Rhye's of Europe Civ Discussion Thread

[3Miro]

@sedna17: when you coded the settler's map you posted excel screenshots with tiles marked 6, 7, 8, 9. What do those correspond to in the actual map array, i.e. what values?

 

[sedna17]

Hey 3Miro,

Yeah, I used single digits to fill in the settler map. I then converted these ranks to typical values found in RFC settler maps via this mapping (yes, blank spots on the spreadsheet go to 20):

0 -> 3
-> 20
1 -> 40
2 -> 60
3 -> 90
4 -> 150
5 -> 200
6 -> 300
7 -> 400
8 -> 500
9 -> 700

This was based on my quick understanding of settler maps described thusly. There is some sort of stability interaction between normal/spawn areas and the particular values chosen for the higher numbers, which I didn't figure out in detail at the time, but might be contributing to problems:

3 = Do not settle here, often used to mark off neighboring civs' spawn areas for roughly concurrent civs.
20 = default values, typically covering oceans and mountains as well as most of the map
40,60 = slightly more favored areas
90 = No influence on stability? Hence, all lower value squares hurt your stability if you own them.
150,200,300,400,500,700 = All seem to have same influence on stability. Generally core areas are at 500, with major cities at 700 and full empire extent at 400.

 

[3Miro]

Since so many people asked for it, I disabled stability for now. Here is the new version that you guys can play with. I will keep on working on the stability.

sedna: there seems to be a problem with serfdom, cottaged do not grow at all, not just 50% slower. Do you think it is in the XML or should I look for the problem in Python/C++.

 

[sedna17]

@3Miro

The problem with cottage growth under Serfdom is almost certainly an XML problem -- some of the tags just don't deal with negative values. I'll remove this in the next update to the xml files. At some point we may want to implement a different downside to Serfdom.

 

[3Miro]

Are you sure it is negative and not just a penalty like 50 means 50% less, and 200% means twice as fast?

I am currently more worried for the upside of serfdom. +1 food seems somewhat OP for me, it was actually causing a lot of problems for the stability since stability, the way Rhye had it, depended heavily on food production.

 

[jessiecat]

Are you sure it is negative and not just a penalty like 50 means 50% less, and 200% means twice as fast?

I am currently more worried for the upside of serfdom. +1 food seems somewhat OP for me, it was actually causing a lot of problems for the stability since stability, the way Rhye had it, depended heavily on food production.

Why would an excess of food cause instability? In the real world a surplus can be exported which creates more wealth. Why would that cause instability?

 

[3Miro]

In Rhye's model we take the ratio of food to real population (i.e. population from the demographics screen, in thousands and millions). More food is better, but ... More food means more population and larger cities, food grows linearly with the size of the city, while the actual population grows to a power, creating larges cities and thus causing more instability then adding it. The comes the moment of switching away from Serfdom, which causes Economics stability to drop very sharply.

In general the model works for RFC, even though I disagree with it. There is too much emphasis on growth, strong whip and growth in the middle ages creates a stable empire in more modern times (why should it carry on for so long). Specialists do not produce food and their contributions to the economy are not considered at all (except for the Engineers and Prophets hammers), so specialists are in fact penalized (the only good thing that comes from them is that they lead to somewhat limited city growth and limited penalty for city size). Banks and Markets have no effect on stability (only Custom Houses for the trade routes). I am trying to change that in a meaningful way.

 

[sedna17]

Putting

<iImprovementUpgradeRateModifier>50</iImprovementUpgradeRateModifier>

Makes the Civic screen say it adds +50% to the speed at which towns upgrade, but it doesn't actually. 100 halves the upgrade time (10 turns to 5). 200 reduces it 10 turns to 4 (odd rounding?). All in all, I don't understand this tag.

Note that the +1 food is only from farms, so there is a trade-off with building any cottages. I can see why you're worried though. Anyone have a better suggestion for what serfdom does? I always found just increasing worker speed a bit blah -- historically serfdom should be a pretty common civic type early in our mod, so it should be worthwhile to encourage that.

 

[3Miro]

Stability would be overhauled anyway, so +1 food is fine. I will look into the C++ to see if there if I can find the +/- 50 problem there. I saw the XML and you are absolutely right, so the problem is not there.

 

[civmademepoor]

. Anyone have a better suggestion for what serfdom does? I always found just increasing worker speed a bit blah -- historically serfdom should be a pretty common civic type early in our mod, so it should be worthwhile to encourage that.

Increase in military production, decrease in food production? Historically I think it would lead to bigger armies, smaller cities, and fewer specialists. The bump in food production for cities from such a system troubles me.

 

[sedna17]

Increase in military production, decrease in food production? Historically I think it would lead to bigger armies, smaller cities, and fewer specialists. The bump in food production for cities from such a system troubles me.

Initially I thought your proposal was crazy, but upon reflection you may be right. That is, you're probably correct that our current food bonus for serfdom would just lead to (historically inappropriate) specialists, and furthermore that under a system of serfdom we shouldn't have huge cities growing up.

I'm less certain about increasing military production. What did you have in mind as the rational behind this?

 

[st.lucifer]

Initially I thought your proposal was crazy, but upon reflection you may be right. That is, you're probably correct that our current food bonus for serfdom would just lead to (historically inappropriate) specialists, and furthermore that under a system of serfdom we shouldn't have huge cities growing up.

I'm less certain about increasing military production. What did you have in mind as the rational behind this?

The military production thing seems like it would be tied to the massive peasant armies fielded in serfdoms such as Poland, although that's a little later than the early serfdom that we've got available.




I'm not crazy about the whip feature with the slavery civic in ordinary RFC, as powerful as it can be - but if any civic we've got simulates it, it would be serfdom. Do we want to consider making whipping possible under serfdom, with some severe happiness penalties involved?

 

[jessiecat]

The military production thing seems like it would be tied to the massive peasant armies fielded in serfdoms such as Poland, although that's a little later than the early serfdom that we've got available.




I'm not crazy about the whip feature with the slavery civic in ordinary RFC, as powerful as it can be - but if any civic we've got simulates it, it would be serfdom. Do we want to consider making whipping possible under serfdom, with some severe happiness penalties involved?

I agree with you about the whip which I regard as pretty much an exploit. I'd rather see some other mechanism to boost production like giving a hammer bonus with serfdom rather than a food one. But if we can't find one, I'd just leave it as it is.

 

[onedreamer]

On starting assets (techs, units, buildings) for new civs spawning:
I think before starting we should group civs in different "eras", and define general rules for each era, then proceed to examine each case in detail. I'm gonna edit this post with a proposed grouping for review by everyone.

starting civs (500-600):
Burgundy, Byzantium, France
first group (600-700):
Arabia, Bulgaria
second group (700-800):
Cordoba, Spain, Norse, Papacy, Venice
third group (800-900):
Kiev, Hungary, Germany, Poland
fourth group (900-1100):
Moscow, Genoa, England
fifth group (1100-1300):
Portugal, Austria
sixth group (1300-1500):
Ottomans
seventh group (1500):
Sweden, Netherlands

 

[onedreamer]

Serfdom: I would increase health and +1 gold per aristocrat specialist (which IMO would be more suitable than scientists in the middle age).
I noticed a dangerous tendency to propose bonus+penalty for civics. I think this is a wrong approach because it kills the strategic value of adopting a civic. When you adopt a civic you are discarding 3+ other civics, this is the strategic element and the penalty is not being able to use the boni from other civics. Now, there can be some civics here and there with bonus+penalty, for balance reasons, but I think they should be limited not the general rule; plus the bonus should always be much higher than the penalty. I already mentioned how in the Merchant Republic civic the penalties are so high to shade the boni, if all civics were like this the choice I'd make would be in what civic gives the best combination of boni/penalties rather than what civic gives the bonus I need most now.

 

[3Miro]

Merchant Republic has penalties, but +25% Gold and Science is a huge bonus, well worth the penalty. In either case, specifics should probably wait a little, until we have tested the thing a little more.

I managed to do the first Cordoban UHV, just beeline to Feudalism (serfdom) and Divine Right (Divine Monarchy) from the very beginning and with enough workers I got Cordoba to size 16 (I think Byzantines had a city of size 14 so I won by a good margin). I even did that with a test version of a new stability model (especially Economically), More work is needed, but so far nations are not collapsing left and right.

 

[jessiecat]

Merchant Republic has penalties, but +25% Gold and Science is a huge bonus, well worth the penalty. In either case, specifics should probably wait a little, until we have tested the thing a little more.

I managed to do the first Cordoban UHV, just beeline to Feudalism (serfdom) and Divine Right (Divine Monarchy) from the very beginning and with enough workers I got Cordoba to size 16 (I think Byzantines had a city of size 14 so I won by a good margin). I even did that with a test version of a new stability model (especially Economically), More work is needed, but so far nations are not collapsing left and right.

Interesting test. I think my problem was I had Cordoba sandwiched between Sevilla, Granada and Malaga (more for geographic accuracy than anything). So not enough tiles to irrigate. I'm glad its doable. I'll have a go at it again.

BTW Check on my update on Burgundy on the test thread. Another UHV problem I'm afraid. Also check your PMs.

 

[sedna17]

On starting assets (techs, units, buildings) for new civs spawning:
I think before starting we should group civs in different "eras", and define general rules for each era, then proceed to examine each case in detail. I'm gonna edit this post with a proposed grouping for review by everyone.

starting civs (500-600):
Burgundy, Byzantium, France
first group (600-700):
Arabia, Bulgaria
second group (700-800):
Cordoba, Spain, Norse, Papacy, Venice
third group (800-900):
Kiev, Hungary, Germany, Poland
fourth group (900-1100):
Moscow, Genoa, England
fifth group (1100-1300):
Portugal, Austria
sixth group (1300-1500):
Ottomans
seventh group (1500):
Sweden, Netherlands

I think we could group civs by both region and time frame to some extent. That is, the two islamic civs should start out with many of the same techs and the two Italian city states will probably have a different flavor of starting techs then their northern brethren.

ancient civs:
Byzantium
starting civs europe(500-700):
Burgundy, France, Bulgaria
Islamic group (600-800):
Arabia, Cordoba
second europe group (700-800):
Spain, Norse, Papacy
Mediterranean (600-900):
Venice,Genoa
third group (800-900):
Kiev, Hungary, Germany, Poland
fourth group (900-1100):
Moscow, England
fifth group (1100-1300):
Portugal, Austria
sixth group (1300-1500):
Ottomans
seventh group (1500):
Sweden, Netherlands

 

[sedna17]

Alright, here's a fully-fleshed out list of starting techs for civs. This is based on the new tech tree (and eras contained therein) which I post here again for ease of reference. I have made only minor changes to the currently implemented civs to reflect changes to the tech tree.

I hope the format of the later civs (base civ list + additional techs) is easy enough to read. Remember the primary focus of this should be historical accuracy at the time a civ rises.

Comments/Criticisms/Suggestions?

Byz:
Calendar
Map_Making
Architecture
Theology
Monasticism
Music
Literature
Classical_Knowledge
Code_of_Laws
Philosophy
Herbal_Medicine
(Erase Drama from currently implemented list)

Franks:
None

Burgundians:
None

Bulgaria:
Theology
Calendar
Map Making
Stirrup
Architecture
Monasticism

Arabs:
Calendar
Mapmaking
Lateen Sail
Theology
Monasticism
Literature
Stirrup
Architecture
Code of Laws
ArabicKnowledge
HerbalMedicine

Cordoba:
Arab techs
+ Engineering

Spain:
Calendar
MapMaking
Architecture
Theology
Monasticism
HerbalMedicine
Stirrup

Norse:
Calendar
Mapmaking
Architecture
Engineering
Manorialism
Vassalage
Civil Service (or move Beserker up in Tech Tree)

Venice:
Calendar
Mapmaking
Lateen Sail
Architecture
Theology
Monasticism
Music
Literature
Herbal Medicine
Manorialism
Vassalage
Code of Laws
Stirrup

Kiev:
Calendar
Architecture
Theology
Monsticism
Manorialism
Vassalage
Feudalism
Stirrup
Farriers

Hungary:
Kiev
+ Art

Germany:
Kiev
+ Art
+ Engineering
+ Machinery

Poland:
Kiev
+ Art
+ Engineering
+ Machinery

Moscow:
Kiev
+ Art
+ Engineering
+ Machinery
+ Blast Furnace
+ Music

Genoa:
Venice
+Vaulted Arches
+Engineering
+Machinery
+Feudalism

England:
All Early Middle Ages
+ Blast Furnace
+ Code of Laws

Portugal:
England
+ Literature
+ Astrolabe

Austria:
England
+ Gothic Architecture
+ Chivalry

Ottoman Turks:
All Early Middle Ages
All High Middle Ages
Gunpowder

Sweeden:
All Early
All High
All Late
- Arabic Knowledge
- Public Works
- Chemistry

Netherlands:
All Early
All High
All Late
-Arabic Knowledge

 

[jessiecat]

A very complete list. I'd go with that for now. There's no point trying to agree unanimously on everything. Better to implement the tech tree and the starting techs as they are. Any problems should reveal themselves in play-testing. Well done.

BTW I would have the Beserker enabled by Engineering and make the Norse research Civil Service.