Rhye's of Europe Civ Discussion Thread

[eris23]

isnt that turkish bombard a bit of an overkill

i mean...i guess it replaces sth between catapult (str 5) and canon (str 10), so a regular bombard would be sth along the lines of a strength 8 siege weapon, having 50% more strength and +100% city attack is just crazy (for city attacks it would be stronger than a modern artillery)
unless of course most cavallery units have attack siege weapon first (or at least flank attack) and +100% against siege weapons...

besides, although the janissary were initially a small elite force, their numbers grew over time to 50k in the 1680s...

they should be special kinds of archers (longbowmen pershaps) that are allowed to get (or start with) the city raider promotion (and or shock) and it should be possible to upgrade them to musketmen as soon as you get to gunpowder (i kinda recall normal longbowmen not being upgradeable to musketman)
so...
janissary archers => janissary musketman

 

[jessiecat]

isnt that turkish bombard a bit of an overkill

i mean...i guess it replaces sth between catapult (str 5) and canon (str 10), so a regular bombard would be sth along the lines of a strength 8 siege weapon, having 50% more strength and +100% city attack is just crazy (for city attacks it would be stronger than a modern artillery)
unless of course most cavallery units have attack siege weapon first (or at least flank attack) and +100% against siege weapons...

Not really. In our mod the bombard has strength 6 and the cannon has strength 14. So strength 10 for a Great Bombard is not overpowered if you bear in mind that historically it fired a stone ball of up to 1500 lbs. As a seige weapon it was very strong. Also you would balance this by making the construction cost very expensive so they couldn't afford many.

 

[eris23]

and the canon has +100% (or at least 50%) city attack as well?

 

[jessiecat]

and the canon has +100% (or at least 50%) city attack as well?

Probably but then the cannon will still cost less so you could have more of them.

 

[3Miro]

Since coding is behind the discussions I want to note couple of things for the first batch of UHVs.

1. Arabia: why should the spread of Islam have a due year, I say spread Islam to 30% by the end of the game (1800AD). That way Arabia can get some help from Turkey.

2. What do we mean by Arabia should control all of North Africa. Have some number cities? Own all cities? What if Al Andalus have cities there as well? Cover some percent of the territory? Have all the land tiles in a specific rectangle?

3. Cordoba should be the largest city in the world (or at least tie with Constantinople). Makes the victory a bit harder.

EDIT:
4. What happened to the Spanish, purge Iberia from non-Catholics. Should we change the first goal to: there is no non-Catholic religion present in Iberia in year X. (or maybe by the end of the game since Iberia would start with Islamic Cordoba before Spain spawns). UHV2 suggests that Spain should be on the offense, which IMO makes UHV1 redundant.

 

[st.lucifer]

Since coding is behind the discussions I want to note couple of things for the first batch of UHVs.

1. Arabia: why should the spread of Islam have a due year, I say spread Islam to 30% by the end of the game (1800AD). That way Arabia can get some help from Turkey.

Agreed. One thought here - what happens if Arabia accomplishes the first two conditions, collapses or is conquered, and Turkey fulfills the third Arabian UHV condition, collapses, and Arabia respawns?

2. What do we mean by Arabia should control all of North Africa. Have some number cities? Own all cities? What if Al Andalus have cities there as well? Cover some percent of the territory? Have all the land tiles in a specific rectangle?

I'd say no cities owned by other civs. Covering some % of the territory would be tough - there's a ton of land involved. We could do the rectangle, but it would probably have to include some of Sicily, which is problematic. We could do all territory east of (and including?) Oran, which would prevent them from fighting directly with al-Andalus (assuming they survive), and still present a major challenge. We could do # of cities, but N. Africa isn't like the Adriatic - control is much more difficult to project from a certain number of cities. I like the approximated Ethiopian UHV condition best.

3. Cordoba should be the largest city in the world (or at least tie with Constantinople). Makes the victory a bit harder.

Agreed - wasn't that one of them?

EDIT:
4. What happened to the Spanish, purge Iberia from non-Catholics. Should we change the first goal to: there is no non-Catholic religion present in Iberia in year X. (or maybe by the end of the game since Iberia would start with Islamic Cordoba before Spain spawns). UHV2 suggests that Spain should be on the offense, which IMO makes UHV1 redundant.

If we have inquisitors, we should definitely keep the Catholic-only UHV condition. I favor a year X condition, too - which will require Spain to go on the offensive. Let's eliminate the first UHV condition in favor of the Catholic purge.

 

[jessiecat]

Agreed. One thought here - what happens if Arabia accomplishes the first two conditions, collapses or is conquered, and Turkey fulfills the third Arabian UHV condition, collapses, and Arabia respawns?



I'd say no cities owned by other civs. Covering some % of the territory would be tough - there's a ton of land involved. We could do the rectangle, but it would probably have to include some of Sicily, which is problematic. We could do all territory east of (and including?) Oran, which would prevent them from fighting directly with al-Andalus (assuming they survive), and still present a major challenge. We could do # of cities, but N. Africa isn't like the Adriatic - control is much more difficult to project from a certain number of cities. I like the approximated Ethiopian UHV condition best.



Agreed - wasn't that one of them?



If we have inquisitors, we should definitely keep the Catholic-only UHV condition. I favor a year X condition, too - which will require Spain to go on the offensive. Let's eliminate the first UHV condition in favor of the Catholic purge.

Oops! Double post.

 

[jessiecat]

Agreed. One thought here - what happens if Arabia accomplishes the first two conditions, collapses or is conquered, and Turkey fulfills the third Arabian UHV condition, collapses, and Arabia respawns?



I'd say no cities owned by other civs. Covering some % of the territory would be tough - there's a ton of land involved. We could do the rectangle, but it would probably have to include some of Sicily, which is problematic. We could do all territory east of (and including?) Oran, which would prevent them from fighting directly with al-Andalus (assuming they survive), and still present a major challenge. We could do # of cities, but N. Africa isn't like the Adriatic - control is much more difficult to project from a certain number of cities. I like the approximated Ethiopian UHV condition best.



Agreed - wasn't that one of them?



If we have inquisitors, we should definitely keep the Catholic-only UHV condition. I favor a year X condition, too - which will require Spain to go on the offensive. Let's eliminate the first UHV condition in favor of the Catholic purge.

My thoughts on the above points:

1. Good point by st. lucifer. Spreading Islam to 30% of Europe is OK but it means Arabia must survive. That won't be possible if the Ottomans conquer the Arabs as part of their UHV, but it would be possible if Arabia becomes their vassal. That would mean a vassal could still win their own UHV?

2. Controlling all the way to Tangier might be too ambitious as Cordoba will want Morocco at least. Having all cities east of Oran might be more doable. I agree with that.

3. I changed it to be the largest (after Constantinople) as it is historically accurate and doable. To be the biggest given that the Ottomans have the same UHV may be just too hard by 1200. Maybe by 1400 or 1500 instead?

4. Having no Catholicism in Iberia by year X is fine but that just duplicates the 2nd. UHV ie to "control all of Iberia by 1500". If they control it there wouldn't be any non-Catholic religion in Iberia anymore would there? Change the 2nd. UHV to no "none-Catholicism" if you like but you can't really have both. If they got one they'd get the other by default.
I included survival to 1000AD as the first UHV because historically that's what they had to do before they could be in a position to begin the Reconquista. They're going to be so vulnerable to a strong Cordoba at the start that not losing one city will be very hard. Even an AI Cordoba is going to be hell-bent to destroy them from the start. If I played as Cordoba the first thing I'd do is wipe out Spain or vassalize them ASAP I assure you.

 

[st.lucifer]

My thoughts on the above points:

3. I changed it to be the largest (after Constantinople) as it is historically accurate and doable. to be the biggest given that the Ottomans have the same UHV may be too hard.
4. Having no Catholicism in Iberia by year X is fine but that duplicates the 2nd. UHV ie to "control all of Iberia by 1500". If they control it there wouldn't
be any non-Catholic religion anyway would there? I included survival as the
first UHV because historically that's what they had to do before they could be
in a position to begin the Reconquista. They're going to be so vulnerable to a
strong Cordoba at the the start that not losing one city will be very hard. Even an AI Cordoba is going to be hell-bent to eliminate them from the start.
If I played as Cordoba the first thing I'd do is wipe them out or vassalize them ASAP.

On these two points:
-Again, I have no problems with competing UHVs - lots of those in standard RFC. The second largest city thing may be more complicated to code than it sounds, though. Perhaps we could require them to build it to a certain size by that date - a size which would ensure that it's either the largest or second largest city in the world? Aside from the fact that this UHV could be derailed by an untimely plague, I think it's a pretty reasonable way of doing it.

-As you point out, survival for early Spain is going to be a challenge. I don't see the control/vassalize UHV and the remove all non-Catholic civs from Iberia UHV as being redundant, though. Assuming that an inquisitor unit is an expensive build (as it should be), this requires a lot of resources to be allocated to the purging of Islam from Iberia (and may require Spain to conquer Portugal, as well). Also, without that UHV goal, the Spanish UP (no stability hit from inquistions) is considerably less useful. One might argue against using inquisitors at all, unless there's that sort of incentive.
It's not that I think the don't-lose-a-city goal is a bad one, far from it. But, as you said, survival's going to be a challenge against that power base (and will likely stay that way for a few hundred years). Most of the 'never lose a city' civs in RFC were well equipped to deal with the requirement, either by geography, power, or neighbors - in this starting scenario, they start with the odds stacked heavily against them. That's why I suggested replacing UHV 1 rather than UHV 2. I think we're all in agreement on UHV 3.

 

[jessiecat]

OK. I'll make the necessary changes to the wiki as below.
-Arabia to control all cities in North Africa east of Oran
-Cordoba to reach size 10 by 1000AD?
-Spain -UHV 1 - Control or vassalize all of Iberia by 1500AD
..................2 - No non-Catholic religions in Iberia by 1600AD
...................3. - Build 3 Colonial Projects

EDIT Last 4 civs now added to the wiki as provisional pending coding.

 

[3Miro]

Great, I would code those.

IIRC if a civ dies, all of their UHVs are marked as unfulfilled. Basically if Arabia dies and Turkey spreads Islam to 30% and then Arabia respawns, that would have virtually no effect (Arabian UHV would not count).

Using Inquisitors is a good thing to do for almost everyone (unless running free religion). Inquisitors give a relatively small hit on stability, but there is a stability hit for having foreign religion in your cities anyway. So Inquisitors replace the hit from foreign religion with an Inquisition hit which wears off over time. Basically ten turn after you have used an Inquisitor, you would be more stable than what you started with (fewer turns for Spain).

 

[sedna17]

Hey everyone. Good to see that the difficult decisions about civs have proceeded apace. I'll get to work adding in the UUs and UBs. The art you have for the great bombard is actually the same art as the bombard right now. I think I will simply make the model bigger and solitary (currently there are two bombards in 1 unit) for the Great Bombard.

 

[jessiecat]

Hey everyone. Good to see that the difficult decisions about civs have proceeded apace. I'll get to work adding in the UUs and UBs. The art you have for the great bombard is actually the same art as the bombard right now. I think I will simply make the model bigger and solitary (currently there are two bombards in 1 unit) for the Great Bombard.

Fine. Have you noticed the problem with Genoa I posted (post 1139)? I think we need some changes in the AI war map, don't you?

 

[st.lucifer]

Sedna, Miro, Hitti, Algeroth, Eris, anyone else who's reading - what do you guys think of the dragoon idea?

 

[Hitti-Litti]

I like the dragoon idea, as long as the dragoons are strong enough to beat the earlier infantry quite easily. Top-of-the-line infantry should be able to beat the dragoons.

 

[sedna17]

Fine. Have you noticed the problem with Genoa I posted (post 1139)? I think we need some changes in the AI war map, don't you?

Thanks for calling that to my attention again. I will modify this map.

Sedna, Miro, Hitti, Algeroth, Eris, anyone else who's reading - what do you guys think of the dragoon idea?

I like it, and know where I can get art. I was actually thinking of putting one into the original list. What about the upgrade path? Would they come out of the cavalry route (one of several possible upgrades from light cav and knights) or from the infantry line (from muskets), or both?

 

[st.lucifer]

Thanks for calling that to my attention again. I will modify this map.



I like it, and know where I can get art. I was actually thinking of putting one into the original list. What about the upgrade path? Would they come out of the cavalry route (one of several possible upgrades from light cav and knights) or from the infantry line (from muskets), or both?

Ideally from both - I'm not sure that they'd be on a direct upgrade path, although it might make sense to have them upgrade from light cavalry. They'd show up a little before line infantry - maybe with military science (Military tactics would be the other obvious choice here, but I don't think we've currently got a unit that goes with military science).

That's three votes in favor without much in the way of dissent. Shall we add it?

 

[civmademepoor]

Two things on the 1st Spanish UHV, I'm more concerned with the date than the action:

1) The Iberian Union was in 1581, would it be better to push this out to 1600 for historic purposes?

2) When Portugal spawns in 1100, I think there will likely be a war right off the bat with Cordoba, already strengthened (or weakened, depending upon how it goes) from war with the Spanish: is 1100 to 1500 enough time for Portugal to come into its own without becoming an almost automatic vassal of Spain or someone else? If we push it out to 1600, much of the rest of Europe will likely be in religious wars (I seem to recall something triggering that at some point, but can't find it in the thread), and it would be tougher for Portugal to do something foolish, like be a vassal of Sweden or something.

 

[eris23]

dragoons as infantry sounds fine, i guess there is no graphic for unmounted soldiers, kinda like cavalry in civ2...
although i would favour tactics, since its basic advantage is mobility, which sounds more like tactic then science...
should there really be a new unit for military science, i d think more sth along the lines of new promotions available...maybe maneuver warfare...
where is the timeline for the techtree anyway so as to compare what would have been around then at that time

 

[jessiecat]

Thanks for calling that to my attention again. I will modify this map.

Didn't mean to nag you. Just thought you'd been away and hadn't noticed my post.