RFCEurope 1.1

[iOnlySignIn]

Obviously this shouldn't happen in the majority of the games though

I just loaded 5 Ottoman starts. The above screens are from those.

2 games have supercity Cordoba. The one you see above, and another one where Spain is doing slightly better, but Cordoba has all the above Wonders plus La Mezquita and Leaning Tower. In both of these two France is doing just OK and Burgundy is (close to) dead.

2 games have mega Burgundy. The other mega Burgundy looks very similar to the one above, except it doesn't control any Iberian cities.

1 game has Cordoba completely dead (Spain controls all its modern realm) and France and Burgundy almost equally matched.

Another trend I noticed is the Umayyad Mosque being captured by Barbarians several times every game, and the Arabs dying and respawning (and being super weak after respawn).

In all games except 1 (where almost everything east of Constantinople was razed) Byzantium is very strong.

Todo:

0. Remove the Free Specialist from La Mezquita.

1. Let Arabs flip Alexandria.

2. Make Stephansdom require Catholicism?

3. Increase the costs of Alhambra. It's too cost effective.

4. Possibly reduce Cordoba's tech rate. They have 1 extra good city now and tech too fast. Give them more starting units instead. Their military strength should decrease over time relative to the Christians, not the other way around.

 

[AbsintheRed]

Will definitely look into the Cordoban wonders, already planned that since the Cordoban starting plot was strengthened
I also noticed that Damascus is being captured by barbs, in way too many cases. We already have one positive side effect of the wonders destroyed/captured messages
Hopefully fixing this will strengthen Arabia considerably

 

[Royal Tenenbaum]

Another thing that would help Arabia is if Libya and Tunis were Byzantine by the time Arabia came around. With Egypt flipping + Justinian's plague, the Arabs would easily get all their historical land.

 

[Spirictum]

Or instead of making Alexandria flip to Arabia, delay the availability of those nubian mercs for Egypt. I'm pretty sure they may be the cause for that, I remember in past versions Arabia having an easy time conquering Alexandria, and these mercs are awesome defenders

 

[Royal Tenenbaum]

Or instead of making Alexandria flip to Arabia, delay the availability of those nubian mercs for Egypt. I'm pretty sure they may be the cause for that, I remember in past versions Arabia having an easy time conquering Alexandria, and these mercs are awesome defenders

It just doesn't make sense to me why Jerusalem should flip but Alexandria shouldn't. Egypt was really a really stable seat of power for Muslim authority, and Jerusalem was the one really just kind of conquered.

 

[ezzlar]

I think a few versions ago the Byz got their production penalty lowered. If AI Byz survives that would make them very powerful?

 

[Rorgloin]

Does anyone else think the heavy forest could use a look other than that of a snowy forest? I think it looks odd in some places.

 

[Rorgloin]

Just started a game as the Ottomans-- the Byzantines were very powerful with a very weak Arabia. The Byzantines held North Africa between Alexandria and Cyrene. They also had defeated Bulgaria and kept all of Anatolia. Spain defeated Cordoba, though. Burgundy is very strong with a weak France. Genoa owns all of northern Italy. Did the holy city for Islam change away from Damascus?

 

[AbsintheRed]

Just started a game as the Ottomans-- the Byzantines were very powerful with a very weak Arabia. The Byzantines held North Africa between Alexandria and Cyrene. They also had defeated Bulgaria and kept all of Anatolia. Spain defeated Cordoba, though. Burgundy is very strong with a weak France. Genoa owns all of northern Italy.

Could you guys posts exactly which version are you playing with?
There is a new version up every few days, usually with small balance changes
Current revision is 1052.

Latest changes:
- Added compatibility for the Latin-1 set for provinces, so we can have all Latin-1 characters in the province names
- Minimal wait between revolutions is increased to 10 turns - both for civic and religion changes
- Culture modifiers per province type: all civs get 1/3 culture in unstable, 2x in solid, and 3x in core provinces
- Gotaland renamed to Götaland, Osterland to Österland
- Less barbs for AI Arabia
- Wonder balance: Torre de Belem (-2 gold for water tiles, -1 free merchant), Alhambra cost increased
- Byzantium got some of the Italian provinces as OK, changes to unstable after the Venetian spawn
- Cyrenaica, Egypt and Arabia changes to unstable after the Arabian spawn, while Syria, Lebanon and Jerusalem changes to OK
- Various minor changes in the tech modifiers for Cordoba, England, Venice, Poland, Burgundy
- Arabian unit production modifier buffed, Burgundian slightly nerfed
- Cordoba and Arabia are less likely to build christian wonders
- Fixed some mistakes with handling the PsychoAI, also reduced the connected bonus which was way too powerful

This is the full changelog since 1.2:

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)
- The Wattasid revolt moved to Fez province, so now Tanja in the Tetouan province (city on the African part of Gibraltar, with AA) is relatively safe
- Added compatibility for the Latin-1 set for provinces, so we can have all Latin-1 characters in the province names
- Minimal wait between revolutions is increased to 10 turns - both for civic and religion changes
- Culture modifiers per province type: all civs get 1/3 culture in unstable, 2x in solid, and 3x in core provinces

Map and province changes:
- Huge changes in the SE region: Egypt, Levant and Anatolia totally revised
- Smaller changes in the northern coast of the Black Sea, and in the south Balkans
- Revised rivers in and around Hungary, small terrain changes in the borders of the Carpathian-basin
- Removed the "lakes" (scattered coastline) from Dalmatia, it was strange with the new strait mechanics. Lake Scutari remains on the coast though
- Damascus is finally moved to a geographically more correct place (3S), 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: Amastris instead of Nicaea (too close to Constantinople), Edessa instead of Aleppo (too close to Antioch)
- The most important remaining Byzantine cities (not preplaced in 500AD) are represented by towns: Nicomedia, Nicaea, Ephesus, Abydos, Ancyra, Attaleia, Aleppo, Trapezus
- 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), Fez (780 AD), Beloozero (800 AD), Tanais (1392 AD, Timurid conquest)
- New indy cities: Graz (spawns in 1110AD, flips to Austria), Kalmar (spawns in 1050AD, flips to Sweden), Vologda is removed for now
- 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
- The eastern part of the Black Sea got a line of coast tiles, the actual coast is only 1-2 tiles away anyway, and this way early ships can pass there too
- New provinces: Banat (representing the southern Banates of medieval Hungary), Holstein (buffer province between Denmark and Germany, also helps in the French first UHV)
- New provinces: Prussia (for the Teutonic Order/Prussia civ), Liguria (better to have a separate province because of the French UHV)
- Lots of small province adjustments: primarly near the new provinces, in the Austrian territories, in Scandinavia, and in the Polish-Lithuanian-Kievan territories
- Province Croatia merged into Slavonia, province adjustment in the area - the Dalmatian coast will be better shaped (culturally between Venice and Hungary or Austria)
- Both Alba Iulia / Gyulafehervar and Lubeck spawns 1 tile north, to follow the province changes

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
- Province Oppland renamed to Jämtland, Charsiakon corrected to Charsianon, Gotaland to Götaland, Osterland to Österland

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, less barbs for AI Arabia
- Lowered barbarian activity in the North African area (now that barbs can attack targets farther away it could be overpowered on the African coastline)
- 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 (+2 trade routes, -30% trade route yield, -1 free merchant), Alhambra (cost increased by 50),
St. Peter's Basilica (no unhappiness in the city), Torre de Belem (-2 gold for water tiles, -1 free merchant)
- Crete and Cyprus provinces are now stable for Venice, Banat, Wallachia, Cyrenaica and Tripolitania are now OK for the Ottomans
- Province Banat is OK for Bulgaria, changes to unstable after the Hungarian spawn
- Dalmatia, Bosnia and Banat provinces are reduced to OK for Hungary after the Ottoman spawn
- Holstein is OK for the Norse, stable for Germany (but not a core, so won't hurt their stability if another civ holds it)
- Liguria is core for Genoa, while Lombardy and Tuscany are also stable, but not core
- Liguria is OK for the Franks, but changes to unstable after Germany spawns
- Byzantium got some of the Italian provinces as OK, changes to unstable after the Venetian spawn
- Cyrenaica, Egypt and Arabia changes to unstable after the Arabian spawn, while Syria, Lebanon and Jerusalem changes to OK
- The province Prussia is unstable for everyone, at least for now
- The German first and third UHV requires Holstein too, the Ottoman first UHV requires Banat, and the Hungarian anti-Ottoman UHV requires Banat and Slavonia
- Holstein and Prussia also count in the Swedish third UHV, Prussia also counts in the Polish first UHV
- Minor changes in the defensive crusades, also updated them with the new provinces
- Changes in the Ottoman core and solid areas (only western Anatolia and Thrace are their core), thus making their early collapse less likely
- Minor nerfs to the Byzantine, French, Burgundian and Venetian production modifiers
- Various minor changes in the tech modifiers for Cordoba, England, Venice, Poland, Burgundy
- Revised all civs' settler and war maps, significant improvements in AI city placement
- Bonus modifier for military units from the Triumphal Arch is reduced to 20% (until we find a better bonus)
- Cordoba and Arabia are less likely to build christian wonders

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)
- Fixed some mistakes with handling the PsychoAI, also reduced the connected bonus which was way too powerful

Did the holy city for Islam change away from Damascus?

No, the Arab starting position was moved
This new city should be Damascus (it is in the correct place geographically), just the city name maps are not up to date

 

[AbsintheRed]

Does anyone else think the heavy forest could use a look other than that of a snowy forest? I think it looks odd in some places.

I'm more than willing to include a second type of dense forest, if someone points me to an appropriate graphics

 

[merijn_v1]

Should I experiment a little with reskinning of some existing forest tiles? It will get an own, distinguishing color. (I haven't done reskinning forest tiles before, so I don't know what the result will be, but I can always try and share the result)

It won't be something completely new, but it will be better (read: more appriate on the map) than the snowy forest.
And IIRC (not sure though, will also have to try this), it's also possible to keep the snowy forest art for some dense forests in the northern areas.

Or someone finds something really nice in the database.

 

[AbsintheRed]

And IIRC (not sure though, will also have to try this), it's also possible to keep the snowy forest art for some dense forests in the northern areas.

Of course it's possible
That's why I said I'm willing to include a second dense forest art (only for the mediterranean areas, where snow on trees look strange)

Should I experiment a little with reskinning of some existing forest tiles?

So yeah, definitely, maybe some quick reskinning will already look good enough

Btw, I experimented with creating a totally new mediterranean forest type before, but that's way more work than I originally expected
Some kind of Cedrus forests, not sure if I will ever finish that though

 

[merijn_v1]

Of course it's possible
That's why I said I'm willing to include a second dense forest art (only for the mediterranean areas, where snow on trees look strange)

Missed that little part of the post. .

So yeah, definitely, maybe some quick reskinning will already look good enough

Btw, I experimented with creating a totally new mediterranean forest type before, but that's way more work than I originally expected
Some kind of Cedrus forests, not sure if I will ever finish that though

I have looked at the art files several times, but I never edited them. But by looking at it, I saw there were many nif files. (which, IIRC, determine the shape of the trees) So I knew if I want to create a new tree (a new structure), I have to edit those, which I can't do (yet).

 

[ezzlar]

How do I know the difference between Solid and Core? Is it the spawn area?

Suggestion for Triumphal Arch: +25% culture and +5 stability points.

 

[AbsintheRed]

Missed that little part of the post. .

Oh, okay
Sry then

I have looked at the art files several times, but I never edited them. But by looking at it, I saw there were many nif files. (which, IIRC, determine the shape of the trees) So I knew if I want to create a new tree (a new structure), I have to edit those, which I can't do (yet).

Yeah, there are 15 nif types for a single forest graphic
NW, NE, SE, SW, NW+NE, NE+SE, SE+SW, SW+NW, NW+SE, NE+SW
NW+NE+SE, NW+NE+SW, NW+SE+SW, NE+SW+SE, NW+NE+SW+SE
It takes much time to build them up from scratch, that's why I'm unsure about the cedruses

Reskinning an already existing forest type should be very easy though
All nifs use the same dds file

 

[AbsintheRed]

How do I know the difference between Solid and Core? Is it the spawn area?

No, it's in the upcoming stability overlay

 

[merijn_v1]

Yeah, there are 15 nif types for a single forest graphic
NW, NE, SE, SW, NW+NE, NE+SE, SE+SW, SW+NW, NW+SE, NE+SW
NW+NE+SE, NW+NE+SW, NW+SE+SW, NE+SW+SE, NW+NE+SW+SE
It takes much time to build them up from scratch, that's why I'm unsure about the cedruses

Reskinning an already existing forest type should be very easy though
All nifs use the same dds file

I looked at the code. It seems it's very easy. It can do it the same way as I did the Coffee resource. As that turned out to be working, I'm confident that this one will also be doable.

I'll start when I'm back home this afternoon.

 

[Spirictum]

Finally I must ask something that was always on my mind but I was never sure. Now I must know if I'm correct or not.

These changing province for byzantium are not clear to me.

I expect that when I build a city in a Solid Area, I'll get a bonus as explained in the Stability Guide. If I build it in an OK area the bonus won't be the same, as stated in the Stability Guide, and maybe I'll even get negative stability for that (because of other factors like number of cities). Making it in an unstable area will get me a penalty on my stability.

Now what happens when I have a city in a Solid province and it turns into an OK or unstable province? My thought on that was: Nothing happens, because my city is already there. If I lose it and reconquer it I'll get a penalty because it's not Solid anymore. So my first question is: Am I correct on this? Does the penalty for changing the stability of a province where you have a city remain 0? Or do you get an instability penalty upon changing?

Once I started a game with Byzantium (I guess it was in 1.0 or even in the first release of 1.1) and trained a settler in Alexandria to get that marvelous Sinai spot. It was a Solid province. I got hit in my stability several points (I don't remember exactly, but making a city in Anatolia didn't change my stability in the same game with even more cities as to when I did the Sinai one). So do these provinces that change stability work properly?

And about that Italian provinces that are changed to OK upon starting and become unstable when Venetia spawns, doesn't it seem a bit useless? Is someone really considering settling or conquering anything on Italy before 800AD? There is a plague in the beginning that only hits you, Arabs on your easternmost territory in 632AD, Bulgarians right outside your capital in 680AD and lots of Solid places that you must settle not just to become stronger but to complete UHV2 a lot nearer to you.

 

[merijn_v1]

The new forest type is a little harder than I expected. I thought that every type of tree had it's own .dds file. But it turns out that they are in a shared .dds file. So if I change the colors of the new tree, the colors of the "old" trees also change. (So there will still be no difference) I will have to change the nif file itself to do that, but I have no idea how something like that is done.

 

[AbsintheRed]

The new forest type is a little harder than I expected. I thought that every type of tree had it's own .dds file. But it turns out that they are in a shared .dds file. So if I change the colors of the new tree, the colors of the "old" trees also change. (So there will still be no difference) I will have to change the nif file itself to do that, but I have no idea how something like that is done.

I already said that they share a dds file

Anyway, I don't see what's your problem
It will be a totally new variety for dense forests
All those 15+1 files will be readded for that purpose
So what do you mean by the old trees also change? Why is it a problem?