AbsintheRed
Deity
After lots of additional (mostly unplanned, at least for 1.5) changes and improvements, I decided that it really is high-time to release the next version.
So without further ado, here is the link to the next full version of our beloved RFCE:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/rfceurope/files/RFCEurope_1.5.zip/download
It's now also linked to the dl button on the main RFCEurope page on sourceforge:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/rfceurope/?source=navbar
It's a huge update, I think I can safely say that this is the biggest so far.
The changelog is almost 500 lines... even after some text reductions and reorganizations.
Surely there are lots of smaller changes and minor balancing stuff included, but even more rather complex and/or important improvements and additions.
Actually it should have been two separate releases, if not even three.
The biggest things are the changes related to the company, crusade and plague systems, the various religion-related updates, the AI improvements, but there are many important changes under civ setup, technical/UI improvements, and general changes as well. Actually almost all aspects of the game was touched to some extent.
EDIT: Hehh, turns out I have to separate the changelog because of the 30.000 char limit.
You can find the full ChangeLog for 1.5 under the spoilers here and in the next post:
Company overhaul:
- A Dynamic Company system is introduced to the mod! Idea from SoI (edead)
- Companies are not founded by civs anymore (or with GPs actually), but are independent entities on their own
- They semi-automatically spread to cities based on their own preferences:
- All of them have a limit for the number of cities they can be active at at a given time
- There is competition between the cities for the companies - every few turns the company may leave some cities if there are better ones for their needs
- If there is a huge drop in the preference value for a company (for example on state religion change or city ownership change) it may leave the city right away
- There might also be competition between companies for a given city (e.g. Templars-Teutons-Hospitallers), if one is present the rest have decreased chance
- If a given company has already spread to some cities of a civ, it will have somewhat decreased chance for further spread in that civ's cities
- Masters/Executives can no longer spread companies, they are effectively removed from the mod
- Currently there are no Headquarters, all cities with the given company spread into them are considered equal - this might change later on
- Companies have resource preferences, and add various yield bonuses if you have access to them (based on their quantity) - as in the vanilla game
- Companies might have special units and/or buildings associated with them, all of which are only buildable while the company is present in the city
- Company costs are independent from your civ: do not cost any money when they spread to your cities, and do not cost any maintenance for being present
- Company HQs redesigned as generic buildings, as an indicator for company spread - they show up in the city while the company is present
- These temporary company buildings can get various bonuses, which are independent from the main (vanilla-style) company bonuses
- Possible bonuses for the company buildings include GP points, military bonuses, small economic bonuses
Company setup:
- All 7 previous RFCE companies were integrated into the new system
- 2 new companies: the Order of the Dragon, the Order of Calatrava
- Hanseatic League can only spread to coastal and riverside cities
- Hospitallers, Templars, Teutons and Calatrava spread Catholicism to the city when they spread there
- The Levant (and especially Jerusalem) has a greatly improved chance for Hospitallers, Templars and Teutons
- Trading/banking companies have a preference (smallish) to their historical founding provinces
- Hospitaller preferred region change after the Crusades, with Malta and Rhodes gaining importance
- Teutons preferred region change after the Crusades, with Transylvania and the lands of Prussia gaining importance
- Teutons are set to have a very high chance to spread to cities of the Teutonic Order (Prussia)
- Maximum number of cities is also modified for Hospitallers and Teutons after the Crusades are over
- Mercantilism only disables company spread for the Hanseatic League, the banking companies do have a lower chance though
- Updated Merchant Republic civic, new trade route bonus instead of the corporation maintenance reduction
- Added various interface messages for companies spreading/leaving, both for your own cities and for foreign cities visible to you
- Removed unnecessary popups connected to company availability
- Corporations in your cities no longer add any stability penalty
- Added Kontor UB for the Hanseatic League: +1 trade route, +25% income from foreign trade routes
- Added Knight of the Dragon UU: 12 strength heavy infantry, +10% against cavalry units, may cause small collateral damage
- Added Calatrava Knight UU: 9 strength heavy infantry, +10% city strength, +25% attack against Swordsman and Maceman unit classes
- Significantly reduced cost for the original Knightly Orders' UUs and the Infirmary UB, nerfed some bonuses
- Hospitaller, Templar and Teutonic Knights also give you access to the Relic resource type, which adds extra happiness to your civ
- Companies have increased penalties if they are already present in a couple cities of the given civ (so we try to spread them out)
- Contribution from different building types for company spread is distinct for each company, even the total maximum of the bonus varies
- Buildings/infrastructure and resources available to a city are weighted with quantity, neither will become the dominating factor so easily
- Company spread value from number of desired resources is more significant for the first resource of a given type
- Hanseatic League starts earlier, in 1157 (earliest remaining documentary mention), with much increased city number limit in 1356 (the first general Diet of the Hansa)
- Fixed issue where company resources added half as much bonuses ingame as they were set up and as they were shown in the Civilopedia before starting an actual game
- Templars and Teutons slowly disappear after Protestantism is founded (if they are still active)
- Order of Calatrava is only active if Cordoba or Morocco is alive
- Order of the Dragon is only active if the Ottomans are alive
- All unique Military Order units have a national limit of 5
Plague overhaul:
- Improvements near a plagued city have a chance whether to reduce their level, or to reset the progress towards the next level: Towns 100%, Villages 75%, Hamlets 50%, Cottages 25%
- Plague chance to kill population in the city (calculated every turn) is heavily adjusted with the current population size
- Even though city health is also important, there is a much bigger chance for losing citizens with a bigger population
- So while losing some population is still common in all cities, very unlikely to shrink in each turn unless it was a huge city originally
- Thus cities will no longer decrease to size 1-2 in most cases, not even for small civs with less health resources
- On the other hand, when plague spreads to a new city, one population will be killed by default
- The first plague (Plague of Justinian) is less deadly for Byzantium, both for your cities and your units - not historic at all, but better for gameplay
- The first plague won't spread to Italy and France, so neither the Franks nor the Pope will suffer from it
- Moved the potential start date of the first plague a couple turns earlier
- While plagues can still kill units after a couple turns, they won't kill healthy units instantly when spreading to a new city
- Other than the initial hit, plague will also deal slightly less damage to your units generally - much less unit deaths from plague than before
- Damage difference for units in the city and for units adjacent to a city isn't as significant as before, so attacking armies won't have a huge advantage anymore
- Fixed bug which caused almost all plagues to be as deadly as the Black Death (which is supposed to be more deadly than the others)
- Base plague duration now heavily takes number of cities into account (instead of a constant 6 for everyone), so it won't be significantly more deadly for smaller civs
- Overall health in your empire is still a significant modifier for plague duration, but values are adjusted to be more coherent with the new base duration range
- Revised interface messages for plague spread (both to civs and cities), added new message when the plague kills units or a huge percentage of the general population
- Fixed bug where the plague spread to the same city multiple times in some rare cases
- Indies and barbs are no longer more vulnerable for plague spread than normal civs
- Naval units will no longer be killed by plagues (damage is decreased for them) unless they were heavily damaged already
- Civilian units also get less damage from plagues, but it's still deadly for them (especially for workers)
- The amount of damage from the plague will be somewhat more random for all units, especially when there are more units on the same tile
- The plague spread mechanics is based on trade routes and city distance, but much more random than before
- Plague can spread to more of your cities in a given turn (max is based on the size of the empire), bigger chance for it if there are many cities close to already infected ones
- Additional checks for the plague to leave some of your cities even before it stops completely
- Plague leaving your cities is much more common in general (after it stopped the spread in your civ)
- It's way more likely that the plague leaves smaller, less unhealthy cities than bigger ones
- Little shorter plague duration (on civ-level), also it spreads to a little less cities in a given turn
- Revised plague related health calculations, now there is a real chance to avoid or mitigate plagues if the civ is healthy enough
- No civ can reach immunity for the Black Death, will spread even if all your cities are very healthy
- Plague will be restarted only for the human player on conquering an infected city
Crusade updates:
- Crusading units now have a chance to arrive to their destination, around 70% of the units will arrive for the first Crusade
- Number of arriving Crusader units scale reversed with the start date of Crusades, to counterbalance the increasing number of units available for selection
- This reduction is very significant for an AI-controlled Jerusalem, much less if the human player has to defend the city
- When the Crusade is deviated to a new target, it gets only a little more than half the units as it would have if it was a normal Crusade
- Increased gold cost for deviating Crusades for both the human and the AI player
- Decreased extra votes for the Papal States (they were the deciding factor before, thus almost always the Papal favourite civ was chosen to lead)
- Adjusted some minor inconsistencies with unit types in the Crusading unit categories
- Revised how special units and UUs are handled on Crusades if the leader of the Crusade has access to the given unit
- Fixed calculation bug when Paladin units were participating in Crusades, which caused issues with number of Knights as well
- Fixed bug where both Catapults and Trebuchets were added to the Crusading stack in many cases (doubling the intended amount of siege units)
- Added Cordoba as the primary target for stolen Crusades for AI Portugal, Aragon (Castile already had it this way) if they are Muslim and not a vassal
- Added Ottomans as the primary target for stolen Crusades for AI Hungary, Austria and Poland (if there is a late Crusade) if they are Muslim and not a vassal
- Byzantium will only be the primary target for stolen Crusades for AI Venice and Genoa if they hold Constantinople and they are not a vassal
- Fixed mistake which would kill all units around the Crusade's target city (instead of only making room on one tile) if no valid plot was found
- Revised Crusade unit categories and chances, updated both with the new units
- Improved selection method for units leaving for Crusades
- Fixed bug where some of your last defender units in a city could potentially leave for a Crusade
- Fixed bug where Knights of St. John weren't eligible for Crusades
- No more Defensive Crusades after Protestantism is founded
- Later Crusades won't send back units from earlier Crusades (i.e. if they initially remained Crusaders, it should remain that way)
- Added option for another Crusade in the late 13th century
- Tuned down Defensive Crusade frequency, reduced number of generic units for normal Crusades
- Each nation which sends units for a Crusade (apart from the leader and the Pope) receives Faith Points and Great General Points when it is over
- Unique Military Order units might leave for Crusade even if you decide not to participate
- Added 3rd, monetary contribution option for the Crusade participation decision, but only if you can afford it
- Added a more moderate Crusade refusal option, no more unnecessary insulting of the Pope
- Civs participating in Crusades have significantly bigger chance for military order company spread
- Further randomized the unit selection method for Crusades, also now much less Archer-type units and somewhat less Company UUs leave for Crusades (proportionally)
Terrain updates:
- New base terrain: Semidesert - 1 production, +1 commerce near rivers, city founding only possible near fresh water
- New base terrain: Salt Lake - 1 food, 3 commerce, +1 food with Harbor, +10% defence
- New base terrain: Fresh Water Lake - 2 food, 2 commerce, +1 food with Harbor, +10% defence
- New terrain feature: Islands (2 variety, green and rocky) - +1 production, +1 commerce, +10% defence
- New terrain feature: Reefs - costs 4 movement points, 25% damage if naval units end their turn on it
- Renamed Ice base terrain to Permafrost / Permanent Snow, Ice terrain feature to Sea Ice
- You can no longer found cities on coastal Desert tiles, only near fresh water (same as for Semidesert)
- Forts are buildable on Semidesert, Tundra, Desert and Snow tiles too
- Semidesert, Wetland and Tundra have +25 build time modifier, Desert and Permafrost have +50%
- New button for Moorland, Dense Forest, Permanent Snow, Marsh, Tundra
- Cottages can be built on Moorland, Semidesert and Tundra tiles too, but fresh water doesn't enable them automatically
- Cottages no longer need at least 1 base food on the tile, so they can be built on most Hills
Map updates:
- Replaced all previous lakes with the new Salt Lakes and Fresh Water Lakes
- Various resource and terrain rearrangements in Ireland
- Updated Egypt with the new Semidesert terrain, increased chance for AI settling Damietta
- Lake Tuz and the Dead Sea now take 2 tiles, added Sea of Galilee
- A few additional tiles in Lake Ladoga and Lake Onega, added Islands feature to both lakes
- Removed the misplaced 1 tile lake from the south of Onega, revised placement of northern Russian lakes
- Revised all Finnish Lakes, Saimaa and Paijanne have better placement, also moved around a couple smaller lakes
- Revised rivers in Finland, in Norway, longer Jordan river in the Levant
- Changed Limfjord in Denmark to be an actual Coast Sea tile instead of a lake
- Added inland Coast Sea tile near Trondheim/Nidaros to represent the huge fjords in the area
- Added Islands features south of Bergen, west of Nidaros, on the Finnish coastline
- Terrain and resource rearrangements in Norway, in north Sweden and in Finland
- Minor adjustments to province borders in Ireland, Norway, and Finland
1200AD scenario updates:
- Fixed Muscovy start in 1200AD scenario, now all civs should work without any issues
- Fixed Muscovian starting religion (starts with Orthodoxy as State Religion) in the 1200AD scenario
- Austria and Sweden start with Catholicism as State Religion in the 1200AD scenario
- Fixed Swedish initial contact with Denmark on the very beginning of the 1200AD scenario
- Fixed turn counter on scenario start for the 1200AD scenario, now it should show correctly for all civs
- Norway and Denmark start with Catholicism as a State Religion and with a couple additional Catholic cities in the 1200AD scenario
- Uppsala is preplaced in the 1200AD scenario (will be reduced to town a couple turns later), Shrine of Uppsala is preplaced there so it can't be built later
- Fixed oversight in the 1200AD scenario where Norwegian cities started with both Trading Post and Harbor - now they have Lighthouse instead
- Fixed oversight in the 1200AD scenario where Portuguese cities started with both Feitoria and Lighthouse - now they have Harbor instead
- Company spread is updated to an initial state before the first turn of the 1200 AD scenario starts
- Dynamic civ names are refreshed for all civs right before the player starts the first turn of the scenario
- AI civs won't do a revolution in the first couple turns of the scenario (keep the initial civics until relations are more established)
- Civs now have a separate loading time info for the 1200AD scenario (it will show up instead of the normal one)
- NOTE: Most of the map updates for the 1.5 version are not yet implemented in the 1200AD scenario
Mercenary updates:
- Fixed the annoying bug with mercenary notifications (both appearing merc and leaving merc messages) when there wasn't any changes in your mercenary pool
- Fixed bug with ever increasing cost for mercenary price and upkeep whenever you clicked on them (for civs with modified values, probably caused by the new StoredData handling)
- Fixed bug where you could hire naval mercenaries in non-coastal cities - they will still appear on the mercenary screen though
- Mercenaries requiring more culture in the province or a different state religion will also show up on the merc screen, but you can't hire them
- Added information texts for the mercenary screen about the reason(s) why you cannot hire specific mercs: money, culture, coastal city
- Fixed bug where mercenaries could appear in cities without enough culture (if there were multiple cities in the province)
- Specific interface message for the human player when there is a new mercenary in the list, but can't be hired because needs different State Religion
- New interface message for the human player if a merc available for him/her was hired by another player
- If there are mercs available in a newly founded or newly acquired city's province, interface message about it to the human player
- Stradiot mercenary also available in the southern Italian provinces
Stability updates:
- Increased civic stability boost from Religious Law + Theocracy
- Added small initial stability bonus for Arabia, Venice, Hungary and Novgorod if controlled by the AI
- Settling in core province means +1 stability, in historic/potential 0, in contested -1, in foreign -2
- Various tweaks in stability calculations for preplaced/preset stuff in the scenarios
- Potential provinces now properly update on the start of all new games (important for the 1200AD scenario), so stability from them is also updated correctly
- Revised collapse rules from bad stability for the human player, now it has a lower chance to happen generally (still very dangerous, but reaches 100% chance much slower)
- Reduced overall impact of unhappiness from religious civics on city instability
- Reduced foreign culture instability if you run the Subjugation Civic (-1 with less than 20%, 0 otherwise)
- Krak des Chevaliers will add bonus stability for all Castle-type buildings if they weren't present before the conquest
- Fixed mistake in religious stability calculations when Judaism is your State Religion
Religion updates:
- Free religious revolution on Religious Civic change:
- The Pope gets all technologies automatically which is known by at least 3 Catholic civs
- Chance for population gain in Jerusalem if a Catholic civ owns it, with Catholicism spread if it isn't present
Indy and barb changes:
- Reduced number of defender units in indy Caen, AI France should be able to conquer it more often
- Tuned down the number of Seljuks spawning against human controlled Byzantium
- Seljuk Turcoman Horse Archer units no longer get defensive bonuses from tile features
- Revised NW Keshik spawn areas, to move the Mongol threat more on Poland and Hungary (instead of the recently spawned Prussia and Lithuania)
- Increased barbarian Mongol unit numbers against Hungary and Poland, especially for the human player
- Changed barb city spawns in Ireland, not all 4 will spawn in all games, 2 is enough (already provides an early barb-island feel)
- Ireland, 700 AD: Hill of Tara/Dublin (100%, "Teamhair"), barbarian, population size 1, has a respawn in 988 AD
- Ireland, 700 AD: Downpatrick (20%, "Rath Celtair"), Rathcroghan/Sligo (30%, "Cruiachain"), Cashel/Cork (50%, "Caisel"), barbarian, population size 1
- Redesigned early barbs in Iberia as Visigoths (also to represent the Kingdom of Asturias), strengthened them to slow down early Cordoban expansion
- Wends added as new barbarians for Germany, with extra threat from them around the Great Slav Rising of 983AD
- Revised barbarian Magyar spawn areas and numbers in the late 9th century in Central Europe (before the Hungarian spawn)
- Tuned down stregth of "barbarian" Teutonic Knight spawns in Livonia in the early 13th century (right before the Prussian spawn)
- Reduced number of Berber barbarians in North Africa (especially for Cordoba), less early barbs for AI Kiev
- Barbarian cities spawn with more appropriate starting units
- New indy city: Perekop (as Or Qapi), 1250 AD, barbarian city, separating Crimean peninsula from the mainland
- New indy city: Halych, 1124 AD, starts with Orthodoxy, representing the western Rus principalities
- Alternative spawn position for indy Lubeck, one tile south of the current one (60% for the new position, 40% for the old)
- New indy city: Zagreb (as Sisak), 800 AD, early buffer zone between Hungary and Venice (also makes Venetian coastal cities' cultural expansion limited in Croatia)
- AI Hungary is much more likely to reign war on independent Croatia from the early 11th century
- Moved spawn area for the Bani Hassan barbarians a little south of the Sous region
So without further ado, here is the link to the next full version of our beloved RFCE:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/rfceurope/files/RFCEurope_1.5.zip/download
It's now also linked to the dl button on the main RFCEurope page on sourceforge:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/rfceurope/?source=navbar
It's a huge update, I think I can safely say that this is the biggest so far.
The changelog is almost 500 lines... even after some text reductions and reorganizations.
Surely there are lots of smaller changes and minor balancing stuff included, but even more rather complex and/or important improvements and additions.
Actually it should have been two separate releases, if not even three.
The biggest things are the changes related to the company, crusade and plague systems, the various religion-related updates, the AI improvements, but there are many important changes under civ setup, technical/UI improvements, and general changes as well. Actually almost all aspects of the game was touched to some extent.
EDIT: Hehh, turns out I have to separate the changelog because of the 30.000 char limit.
You can find the full ChangeLog for 1.5 under the spoilers here and in the next post:
Spoiler changelog 1st half :
Company overhaul:
- A Dynamic Company system is introduced to the mod! Idea from SoI (edead)
- Companies are not founded by civs anymore (or with GPs actually), but are independent entities on their own
- They semi-automatically spread to cities based on their own preferences:
- Available regions and provinces for the companies are set up on a (more or less) historic base
- Most companies have hated and preferred religions, and have modifiers for most religions (both on a state and on a city level)
- Hated state religion or the lack of preferred religion in the city can even be an excluding reason for some companies
- Wars might also add negative or positive effects to company spread on some situations, mostly based on state religion of the participants
- Knowledge of some techs give better odds for some companies (e.g. Chivalry, Plate Armor for military orders; Banking, Shipbuilding for trade companies)
- Military buildings will boost your chances for a military order, trade buildings for a trading/banking company
- Many civics have various modifiers to company spread, for example Merchant Republic, Feudal Law, Mercantilism, Religious Tolerance, Militarism
- Desired trade goods available to a city is fairly significant in spread chance, especially for trade-based companies
- Number of trade routes is also an important factor for deciding where to spread the trading/banking companies
- Faith points are also taken into account for religious military orders, while city size is more important for trade based companies
- They have a "birth" date and some have a "death" date, and are mostly active between those (these are usually set on historic dates)- Most companies have hated and preferred religions, and have modifiers for most religions (both on a state and on a city level)
- Hated state religion or the lack of preferred religion in the city can even be an excluding reason for some companies
- Wars might also add negative or positive effects to company spread on some situations, mostly based on state religion of the participants
- Knowledge of some techs give better odds for some companies (e.g. Chivalry, Plate Armor for military orders; Banking, Shipbuilding for trade companies)
- Military buildings will boost your chances for a military order, trade buildings for a trading/banking company
- Many civics have various modifiers to company spread, for example Merchant Republic, Feudal Law, Mercantilism, Religious Tolerance, Militarism
- Desired trade goods available to a city is fairly significant in spread chance, especially for trade-based companies
- Number of trade routes is also an important factor for deciding where to spread the trading/banking companies
- Faith points are also taken into account for religious military orders, while city size is more important for trade based companies
- All of them have a limit for the number of cities they can be active at at a given time
- There is competition between the cities for the companies - every few turns the company may leave some cities if there are better ones for their needs
- If there is a huge drop in the preference value for a company (for example on state religion change or city ownership change) it may leave the city right away
- There might also be competition between companies for a given city (e.g. Templars-Teutons-Hospitallers), if one is present the rest have decreased chance
- If a given company has already spread to some cities of a civ, it will have somewhat decreased chance for further spread in that civ's cities
- Masters/Executives can no longer spread companies, they are effectively removed from the mod
- Currently there are no Headquarters, all cities with the given company spread into them are considered equal - this might change later on
- Companies have resource preferences, and add various yield bonuses if you have access to them (based on their quantity) - as in the vanilla game
- Companies might have special units and/or buildings associated with them, all of which are only buildable while the company is present in the city
- Company costs are independent from your civ: do not cost any money when they spread to your cities, and do not cost any maintenance for being present
- Company HQs redesigned as generic buildings, as an indicator for company spread - they show up in the city while the company is present
- These temporary company buildings can get various bonuses, which are independent from the main (vanilla-style) company bonuses
- Possible bonuses for the company buildings include GP points, military bonuses, small economic bonuses
Company setup:
- All 7 previous RFCE companies were integrated into the new system
- 2 new companies: the Order of the Dragon, the Order of Calatrava
- Hanseatic League can only spread to coastal and riverside cities
- Hospitallers, Templars, Teutons and Calatrava spread Catholicism to the city when they spread there
- The Levant (and especially Jerusalem) has a greatly improved chance for Hospitallers, Templars and Teutons
- Trading/banking companies have a preference (smallish) to their historical founding provinces
- Hospitaller preferred region change after the Crusades, with Malta and Rhodes gaining importance
- Teutons preferred region change after the Crusades, with Transylvania and the lands of Prussia gaining importance
- Teutons are set to have a very high chance to spread to cities of the Teutonic Order (Prussia)
- Maximum number of cities is also modified for Hospitallers and Teutons after the Crusades are over
- Mercantilism only disables company spread for the Hanseatic League, the banking companies do have a lower chance though
- Updated Merchant Republic civic, new trade route bonus instead of the corporation maintenance reduction
- Added various interface messages for companies spreading/leaving, both for your own cities and for foreign cities visible to you
- Removed unnecessary popups connected to company availability
- Corporations in your cities no longer add any stability penalty
- Added Kontor UB for the Hanseatic League: +1 trade route, +25% income from foreign trade routes
- Added Knight of the Dragon UU: 12 strength heavy infantry, +10% against cavalry units, may cause small collateral damage
- Added Calatrava Knight UU: 9 strength heavy infantry, +10% city strength, +25% attack against Swordsman and Maceman unit classes
- Significantly reduced cost for the original Knightly Orders' UUs and the Infirmary UB, nerfed some bonuses
- Hospitaller, Templar and Teutonic Knights also give you access to the Relic resource type, which adds extra happiness to your civ
- Companies have increased penalties if they are already present in a couple cities of the given civ (so we try to spread them out)
- Contribution from different building types for company spread is distinct for each company, even the total maximum of the bonus varies
- Buildings/infrastructure and resources available to a city are weighted with quantity, neither will become the dominating factor so easily
- Company spread value from number of desired resources is more significant for the first resource of a given type
- Hanseatic League starts earlier, in 1157 (earliest remaining documentary mention), with much increased city number limit in 1356 (the first general Diet of the Hansa)
- Fixed issue where company resources added half as much bonuses ingame as they were set up and as they were shown in the Civilopedia before starting an actual game
- Templars and Teutons slowly disappear after Protestantism is founded (if they are still active)
- Order of Calatrava is only active if Cordoba or Morocco is alive
- Order of the Dragon is only active if the Ottomans are alive
- All unique Military Order units have a national limit of 5
Plague overhaul:
- Improvements near a plagued city have a chance whether to reduce their level, or to reset the progress towards the next level: Towns 100%, Villages 75%, Hamlets 50%, Cottages 25%
- Plague chance to kill population in the city (calculated every turn) is heavily adjusted with the current population size
- Even though city health is also important, there is a much bigger chance for losing citizens with a bigger population
- So while losing some population is still common in all cities, very unlikely to shrink in each turn unless it was a huge city originally
- Thus cities will no longer decrease to size 1-2 in most cases, not even for small civs with less health resources
- On the other hand, when plague spreads to a new city, one population will be killed by default
- The first plague (Plague of Justinian) is less deadly for Byzantium, both for your cities and your units - not historic at all, but better for gameplay
- The first plague won't spread to Italy and France, so neither the Franks nor the Pope will suffer from it
- Moved the potential start date of the first plague a couple turns earlier
- While plagues can still kill units after a couple turns, they won't kill healthy units instantly when spreading to a new city
- Other than the initial hit, plague will also deal slightly less damage to your units generally - much less unit deaths from plague than before
- Damage difference for units in the city and for units adjacent to a city isn't as significant as before, so attacking armies won't have a huge advantage anymore
- Fixed bug which caused almost all plagues to be as deadly as the Black Death (which is supposed to be more deadly than the others)
- Base plague duration now heavily takes number of cities into account (instead of a constant 6 for everyone), so it won't be significantly more deadly for smaller civs
- Overall health in your empire is still a significant modifier for plague duration, but values are adjusted to be more coherent with the new base duration range
- Revised interface messages for plague spread (both to civs and cities), added new message when the plague kills units or a huge percentage of the general population
- Fixed bug where the plague spread to the same city multiple times in some rare cases
- Indies and barbs are no longer more vulnerable for plague spread than normal civs
- Naval units will no longer be killed by plagues (damage is decreased for them) unless they were heavily damaged already
- Civilian units also get less damage from plagues, but it's still deadly for them (especially for workers)
- The amount of damage from the plague will be somewhat more random for all units, especially when there are more units on the same tile
- The plague spread mechanics is based on trade routes and city distance, but much more random than before
- Plague can spread to more of your cities in a given turn (max is based on the size of the empire), bigger chance for it if there are many cities close to already infected ones
- Additional checks for the plague to leave some of your cities even before it stops completely
- Plague leaving your cities is much more common in general (after it stopped the spread in your civ)
- It's way more likely that the plague leaves smaller, less unhealthy cities than bigger ones
- Little shorter plague duration (on civ-level), also it spreads to a little less cities in a given turn
- Revised plague related health calculations, now there is a real chance to avoid or mitigate plagues if the civ is healthy enough
- No civ can reach immunity for the Black Death, will spread even if all your cities are very healthy
- Plague will be restarted only for the human player on conquering an infected city
Crusade updates:
- Crusading units now have a chance to arrive to their destination, around 70% of the units will arrive for the first Crusade
- Number of arriving Crusader units scale reversed with the start date of Crusades, to counterbalance the increasing number of units available for selection
- This reduction is very significant for an AI-controlled Jerusalem, much less if the human player has to defend the city
- When the Crusade is deviated to a new target, it gets only a little more than half the units as it would have if it was a normal Crusade
- Increased gold cost for deviating Crusades for both the human and the AI player
- Decreased extra votes for the Papal States (they were the deciding factor before, thus almost always the Papal favourite civ was chosen to lead)
- Adjusted some minor inconsistencies with unit types in the Crusading unit categories
- Revised how special units and UUs are handled on Crusades if the leader of the Crusade has access to the given unit
- Fixed calculation bug when Paladin units were participating in Crusades, which caused issues with number of Knights as well
- Fixed bug where both Catapults and Trebuchets were added to the Crusading stack in many cases (doubling the intended amount of siege units)
- Added Cordoba as the primary target for stolen Crusades for AI Portugal, Aragon (Castile already had it this way) if they are Muslim and not a vassal
- Added Ottomans as the primary target for stolen Crusades for AI Hungary, Austria and Poland (if there is a late Crusade) if they are Muslim and not a vassal
- Byzantium will only be the primary target for stolen Crusades for AI Venice and Genoa if they hold Constantinople and they are not a vassal
- Fixed mistake which would kill all units around the Crusade's target city (instead of only making room on one tile) if no valid plot was found
- Revised Crusade unit categories and chances, updated both with the new units
- Improved selection method for units leaving for Crusades
- Fixed bug where some of your last defender units in a city could potentially leave for a Crusade
- Fixed bug where Knights of St. John weren't eligible for Crusades
- No more Defensive Crusades after Protestantism is founded
- Later Crusades won't send back units from earlier Crusades (i.e. if they initially remained Crusaders, it should remain that way)
- Added option for another Crusade in the late 13th century
- Tuned down Defensive Crusade frequency, reduced number of generic units for normal Crusades
- Each nation which sends units for a Crusade (apart from the leader and the Pope) receives Faith Points and Great General Points when it is over
- Unique Military Order units might leave for Crusade even if you decide not to participate
- Added 3rd, monetary contribution option for the Crusade participation decision, but only if you can afford it
- Added a more moderate Crusade refusal option, no more unnecessary insulting of the Pope
- Civs participating in Crusades have significantly bigger chance for military order company spread
- Further randomized the unit selection method for Crusades, also now much less Archer-type units and somewhat less Company UUs leave for Crusades (proportionally)
Terrain updates:
- New base terrain: Semidesert - 1 production, +1 commerce near rivers, city founding only possible near fresh water
- New base terrain: Salt Lake - 1 food, 3 commerce, +1 food with Harbor, +10% defence
- New base terrain: Fresh Water Lake - 2 food, 2 commerce, +1 food with Harbor, +10% defence
- New terrain feature: Islands (2 variety, green and rocky) - +1 production, +1 commerce, +10% defence
- New terrain feature: Reefs - costs 4 movement points, 25% damage if naval units end their turn on it
- Renamed Ice base terrain to Permafrost / Permanent Snow, Ice terrain feature to Sea Ice
- You can no longer found cities on coastal Desert tiles, only near fresh water (same as for Semidesert)
- Forts are buildable on Semidesert, Tundra, Desert and Snow tiles too
- Semidesert, Wetland and Tundra have +25 build time modifier, Desert and Permafrost have +50%
- New button for Moorland, Dense Forest, Permanent Snow, Marsh, Tundra
- Cottages can be built on Moorland, Semidesert and Tundra tiles too, but fresh water doesn't enable them automatically
- Cottages no longer need at least 1 base food on the tile, so they can be built on most Hills
Map updates:
- Replaced all previous lakes with the new Salt Lakes and Fresh Water Lakes
- Various resource and terrain rearrangements in Ireland
- Updated Egypt with the new Semidesert terrain, increased chance for AI settling Damietta
- Lake Tuz and the Dead Sea now take 2 tiles, added Sea of Galilee
- A few additional tiles in Lake Ladoga and Lake Onega, added Islands feature to both lakes
- Removed the misplaced 1 tile lake from the south of Onega, revised placement of northern Russian lakes
- Revised all Finnish Lakes, Saimaa and Paijanne have better placement, also moved around a couple smaller lakes
- Revised rivers in Finland, in Norway, longer Jordan river in the Levant
- Changed Limfjord in Denmark to be an actual Coast Sea tile instead of a lake
- Added inland Coast Sea tile near Trondheim/Nidaros to represent the huge fjords in the area
- Added Islands features south of Bergen, west of Nidaros, on the Finnish coastline
- Terrain and resource rearrangements in Norway, in north Sweden and in Finland
- Minor adjustments to province borders in Ireland, Norway, and Finland
1200AD scenario updates:
- Fixed Muscovy start in 1200AD scenario, now all civs should work without any issues
- Fixed Muscovian starting religion (starts with Orthodoxy as State Religion) in the 1200AD scenario
- Austria and Sweden start with Catholicism as State Religion in the 1200AD scenario
- Fixed Swedish initial contact with Denmark on the very beginning of the 1200AD scenario
- Fixed turn counter on scenario start for the 1200AD scenario, now it should show correctly for all civs
- Norway and Denmark start with Catholicism as a State Religion and with a couple additional Catholic cities in the 1200AD scenario
- Uppsala is preplaced in the 1200AD scenario (will be reduced to town a couple turns later), Shrine of Uppsala is preplaced there so it can't be built later
- Fixed oversight in the 1200AD scenario where Norwegian cities started with both Trading Post and Harbor - now they have Lighthouse instead
- Fixed oversight in the 1200AD scenario where Portuguese cities started with both Feitoria and Lighthouse - now they have Harbor instead
- Company spread is updated to an initial state before the first turn of the 1200 AD scenario starts
- Dynamic civ names are refreshed for all civs right before the player starts the first turn of the scenario
- AI civs won't do a revolution in the first couple turns of the scenario (keep the initial civics until relations are more established)
- Civs now have a separate loading time info for the 1200AD scenario (it will show up instead of the normal one)
- NOTE: Most of the map updates for the 1.5 version are not yet implemented in the 1200AD scenario
Mercenary updates:
- Fixed the annoying bug with mercenary notifications (both appearing merc and leaving merc messages) when there wasn't any changes in your mercenary pool
- Fixed bug with ever increasing cost for mercenary price and upkeep whenever you clicked on them (for civs with modified values, probably caused by the new StoredData handling)
- Fixed bug where you could hire naval mercenaries in non-coastal cities - they will still appear on the mercenary screen though
- Mercenaries requiring more culture in the province or a different state religion will also show up on the merc screen, but you can't hire them
- Added information texts for the mercenary screen about the reason(s) why you cannot hire specific mercs: money, culture, coastal city
- Fixed bug where mercenaries could appear in cities without enough culture (if there were multiple cities in the province)
- Specific interface message for the human player when there is a new mercenary in the list, but can't be hired because needs different State Religion
- New interface message for the human player if a merc available for him/her was hired by another player
- If there are mercs available in a newly founded or newly acquired city's province, interface message about it to the human player
- Stradiot mercenary also available in the southern Italian provinces
Stability updates:
- Increased civic stability boost from Religious Law + Theocracy
- Added small initial stability bonus for Arabia, Venice, Hungary and Novgorod if controlled by the AI
- Settling in core province means +1 stability, in historic/potential 0, in contested -1, in foreign -2
- Various tweaks in stability calculations for preplaced/preset stuff in the scenarios
- Potential provinces now properly update on the start of all new games (important for the 1200AD scenario), so stability from them is also updated correctly
- Revised collapse rules from bad stability for the human player, now it has a lower chance to happen generally (still very dangerous, but reaches 100% chance much slower)
- Reduced overall impact of unhappiness from religious civics on city instability
- Reduced foreign culture instability if you run the Subjugation Civic (-1 with less than 20%, 0 otherwise)
- Krak des Chevaliers will add bonus stability for all Castle-type buildings if they weren't present before the conquest
- Fixed mistake in religious stability calculations when Judaism is your State Religion
Religion updates:
- Free religious revolution on Religious Civic change:
- Switching from Paganism to State Religion/Theocracy/Organized Religion gives you a free religion choice (so no extra anarchy) right on civic change
- Mainly for civs who start without a religion (Bulgaria, Norse civs, Rus civs, Hungary, Lithuania), no need for the annoying double-revolution anymore
- AI will also use the function, the choice for a free religion is based on number of cities with the religion, on available holy cities, and on historical preference
- Religion spread rules:- Mainly for civs who start without a religion (Bulgaria, Norse civs, Rus civs, Hungary, Lithuania), no need for the annoying double-revolution anymore
- AI will also use the function, the choice for a free religion is based on number of cities with the religion, on available holy cities, and on historical preference
- Added special religion spread rules for a couple areas which more often than not ended up with ahistorical religions
- The spread is based on provinces (and indirectly on civs in the area), only checks for cities without a religion
- Orthodoxy: increased chance to spread in Rus territories between 850-1300AD, in Bulgaria and the Balkans between 700-1000AD
- Islam: greatly increased chance to spread in the Maghreb and in the southern part of the Iberian-peninsula between 700-1200AD
- Catholicism: increased chance to spread in southern Scandinavia between 1000-1300AD, in Hungary between 960-1200AD
- Increased generic Judaism spread chance slightly, especially in Central-Europe
- Reduced Islam spread, it will have a harder time reaching the faraway parts of the map (Scandinavia, Novgorod)
- Fixed bug which could mess up Judaism spread if some parts of the map were sparsely populated with cities
- Revised Papal bonuses:- The spread is based on provinces (and indirectly on civs in the area), only checks for cities without a religion
- Orthodoxy: increased chance to spread in Rus territories between 850-1300AD, in Bulgaria and the Balkans between 700-1000AD
- Islam: greatly increased chance to spread in the Maghreb and in the southern part of the Iberian-peninsula between 700-1200AD
- Catholicism: increased chance to spread in southern Scandinavia between 1000-1300AD, in Hungary between 960-1200AD
- Increased generic Judaism spread chance slightly, especially in Central-Europe
- Reduced Islam spread, it will have a harder time reaching the faraway parts of the map (Scandinavia, Novgorod)
- Fixed bug which could mess up Judaism spread if some parts of the map were sparsely populated with cities
- When choosing where to construct free buildings or whom to give gold the Pope considers a weighted value of both faith points and diplomatic relations
- You need to have Catholicism as a state religion and open borders with the Papal States to be eligible for any bonuses
- For gold gifts diplomatic relations matter much more, for religious buildings faith points are the deciding factor
- The (Catholic) owner of Jerusalem has a greatly increased chance to be selected for free Papal buildings
- Increased frequency of Papal gifts between the Schism and the Protestant Reformation, decreased afterwards
- No monasteries will be built for the chosen player after the discovery of Scientific Method (so the Pope may only build temples)
- Changed civ selecting method on Papal bonuses, earlier civs (with lower IDs) won't have a bigger chance anymore
- Gold gifts from the Pope are more randomized (well, semi-randomized)
- The Pope might also give free techs to the most pious civs
- You can only get one tech at a time, and only from techs which are known to the Pope
- For selecting the civ, relations with the Pope matter, but faith points are much more important
- The possibility for a free Papal tech is somewhat slim, but the selected civ has bigger chance if it's more techs behind
- The Papal States cannot trade any technologies (you can neither trade techs from the Pope, nor trade techs to him)- You need to have Catholicism as a state religion and open borders with the Papal States to be eligible for any bonuses
- For gold gifts diplomatic relations matter much more, for religious buildings faith points are the deciding factor
- The (Catholic) owner of Jerusalem has a greatly increased chance to be selected for free Papal buildings
- Increased frequency of Papal gifts between the Schism and the Protestant Reformation, decreased afterwards
- No monasteries will be built for the chosen player after the discovery of Scientific Method (so the Pope may only build temples)
- Changed civ selecting method on Papal bonuses, earlier civs (with lower IDs) won't have a bigger chance anymore
- Gold gifts from the Pope are more randomized (well, semi-randomized)
- The Pope might also give free techs to the most pious civs
- You can only get one tech at a time, and only from techs which are known to the Pope
- For selecting the civ, relations with the Pope matter, but faith points are much more important
- The possibility for a free Papal tech is somewhat slim, but the selected civ has bigger chance if it's more techs behind
- The Pope gets all technologies automatically which is known by at least 3 Catholic civs
- Chance for population gain in Jerusalem if a Catholic civ owns it, with Catholicism spread if it isn't present
Indy and barb changes:
- Reduced number of defender units in indy Caen, AI France should be able to conquer it more often
- Tuned down the number of Seljuks spawning against human controlled Byzantium
- Seljuk Turcoman Horse Archer units no longer get defensive bonuses from tile features
- Revised NW Keshik spawn areas, to move the Mongol threat more on Poland and Hungary (instead of the recently spawned Prussia and Lithuania)
- Increased barbarian Mongol unit numbers against Hungary and Poland, especially for the human player
- Changed barb city spawns in Ireland, not all 4 will spawn in all games, 2 is enough (already provides an early barb-island feel)
- Ireland, 700 AD: Hill of Tara/Dublin (100%, "Teamhair"), barbarian, population size 1, has a respawn in 988 AD
- Ireland, 700 AD: Downpatrick (20%, "Rath Celtair"), Rathcroghan/Sligo (30%, "Cruiachain"), Cashel/Cork (50%, "Caisel"), barbarian, population size 1
- Redesigned early barbs in Iberia as Visigoths (also to represent the Kingdom of Asturias), strengthened them to slow down early Cordoban expansion
- Wends added as new barbarians for Germany, with extra threat from them around the Great Slav Rising of 983AD
- Revised barbarian Magyar spawn areas and numbers in the late 9th century in Central Europe (before the Hungarian spawn)
- Tuned down stregth of "barbarian" Teutonic Knight spawns in Livonia in the early 13th century (right before the Prussian spawn)
- Reduced number of Berber barbarians in North Africa (especially for Cordoba), less early barbs for AI Kiev
- Barbarian cities spawn with more appropriate starting units
- New indy city: Perekop (as Or Qapi), 1250 AD, barbarian city, separating Crimean peninsula from the mainland
- New indy city: Halych, 1124 AD, starts with Orthodoxy, representing the western Rus principalities
- Alternative spawn position for indy Lubeck, one tile south of the current one (60% for the new position, 40% for the old)
- New indy city: Zagreb (as Sisak), 800 AD, early buffer zone between Hungary and Venice (also makes Venetian coastal cities' cultural expansion limited in Croatia)
- AI Hungary is much more likely to reign war on independent Croatia from the early 11th century
- Moved spawn area for the Bani Hassan barbarians a little south of the Sous region
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Also, if you're worried about Pamplona growing too big (which, the Basque coast is densely populated anyway; I'd still like there to be room to settle San Sebastian or Bilbao, for instance), I consider moving the deer elsewhere an option (hmm, maybe to that uncrowded region in Leon I talked about? Or Galicia even?)
