RFCE++ Beta

[civ_king]

If a union date is coming up for your civ and you know are likely going to be the lesser partner, you could just switch to merchant republic and void the union. I don't like that idea. They're not all necessarily inheritances, are they? I think Republics should still be able to form unions. Maybe they should just be excluded from the ability to become the greater partner.

Also, a question: If a union is a partial one, is it a one time event where benefits are administered and that's that? Or does it result in a special diplomatic status? Like a temporary unbreakable alliance? Vassals are shown in the diplomatic advisor screen and when in diplomacy with the actual vassal, it tells you that the civ is a vassal of another civ. Will partial Personal Unions be shown this way?

Another possible union is the Habsburg Inheritance of 1519. Spain + Austria, really the dominant partnership is up for grabs in that situation. I can't really say whether that situation should result in a complete or partial union, though. Also, an annexation would fudge the potential unions for Austria with Bohemia and Hungary in the case that Spain won the annexation. Unless union chances for annexed civs can be transferred to the winners of previous unions. Imagine the possibility to recreate the entire Habsburg empire of the 1500s through diplomacy. That's exciting.

Also, in the event of a union between colonial powers, (Iberian Union), does the annexing partner receive the colonies as well? You know, since they are projects it isn't entirely clear.

Also, what happens if the human is playing a civ that becomes the lesser partner in a complete union? Is it game over? Does he have an option to switch to the annexing power? Maybe he could have a choice to either switch to the annexing power, end the game, or lose all but one of his cities and get a small army to attempt to fight back the occupiers and retake the nation under a new dynasty? That probably shouldn't happen when an AI is annexed. When cases such as the Spanish Succession result in war, could other cases of unpopular unions result in spawning of barbs in the territory of the annexed? To simulate revolts or the rise of a pretender to the throne?

Also, now that Aragon is featured beer: ) Spain shouldn't be called Spain until the union with aragon. The civ should be entirely renamed The Castilians. DCNs would be Kingdom of Castille and Leon, then Kingdom of Spain after the union.

I really, really want this

 

[Morholt]

I originally decided against Spain-Austria for two reasons: 1) Gameplay, this would totally wreck Europe's balance of power, and 2) Historicity, Spain and Austria were (After Charles V/I) ruled by different branches of Habsburgs that didn't like each other very much.

I suppose it might make it in as a low probability deal, though. What if it had a base probability of 10%?

Colonies.. well it's possible to make annexed civs' colonies count for UHV's, but actually transferring them to the other civ is tricky to code if you want them returned when the union breaks.

 

[3Miro]

Colonies.. well it's possible to make annexed civs' colonies count for UHV's, but actually transferring them to the other civ is tricky to code if you want them returned when the union breaks.

When we were first working on the colonies, some people wanted to see mechanics that would allow for colonies to be traded between civilization. Unfortunately, this is very difficult to code. IMO: transferring colonies from one player to another would be way too much trouble.

On the other hand counting the colonies for the UHV should be easy.

 

[Sian]

would it be viable to make it so all colonies had a proxy wonder in the owners capital?

 

[Michael Vick]

I originally decided against Spain-Austria for two reasons: 1) Gameplay, this would totally wreck Europe's balance of power, and 2) Historicity, Spain and Austria were (After Charles V/I) ruled by different branches of Habsburgs that didn't like each other very much.

I suppose it might make it in as a low probability deal, though. What if it had a base probability of 10%?

Colonies.. well it's possible to make annexed civs' colonies count for UHV's, but actually transferring them to the other civ is tricky to code if you want them returned when the union breaks.

France is a lot more powerful than Austria in our games but they get a union with Spain. France and Spain were never even ruled by the same King, Austria-Spain is technically more of a union.

The 10% chance means it happens 10% of the time with the AI? Or as a player even if you meet the requirements, you will only get it 10% of the time? I actually think it would be better if a full union for these civs only happened under human control, an AI with as much land as the historic Habsburg Empire will go on to kill as many civs as possible until it collapses itself, ruining the game in Western Europe.

For the AI, I would much rather see some kind of alliance between them happen 95% of the time. Same for French and Spanish Union, should result in some kind of temporary unbreakable alliance 95% of the time. (For the AI)

What are the conditions for the union to be undone? Is it an option given to the player? How often does it happen with the AI?

I was interested in the colonies changing hands because of the resources, will transferred colonies provide resources?

Lastly, if one civ comes under another in a union, but the previously named civ has other unions scheduled in the future, what happens to those unions? Can they be absorbed by the leading partner of the union? For example, if Spain takes over Austria in the Habsburg inheritance, could they then get Bohemia and Hungary?

Wow, imagine going to war with a civ like that. Playing as the Ottomans against a Habsburg Spain and Central Europe, that would be an epic battle.

 

[Morholt]

Beta 2 is uploaded and in the first post!

Michael Vick:
France and Spain union is meant to be very short lived and represent the War of the Spanish Succession.

10% is the base chance. It can be modified by +/- 20% depending on relations (and gets a big bonus for vassalship, and a big penalty for different religion). The probability for Player-AI is then this percentage, the probability for AI-AI is this percentage squared. So best case, 30% for player, 9% for AI.

I'm not convinced allowing colonies to be transferred is a good idea.

No, you do not get the unions of the taken over civ. Perhaps in a later version I can allow some unions to be transitive this way.

 

[alpav]

I was getting problems with Germany and Lombardy. I didn't play as any other civ.

 

[civ_king]

Beta 2 is uploaded and in the first post!

Michael Vick:
France and Spain union is meant to be very short lived and represent the War of the Spanish Succession.

10% is the base chance. It can be modified by +/- 20% depending on relations (and gets a big bonus for vassalship, and a big penalty for different religion). The probability for Player-AI is then this percentage, the probability for AI-AI is this percentage squared. So best case, 30% for player, 9% for AI.

I'm not convinced allowing colonies to be transferred is a good idea.

No, you do not get the unions of the taken over civ. Perhaps in a later version I can allow some unions to be transitive this way.

change log please?

 

[Michael Vick]

Beta 2 is uploaded and in the first post!

Michael Vick:
France and Spain union is meant to be very short lived and represent the War of the Spanish Succession.

10% is the base chance. It can be modified by +/- 20% depending on relations (and gets a big bonus for vassalship, and a big penalty for different religion). The probability for Player-AI is then this percentage, the probability for AI-AI is this percentage squared. So best case, 30% for player, 9% for AI.

No, you do not get the unions of the taken over civ. Perhaps in a later version I can allow some unions to be transitive this way.

That sounds about right, 10% for Spain and Austria, I agree with this 100%.

 

[Tigranes]

Tigranes, you are correct about the Bohemian UHV, cool game by the way. When did you conquer Germany and was it difficult?

I'll upload Beta 2 later today.

Good to see you back! God Jul

Germany collapsed thanks to the joined pressure by Bohemia (me) and Burgundy. Imperial hosts and Bohemian UP really help. I take back all my skepticism about adding Bohemia and Lombardy -- you really have a good feel of European History and can withstand pressure from players

I second the request for the change log and also report some strange error with the Gamefront while attempting to download Beta 2:

Error 349 (net::ERR_RESPONSE_HEADERS_MULTIPLE_CONTENT_DISPOSITION): Multiple Content-Disposition headers received. This is disallowed to protect against HTTP response splitting attacks

 

[urban]

Just played Bohemia, but in beta 1 (didn't know there was a new download; fun!)

I got through 1 and 2. Not sure about 3,due to the bug, but doubt it.

This has been talked about I'm sure, but what is the rationale of the third UHV? Bohemia never was that large. An alternate suggestion: make Prague the highest culture in HRE. In line with Czech self-image, and there aren't too many culture-based UHVs. Maybe get Judaism there early?

I think it would be fun, because it would be a challenge, because in my game anyway, Bohemia was always on the trailing edge of technology, so one would need great engineers around.

Another thing: the sulfur is inaccessible until machine tools, thereby negating the strength of the UU, unless you take Augsburg. I think this sulfur should be minable.

As usual, thanks, and great job!

 

[Morholt]

I second the request for the change log and also report some strange error with the Gamefront while attempting to download Beta 2:

Posted change log, the big thing is that the Levant is changed a lot. Damascus is now in a more historical place! Don't get the gamefront error, perhaps a temporary thing?

This has been talked about I'm sure, but what is the rationale of the third UHV? Bohemia never was that large. An alternate suggestion: make Prague the highest culture in HRE. In line with Czech self-image, and there aren't too many culture-based UHVs. Maybe get Judaism there early?

I think it would be fun, because it would be a challenge, because in my game anyway, Bohemia was always on the trailing edge of technology, so one would need great engineers around.

Another thing: the sulfur is inaccessible until machine tools, thereby negating the strength of the UU, unless you take Augsburg. I think this sulfur should be minable.

The rationale of the UHV is basically what if Bohemia won the initial phase of the 30 years' war? It could just as easily have been score or power, but population seemed more unique.

Culture is not a bad idea, I'll have to test it to see how much is doable.

You should be able to get the sulfur earlier by building a fort on the tile.

 

[urban]

Ah, right. The fort. That makes sense. That's what you get for not playing in a few months!

Maybe the orlloj can give some culture? Not sure if that would tip the scales enough for Prague, but have you ever seen the tourists in Old Town Square?

I'll give it a try this week.

 

[civ_king]

Ah, right. The fort. That makes sense. That's what you get for not playing in a few months!

Maybe the orlloj can give some culture? Not sure if that would tip the scales enough for Prague, but have you ever seen the tourists in Old Town Square?

I'll give it a try this week.

Old Town Square? Every time I've looked for it all I've seen is a carpet of people

 

[urban]

Exactly. Thousands of people a day looking at the clocktower (orloj) = culture.

 

[Barratt_87]

Is the "cant vote for your self in HRE" bug fixed?

 

[Morholt]

That's working as designed. You need to get other people to vote for you, and voting for others makes them more likely to return the favour.

 

[Crossphazer]

I've noticed, especially since beta 2 for some reason, that Germany has a tendency to expand to the borders WW1 era Germany and beyond (some of Austria, Bohemia, Poland, etc), and then collapses in the 15th or 16th century due to severe overexpansion.

Germany's overexpansion essentially kills the entirety of the middle of Europe, as well as being incredibly unhistorical (Prussia is the one that united Germany, after all).

I've also noticed that Prussia collapses a lot as well (they are collapsed in 4 games out of 5, at best).

Since additional civs are out of the question, how about severely reducing the spawn flip area of Germany and adding many strongly defended indy cities all over Germany (especially the more northern parts like Saxony)? That way Prussia has very good chances of conquering/flipping by union Brandenburg, and the Germany civ will slowly unite the south, becoming some sort of Bavaria-Baden-Wurttemberg-Switzerland hybrid.

 

[Morholt]

That is historical actually. "Germany" in this mod represents the Kingdom of Germany, the dark blue bit here (In vanilla RFCE Germany represents the HRE as a whole). The Kingdom of Germany was originally a somewhat centralised institution that over time became more and more fragmented, the total fragmentation of Germany coming with the peace of Westphalia 1648. So Germany expanding to cover all German lands and then fragmenting is really the best you can ask for.

Prussia collapsing is somewhat worse, but even if they do they should come back stronger in 1618. EDIT: Whoops, the respawn for Prussia was actually set to 1700. I'll change it for next version.

 

[AdrienIer]

Some thoughts on France : on RFCE the best way to begin your game (if you're going for the UHV) is to conquer Milan and Florence ASAP, since they are indies and have a better production than most of your cities. But in RFCE++ you can't do that because of the Lombard league. The UHV becomes even harder than in normal RFCE (perhaps even undoable, I didn't manage to do it but I'm not a very skilled player).
So first, has someone ever won the French UHV ? And then, should it be changed ? Into what ?