Will Portugal and Aragon be playable starts in that scenario? Imo they are the ones which most need a balanced starting situation to have a chance of survival, but they both spawn before 1200 AD.

Ofcourse they do. In fact, all civs except Burgundy and Cordoba are playable from the start. (except the ones that spawn later ofcourse)

 

[Shadow Warlord]

Ofcourse they do. In fact, all civs except Burgundy and Cordoba are playable from the start. (except the ones that spawn later ofcourse)

Can you give us an idea/teaser of how the map will look for this scenario? If Burgundy and Cordoba aren't playable i'm assuming that means they're dead and absorbed into other empires (Morroco in Cordoba's case, France & Germany in Burgundy's).

 

[Xfactor]

Burgundy = Germany absorbed HRE 1200s was the strongest country in the west except probably Marsilles i think it would be indy so its free for Aragon/Genoa or smtn like that
France would have infulence over the holy land so it would be overkill to give em burgundy also,but anways all of this is just a wild guess

 

[Swarbs]

Burgundy = Germany absorbed HRE 1200s was the strongest country in the west except probably Marsilles i think it would be indy so its free for Aragon/Genoa or smtn like that
France would have infulence over the holy land so it would be overkill to give em burgundy also,but anways all of this is just a wild guess

Burgundy would probably be split between France and Germany. Dijon was French under the Capetian Dukes, but Lyon and Marseille were HRE under the Kingdom of Arles. Tho' one or more of those cities could be indie for gameplay reasons as they were vassals / members rather than being fully integrated parts.

France wouldn't have any influence over the Holy Land by then imo - Jerusalem was back under Ayyubbid control. Maybe Tyros (County of Tripoli) and Antioch could be independent to represent the rump Crusader states, but they shouldn't really be French imo.

 

[Swarbs]

P.S. Rough teaser would be: