RFCEurope 1.1

[ezzlar]

Havent you just broken the Byzantines? Or was that just France?

 

[Wessel V1]

I just came across this thread, might be worth putting on the first page?

 

[AbsintheRed]

Havent you just broken the Byzantines? Or was that just France?

What do you mean?
Free wins are removed, no matter which civ do you play with

 

[ezzlar]

Ok. Since lots of barbs spawn nowdays and during the first 20 turns of Byzantium you only have your starting units a lucky pop by the first Sassanids will probably raze the city. No?

 

[AbsintheRed]

Ok. Since lots of barbs spawn nowdays and during the first 20 turns of Byzantium you only have your starting units a lucky pop by the first Sassanids will probably raze the city. No?

Yeah, naturally the byzantine starting situation has to be revised as well
But for that I'm planning a couple other changes too, especially moving the plague away from the arabian spawn

 

[AbsintheRed]

I just came across this thread, might be worth putting on the first page?

Thanks, I'm aware of that thread, didn't try it though
It couldn't really hurt to have a link to it somewhere on the RFCE subforum too, good idea
Did you try it? Works without any issues?

 

[Wessel V1]

I don't have to because my laptop, albeit it being a rather weak machine, has Windows 7 64-bit installed, as has my computer. You could ask Merijn though, he has XP 32-bit.

 

[civ_king]

I just came across this thread, might be worth putting on the first page?

Would like to point out that the 3.19 BtS EXE has the large address aware flag set by Firaxis

 

[AbsintheRed]

Alright, a couple lines about MAFs in general:

32-bit OS memory handling is such that after the savegame size exceeds certain size, the game starts to randomly crash from Memory Allocation Failure (MAF). There is no way to prevent this from happening sooner or later if you are playing on too big maps with many civs.
There is nothing to do with this sad fact, as it is inherent in 32-bit architecture itself and the way Civ 4 engine works with it, and there is no fix for that available for a modder.

So if you have a 32-bit OS, you will get Memory Allocation errors sooner or later.
To get them later rather than sooner (depending on your specs perhaps even later than the time it takes you to win/have enough fun), you may apply the MAF fix.
Also, stronger computers obviously postpone the MAFs even on a 32-bit OS. But neither a stronger computer, nor the MAF fix solves this completely, as stated previously.
On the other hand, you are absolutely safe from Memory Allocation Failures in Civ IV if you have a 64-bit OS.

What does it mean for RFCE:

The current map of RFCE isn't that dangerous for MAFs, the savegame files are not that big.
It will probably happen on weaker computers, but on many computers it won't even happen once, maybe a couple times in the very late game.
Thus I advise you to try the MAF fix if you are experiencing them in RFCE. There is a good chance it will solve your problems.

 

[merijn_v1]

In RFCEurope, I have never got any MAF. (Or I don't remember anymore) As my computer can be considered as "old", I can say it's not really neccessary to make this changes.
I don't know if this will still be the same story in RFCE2.0. I did have MAFs in some other mods. (Realism Invictus, Rise of Mankind, RFCCW)

 

[civ_king]

In RFCEurope, I have never got any MAF. (Or I don't remember anymore) As my computer can be considered as "old", I can say it's not really neccessary to make this changes.
I don't know if this will still be the same story in RFCE2.0. I did have MAFs in some other mods. (Realism Invictus, Rise of Mankind, RFCCW)

It tends to happen pretty late in the game

 

[Wessel V1]

My previous laptop faced MAFs frequently in the 17th century so if it helps anyone, it's still a gain I'd say. But civ_king, are you saying that in 3.19 this 'fix' is already applied so this doesn't work anymore?

 

[AbsintheRed]

My previous laptop faced MAFs frequently in the 17th century so if it helps anyone, it's still a gain I'd say. But civ_king, are you saying that in 3.19 this 'fix' is already applied so this doesn't work anymore?

No, 3.19 doesn't solve MAFs
The fix is a separate thing
Check my last post

 

[Wessel V1]

Okay, good to know.

 

[civ_king]

My previous laptop faced MAFs frequently in the 17th century so if it helps anyone, it's still a gain I'd say. But civ_king, are you saying that in 3.19 this 'fix' is already applied so this doesn't work anymore?

The LAA flag is set in the 3.19 EXE enabling up to 3GB on 32-bit systems and 4GB on 64-bit systems. You can however still modify the boot.ini for 32-bit systems to allow 3GB RAM usage.

 

[AbsintheRed]

I made some significant changes in the past week, some of them are deeply connected so I didn't commit them in smaller parts, will rather do it in a big update.
The biggest changes are the removal of 3Miro's region system, the finally revised Egypt/Levant/Anatolia area, the inclusion of a strait system thus the Dardanelles and Oresund strait, and the new Ottoman starting situation. Also finding and fixing 2 major bugs with the help of edead - one also seriously hurting the AI (along with the previous region system), and one which caused most of the early CTDs in the mod.

Will upload everything to the SVN tonight, when the planned province updates are also finished.
This is the changelog since 1.1, most of them were changed in the last ~10 days:

Spoiler :

General changes:
- Spawn of Arabia moved back one turn, to 632AD
- Interface message when a resource appears/disappears within your cultural borders
- Interface message when wonders are destroyed/captured by you, by a known civilization, or from a known civilization
- Interface message for the preset religion spreads (same way as it is when religions spread "normally")
- Judaism got an additional random spread mechanics, with bigger chance for spreading in central european cities
- Dead civs won't show up on the scoreboard anymore
- Autoraze changes: if the city has 1 population, 60% chance to autoraze if culture is less than 10, 30% chance to autoraze if culture is at least 10 but less than 50
- All naval units can cross cultural borders during peace, except work boats
- Diagonal water tiles are passable for all naval units. The most important straits are represented this way on the map
- Removed 3Miro's AI regions, seriously hurt AI civs on the border of 2 regions, also every AI civ's units with somewhat automated functions (barbs, workers, missionaries, GPs, etc.)
- Ottomans spawn in Gallipoli (Dardanelles), so they have a connection between Europe/Anatolia. No second spawn stack needed, and Adrianople/Edirne doesn't flip to them
- Edirne becomes the Ottoman Capital if they conquer it before Constantinople, Constantinople becomes the Ottoman Capital whenever they conquer it (without stability hit)

Map and province changes:
- Huge changes in the SE region: Egypt, Levant and Anatolia totally revised
- Damascus is finally in it's correct place, obviously the Arabian spawn moved here
- The new map resulted in moving Jerusalem (1SW) and Constantinople (1S) too, along with almost all the preplaced Byzantine cities
- Changes in the preplaced Byzantine cities: Ancyra instead of Nicaea (too close to Constantinople), Edessa instead of Aleppo (too close to Antioch)
- New indy city Ras instead of Belgrad, spawns in 768 with the Serbian Principality (Rascia). Rhodes spawns as indy in 600 AD (Nomos Rhodion Nautikos)
- Egyptian city sites revised as well - realistic place for Alexandria, Cairo and Damietta, with better terrain and resource placement
- Balancing early food production near Constantinople, Alexandria and the Cordoban starting area - to be possible to make Cordoba the largest city for their 1st UHV
- Now that culture is passable on the sea, Orkney is back on the map
- Added the Dardanelles strait to the map, so the Ottoman spawn doesn't have to be separated into an Anatolian and European part
- Added the Oresund strait to the map - connecting Denmark and Norway will seriously strengthen the Norse AI
- New indy cities: Seville (spawns in 500AD as Hispalis, flips to Cordoba),
- Added salt lakes (mesosaline and hypersaline) to the mod: Dead Sea near Jerusalem, Lake Tuz in Anatolia - same yield as coast
- Red Sea (the visible parts in RFCE) and Sea of Marmara are now coastal ocean tiles, instead of being fresh water lakes due to their small size

XML and text updates:
- Cities built outside the corresponding CityNameMap will get a civ specific name (no Persian names for Bulgaria for example)
- Portuguese translations by Spirictum
- Spelling mistake fix: Austria is called Ostmark instead of Östmark when vassal of Germany
- RFCE specific help texts for the handicap levels
- Translations for the Scottish and Magyar/Hungarian unit sounds

Art and sound updates:
- Added theme files for the mod
- New HUD button for the corporation/company screen
- Austria has german unit sounds instead of the HRE ones
- Lithuania has polish unit sounds instead of russian (until we manage to get proper lithuanian sounds)
- New Scottish voice set by Annomander
- Irish Brigade got Celtic sounds, Highlander and Highlander Infantry got Scottish sounds

Balance:
- Moved spawn area of Germanic Barbarians west, now some of them will actually attack France instead of wandering in Germany
- Minor tweaks to the French and Cordoban barb spawns, further separating it for the human and the AI player
- Slightly lowered the base duration of the occupation resistance
- Removed free wins against barbarians - this means some of the early barbs might have to be rebalanced
- Increased the maximum XP you can get from barbarians (not from a single battle, the total XP) - was 10, now there is no cap
- Lowered preset diplomacy modifiers, overkill to have 10+ relations there
- Now that free wins are removed, early barbs for Byzantium are somewhat reduced for the human player
- Plague of Constantinople will hit Byzantium earlier than before (late 6th century), thus it won't hit on the very same turns as the Arab spawn
- The French got some additional starting units (1 archer and 2 axemen)
- Burdigala and Tolosa (Bordeaux and Toulouse) start with less archers
- All naval units got one extra move (3: Work Boat, 5: Galley, Cog, War Galley, Gun Galley, Galleas, 7: Holk, Carrack, Caravel, 9: Galleon, 11: Frigate, Privateer, Corsair)
- Unit balance changes: Knights of St. John (+15% city attack, free march and medic_1 promotion), Paladin (no first strike, -15% vs heavy cavalry, +15% vs light cavalry),
Berber Cavalry and Ghazi (no city attack penalty), Boyar (no first strike, but has defensive bonuses), Musketeer (-1 first strike, +10% city attack, -5% city defence),
Templar Kinght (+1 first strike), Janissary (-2 first strike, +50% vs heavy cavalry, free march and cover promotion), Black Guard (can twarth spies, +25% city attack),
Corsair (+20% withdrawal chance), Highlander (free guerilla_1 promotion), Welsh Longbow (+25% vs archer), Huscarl (+5% withdrawal chance, free combat_1 promotion),
Condottiero (free tactics promotion), Varangian Guard (+25% city attack, -25% city defence, free amphibious promotion), Almogavar (free march and amphibious promotion),
Tagmata (free drill_1 promotion), Don Cossack (+10% withdrawal chance, +20% vs gunpowder, -10% vs heavy cavalry, -25% vs light cavalry, free combat_1 promotion),
Doppelsoldner (+25% city attack, +1 combat strength), Irish Brigade (+10% withdrawal chance), Stradiot (changed to be a light cavalry unit type, -1 combat strength),
Naffatun (+1 combat strength, -25% city defence), Nubian Longbow (-1 first strike chance, free drill_1 and drill_2 promotion), Zanji (+1 move, ignores terrain cost)
- Building balance changes: Moscow Kremlin (+1 happiness), Spanish Citadel (+10% trade route yield, -2XP for siege units), Cordoban Noira (+1 health, -1 production),
Ottoman Hammam (available with Arabic Knowledge), Norse Trading Post (+1 merchant slot), Venetian Arsenal (available with Optics, -25% naval unit build rate),
Austrian Opera House (+1 great artist point), Burgundian Winery (-3 culture, +10% culture, +5% commerce, +1 merchant slot), German Rathaus (-10% city maintenace cost),
Lithuanian Voivodija (-1 XP for land units), French Chateau (obsolete with Public Works), Jewish Quarter (-10% commerce, -50 production cost),
La Mezquita (-100 production cost, +1 free specialist, -1 gold from state religion buildings), Magellan's Voyage (-1 trade routes from coastal cities, +2 xp for naval units),
St. Basil's Cathedral (available with Chemistry, -10% GP modifier, -1 free specialist, +1 spy slot, +2 espionage points from state religion buildings), St. Sophia (-1 priest slot),
Cluny Abbey (+1 free priest), Palais des Papes (+2 happiness), San Marco Basilica (+1 trade route, -30% trade route yield), St. Peter's Basilica (no unhappiness in the city)

Bugfixes:
- A couple fixes how the mercenary screen is called from the main screen mercenary manager button
- Fixed sound issues for Venice and Genoa
- Fixed bug where Judaism didn't spread to a second city in Poland
- Fixed stability calculating issue when some of the stability giving wonders were razed
- Fixed viewing issues with the GlobeView layers - now everything shows up without any problems
- Revised the hidden attitude modcomp, now every part of it should work (show up) correctly
- Fixed issue where AI built large number of settlers but didn't use them, also improvements in the settler move code
- Fixed critical bug, which caused most early autorun CTDs! - thanks to edead
- Fixed issue where all islands had the same area ID (which caused serious problems for the AI when to use naval/land movement)

 

[AbsintheRed]

There are probably some serious balance problems currently, alone the remove of free wins against barbs would have been enough for that
Also balance will further change with the new company system

We have quite a number of changes already, but I don't really want to release 1.2 unbalanced.
So I think the best approach is to release an 1.15, test version after the companies are in
After that's more or less balanced with the help of your feedback, I will release an official 1.2 version (hopefully after a couple weeks)
Maybe a couple new civs and new wonders will already make it to that release

 

[Opera]

That sound interesting, especially the straits, Oresund in particular. Playing as the Norse was always so annoying because of the logistics game.

Is it in a playable state? If so, anything you'd like feedback on in priority?

 

[AbsintheRed]

That sound interesting, especially the straits, Oresund in particular. Playing as the Norse was always so annoying because of the logistics game.

Is it in a playable state? If so, anything you'd like feedback on in priority?

Most of those new changes are only in my WIP version, but almost everything is ready, it's already in a totally playable state
Will be uploaded to the SVN tonight, when I finished updating the provinces
Feedback would be best on the Ottomans and the Norse, both from the player's and from the AI's perspective
Actually it would be great on general AI performance, now that the regions and some other connected mistakes are gone
I'm also very curious about the map changes, how should it be fine-tuned (resources, city-placement, etc)
But of course feedback is very welcomed on everything else too.

 

[Opera]

Yes, I was counting on getting the SVN update once it's done

Alright I'll try and do that. Never played the Ottomans but I already played the Norse quite a few times so I'll be able to tell you what differences I feel.