RFCM:BWS (Better, Westerner, Smarter)

[JediClemente]

So, basically this is the version of RFCM I play now. Finally.

Previous features:

Spoiler :

Main features:

• The research penalty is changed: now you get penalized only for the base research from your 11th less "scientific" city on to the last. This means the majority of your science will come from the 10 most science-productive cities. But as only base research is taken into account, you still get benefits from building libraries or universities in the other cities (though few). In other words: your research will aproximately be the same with 13 cities, 15, 20...
• The massive (150%) research penalty from 1000 BC to 600 AD is removed. It never made sense to me that ancient civs couldn't even get the techs to build ancient wonders. Now the penalty is higher (200%) but instead applies from 33 AD to 600 AD.
• The "colonial civs" (Portugal, Spain, England, France, Netherlands) get a reduced stability penalty for owning cities out of their settler maps. Only out of Europe and the Mediterranean. The penalty for number of cities for them is also halved. Now colonial empires are possible indeed.
• Some changes in spawn areas. America takes up to the Mississippi. Jerusalem won't flip to Arabia on 600. To counter this, Arabia spawns with more camel archers than before. Mongols also spawn with a double number of keshiks as before.
• City names for founding cities now are searched in other civs' names lists if the founder has no name for the plot. Example: a Spanish city founded on Australia will not be named Murcia, but Canberra (or Sydney, or whatever name the English have for the tile).

Last features:

• More quantity of resources on the map. Some from the beggining, others spawn later. The gulf of Guinea (coast under Mali) gets much more interesting. And it's out of Mali's spawn and normal area now. The marble on South China appears at 450, same as the copper on Japan.
• The Trading Company is now a world wonder, but two can be built. It's quite strong for a civ with access to colonial resources.
• Barbs are much less likely to raze holy cities now. Jerusalem founds Christianity always if not fouded before.
• The Sphinx replaces Stonehenge, it has the same effect.
• Conquistadors event now spawns two missionaries (if the civ has a state religion).
• Edinburgh spawns instead of Inverness.
• The American UP is stronger, american cities grow faster. And immigrants bring their religion (if their home civ has a state religion).

Changed UHVs:

• America: found 4 corporations by 2000 (instead of "no european cities in north/central america in 1930").
• England: found 3 cities in each continent by 1800 (it was by 1730 before).
• Spain: control aztec and inca lands in 1550 (not 1760); have the largest empire of the world in 1750 (instead of "no french/english/dutch cities in America in 1700").

New features:

• Resources brought from RFCEurope: potatoes, tea, coffee, tobacco. With their proper location and later spawn (take a look at Resources.py).
• Plantations now connect resources on islands (same as fortresses). This is useful for the Caribbean, much more crowded now.
• Bananas spawn on Canary islands (plátanos de Canarias!), sugar on Azores.
• Now a civ can only build a Trading Company, not two (still two total).

How to install:

1. Download RFCMarathon (works for version 1.21): http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=354241
2. Download this file: http://www.mediafire.com/?azx72gypx8e9o4n (version 0.3)
3. Make a backup copy of the RFCMarathon folder outside (copy that folder into other place).
4. Overwrite the RFCMarathon in Beyond the Sword/Mods with the contents from the ZIP file.
5. Delete the two "unlocked" maps on PublicMaps. The two provided (RFC 3000 BC and RFC 600 AD are "unlocked" anyway).

The C++ files on the ZIP are not needed to play, just if you want to take a look at them (and now about the SDK).

Thanks to Rhye for RFC, to embryodead and Baldyr for their help, to Wessel V1 for providing the original idea behind the first main feature (what I implemented is less complex though). At to a lot more people. Everyone here.

Please try it if you like the features. I've not tested it a lot myself.

 

[Cethegus]

It's hard to keep track how many RFC modmods there are already out there. RFCC, WASP, Dawn of Civilization, Lone Wolf's modmod, 1500AD mod, this one...

It's hard picking your favorite without (indirectly) offending the others, you know? Not saying the changes don't look good, they're good. I'll download it for sure.

 

[corovanrobber]

Now that's what I call colonisation!

 

[Leoreth]

Looks awesome. There are many ideas that are very good. I especially like

City names for founding cities now are searched in other civs' names lists if the founder has no name for the plot. Example: a Spanish city founded on Australia will not be named Murcia, but Canberra (or Sydney, or whatever name the English have for the tile).

America: found 4 corporations by 2000 (instead of "no european cities in north/central america in 1930").

But from which year is your screen, corovanrobber? Looks like 19th century from the techs involved. If so, did I miss a feature of this modmod that encourages colonizing?

Oh, by the way: Cethegus, most modmod features (the ones involving XML and Python, that is) are easily interchangeable. Just get WinMerge and have the best of both worlds

 

[Alexius08]

Now that's what I call colonisation!

Spanish Conquistadors without editing Izzy's traits? Wow!

EDIT: But still, no Spanish Philippines.

 

[JediClemente]

If so, did I miss a feature of this modmod that encourages colonizing?

Didn't mention I increased the number of "free colonists" (for non-human colonial civs, Rhye spawned them 6 settlers after Astronomy).

I suppose the screen save is from an American start in Marathon speed. I try it sometimes to see the results. And an american game is always better in Marathon.

Spanish Philippines are unlikely because Japan usually settles there first. The settler map values can be changed for both Spain and Japan.

 

[Leoreth]

Wow, I didn't expect that some free colonists have such a great effect. Doesn't the AI get too fast in colonizing sometimes and beats you to important locations you need for UHVs? I see that you've already given England more time, but what about Netherlands?

 

[Cosmos1985]

Sounds very interesting, really like most of your changes - trying it out now! I don't however understand why you want to improve the tech rate of pre 600AD-civs, to me they're usually teching too fast already; if Greece/China/Persia/Rome survives, they're usually way ahead of the others. Also, any way to roll back the changes on the Trading company? I don't understand that change also But everything else looks great, especially the improved american UP.

Leoreth (or others), how hard is it to use WinMerge and figure everything out? It would be awesome to combine different elements of these "add-ons", but for noobs like me, it's probably a bit too hard to handle, or what?

 

[Leoreth]

First, WinMerge is very comfortable to use. I don't know if you've already seen its interface, but it can detect parts of text/code that is either completely missing in one of both files or only slightly changed. Then it's just one click to take over that part from mod A to mod B or the other way round.

The XML files are very self-explanatory, if in doubt, you still can look at the modiki.

Python contains all mechanics like stability, plague, spawns etc. If you have no experience with programming languages, it can be difficult to figure out what the code does, although I have tried to roughly comment on any new function or minor change I've made (search for "# Leoreth [...]" in the files).

There are, however, also some changes made to the DLL, which you can't change with WinMerge (you'd need a C++ compiler). In my modmod this is for example the new spawn dates for Phoenicia and Netherlands.

I suggest you simply start to experiment with a backup folder of your chosen modmod and try to take over minor changes (unit stats and the like). It's mostly learning by doing really

 

[Cosmos1985]

Thank you - will try to play around with it a bit then

For some reason there's no autosaves when I use this - anybody else experiencing that?

Edit: Ah, just no autosaves during autoplay - nevermind.

 

[JediClemente]

Wow, I didn't expect that some free colonists have such a great effect. Doesn't the AI get too fast in colonizing sometimes and beats you to important locations you need for UHVs? I see that you've already given England more time, but what about Netherlands?

When playing one of those civs I always go straight for Astronomy; or at least fast enough to get it before other civs.

I don't really like the english and dutch UHVs anyway, for England it was a little fix (1730 is too early).

For England it may be better to "Have the largest empire of the earth in 1918", or "Control or Vassalize East Africa from Cape Town to Cairo" (yes, it's doable, I did it once).

I also think now I overdid the lessened stability penalty for colonial civs. Maybe a hit when Nationalism is first discovered is in order.

Sounds very interesting, really like most of your changes - trying it out now! I don't however understand why you want to improve the tech rate of pre 600AD-civs, to me they're usually teching too fast already; if Greece/China/Persia/Rome survives, they're usually way ahead of the others. Also, any way to roll back the changes on the Trading company? I don't understand that change also But everything else looks great, especially the improved american UP.

I changed the tech rate for them because playing an ancient civ sometimes feels like an unwinnable war for researching. It was too high.

Yes, if they survive they'll have more techs, but most of the times they'll collapse sooner of after. I thought about a stability hit for them, maybe it's a solution.

For the second question, you'd have to edit CIV4BuildingInfos.XML and CIV4BuildingClassInfos.XML

Not overwriting the RFCMarathon ones is another option, but then you won't have the Sphinx.

 

[Cosmos1985]

The same civ can build two trading companies, I assume that's a bug. I like that it's beefed up, but even if you fix it so that the now limited number has to be built by different civs - which I assume was the intention - I believe that two is too low a number, if you insist on limiting the allowed amount. It should be at least five, to cover Eng/Fra/Spa/Por/NL - and I don't completely understand why fx. the Vikings should be allowed to build it as well. It's ofc. up to you, but I'd say increase it to at least five.

Have you made changes to the stability code apart from the lessening of the penalty for expanding outside their stability areas, as mentioned in the first post? I haven't really played the Marathon mod so much, so I don't really know if it is changes in that, or your modmod, but after trying to roll about 10 different 3000 BC Netherlands starts, Rome and Greece had survived 8 and 9 times - might be pure chance, but it just seemed like something was new. I play without plague and any tech trading, but that shouldn't alter so much; I do the same in regular RFC, and get more "classical results", alike other players. Is it just random?

Also, does the US flip Chicago npw? Can you elaborate on how far they flip cities, please? And isn't 4 corps a bit much; you'd have to get quite lucky with great people, and save them for just this, and also need to build corps that "overlap"?

As said earlier, I think your ideas are great, and after this has been playtested some more, It'll be my default way of playing RFC. Just wanted to add that, in order to not sound negative

 

[LuKo]

East India Company (that's how the wonder should be named)- ENG and NED
No plague + decreased cost of techs = survive
4 corps is probably quite hard but definitely doable and good for UHV

 

[Cosmos1985]

East India Company (that's how the wonder should be named)- ENG and NED
No plague + decreased cost of techs = survive
4 corps is probably quite hard but definitely doable and good for UHV

Well, it IS called National Trading Company atm, but well, people can mod the number to anything they please, so no need to discuss that a lot
I play without plague in standard RFC as well, so that can't be it - I think the tech tweak is too much if that's what does it now. Are the rest of you getting the same results in 3000BC starts; Rome and Greece surviving allmost all the time?
I don't like it so much, but hey, ain't up to me

A strange thing btw... I modded monuments to expire later, and did the exact same thing for the obelisk, the egyptian UB, their monument, but for some reason the obelisk still expires at calendar, even though I did the exact same thing; anybody have a clue as to why that is?

Edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartered_company - I'd say that 2 indeed is too low, but around 5 seems to be plausible.

 

[Cethegus]

The same civ can build two trading companies, I assume that's a bug. I like that it's beefed up, but even if you fix it so that the now limited number has to be built by different civs - which I assume was the intention - I believe that two is too low a number, if you insist on limiting the allowed amount. It should be at least five, to cover Eng/Fra/Spa/Por/NL - and I don't completely understand why fx. the Vikings should be allowed to build it as well. It's ofc. up to you, but I'd say increase it to at least five.

Why not? It should be entirely possible. Prepare to see this little "bug" though.

 

[Cosmos1985]

Why not? It should be entirely possible. Prepare to see this little "bug" though.

I just assumed that it was meant to be two in total, but one civ can only build one - like fx. Eng and NL can build in London and Amsterdam But only OP knows the true intentions of course

 

[JediClemente]

Thank you again for your inputs.

I'm more interested about the change in the research penalty. Did you like it?

The same civ can build two trading companies, I assume that's a bug.

It's not a bug. It's supposed to represent both East India and West India Companies.

I played with the idea of making them two corporations (instead of other two from vanilla BtS) and requiring for them to have a city in the East Indies/West Indies, but in the end it was too complicated and not worth the work.

So yes, the same civ can have both (though not in the same city). This can be fixed if you don't like it, changing a -1 for a 1 in CIV4BuildingClassInfos.xml

As for the matter of who builds them, it's England most of the times. Vikings don't even reach the tech on time.

Have you made changes to the stability code apart from the lessening of the penalty for expanding outside their stability areas, as mentioned in the first post?

It's quite common in RFCMarathon that some ancient civs survive long into the Middle Ages, though they collapse sooner or later. The only change was giving Rome and Persia currency on spawn.

Also, does the US flip Chicago npw? Can you elaborate on how far they flip cities, please? And isn't 4 corps a bit much; you'd have to get quite lucky with great people, and save them for just this, and also need to build corps that "overlap"?

Look at the attached file. All those tiles (blue ones were Rhye's spawn zone). There are other two out of image, next to the upper right corner.

I'm not sure if Chicago is there. Detroit deffinitely is.

 

[Magnificent One]

Chicago's not in America Spawn according to that image.

 

[Leoreth]

One Chicago is ... the tile south of Lake Michigan is also called Chicago.

 

[KMRblue1027]

One Chicago is ... the tile south of Lake Michigan is also called Chicago.

That's the real Chicago