Rhye's of Europe Civ Discussion Thread

[jessiecat]

Yeah but that's not my objection. What's the point of all this hard work ? Having indipendents in Eastern Europe between 500 to 800 isn't much realistic. This is still the Age of Migration and barbarian people kept warring, conquering and losing land there. Groups of barbarians spawning there are more representative than lonely cities sitting there doing absolutely nothing but improve land and city for later easy conquests by the central-eastern civs. I think these civs should start with more settlers than western, but not have ready settlements to take over. Iberia an Italy are more realistic regions for indipendents (and strong ones too), but I still wouldn't have more than 4 indipendent cities for each peninsula.

I understand your concerns esp. about the Age of Migrations in central and eastern Europe, but I still think you're fixated on Civ as only a colonising game. This is a historical mod. The same conditions don't apply. The fact is that settled towns and cities did exist in Britain, Gaul, Italy and Iberia, following the collapse of the Roman Empire. We can't just treat these areas as virgin territory ripe for founding new cities. They already existed. You need only look at Italy for example. And by 700AD in Iberia there was a developed Visigothic Christian kingdom already in place.That's why we have to start with independents that can be conquered or flipped by the playable civs in our mod. Otherwise this would be more like Civ Vanilla than a historical mod, as I've already said.

 

[onedreamer]

I don't think I am "fixated". I look at several factors:
1) historical realism
2) gameplay balance
3) consistence with the main mod

You are only looking at point 1, and not in a very objective way, either. In RFC 3000 BC when the Egyptians settle Thebes there were already older and developed settlements in Egypt. Same with Babylon. Same with Rome. Same with Persia. Same with pretty much any civ except America. How do you explain this ?
Also in case you didn't read I said in Italy and Iberia there should be indipendents, but no more than 4. If I remember well you were proposing 11 in Iberia.

 

[jessiecat]

I don't think I am "fixated". I look at several factors:
1) historical realism
2) gameplay balance
3) consistence with the main mod

You are only looking at point 1, and not in a very objective way, either. In RFC 3000 BC when the Egyptians settle Thebes there were already older and developed settlements in Egypt. Same with Babylon. Same with Rome. Same with Persia. Same with pretty much any civ except America. How do you explain this ?
Also in case you didn't read I said in Italy and Iberia there should be indipendents, but no more than 4. If I remember well you were proposing 11 in Iberia.

I'm not trying to pick a fight with you. When I said "fixated" I meant that you seemed to largely concentrate your attentions on the colonising feature that makes Civ the great game that it is. I think that most scenarios I've see in Civ have little or no city-founding at all. I wouldn't go that far in this case though, as I realise how different RFC is from previous historical scenarios. And I do appreciate your point about Eastern Europe very much.
But think the case for independents like the Visigoths in the West is very strong. All we really disagree about, I guess, is how many independent cities there should be.

 

[onedreamer]

The problem is that in your disagreement you only consider point 1 and ignore point 2 and 3. Time will tell, I guess...
Just for the records, I'm not "pro-colonization". I just think the modmod should be consistent with the main mod and with the game itself, and in both of them colonization exists and is an important and fun part of the game. In RFC changing city placements often risults in significantly different games and experience, which is the main component for the longevity of a game.

 

[Úmarth]

FTR I'm with onedreamer on this one. When it comes down to finer balancing we shouldn't over do it with the independents.

 

[Ajidica]

What you could do to keep alot of independant cities but not make it OP, is to use python to give the cities to the AI because they are bad at taking cities. And to prevent the human from going to far, once they get out of their settler map, give their units increased upkeep and/or a negative combat modifier (to show the units being outside the range of help and resupply). This will prevent the human from expanding to far and creating the style of play where the best way to win is to kill everyond around me. That is unrealistic for Europe.

 

[jessiecat]

It's not like I'm opposing everybody on this but I think some of our civs will balance better if they're faced with defended independents rather than virgin lands to conquer. We all agree that the historical conditions of Western and Eastern Europe in 500AD present different problems. So I'm happy to restrict the cities in Italy, Gaul and Iberia to about 6 each at most, even if you include all the capitols which will flip when they spawn as well.
We're not really that far apart in our opinions, are we?.

BTW Instead of a Germanic independent could we have a Gothic one which could cover 3 cities in Gaul and 3 in Iberia to represent the Christian Visigothic Kingdom, it's capitol either in Toulouse or Toledo as in the 500AD I posted earlier?

 

[wr4th]

i think the chinese 600AD start is a good example of how it should be done. Some cities flip and some are there to conquer easily but the capitol is unsettled and leaves some variety to the player.

 

[Disenfrancised]

If you ask me there is more than enough room for lots of independents and colonizing. Even if you give everyone big spawn zones:

-Black:Barb
-Grey: Germannics
-Brown: Slavic
-Pink: Mediterrean (since the eastern ones will flip quickly its really only the westerns that count).
-Dark Green: Celtic

 

[jessiecat]

It's nice to see it laid out as a whole map like that. Good job. It seems to support my view that there's room for both. The 7 pinks in Iberia and Gaul work perfectly to represent the Visigothic kingdom as I described. The 4 in Italy look right too. One question though. Would Cordoba, Seville, Granada and Toledo as well as Tangier and Fez all flip when Al Andalus spawns?
Or maybe Toledo should remain as an indy to be conquered?
If so, I think the 2 barbs in the North should flip immediately to the Christians when they spawn
to provide balance. That would leave Toledo, Lisboa, Zaragoza, Barcino and Valencia as indys to
be conquered. Is that how you see it?

BTW Didn't we decide that Ragusa, Spalato and Beograd all be indys from the start?

 

[ijnavy]

Looks great! I would suggest a city in western Egypt (Barca), some more cities in Asia Minor, Balkans, and Russia. There should also be some in civs spawn areas. Do you think that there are too many?

About the Spawn areas, I think that Denmark's should go in eastern Sweden Instead of Norway.
Also, why is the Byzantine Spawn area so small?
Are these the official spawn areas? I would be able to convert the spawns and independents into code, should I?
Moscow/Kiev city names coming soon.

 

[st.lucifer]

Thanks for putting up that screenshot, Disenfrancised. It's a big help to keeping things straight.

I'm fine with the independent map as pictured, with a couple of suggested additions and a couple of changes based on time.

Specifically:
-The British Isles are really full. While there's definitely historical justification for the inclusion of those cities, especially if we're starting in 1060, we may want to take out one or two of those - the city in Wales, and/or one of the cities in Ireland.
-I'd like to propose that most of the independents in Eastern Europe show up relatively late, so they're not too developed before the civs spawn.
-I think we were going to put Trebizond in Anatolia; I just forgot to put it on the main map. It should start as a Byzantine city, and possibly flip when the Ottomans spawn?
-I thought we had agreed to have Split/Spalatum or Ragusa flip to Venice upon spawn, to prevent the AI from staying idle behind its swamp. If Genoa flips Corsica, that seems to make sense.
-I'm the one who put Rhodes/Rhodai in the Byzantine orbit in the first place, but I'm wondering if it might be better to take it out. They'll have a lot of cities already.
-If we're not having Egypt flip to Arabia when they spawn, which is fine with me, we'll have to give them a strong preference for it to ensure they go after Alexandria (if the Byzantines haven't lost it to revolt already.)
-We should probably have at least one more independent city in the Balkans (Beograd seems to me like the best choice), and I think we'd originally planned to have both Ragusa and Split on the Dalmatian coast. If we want to drop one of them, I'm flexible.
-I second the inclusion of Cyrene/Barca, although I'd put it under barbarian rather than Byzantine control.
-Ijnavy, the Norse spawn area goes N rather than E so they'll flip Tonsberg. There's nothing comparable in Scania at that point, and they should have cities on both landmasses. Note that Sweden doesn't flip Scania either when it spawns, as it was more traditionally attached to Denmark.
The Byzantine spawn area is fairly small to prevent them from achieving total domination before any of the other civs show up. If we gave them their true historical area, they'd be a superpower, and their intended challengers (Bulgaria, the Ottomans) would likely vassalize upon or soon after spawning rather than fight the empire.
-I vote for leaving Toledo independent when al-Andalus and proto-Spain spawn. It's a good prize to fight over, and will help escalate that conflict.


I approve of the proposed spawn areas, with the slight adjustments proposed to Venice and the Ottomans. Nice work!

 

[ijnavy]

I looked at the map and made some starting dates for cities in Spain, France, and Italy. Most of them were founded before 500, so I tried to do it game-wise.
Toledo 500; Barcelona 500 ;Valencia 500 ;Zaragoza 500 ;Pamplona? 500 ;Cordoba 700 ;Granada 700 ;Seville 700; Coruna 720; Leon? 720; Lisboa 1100;

Marseille 500; Toulouse 500 ;Bordeaux 500 ;Lyon 500; Paris 500 ;Rennes? 500; Caen 1060.

Ravenna? 500 ;Milan 500 ;Messina 500 ;Naples 500 ;Rome 500 ;Florence? 500 ;Venice 800 ;Genoa 1020

 

[jessiecat]

@st. lucifer.
I think we should keep the Welsh city as a barb but drop one Irish city(Cork?).
I agree Toledo should be an indy but the spawn area for Al Andalus will need to be
reduced a bit southward so it doesn't flip.
If we have Ragusa and Beograd as indys then Spalato will be an automatic flip to Venice.
Cyrene, like Alexandria, should be a Byzantine city which might become an indy, due to instability.
What about Tunis though?
Agree with Trebizond as a starting city for the Byzantines though I thought you
wanted Sinope. Maybe both then? And they'd have to conquer Antioch and Edessa I guess?
Overall, though, a nice map. We're nearly there now.

BTW Is there some way we can post our finished excel settler maps to the wiki so people can view what's been done all in one place? I've finished my Ottoman map and have started the Arab one.

 

[Úmarth]

Attach it to a post here on civfanatics then copy and paste the URL to the wiki.

 

[jessiecat]

Attach it to a post here on civfanatics then copy and paste the URL to the wiki.

I've loaded it on the files page on the wiki but it won't let me move it to the map list.
Needs an admin person I think. Or somebody who isn't a newbie at this. Like me.

 

[mitsho]

-The British Isles are really full. While there's definitely historical justification for the inclusion of those cities, especially if we're starting in 1060, we may want to take out one or two of those - the city in Wales, and/or one of the cities in Ireland.
-I think we were going to put Trebizond in Anatolia; I just forgot to put it on the main map. It should start as a Byzantine city, and possibly flip when the Ottomans spawn?

I agree mostly. Secondly, I would advocate to a) be low with independent cities and b) try to do a first version with what we got now, we can always lose and add cities after that!

Trebizond on the other hand was the last stronghold of Byzantium. It was the conquest of the city that ended Eastern Rome in 1461. With the Fall of Constantinople, there were some "Roman" cities left that went on to govern themselves in the Roman style until they were conquered at last. So it certainly should not flip to the Ottomans. However, one can think of giving them a little bit of flip space on the European side of the Marmara Sea!

mik

EDIT: I was wrong! There were other smaller cities, mostly on Morea/Peloponnes that resisted the Turks until 1461 and longer. The last was Monemvasia that didn't fall, but chose to 'vassalize' (in civ4 terms) itself to the Venetians! So, the Byzantine Empire ended in 1464 AD!

 

[Disenfrancised]

Thanks for putting up that screenshot, Disenfrancised. It's a big help to keeping things straight.

I'm fine with the independent map as pictured, with a couple of suggested additions and a couple of changes based on time.

Specifically:
-The British Isles are really full. While there's definitely historical justification for the inclusion of those cities, especially if we're starting in 1060, we may want to take out one or two of those - the city in Wales, and/or one of the cities in Ireland.

How about removing the Welsh and Mercian one, and just have a germanic city in the Bristol location?

-I'd like to propose that most of the independents in Eastern Europe show up relatively late, so they're not too developed before the civs spawn.

Agree, you most should be up there by 900 or so.

-I think we were going to put Trebizond in Anatolia; I just forgot to put it on the main map. It should start as a Byzantine city, and possibly flip when the Ottomans spawn?

Yes to the first, no to the second (though the Ottomans should get everything but the coastal strip).

-I thought we had agreed to have Split/Spalatum or Ragusa flip to Venice upon spawn, to prevent the AI from staying idle behind its swamp. If Genoa flips Corsica, that seems to make sense.

Sounds good. I feel we should make northern italy quite resource rich as well.

-I'm the one who put Rhodes/Rhodai in the Byzantine orbit in the first place, but I'm wondering if it might be better to take it out. They'll have a lot of cities already.

Reasonable, but we should then give it a resource and make it a priority target for the western european civs.

-If we're not having Egypt flip to Arabia when they spawn, which is fine with me, we'll have to give them a strong preference for it to ensure they go after Alexandria (if the Byzantines haven't lost it to revolt already.)

Well most of egypt should flip as I put in my map (the conquest is just to fast to squeeze to the mod), and I agree they should strong preference for the rest of it.

-We should probably have at least one more independent city in the Balkans (Beograd seems to me like the best choice), and I think we'd originally planned to have both Ragusa and Split on the Dalmatian coast. If we want to drop one of them, I'm flexible.

We'd have to move the Hungarian spawn zone north, but I don't see why not. Slavic independent of course...maybe put a barb city in Albania to poke at the Byzantines?

-I second the inclusion of Cyrene/Barca, although I'd put it under barbarian rather than Byzantine control.

Agree.

-I vote for leaving Toledo independent when al-Andalus and proto-Spain spawn. It's a good prize to fight over, and will help escalate that conflict.

Possibly, though I think al-andalus will be able to grab it easily before Spain spawns unless we make the city quite tough...

I approve of the proposed spawn areas, with the slight adjustments proposed to Venice and the Ottomans. Nice work!

Thanks, now we need a map with the swamps in the right place . I'm in the process of making another one with some suggested UHV control areas and barbarian spawns (stupid having to work!)

Further points on the map :
-I think the north sea shouldn't be ocean, otherwise Scandinavian raiding galley's will have rather constrained paths to take, ditto the bay of Biscay. This will also prevent control of the sea lanes.
-The Pyrennes need to have more mountains/hilliness...IMO there should be 1 tile passes in the north and south at max.
-Some Khazar barbarian cities on the Don? To threaten Kiev etc. Also amusing jewish cities on the edge of the world
-I still wonder if there is room for a Aragon or Brandenberg-Prussia

 

[jessiecat]

How about removing the Welsh and Mercian one, and just have a germanic city in the Bristol location?



Agree, you most should be up there by 900 or so.



Yes to the first, no to the second (though the Ottomans should get everything but the coastal strip).



Sounds good. I feel we should make northern italy quite resource rich as well.



Reasonable, but we should then give it a resource and make it a priority target for the western european civs.

-If we're not having Egypt flip to Arabia when they spawn, which is fine with me, we'll have to give them a strong preference for it to ensure they go after Alexandria (if the Byzantines haven't lost it to revolt already.)

Well most of egypt should flip as I put in my map (the conquest is just to fast to squeeze to the mod), and I agree they should strong preference for the rest of it.



We'd have to move the Hungarian spawn zone north, but I don't see why not. Slavic independent of course...maybe put a barb city in Albania to poke at the Byzantines?



Agree.



Possibly, though I think al-andalus will be able to grab it easily before Spain spawns unless we make the city quite tough...



Thanks, now we need a map with the swamps in the right place . I'm in the process of making another one with some suggested UHV control areas and barbarian spawns (stupid having to work!)

Further points on the map :
-I think the north sea shouldn't be ocean, otherwise Scandinavian raiding galley's will have rather constrained paths to take, ditto the bay of Biscay. This will also prevent control of the sea lanes.
-The Pyrennes need to have more mountains/hilliness...IMO there should be 1 tile passes in the north and south at max.
-Some Khazar barbarian cities on the Don? To threaten Kiev etc. Also amusing jewish cities on the edge of the world
-I still wonder if there is room for a Aragon or Brandenberg-Prussia

Partly covered by my suggestions in post 494. Agree with the rest esp. on the Pyrennes. Only 2 coastal tile passes I think. Aragon though? I don't think there's room for it or time either. Prussia or Brandenburg comes too late in the mod, in my opinion. I'm still worried about Sweden and the Netherlands too as they will have a very short life for the human player. As far as Jewish cities I wouldn't object but Judaism isn't a playable religion in our mod, is it? Thanks again for the map.

 

[st.lucifer]

@st. lucifer.
I think we should keep the Welsh city as a barb but drop one Irish city(Cork?).
I agree Toledo should be an indy but the spawn area for Al Andalus will need to be
reduced a bit southward so it doesn't flip.
If we have Ragusa and Beograd as indys then Spalato will be an automatic flip to Venice.
Cyrene, like Alexandria, should be a Byzantine city which might become an indy, due to instability.
What about Tunis though?
Agree with Trebizond as a starting city for the Byzantines though I thought you
wanted Sinope. Maybe both then? And they'd have to conquer Antioch and Edessa I guess?
Overall, though, a nice map. We're nearly there now.

BTW Is there some way we can post our finished excel settler maps to the wiki so people can view what's been done all in one place? I've finished my Ottoman map and have started the Arab one.

Let's drop Cork and the Welsh city. The Germanic independent near Bristol sounds good.

I'm going to argue that Cyrene and Tunis should start out independent. The alternative is making them Byzantine and indefensible, which will immediately create stability problems. For a human player, this would be a good challenge, but for the AI, it would be fatal. Really, if it weren't for the stability hit, they'd probably be better off without them - the maintenance on Tunis alone is likely to be painful. So we're bending history a bit, but N. Africa was pretty volatile - it's not like those areas were core parts of the empire.

I think I'd been talked out of Sinope. Let's limit ourselves to Trebizond, and not give it away in the flip. I'm fine with making the Ottomans work for the coast.

We'll figure out final resource placements when we've got the new stuff in, but I agree in principle about N. Italy.

For the barb city in Albania idea, I'd rather have it handled sort of like Tibet in RFC - barbs will spawn there whether you've got cultural control of it or not. As long as there are barb swordsmen (or the equivalent) roaming that part of the Balkans in perpetuity, I think we've done the area historical justice.

The AI likes founding cities on islands of questionable value, so we should be ok with no pre-existing Rhodes.

I like the barb cities on the Don idea, as long as they won't act as magnets for the Mongols. Sometimes when I put barb cities on the map in normal RFC, the barbs just sit there and don't do anything - I'd hate to see the Mongol invasion turn into the great Mongol peaceful horse-pasturing experiment.
Judaism isn't a religion a player can adopt, but will be present. It would be interesting to have the Khazar cities out there as Jewish, even if there's no shrine to benefit from it. If they're controlled by barbs, they won't build cultural buildings, right?

I'll update the Pyrenees and the Pripet marshes for the next map (Venice, too.) I guess I'll try putting all of the independents and their spawn dates on in flags, though that will probably require some tweaking. No argument on the Pyrenees needing to be less friendly, although I thought there was a pass near Andorra...

About the North Sea - it does seem wrong that the Vikings can't cross it to strike Britain, so that probably should be changed. However, I do wonder if we should add a risk factor to crossing it - maybe a 15-20% chance that a ship ending its turn 3 or more moves from shore goes down. There are some spots in the Mediterranean that I think might benefit from this, too, but the North Sea seems like the obvious choice for 'place that I would feel least comfortable sailing in a wooden boat.'

If we were extending the mod to 1914 or even 1850, I'd vote for including Brandenberg-Prussia - but there's just not enough time for them to develop. They could theoretically be added in a role sort of like Mongolia in RFC, with a short intended lifespan and an emphasis on conquest, but that wouldn't really be historical either. I'm not really sold on Aragon as being important enough to merit inclusion.