RFCE 1.3 Playtest Feedback

[AbsintheRed]

Does Morocco's UP do anything? The desert tiles are completely useless for them and the oasis bonus is still the same.

I'm really glad this mod is still being worked on!

Not yet
Not totally sure what bonus should they have

I apologize for being so late to inform you of my experiences with this updated RFCE! I've become addicted to playing it again and it's definitely a lot of fun. So far I played Denmark, Germany, Byzantium, and Aragon. I try to play to the UHVs but I rarely make it to them because my play style is... unrefined at best... But anyway, I have a crashing save with Aragon; revision 1125... Just play two or three turns in. I'll try starting a new game with them. Also, is Cordoba supposed to convert to Christianity so often? I feel like they're too impressionable... Sure they treated the "heathens" more kindly than most other Islamic states but they still made living difficult for non-Muslims afaik. So, well, I digress. Thanks for keeping it going! I'm eager to hear more.

Just got back with another round of gameplay. I took Sweden out for a spin and it was fun until... game freeze, yay! It freezes after turn 235 I believe, a couple turns into the save I have attached.

And yeah, that thing about Cordoba makes sense. I figured it was the AI using conversion to an advantage since they would benefit more from a majority religion. I'd suggest adding a UP that erases the non-state religion upon capture but that doesn't seem right for them, or a UP that immediately adds Islam upon capture but Arabia already has that one. Oh well, I'm sure we'll figure out a solution someday.

Also, (just like in RFCE ++) Orthodoxy loves to spread in Denmark. In a prior game with Sweden (one I did before the current one but missed the first UHV), they had Orthodoxy in three cities in Denmark province and two cities in Skåne, and later it spread to Stockholm (I sent my Catholic missionaries off with my other two settlers since I was already getting culture out of the capital). I don't believe that's historical?? I doubt I'm the only one who's noticed that though.

I also tried playing Norway (for the upteenth time). I've always had the hardest time racking up Viking points, in fact I can't even think of a time when I ever got that UHV completed (without cheating). I send my two Berserkers, Swordsman, and Archer to Ireland, pillage all the improvements there, and then capture the city. Usually all of my units survive, or at least the two Berserkers. Then I send the Berserkers to England, and I figured since there's a preplaced city in Mercia and East Anglia it would be easier to get those points, but no, not really. By the time I drop off those starting Berserkers, I've gotten two or four from Norway on their way. I've pillaged all of those improvements and captured all the cities in England but still don't have much more than 30-40 points. There's rarely an opportunity to gain points from sinking ships, and by the time I have the English provinces under my control, I don't have time to try invading France and get the last dozen points I need. Finally, if I'm not mistaken, I was trying to build Vinland and I was a couple turns away, then it suddenly told me I couldn't complete it. I think the year was 1000 exactly and I had North America access, so I don't know what the purpose of that was. So... those are just some of my gripes about Norway.

The city conquest CTD is still not fixed yet, unfortunately. Both of your crashes are connected to that.
50 Viking points are definitely doable, like Swarbs already posted in his detailed answer.
Vinland issue seems strange, I don't see any issues in the code, and noone reported it before. Are you sure your access wasn't pillaged or blockaded?
Both type of religious spreads should be improved with the latest version
Btw, I don't think it's an issue if every now and then Cordoba converts to christianity or the Scandinavians to Orthodoxy. But it shouldn't happen in the majority of the games.

I think it's because Cordoba doesn't do a good job of sending missionaries to spread Islam to their new cities. This results in Catholicism getting autospread to their new cities and making them more willing to convert.

I strongly suggest: give 1-2 more missionary to Cordoba. It takes 200 years to build another missionary.

If they still convert out of Islam too often, after the latest changes, then they can have a couple more missionaries, sure

 

[gilgames]

I played a game with prussia. besides the first 100 years are crucial, and they DO NOT get any unit after a few turn, when spawned with war! and hey 2 Tknights against 3 civ+barbs, pretty bad odds. i might have a save-game for that. btw after several reload, i managed to avoid most of the trouble, and later took wilna, pskov, reval, stolp. after uhv 1 even posan. i was behind in tech all the time with 3-6. but my military was fine and growing. it was ~1580 when got a ctd....but uhv 2 seems a nightmare....
tip: tech for paper, without mercantilism, no money, with mercantil.no teutons!!!!


ps: svn 1125

 

[AbsintheRed]

I played a game with prussia. besides the first 100 years are crucial, and they DO NOT get any unit after a few turn, when spawned with war! and hey 2 Tknights against 3 civ+barbs, pretty bad odds. i might have a save-game for that. btw after several reload, i managed to avoid most of the trouble, and later took wilna, pskov, reval, stolp. after uhv 1 even posan. i was behind in tech all the time with 3-6. but my military was fine and growing. it was ~1580 when got a ctd....but uhv 2 seems a nightmare....
tip: tech for paper, without mercantilism, no money, with mercantil.no teutons!!!!


ps: svn 1125

Revision 1126 changes quite a few things for the Prussians
I managed to play a quite nice testgame with them the other day, although I only played until the 1st UHV

 

[Shadow Warlord]

Revision 1126 changes quite a few things for the Prussians
I managed to play a quite nice testgame with them the other day, although I only played until the 1st UHV

In RFCE++ i always played with them until around 1610, and Germany would never agree to the Brandenburg-Prussian union, so i always stopped by that point. (If only that system could be salvaged...)

Anyway, i'm sure some of the UHVs from RFCE++ brought over with the civs will need to be revised (15 great people with Prussia seems quite high...)

 

[QManNL]

Dunno about Vinland, but to get the Viking points you don't want to conquer anything at first. Land and pillage all the improvements in England, Ireland and France, then rotate your forces around pillaging as they rebuild improvements. Also pillage around Lubeck, Uppsala, Calais and pretty much anywhere you can land a couple of beserkers. Only conquer cities if they are large and when you get closer to the 1066 deadline - once you've captured a city you can't get any more points from it.

Park your navy in the Channel and you should be able to kill a few barbarian ships whilst you wait for your land units to pillage. I generally kill about four or five ships, pillage 30+ improvements and capture a couple of large cities to get the 50 points.

Ah this is really good advice thank you. Definitely makes sense; I shouldn't spring for conquering so quickly when my goal is just to pillage before I expand my empire. As for the Vinland thing, I'll try again of course, but like I said, I still had North America access in the city that was building it, so I don't believe it was a blockade. I'll pay extra attention next time and screenshot or save if I have to.

That's a shame about the city conquest CTD, though I don't really understand what that is. Here's to hoping you get it fixed soon. Also I agree with you with the unusual conversions. As long as they're not happening all the time, a little bit of historical deviancy is completely natural to RFC and in fact a foundation of the mod itself in my opinion. I've just noticed that it has happened the majority of the time, although they have been known for switching back and forth between religions... like Bulgaria being Orthodox for a few turns, and then deciding to pick up Islam for a bit, and then who knows--I could probably see them becoming Protestant just for the hell of it because that's what it's all about! But yeah, it is what it is, and it's fine that way if not a minor pique for some.

Probably going to start another game soon and I'll keep you guys updated with my conquests.

 

[AbsintheRed]

That's a shame about the city conquest CTD, though I don't really understand what that is. Here's to hoping you get it fixed soon.

You can still continue your game though, if you can find out which city conquest was the cause of the crash
After the conquest is complete the game tries to access some memory which it's not supposed to, and I'm not sure why
It's rather rare (compared to the number of city conquests), which makes it especially strange
Also, in my older computer none of the crashes happen. Never. I can easily continue my game which was crashed on the other compueter, or the games you guys uploaded here.
It's really bugging me that I couldn't find the exact cause of it yet

Also I agree with you with the unusual conversions. As long as they're not happening all the time, a little bit of historical deviancy is completely natural to RFC and in fact a foundation of the mod itself in my opinion. I've just noticed that it has happened the majority of the time, although they have been known for switching back and forth between religions... like Bulgaria being Orthodox for a few turns, and then deciding to pick up Islam for a bit, and then who knows--I could probably see them becoming Protestant just for the hell of it because that's what it's all about! But yeah, it is what it is, and it's fine that way if not a minor pique for some.

Will see how often will those happen with the latest version

Probably going to start another game soon and I'll keep you guys updated with my conquests.

Have fun!

 

[gilgames]

View attachment AutoSave_AD-1272 Turn 224.CivBeyondSwordSave

2. ctd in 1 game (((

i also need the city name pls

 

[merijn_v1]

View attachment 393811

2. ctd in 1 game (((

i also need the city name pls

I discovered the problem. The game has troubles with logging citynames with a special character. (like é, á etc.) You can continue the game if you disable the "hide python exceptions". (Click to see how to) It will cause a lot of python popups, because that error will show up almost every turn. (Don't report them, we know the problem now) But at least, you can continue the game.

It's generally useful to disable hiding python exceptions. That way, instead of a CTD, you just get a popup. And this popup really helps us to find the bug. So I would ask everyone to disable hide python exceptions.

EDIT: The attached file will disable the pyprint which causes the bug. So you can play without those python exceptions or CTD.


@ Absinthe
We have 2 ways to fix it. The first is to make the pyprint able to handle the special characters. (I have no idea how, but maybe you do) The other way is to remove all of those characters from the CNM.
(The third way is not to log the events, but that isn't a good option IMO)

This bug would also occur when a text is logged. But that doesn't happen often. Once I got this bug when the game tried to log the name István. When I changed the name to István in the text file, I didn't get the error anymore. So I think the pyprint can't handle characters like á, but it can handle (and show correctly in the logging file) characters like á (which translates into á)

 

[AbsintheRed]

I discovered the problem. The game has troubles with logging citynames with a special character. (like é, á etc.) You can continue the game if you disable the "hide python exceptions". (Click to see how to) It will cause a lot of python popups, because that error will show up almost every turn. (Don't report them, we know the problem now) But at least, you can continue the game.

It's generally useful to disable hiding python exceptions. That way, instead of a CTD, you just get a popup. And this popup really helps us to find the bug. So I would ask everyone to disable hide python exceptions.

EDIT: The attached file will disable the pyprint which causes the bug. So you can play without those python exceptions or CTD.


@ Absinthe
We have 2 ways to fix it. The first is to make the pyprint able to handle the special characters. (I have no idea how, but maybe you do) The other way is to remove all of those characters from the CNM.
(The third way is not to log the events, but that isn't a good option IMO)

This bug would also occur when a text is logged. But that doesn't happen often. Once I got this bug when the game tried to log the name István. When I changed the name to István in the text file, I didn't get the error anymore. So I think the pyprint can't handle characters like á, but it can handle (and show correctly in the logging file) characters like á (which translates into á)

Umm, I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with it
First of all Python expections doesn't work this way:

It's generally useful to disable hiding python exceptions. That way, instead of a CTD, you just get a popup.

If you have a critical python expection, your game will CTD, no matter what your settings are. But that's rare with python expections
If you get a not critical one (which happens 99% of the time with python issues), the game will continue (with some possible bugs/strange things because the given .py file didn't load perfectly), but no CTD will happen. Again, don't depend on your settings.

Also, the non-english characters only cause a pyton expection if there was a change in the python files while the game was running. I tested this countless time. And as far as I'm concerned, those are totally harmless anyway.
So they won't even come up, only if you are modding and testing a game and adjusting some python files on the run

Finally, the code I added to be able to handle the non-english characters was added 2-3 years ago. No changes were in those since.
And these CTDs only started to happen since I added the new civs (and lots of other things, as the base commit for 1.3)

So thanks for the tip, really. I appreciate every help I can get in this. But I'm afraid it's way more complicated than that
Or it's a painfully trivial bug, just really hard to find with the methods I'm familiar with..

 

[AbsintheRed]

Oh, and I have also seen the bug with civs that has absolutely no non-english characters in their city name map

 

[QManNL]

Are you sure there isn't a time limit on building Vinland? I actually got the first UHV done thanks to Swarbs' help, but I can't even complete the second one since it won't let me build Vinland.

 

[merijn_v1]

Are you sure there isn't a time limit on building Vinland? I actually got the first UHV done thanks to Swarbs' help, but I can't even complete the second one since it won't let me build Vinland.

Spotted the problem. In the XML, it is defined in cannot be build after turn 150.

			<iCannotBeBuildAfterTurn>150</iCannotBeBuildAfterTurn>

@ Absinthe
My bad. My observations did hint me to that direction. Some testing did made me think I was right.

 

[Swarbs]

Spotted the problem. In the XML, it is defined in cannot be build after turn 150.

			<iCannotBeBuildAfterTurn>150</iCannotBeBuildAfterTurn>

I thought I remembered something like that in the game - to prevent Vinland being built as one of the colonies for England, France, Spain etc IIRC, and to prevent them exploiting it to get timber.

I believe it was set as turn 150 was when the Viking UHV originally checked. Maybe it should now be set to not being buildable after Norway UHV2?

 

[QManNL]

I thought I remembered something like that in the game - to prevent Vinland being built as one of the colonies for England, France, Spain etc IIRC, and to prevent them exploiting it to get timber.

I believe it was set as turn 150 was when the Viking UHV originally checked. Maybe it should now be set to not being buildable after Norway UHV2?

Yay, so I was actually helpful for once? *hifives everyone*

 

[merijn_v1]

All feedback is helpful.

 

[Shadow Warlord]

I thought I remembered something like that in the game - to prevent Vinland being built as one of the colonies for England, France, Spain etc IIRC, and to prevent them exploiting it to get timber.

I believe it was set as turn 150 was when the Viking UHV originally checked. Maybe it should now be set to not being buildable after Norway UHV2?

There's probably a few like that, since the civs were ported over as they were from ++. They'll need to be eased in to account for map changes and such.

Another question: will Courland be added as a province?
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courland

It's named in the Prussian UHV but was never added (not even in ++). Adding it would help Novgorod a little because holding Livonia now means controlling just Riga and Pskov/another city, not worrying about Prussia settling an extra city there 2-3 turns before the uhv deadline.

Prussia's first UHV should also probably be changed to either include both Suvalkija and Lithuania or add the former and remove the latter (option 2 is more historical).

 

[youtien]

Tried Prussia. If Teutonic Knight is not founded by GP, you won't get a headquarter, and it'll never be able to found it by GP anymore. So I switched to tribalism / OR, let Riga raised a GP in 8 turns, send it to my capital and founded TK properly.

 

[gilgames]

I finished a game with Norway. Got my GA in 1020. that part was very easy, but the 3. uhv was goddamn hard. I was behind france ~50 points till 1317, when finally i could buy gunpowder for bluetoth, he was pleased or friendly with me, costed more than 1500 gold. So I made it with a few point ahead, it was a hard challenge for me, im rather a wonder+warmonger. Good news: no problem appeared

PS: youtien got the point, sometimes you can prevent it, but luck based...

 

[merijn_v1]

As said before, the whole corporation system will be replaced with the company system like SoI and DoC. So it won't be a problem in the near future anymore.

 

[AbsintheRed]

There's probably a few like that, since the civs were ported over as they were from ++. They'll need to be eased in to account for map changes and such.

Actually Vinland was already in RFCE.
But you are right, many things were ported over initially. But most has been changed/updated in the background since (for example settler and war maps, province setup, CNMs, DCNs, spawn and respawn maps)
Many UHVs still need some updates though, only a couple were perfectly adjusted for RFCE from the ported ones.
Then again, some of the original RFCE UHVs need an update, like we discussed it in the other thread
But let's leave these for 1.4, IMO the new civs are in a pretty good shape overally.

Another question: will Courland be added as a province?
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courland

Yes, I have a couple more provinces on my planned list, Courland is one of them
I will probably also split province Norway into Trondelag and Bergenhus, and split province Novgorod too (or at least add a new province around Pskov)

Tried Prussia. If Teutonic Knight is not founded by GP, you won't get a headquarter, and it'll never be able to found it by GP anymore. So I switched to tribalism / OR, let Riga raised a GP in 8 turns, send it to my capital and founded TK properly.

The new company system will be introduced soon

I finished a game with Norway. Got my GA in 1020. that part was very easy, but the 3. uhv was goddamn hard. I was behind france ~50 points till 1317, when finally i could buy gunpowder for bluetoth, he was pleased or friendly with me, costed more than 1500 gold. So I made it with a few point ahead, it was a hard challenge for me, im rather a wonder+warmonger. Good news: no problem appeared

Sounds good to me
The 3rd UHV should be hard
Was the 50 Vikings point UHV too easy? I was thinking about increasing it a bit