Rhye's and Fall RAND Plus

[Pravus]

While I understand where you're coming from with the idea of "over-representation", I diverge with you after that point for several reasons. First, to say that Israel is not an historical or political force in the world, let alone that region, is debatable to say the least. For a period of several hundred years during the time of the second temple, the religion of the Israelites was something of a spiritual world wonder, marveled at in the form of Herod's temple by the known world, including pagan civilizations. To say that Israel belongs in a game like RFC is anachronistic. Israel was never an empire per se. To include it in RFC RAND, to me, is almost necessary. RFC RAND is very much about alternate histories and seems a perfect stage for Israel to make its debut. Second, to say that "Judaism" is an appropriate representation of the Hebrew people is a bit off the mark. The cult of Yaweh was a lot of things before it was Judaism. I'm assuming you're mostly referring to the Diaspora phenomenon, but even then, Jews and their ancestors have a history that extends back far past that, to a homeland they inhabited for quite a long time. Third, your representation comment. Two things on that. The Middle East is no more a "region" than Europe is, and look how over-represented European civs are. Secondly, there certainly is an abundance of Islamic-influenced civs (And yes, early Semitic, Persian Turkish etc), and I don't think that's wrong. What I take exception to is that they somehow adequately represent the profound impact that the civilization, religion and concept of Israel have had and still have on our world.

In summary, for RFC Yerushalayim and Solomon's Temple stuck in it is fine. The original RFC actually overrepresented the religion and would have been better off including it as more of a cultural mechanic. To not be able to play as this civilization in what amounts to an alternate history mod, however, is a damn shame.

 

[Leoreth]

What makes Israel more important than say, Armenia or Hungary? What makes Judaism more important than Jainism or Zoroastrianism? Even if it's just alternate histories?

 

[Pravus]

It's not more important than Armenia and Hungary. I'm not saying it's more important than Jainism or Zoroastrianism (Persians ARE in the game btw and they deserve to be obviously). I'm not making that argument, but you could in fact make that argument per every civ and religion ad infinitum. That wasn't my point. My point is that as long as Israel is already represented in the game in some fashion, and as long as Judaism is being left in RFC RAND... might as well be able to play the civ that started it.

Also, may I just as an aside remind you that the people of Israel, such as they have become, kept a culture/religion and to some extent a bloodline in tact for millenia, and THEN were able to transplant an already existing culture from various areas of the world back into an area they had once roughly occupied (I'm not taking a political stance here, just recounting events), and after a surprise alliance and war against the recreated Israel on the part of surrounding Arab nations in '67, defeated a military force superior to their own, once again succeeding in preserving their way of life. Israel survived that attack to become the freest nation in the region (getting my claim from the U.N. here, again not political), with a booming tech and financial sector that is the envy of the region. I think it's safe to say that the "people of Israel" have experienced a history of survival that many lost cultures would envy, thus making them sufficiently unique. I also think it's safe to say there's more to Israel than the myth, religious significance and occupation of centuries ago.

Imagine leaderheads: Solomon, Golda Meir. Just a thought.

 

[migck]

Hehe, I gotta love the exchange of ideas and viewpoints from history in the threads around here, very enlightening. Thank you guys!

Unfortunately adding new civs to the mod is complicated to say the least, at least for a programming dummy like me. Polynesia is out of the question, it was just a wild idea after I saw it in Civ V. But I've wondered if it would be adequate to turn the Sumerian civ into an Israeli civ, rather than having them mess with the Babylonians.

But I'll repeat myself, don't hold your breath for any big novelties, there are so many things that should be improved in this mod and I have so few skills...

 

[Leoreth]

It's not more important than Armenia and Hungary.

Why not include them, then? And they were just two random examples I thought up on the spot. I'm sure we could find many other civs of equal merit that don't even happen to live in a part of the map that's crowded already.

I'm not saying it's more important than Jainism or Zoroastrianism (Persians ARE in the game btw and they deserve to be obviously).

Persians yes, Zoroastrianism no.

 

[Pravus]

Hehe, I gotta love the exchange of ideas and viewpoints from history in the threads around here, very enlightening. Thank you guys!

Unfortunately adding new civs to the mod is complicated to say the least, at least for a programming dummy like me. Polynesia is out of the question, it was just a wild idea after I saw it in Civ V. But I've wondered if it would be adequate to turn the Sumerian civ into an Israeli civ, rather than having them mess with the Babylonians.

But I'll repeat myself, don't hold your breath for any big novelties, there are so many things that should be improved in this mod and I have so few skills...

Yeah, you definitely can't mess with Babylon as they were certainly more of a significant presence in the region, especially after they had subjugated the Southern Kingdom of Judah.

I think a simple reskin of the Sumerians and replacing the Ziggurat name and artwork with a roughly equivalent Hebrew concept would be sufficient, same for the UU. There are already some good leaderheads for both BCE and modern Hebrew leaders.

And of course, I have no expectations. By keeping up and improving upon my favorite Civ IV mod (favorite in concept at least, if not execution), you've already done a great service to the Rhye's community.

 

[Pravus]

Shameless bump, so you know we still have faith in you. xD

Keep up the good work.

 

[tony92def]

Some of the big problems with RAND that have to be fixed are:

1) Classical civs almost always dominates the world all the way to the modern times. I always see industrial Greece or Rome in the 1500s with half the world being their vassals. So they have to be nerved, and collapse more.

2) christianity always take like 50% of the world making Europe a big happy peaceful family, and the rest of the world wanting to join in. Implementing Catholic vs Orthodoxy divide will fix this. Or we can make Islam spread faster.

3) Razed holy cities have to re-spawn, or make them not raze able.

4) Conquistadors rarely conquer the new world, they need buff.

5) England and other colonial civs need to be stronger. In DoC, the Trading Company event is really great

 

[ImNotHere]

Is this still in development? Please say yes.

 

[migck]

Is this still in development? Please say yes.

I'd love to say yes, but all I can honestly say is no

You see, I gave modding for Civilization a go while my computer was unable to run most other games, but after I got it back on track, CIV lost much of its appeal to me. I guess strategy games will never really get to me unlike RPGs and action RPGs.

So, sorry to those expecting updates to this project, I really did all what I could with my limited knowledge, and it is unlikely I'll learn much about C++ and Python in the near future.

That said, some of my ideas regarding this mod in retrospect:
- It is true that classical civs need dynamic nerfing after certain dates like in DoC or else Alexander ends up building the Internet by the XVIII century. However, for maps with a low likeness to earth, I believe this isn't as necessary since the spawn dates of all civs are much more random (but then anything can happen in them if the UP and spawn date converge correctly or disastrously...)

- I'm reluctant to more religions being added, like the different Christian denominations and what not. Yes, they were of extreme importance historically, but then wouldn't it be fair to also add Shia and Sunni Islam? The different schools of thought in Buddhism? The myriad of cults in Hinduism? Civilization is a western-made game and as such it is natural that it has a western focus in its development, but I believe its better not to add religion into it too, and instead keep things tense in Europe through other means to simulate religious tension.

- And for conquistador events, more often than not its due to AI stupidity or lack of funds that they end up not doing anything, since they have more than enough forces to deal serious damage to native civs. Ideally, I'd like a method so that you or the AI can choose if and when to send Conquistadors, only if being the one who made first contact. Not an easy thing to do i suppose.

 

[00konichiwa00]

I have problems with it crashing all the time, and then I can't reload the saved files. I put it in the right folder (double checked) and the mod folder name is correct. I've had the same problem with some of the other mods but not as bad as this. could it possibly be my computer? the computer is runnning very nicely when playing other games that require a lot, but it's just strange and this time I'm actually thinking it's the computer.

where do I find the right Varietas Delectat for this mod? searched and found pretty many of them. I'm thinking that might be the problem..
are some of the units supposed to be big red dots?

thanks in advance

 

[DrZomboss]

Yeah, not only units are red dots, but also buildings, and the game crashed when I was building The Hanging Gardens - they have a pink square instead of the button (like some units, transport and the future units). Otherwise the mod is really great (only you could add some new civs). I'm sending some screenshots.

 

[Danwood]

Hpe this mod is still alive, loving it, expecially the GW mod which has finally evaluated as it deserved.

 

[migck]

Hpe this mod is still alive, loving it, expecially the GW mod which has finally evaluated as it deserved.

Not really, no. I did upload some updates at the sourceforge code repository but nothing truly new, nor were the most glaring bugs fixed. I do play this mod and others from time to time, but not too much.

And for DrZomboss and 00konichiwa00, you simply are missing the Varietas Delectat resources. I should have done the mod without VD and add them as a separate addon, but I loved VD so much...

 

[Fierabras]

- Barbarian ship spawning seem to be nonexistent, or happen at the icecaps (goddammit)

I did mange to fix this bug. It's in RFCUtils.py in the OuterSeaSpawn function on l. 1107:

if ( pCurrent.isWater() and not pCurrent.getFeatureType() != con.iSeaIce): #RFCRAND

should be

if ( pCurrent.isWater() and pCurrent.getFeatureType() != con.iSeaIce): #RFCRAND

 

[DrZomboss]

Very nice mod (after I managed to run it)
Some issues to fix:
-there are loads of errors in the city name manager (fixed some of them in the tweaked wersion I uploaded here) like:
model - Bad Name > Reason > Tweaked Name
Ecbatana > Greek Name > Hangmatana
Rhagae > same > Ragha
Hecatompylos > same > Sauloe
Karachi > Arabian Name > Kolachi
Carycin > Typo > Caricyn
Xi'an > It's a late name, the earlier was Chang'an, who will change to Xi'an anyway > Chang'an
and so on....
Modified a bit the city founding order, since I don't think that the most ancient cities should be founded first (like India's Chittagong and Nagpur) but the most important ones (for India, Lavapuri/Lahore, Pataliputra, Varanasi and Mumbai, for China Shanghai). It won't matter though if you trigger to make them appear in a random way.

 

[black213]

After making peace with a civ I'm unable to conduct trade with them - even in an instance where it would normally be possible (as in, the text is white and not red), clicking on i.e. open borders does nothing.