RFCEurope 1.4

[El Bogus]

Related- can you please get rid of random city seccessions? It's incredibly unrealistic.

How is it random and/or unrealistic?
The reason why your cities secede is bound to your stability level.
The location of the secession is bound to the stability of the respective province.
The scripted secession events (Scots, Serbs, Muslims in the Levant, ...) even give you the chance to prevent it.

 

[Swarbs]

Stability seems to be broken; playing as Arabia I had my stab hit collapsing for no apparent reason within ~20 turns (I'd taken Antioch, Edessa and Alexandria).

That's a known problem due to Arabia conquering lots of cities with foreign religions in them which causes instability. You need to grow slower and build manor houses and courthouses to keep stability up as you expand.

Related- can you please get rid of random city seccessions? It's incredibly unrealistic.

Not sure how you think this is 'incredibly unrealistic'? The history of Arab civilization (and indeed civilization as a whole) is one of city and country secession. If central government was weak, regions would look to secede and establish independent states.

The whole point of stability in the mod is that you have to keep central authority strong or face revolts and secession.

 

[AbsintheRed]

@El Bogus, Swarbs
Thanks guys for the great answers!
Feels good to see you agree with my line of thought
Especially since this was the 3rd time LAF1994 asked the very same question (even though I answered it before), and in the same style..

 

[LAF1994]

@El Bogus, Swarbs
Thanks guys for the great answers!
Feels good to see you agree with my line of thought
Especially since this was the 3rd time LAF1994 asked the very same question (even though I answered it before), and in the same style..

My specific problem is that it can happen regardless of how many units you have in the city. It'd make more sense for a revolt to spawn a rebel army that would try to take the city (so you'd need to keep large occupation armies in potentially-unruly cities).

Also, some of the DCNs don't seem to be working correctly in the new version- e.g. Castile, Portugal and Aragon all have the name 'Iberian Union' on spawn.

 

[gilgames]

This lil' case shows that Arabia's problem isn't solved even though some of us can handle it. The applied solution is far from satisfying. ( i still belive that a dozen of svn vetsion before they were fine and good and only recent changes made them so unstable and only that need to be fixed instead of a coplete boost pack for their early game.)

Iberian union is fixed with latest svn version afaik.

 

[Swarbs]

My specific problem is that it can happen regardless of how many units you have in the city. It'd make more sense for a revolt to spawn a rebel army that would try to take the city (so you'd need to keep large occupation armies in potentially-unruly cities).

Also, some of the DCNs don't seem to be working correctly in the new version- e.g. Castile, Portugal and Aragon all have the name 'Iberian Union' on spawn.

Don't make the mistake of equating stability with unruly cities or rebel armies. Stability is about internal control of your own forces and populace.

History has shown us that leaving an army in foreign soil without proper oversight is as dangerous as leaving unguarded settlements. Just look at Saladin - sent by the Zengids to assist the Fatamids in retaking Egypt, he has a large enough army to revolt and found a dynasty independent from both. That dynasty then falls when the Mamluk generals are alienated by future Ayyubid rulers.

Soldiers in the medieval period were often more loyal to their general than their king / emperor. So if the leader wasn't able to maintain the loyalty and control of their generals and unity of their people (reflected by stability) then they would risk those generals carving out their own portions of their empire.

 

[Swarbs]

That's pretty smart. Getting france a corporation so you can gift them additional resources.

I didn't think of that yet. Thanks for the tip.

Stability (and tech) will become a pain though, maintaining all those cities in unstable areas for the resources. Any tips for those problems?
(I noticed in your reports that you tend to pick strategies with suboptional (bonus)stability. So stability mustn't be much of an issue with your playstyle.)

Sorry, only just noticed this one.

Never found stability to be much of a problem for Scotland tbh - you only need a few UHV cities so you are already small enough to expand without major problems. Obviously don't go near Bretagne until the points UHV is won, just settle two cities in Scotland, one on the Isles then capture one in Wales and five in Ireland.

I traded Farriers early on so got militarism stability from conquering Ireland and Wales. Then manor houses, courthouses and castles across Scotland, Ireland and Wales for another +24 stability makes overseas expansion easy.

Tech wasn't that much of a problem either - you don't have access to horses so don't worry about that line of the tech tree. Sheltrom and Macemen can handle most problems, just make sure you have lots of them!

 

[Swarbs]

Any news on an update to the English UP?

I quite liked the idea of moving the current English UP to Sweden and giving England the bonus on hamlets and up. Another option I thought of could be for England to get an enhanced and bonus from serfdom and manorialism respectively, representing the enhanced manorial system in England.

 

[LAF1994]

That's a known problem due to Arabia conquering lots of cities with foreign religions in them which causes instability. You need to grow slower and build manor houses and courthouses to keep stability up as you expand.

It'd be more logical for conquering wrong-religion cities to raise stability rather than lower it; historically, most Islamic dynasties tended to be most stable when expanding, and declined after they stopped.

So, Arabia, Cordoba and the Ottomans would have very high stability during their early conquests, but then their stability would start to fall as their conquests come to a halt.

 

[Force44]

It'd be more logical for conquering wrong-religion cities to raise stability rather than lower it; historically, most Islamic dynasties tended to be most stable when expanding, and declined after they stopped.

So, Arabia, Cordoba and the Ottomans would have very high stability during their early conquests, but then their stability would start to fall as their conquests come to a halt.

I like this idea in addition to the current arabian UP (perhaps even as a bonus for islamic civs).

Every new (so a city can yield this bonus only once) city with a different religion you conquer raises your stability by +1 for 10 turns (cululative).
(so conquering a second city after conquering the first gives +2 for an additional 10 turns.)

 

[QManNL]

Seriously? No. Really. Try #20?? Honestly I lost count. I've never been successful at the first UHV as France

 

[Swarbs]

Seriously? No. Really. Try #20?? Honestly I lost count. I've never been successful at the first UHV as France

That's just bad luck imo - axeman should have only a 15% chance to beat a fortified archer in a city.

Tho' I think your city placement is no good for the 1st French UHV - you need to settle your first three cities within range of the iron in Ile de France, Burgundy and Lorraine to have a chance of success. Reims and Tours are pretty worthless production wise - you need to be cranking out axes and swords to have the numbers to capture all the cities.

I have found consistent success with France by founding:

- Paris (I like to put it 1NE of the start to get two cows and also build a church / monastery to cover Picardy with culture before Calais spawns)
- Langres on the wine hill in Champagne (gets you +1 from wine without herbal medicine)
- Aix La Chapelle 1N of the wine in Lorraine (gets iron and wheat and also outside German flip zone)

Each of those cities can get 8 pretty easily, 12 for Paris, and if you send three axemen to capture Caen you will have another good production site. That makes it easy to get enough military to defend your cities and conquer others.

You need a bit of luck with the first few rolls, but once you are established with chateaus and barracks in all cities you should find it easy enough to conquer all the French cities, then regroup your military and grab Barcelona, Milan, Florence and Ausburg and settle Saxony once you have the stability.

 

[Force44]

That looks like excellent advice Swarbs gave to achieve the first UHV for France.

I also find it helpfull to do as little combat in my cities as possible.

Early on (dense) forests with a fortified axeman tend to give victory (and xp) on the units I need it most (axemen).

 

[Force44]

(feedback on Venice)

Just completed a game as Venice.

(details under spoiler]

Spoiler :

I did preplay with the arabs and the Byzantines.

(preplay Arabia)
I used the arab exploit Absinthered recommended (when it was still possible) to get judaism (and islam and orthodoxy and catholiscism) early on.

Summoning hordes of spearmen (by razing preplaced towns) hurt Byzantium surprisingly little.
(they pillage some improvements but are below the treshold to capture a city so they make the defenders a little tougher, giving them better chances against the tough barbs that autospawn)

The barbs that flipped to Bulgaria actually appeared to harm them because they suicided them along with their koniks against Byzantium and the barbs early on (once again making Byz stronger)

(Byz Preplay)

Razed most of the byz cities on flip back and built Marco Polo (the wonder helps a lot)

Razed independent cities in areas stable for Venice.

Arabia became very weak very soon without the Byz cities to buffer them from the barb attacks.

(this is definitively the easiest way to get 2 out of 3 UHV's for Venice very soon. It has the added benefit that you will get declared war upon by Cordoba and Arabia, two arabic civs comfortably far away that when at peace tend to snatch away your desired wonders. Oddly enough the bonus to military production is almost negligable because of the crusaders you receive supply enough and better defenders than you can build yourself.)


Venice

The first two UHV's vor Venice were fun and easier than they appeared.
It pretty much tells you where to build most of your cities (with your initial settlers) and the conquest of even a strong Byz is surprisingly easy. Around the time you built your stack of cata's they are under attack of some rather nasty barbs. Giving you ample time to bombard and SOD whatever force they have in their capitol. (You definitely need no preplay for this part.)

At about 2/3 of the game I experience a big drop in stability. Making the strategy with lots of religions and as few cities as possible unfeasable for me. (this drop also happened when I was almost entirely monorelious)

The final part of the UHV is the tricky one.
I discarded my first attempt after I found out that the civs with the atlantic acces (AA) actually need to build the workboats for the atlantic acces resources to be tradeable (if they are tradeable at all).
Hungary was a pest, I had a lot of wars with them.

In my second attempt I captured a collapsed Lisboa to secure the AA myself. When I ferried my armies back to My main cities to fight off the anticipated Hungarian attack I was backstabbed by Spain.

In my third attempt I kept a big army in a fleet halfway between my core and Lisboa. Oddly enough this time neither Hungary nor Spain declared war and it was smooth sailing towards victory.

France was very strong in this game. It gave me a lot of worries because they stayed on par with tech and had about twice my production. Bibliotheca Corvenna was a godsent to put some techspace between us. On the other hand they provided a nice target to steal techs from.

A little luck may be involved as in one game they (the French) went straight for the colonies and in another they opted to go the military tradition route.

Turkey sometimes is a nuisance and sometimes just gets pwned by the barbs.
(offtopic spoiler)

Spoiler :

(fun fact: nowadays it is unclear if the internetslang pwned is derived from the word owned (to posses eg. all your base are belong to us) or pawned (originiating in chess, checkmating with a pawn))

I got the message that Burgundy respawned but I never got the chance to meet them (again).
It might be the case that they got conquered the very same turn they respawned (I could not find them in the worldeditor) but there might also be an offchance that they respawned without any cities. If anybody else encounters this scenario it might be something to look into.

A couple of times I lost my preference of espionage (everyting got set back to 0 so my espionage was split equally amongst all rivals in stead of the one I wanted to unleash my spies upon)

The lifespan for the Venetian UU is very short. They get outclassed very soon by the regular unit in the next tier.
It would help if their speed got increased with the invention of the next tier.
And maybe a small reduction in costs.

Is it correct that the mongol invasions are mellowed a bit over the course of time (compared to previous versions of RFCE)? Byzantium was hardly under any pressure this entire game (even without Byz or independents soaking up some of the barbarian onslaught.)

overall verdict (by me):
The Venetian game is fun and not too hard. I recommended it (especially) for (relatively) new players.

 

[gilgames]

@France

Orleans/Tours also a viable option but then they build 2 settlers and nothing else.
With recent updates you conquer cities against clock (caen, nantes, bordeaux - tolouse and so on)

@Venice

She does not need any prepla, to be good. For the AA its also an option to found Amsterdam. You finish before they spawn. No need to ship units and a good site. My only big problem is the last uhv wa, to far in time and thus boring.

 

[QManNL]

That's just bad luck imo - axeman should have only a 15% chance to beat a fortified archer in a city.

Tho' I think your city placement is no good for the 1st French UHV - you need to settle your first three cities within range of the iron in Ile de France, Burgundy and Lorraine to have a chance of success. Reims and Tours are pretty worthless production wise - you need to be cranking out axes and swords to have the numbers to capture all the cities.

I have found consistent success with France by founding:

- Paris (I like to put it 1NE of the start to get two cows and also build a church / monastery to cover Picardy with culture before Calais spawns)
- Langres on the wine hill in Champagne (gets you +1 from wine without herbal medicine)
- Aix La Chapelle 1N of the wine in Lorraine (gets iron and wheat and also outside German flip zone)

Each of those cities can get 8 pretty easily, 12 for Paris, and if you send three axemen to capture Caen you will have another good production site. That makes it easy to get enough military to defend your cities and conquer others.

You need a bit of luck with the first few rolls, but once you are established with chateaus and barracks in all cities you should find it easy enough to conquer all the French cities, then regroup your military and grab Barcelona, Milan, Florence and Ausburg and settle Saxony once you have the stability.

Well, okay, I'll give it a try I'd like to be able to succeed no matter where I decide to settle but I guess I'm not allowed to be creative. I don't remember the year but at some point I had Aquitaine, Provence (well, just Narbonne), Lorraine, Saxony, and Lombardy? Already. But it was starting to get into the mid-late 700s and I kept getting unlucky rolls in Barcelona and Lyon. Even when I do have most of the goal ready I'm always missing either Swabia (damn walls in Augsburg, plus it's easy to forget about since it starts off the map), Tuscany (especially if Florentia spawns since it's harder to take hill-cities), or Picardy (if I wait for Calais/Dunkirk to spawn) simply because there isn't enough time or I'm overwhelmed by all the ground I have to cover. I get spread too thin.

My reasoning for Tours, anyway, is horses, and it's the founding city that barbarians go after the least, and then dye if I decide not to conquer Bordeaux early because if any city has bad production it's that one... I don't think Tours is actually that bad productionwise either. Rheims automatically works a forest tile whenever I settle it since it comes with the extra population point (thanks for giving us a reason to settle on villages), so it seems to have double the production of Paris and Tours at first, but it lags behind the other two since it doesn't have a production resource.

So I'll try what you and Gilgames have said, settle Langres and Aachen, then starting from Caen take cities counterclockwise, unless I should go for Lyon first?

 

[QManNL]

So everything was going fine right? Year 836 and I have everything except Picardy. I captured Dunkirk but it was automatically razed and I have no settler to replace it, and then Vikings took out my two archers in Caen, and razed it... So I'm screwed. I've tried this UHV so many times it's not even fun anymore.

Sorry for the double post by the way.

 

[Swarbs]

Well, okay, I'll give it a try I'd like to be able to succeed no matter where I decide to settle but I guess I'm not allowed to be creative. I don't remember the year but at some point I had Aquitaine, Provence (well, just Narbonne), Lorraine, Saxony, and Lombardy? Already. But it was starting to get into the mid-late 700s and I kept getting unlucky rolls in Barcelona and Lyon. Even when I do have most of the goal ready I'm always missing either Swabia (damn walls in Augsburg, plus it's easy to forget about since it starts off the map), Tuscany (especially if Florentia spawns since it's harder to take hill-cities), or Picardy (if I wait for Calais/Dunkirk to spawn) simply because there isn't enough time or I'm overwhelmed by all the ground I have to cover. I get spread too thin.

My reasoning for Tours, anyway, is horses, and it's the founding city that barbarians go after the least, and then dye if I decide not to conquer Bordeaux early because if any city has bad production it's that one... I don't think Tours is actually that bad productionwise either. Rheims automatically works a forest tile whenever I settle it since it comes with the extra population point (thanks for giving us a reason to settle on villages), so it seems to have double the production of Paris and Tours at first, but it lags behind the other two since it doesn't have a production resource.

So I'll try what you and Gilgames have said, settle Langres and Aachen, then starting from Caen take cities counterclockwise, unless I should go for Lyon first?

You can be quite creative and settle Tours, but ultimately the UHV is a challenging one and so the more creative you are (i.e. the more you diverge from optimal play) the harder it will be. Tours is probably a viable option given you have the horses and some plains for production, but Reims is pretty bad for the first UHV. Given you need to settle Lorraine anyway, it's difficult not to go for Aachen / Aix straight away, as it is a risk worth taking imo.

Personally I take Caen right from the off with starting axes, then steal the worker from indie Lyon to help improve your core cities. Once you have chateaus and barracks, build and send axes down to Lyon then Marseille then Toulouse / Narbonne, Bourdeax and finally Barcelona. Whilst that attack is in progress, research chain mail (after manorialism and calendar for chateaus and pastures) and send a new force of swords to Milan, then Ausbourg then Florence. Around 740AD Aix builds a settler for Saxony, and Caen builds a settler for Orleans.

Lyon is important to take as a first city after , as it's pretty much the only other option inside France with enough production to build any units in time for the UHV. Don't bother with a barracks there, just go chateau then straight for archers to garrison the settlements you take.

The UHV is so tight you have to take risks - don't build second archers in your cities too early and you have to risk your starting axes a bit on hills and forests against barbs. But with a strategy of Langres and Aix followed by an early capture of Caen and Lyon, if anything goes wrong it will go wrong quickly so you don't invest too much time into the game before starting again.

Once you have the conquest in progress, you should also be able to get machinery and so can build crossbows (or hire merc ones) to defend against the Vikings.

For Picardy, personally I found France 1 tile NE and put my first missionary there. That gets +3 culture per turn, and I trade with the pope /Byz for religious art or monasticism. Build a monastery or a church in Paris around 740AD and you will get the second border pop before Calais / Dunkirk spawns and thus cover Picardy with culture for a free province. Otherwise build a settler in Paris before 800AD as, imo, it is easier to settle the city than build up a force to kill two crossbows. Particularly as Paris will almost certainly be happy capped by then, so building a settler allows you to invest that extra food rather than losing in by restricting growth / becoming unhappy.

 

[Swarbs]

(feedback on Venice)

Just completed a game as Venice.

(details under spoiler]

Spoiler :

I did preplay with the arabs and the Byzantines.

Spoiler :

As gilgames says, there's no need for preplay exploits for Venice. The first UHV pretty much falls into your lap with the starting settlers, the slow speed with which Byz settles Arberia and Epirus and the fact that Ragusa seems to rebel to Venice most games. And for the 2nd UHV you can just build up around 1,000 gold, wait for a crusade, take it over with financial power and send it to conquer Constantinople for you.

The third UHV is a bit of a funny one, but as gilgames says Amsterdam is probably the easiest way to get it. Although personally I think that the galleass should get the ability to sail on ocean and the cargo capacity promotion, and there should be AA resources on the Azores and Madeira. That would mean the ultimate evolution of the Venetian thalassocracy was to become a genuine colonial empire, using galleasses to settle Atlantic islands rather than squatting off another civ's AA for long enough to grab one colony.

 

[Force44]

Venice

The first two UHV's vor Venice were fun and easier than they appeared.
It pretty much tells you where to build most of your cities (with your initial settlers) and the conquest of even a strong Byz is surprisingly easy. Around the time you built your stack of cata's they are under attack of some rather nasty barbs. Giving you ample time to bombard and SOD whatever force they have in their capitol. (You definitely need no preplay for this part.)

At about 2/3 of the game I experience a big drop in stability. Making the strategy with lots of religions and as few cities as possible unfeasable for me. (this drop also happened when I was almost entirely monorelious)

@ Swarbs and Gilgames

I am glad we are in agreement here.

The question with preplay is not so much whether you need it (eg. if the possibility of achieving UHV depends on random factors (eg. French first UHV (eg. combat vs barbarians and placement of cities (eg. on hills or not)))) or whether you should do it.

Personally I experience more fun with preplay.

It is like a whole new UHV-condition (you get to achieve four in stead of three before the game ends on you. Which is closer to the optimal number of UHV-conditions).

Also a certain civ might be powerfull without preplay. That power pales in comparison to the power you (can) get for that same civ with preplay. This leaves room for a lot of creativity. -> The problem QManNL the Original poster with the question for help/feedback on French first UHV (sry forgot your name, I will edit it in in a sec) referred to (considering the first French UHV)

The two strongest arguments against preplay are (imo):

It holds your skilllevel back.
(the increased power comes with the decreased ability to fail hence allowing less opportunities to learn/improve your play)
Restrictions are a prerequisite for creativity.
(the increase of power that comes along with preplay takes away some of the necessity to find unique solutions for civilizations faced with problems they experience only without preplay)

I didn't think of setteling Amsterdam (early). I wanted to keep my civ small (you receive less of a penalty for having lots of cities under merchant republic, but it is still (about half of the original) a penalty.

Also there is only so much room in stability to play with and I don't know if the added city of Amsterdam is the best investment stabilitywise (compared to (eg.) running bureaucracy)