Rhye's of Europe Civ Discussion Thread

[Michael Vick]

I'm with my phone right now. Madrid is the tile two units East, 1 unit North of Toledo if I'm remembering correctly. The tile to the left that needs to be made into a hill is grassland with a forest already on it. Then the other tiles are the two plains on the south side of the Duero. I might not be making any sense right now, but look anyway, I'll check the map later
EDIT: Nevermind, you got it.

 

[Michael Vick]

Ok, this is my grand proposal. I've been exploring the diplomacy system in Empire: Total War, reading a lot about the history of European monarchs, and I have come up with a crazy idea. A concept, Crowns. I will explain.

CROWNS-
With this, you are not the King of your civilization, but you are the king and hold the crown/crowns of the kingdoms that make up your nation. Isabella is no longer the Queen of Spain, She is the Queen of Leon and Castille. Ragnar is not the King of the Norse, but the King of Sweden and Denmark, Harald Hardrada the King of Norway. Elizabeth not the Queen of England but the Queen of England and Ireland. Leopold is not the King of Austria, but the King of Hungary and Bohemia, of course he does not possess this title on the spawn, but you get my point. The leaders in the mod (so long as their civic is one of the monarchies, despotism included. also, running merchant republic negates the effect of crowns) possess the territories that they do because of their crowns and titles.
Kingdoms will be named based on the religion of their sovereign. A Christian controlled area is ruled by a King/Queen, Duke/Duchess, Prince/Princess, Count/Countess, and is referred to as a Kingdom, Duchy, Principality, etc. A Muslim controlled area is ruled by a Sultan, Caliph or Emir and is a Sultanate, Caliphate or Emirate. Some regions like Hungary and Bulgaria will need special Pagan names. The separate Kingdoms, in some instances, could be united, to form a Kingdom of Spain, France, or Great Britain

The Kingdoms - There will be many areas of the map designated as the regions for a crown. They have to have been historically ruled as a Kingdom, and have maintained that status for a greater part of our time frame.
This is the general list of Crowns and regions, it can be added on to, or reduced if my idea is passed.

For Iberia-
Kingdom of Portugal (covers Portugal's spawn zone)
Kingdom of Leon (covers Spain's spawn zone)
Kingdom of Aragon (covers the area from the Pyrenees to Valencia, Zaragoza to Barcelona)
Kingdom of Navarre ( small square SW of Northern Pyrenees, Pamplona will be the only city)
Kingdom of Castille (covers all of central and southern Spain, all area leftover after preceding kingdoms) (Any Muslim civs will hold castille as the "Caliphate of Cordoba")
When all but Portugal are controlled, the Kingdoms are united, forming the Kingdom of Spain.

For France-
Duchy of Brittany (covers Brittany)
Duchy of Burgundy (The Rhone to the Alps. Dijon, Lyon)
Kingdom of Aquitane (covers in between the rivers Loire and Garrone. Bordeaux, Toulouse)
Kingdom of Neustria (Covers from Reims and the West Bank of the Meuse river to Brittany)
Unification of last two will create Kingdom of France, the Kingdom of France will remain the Kingdom of France, cannot be separated into Neustria and Aquitane. Burgundy and Brittany when added, become part of the Kingdom of France but can be separated.

For Italia-
Duchy of Milan (Lombardy, excludes Genoa)
Kingdom of Naples ( Italy South of the Pope's territory, Sicily and Sardinia)
Papal State (Pope's territory, will always be the Papal State)

For Benelux
Kingdom of Holland (the dye and the iron tile, pretty much just Amsterdam)
County of Flanders (3x4 square South of Holland)
Unification of the two creates Kingdom of the Netherlands

For those rather large chunks of land North of Calais -
Kingdom of England (all of Britain South of that river next to Edinburgh)
Kingdom of Scotland (everything North of that)
Optional: Wales?
Unification of the three results in the Kingdom of Great Britain
Kingdom of Ireland (You know, Ireland.)

For Northern Europe-
Kingdom of Denmark (Denmark)
Kingdom of Norway ( Norway)
Unification of the two creates Kingdom of Denmark
Kingdom of Sweden (Sweden)

For Central Europe- (where it gets interesting)
Duchy of Lorraine ( Square just North of Burgundy)
Duchy of Wirtemberg (Square just East of Lorraine)
Duchy of Bavaria (fat cross of Augsburg, all the dense forest tiles)
Duchy of Saxony ( Strip of land Northeast of Bavaria, iron, deer, silver)
Margraviate of Brandenburg (from fat cross of Berlin, up to Baltic coast)
Kingdom of West Prussia (fat cross of Danzig/Gdansk)
Kingdom of East Prussia ( square East of West Prussia)
Kingdom of Bohemia (fat cross of Prague)
Kingdom of Austria (from Vienna to Trieste, to the Alps, shares border with bavaria)
The large gap in the Cologne area is intended.
Unification of first 5 creates the Kingdom of Germany
Unification of Brandenburg and the two Prussia's create the Kingdom of Prussia
Unification of Bohemia and Austria creates Kingdom of Bohemia (will always happen)

That's all I've got right now, if this works out I'm sure our new Russian friends could do Russia, Kiev, Poland. Anatolia and Greece will simply be part of the Byzantine Empire. Then I guess North Africa will be divided into a couple of Caliphates, Sultanates, Emirates depending on the time period.

The Kingdoms are possessed by controlling all of the cities in the region. Some are so small, the crown will be based in one city, such as Amsterdam/Holland, Pamplona/Navarre, Milan/Milan.

Now this not only provides fancy titles for the leaders, but it is pretty much the solution to the issue of dynamic names. Dynamic naming will be based on the crowns that the civ possesses, religion, vassalage and time.

There are different ways to gain and lose the crowns.

Conquest-
If you conquer all the cities of a kingdom, the kingdom is yours. Be aware that that you must capture them ALL, if you take all the cities in France but Paris, the ruler of Paris will still claim to be the rightful French King.

Diplomacy-
If a civilization is losing badly enough in a war, he might be persuaded to give up a kingdom in exchange for peace. If you have ridiculously large amounts of gold, or the rival civ simply cannot hold on to the territory, you can buy the crown from them.

Inheritance- (this is where etw comes in)
Every once in a while, as indicated by history, your ruler may or may not give birth to an heir. I've thought this out forever since this is quite complicated but this can all be based on actual history. All of the births can be coded to happen on the turns that they should. Now this is a colossal amount of information to be gathered, but it can be done. We'll only take into account the most prominent families and events of the times. The births will happen as events, and they will be shown in green font as good news up at the top-center of the screen.
"A new heir, Elizabeth has been born, securing the line of strong English rulers"
or something like that
"A new heir, Phillip has been born, securing the line of strong Spanish rulers"
When the current sovereign dies or abdicates, the firstborn of your heirs will succeed, probably in a little blue pop-up box as a major event.
"(name of heir) has succeeded to the crown of (any crowns you might hold, the heir is entitled to)"
"Elizabeth I has succeeded to the crowns of England and Ireland!"
"Phillip II has succeeded to the crowns of Spain, Naples, Milan, and the Netherlands!"
That's only if every thing goes according to plan though.
Your heirs can also die, this will all happen as historical.
When you run out of heirs, or you never come to produce an heir, you can leave the crowns to a member of a different royal family. Other civs will have a choice to accept the new heir, or dispute the succession and try to fight for the inheritance, this will create wars of succession.
All of these events can happen exactly as in history when the player is not involved. The player will see messages at the top of the screen occasionally displaying news of major events and exchanges of power. When the player IS involved, he will have choices. He can receive a blue pop-up box on the right announcing the of the king without heirs. He now has a couple of options. He can direct the inheritance to a selection of heirs from other countries, realistic choices though, only countries that are friendliest or are related and share the same religion. Let's say a human playing as Spain didn't get the UHVs, but still keeps playing. It is 1700, and the King Carlos II has died. He can:
-Direct the inheritance to the current ruler of France (immediately take control of Spain and France's possessions, other civs will likely dispute)
-Direct the inheritance to future heir of France (resume control of Spain, take control of France when current sovereign dies, other civs will likely dispute)
-Direct the inheritance to current ruler of Portugal (take control of Spain and Portugal, other civs likely to dispute)
-Direct the inheritance to future heir of Portugal (resume control of Spain, take control of Portugal when King of Portugal dies)
-Direct inheritance to current ruler of Austria (Take control of Spain and Austria, other civs dispute)
-Direct inheritance to future heir of Austria (resume control of Spain, take control of Austria when Leopold dies, dispute)
-Let the nobles and generals fight for control! (collapse, game ends)
-Abolish the Monarchy, establish a Republic! (switches civic to Republic)
When you direct the inheritance to another country, other civs will have the choice to start a war if they are not the chosen heirs. Nearby civs can choose to join the war on a side. Let's say the human is England whilst all this happened. Spain will make the second choice, (historical) selecting Phillipe of France as the heir to Spain. Austria will dispute the claim, and declare war on France. the human player is presented with a choice to either join the war on France's side so that the rightful heir can take control, or side with Austria to prevent a centralized power in Europe, or leave them alone to their fighting. Now let's say the human was playing as Russia, all of these decisions are made as historical, and you have yourself a War of Spanish Succession.

Now this provides for very constricting gameplay, you might say. I was thinking of making this an option or add on to the mod. A modmodmod, RFCEurope: Crowns.
Or it can be like in the opening turns of Road to War, where you can choose how to play. That would really set this mod apart from anything else produced here at civfanatics.
This sounds ridiculously ambitious, but it would really capture the feel of Europe. If the whole inheritance thing is too overwhelming, we could just include the rest of the crowns concept for dynamic naming. We could also figure out a formula of crowns to be required for the title of Holy Roman Emperor. THAT would solve problems.
So what do you think, "Crowns".

EDIT: My, that was a lot of text for probably nothing.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

This sounds a lot like EU III with fixed borders and cities. But you can build cities in RFC which makes it difficult to check when ALL cities have been captured. (would probably slow down the game a lot)

 

[Michael Vick]

Well I think the first city taken in the region should have the crown. If England has Edinburgh and Inverness, and the Vikings take Inverness, England still holds the holds the crown of Scotland. I think controlling ALL of the cities is only when you aim to take the crown from someone else, in which case you would need to take all of their cities. But with this passive AI, that wouldn't happen often.

Introducing the geographic condition as a factor for certain elements of the game would certainly slow it down, but I have a pretty fast computer so I wouldn't mind playing it with the feature added or taken away in the "custom scenario" menu, or just as a modmodmod.

 

[micbic]

A very nice idea (indeed seems like EU, as AP correctly points), but I have two disagreement points (besides possible coding difficulty)

For Central Europe- (where it gets interesting)
Duchy of Lorraine ( Square just North of Burgundy)
Duchy of Wirtemberg (Square just East of Lorraine)
Duchy of Bavaria (fat cross of Augsburg, all the dense forest tiles)
Duchy of Saxony ( Strip of land Northeast of Bavaria, iron, deer, silver)
Margraviate of Brandenburg (from fat cross of Berlin, up to Baltic coast)
Kingdom of West Prussia (fat cross of Danzig/Gdansk)
Kingdom of East Prussia ( square East of West Prussia)
Kingdom of Bohemia (fat cross of Prague)
Kingdom of Austria (from Vienna to Trieste, to the Alps, shares border with bavaria)
The large gap in the Cologne area is intended.
Unification of first 5 creates the Kingdom of Germany
Unification of Brandenburg and the two Prussia's create the Kingdom of Prussia
Unification of Bohemia and Austria creates Kingdom of Bohemia (will always happen)

Are you sure about Lorraine being part of Central Europe and not France? AFAIK, the only period Lorraine (Strasbourg, Metz, Nancy?) was German was at Bismarck's reign.
Moreover why Bohemia+Austria=Bohemia (I would go for Austria, and add Bohemia+Austria+Hungary=Austrohungary)

Inheritance- (this is where etw comes in)
Every once in a while, as indicated by history, your ruler may or may not give birth to an heir. I've thought this out forever since this is quite complicated but this can all be based on actual history. All of the births can be coded to happen on the turns that they should. Now this is a colossal amount of information to be gathered, but it can be done. We'll only take into account the most prominent families and events of the times. The births will happen as events, and they will be shown in green font as good news up at the top-center of the screen.
"A new heir, Elizabeth has been born, securing the line of strong English rulers"
or something like that
"A new heir, Phillip has been born, securing the line of strong Spanish rulers"

What about the LHs? We need many for each nation, if there is to be one leaderhead per ruler (unless we get around 20-30 LHs for all-nation use)

EDIT: Cross-post

 

[3Miro]

I don't know about UU and everything sounds good, but there are fundamental issues with implementing this into civilization (not just RFCE but civ in general).

Civs concept is that there is a nation (i.e. USA) and YOU enter into the boots of one of their great leaders (say Washington) and YOU lead this one nation through the entire history.

In RFC, nation switch leaders (for more of a historical feel), however, if you lead a nation, you will never change (when you play USA Washington does not become Lincoln ever). If the leader of France changes every 10 - 20 turns, then who am I?

If the AI leaders change too often that leads to several issues:
1. Every leader has a different personality. A strategy needs time to grow and develop, if the leader changes, then the AI strategy changes and if it changes too often, then everything fails.
2. If we keep constant personalities, then the only difference is the picture and the name. We cannot put in picture of all the dynasties of all the civs (it is impossible) and even if we go, with the constant personality, this will be so much work with virtually no effect on the gameplay.
3. If we code successions in a Congress style and if successions happen every 10 -20 turns, then there will be a new war every 10 - 20 turns. Now this is historical, however, in terms of RFCE it will destroy the gameplay. Eventually everyone will be at war with everyone else and there will be no regular diplomacy.
4. Those forced wars (the random ones that Rhye has in the code and the ones due to the congress in RFC) have little overall effect. The AI needs time to prepare for a war before it can lead one to a reasonable degree of competence. Forced wars lead to little more than a few border skirmishes. If a city falls, then that will be by accident.
5. You said it yourself, the game gets too restrictive. I don't want to do what was truly done in the past, I want to change it.

Coding the AI and re-balancing everything will be way too much work. We are having enough hard time trying to get some adequate action from the current AI.

Succession could be coded as a random event (actually there is already one such event in RFC). We can make it so that we can have a succession war over a city or something along those lines.

For the dynamic city names, those are the names of the civs, not the titles of the leader. Starting with something like the kingdom of Castille and then growing to the kingdom of Spain is OK, but then again, it will come at a considerable speed cost. We basically have to split the entire map, come up with all the names for all the little regions and then we will have something:
Isabella leader of:
Kingdom of Leon
Kingdom of Aragon
and
Kingdom of Navarre

You can call Isabella a Queen, but what if one has a number of Duchys (what is the plural of Duchy? Duchesses are the wifes of a polygamist Duke, right?) and Counties. (King of the Duchy of something?) (Top ten civilizations in the world: 1. Duchy of A, Duchy of B and County of C, 2. Kingdom of D and ...., )

Another problem will be the dynamic city locations. Civ is a game centered around cities and not regions. I hope you get the idea of how hard coding the names in that manner will be.

We can make the change of the name by year, how about that?

Basically some bits and pieces of what you are proposing could be coded, but definitely not the most of it.

Have you looked at a UU mod for civ, someone might have already done all that.

If you with to make a mod or modmod or mod^k with k>2, I will give you all the source code and basic instructions, however, I am not coding another mod^n for any n.

 

[Michael Vick]

@Micbic, when I list the big country/areas like Spain, France, Central Europe, they don't mean anything I'm just organizing them. And your idea for Austria would definitely simplify things, but I think the region was just referred to as Bohemia and Hungary seperately. The unification of the three might create a nation called Austria-Hungary, but Leopold will be the King of Hungary and Bohemia, as in history. I'm not especially adamant about any of this, though, continue to suggest. We don't need a whole lot of leaderheads, just one male, a female for some, and for the very different leaders we'll just use a 2d painting.
For example, For Spain we would use the El Cid leaderhead for the earlier Kings (not including El Cid), Isabella for any of the females, considering that our Isabella leader head looks nothing like Isabella of castille anyway, and Phillip II and paintings for the later male Kings.

@3Miro:
"Civs concept is that there is a nation (i.e. USA) and YOU enter into the boots of one of their great leaders (say Washington) and YOU lead this one nation through the entire history.

In RFC, nation switch leaders (for more of a historical feel), however, if you lead a nation, you will never change (when you play USA Washington does not become Lincoln ever). If the leader of France changes every 10 - 20 turns, then who am I?"

You are all of the leaders, you become each one, gameplay will be exactly the same, you'd only be switching names.

On your several issues:
1.The strategy will stay the same, or atleast it won't switch with every Monarch. This is RFC, and as you might remember, the civs have UPs, not traits.
2.The effect on gameplay is the way that the Kingdoms are shifted around, Europe was not shaped as much by warfare as it was by families and diplomacy, and lots of the warfare that did occur was based on this kind of diplomacy. Like I said, we don't need lots of pictures.
3.I think you misunderstood my last example, that will only happen if you run out of heirs. Normally, the succession will continue, there's almost always some inbred cousin somewhere in these old families.
4.I can see where you're coming from, I've seen many of those forced wars, well the AI doesn't need to declare war, if they get left out of the will of a deceased King than that could just cause diplomatic tensions.
5. I know, I don't want to force the the Inheritance concept on mainstream RFCEurope, It could be a choice. In Road to War, every single diplomatic action was predetermined, and it was still a fun game. AND, you had the option of going the other way.

The Inheritance thing should be dropped, but I still think the regions thing is a good way to decide dynamic names. If you're talking about the title you get on the diplomacy screen, it will always be referring to the home region, none of the extra possessions will be included.
Should they fulfill their natural areas of expansion, no matter how much farther they go, they will be described as:
The Duchy of Burgundy
The Kingdom of France
Byzantine Empire (always be called this no matter what)
Sultan/Emir/Caliphate of Arabia
Bulgarian Empire (always)
Sultan/Emir/Caliphate of Cordoba
Kingdom of Spain
Kingdom of Denmark (or Norse Kingdom)
Republic of Venice (they use Merchant Republic so they will never be affected)
Principality of Kyiv (or Kyivan Rus?)
Kingdom of Hungary
Kingdom of Germany
Kingdom of Poland
Not sure what to put for Moscow
Republic of Genoa (same as Venice)
Kingdom of Great Britain
Kingdom of Portugal
Kingdom of Bohemia
Ottoman Empire
The Dutch will spawn as the United Provinces, if they take Flanders, they will become the Kingdom of the Netherlands. If they use a Monarchy, they will start as the Kingdom of Holland.

So you see, the dynamic name will based on the regions in the natural area of expansion, the home region. Whatever they are called in the process of getting to this point, they can only amount to these names. Now, if any of the civs currently listed as Kingdoms should acquire surplus regions outside of the home area, the holy land excluded, they become an Empire.
Burgundian Empire (not likely to happen)
French Empire
Spanish Empire
Norse Empire (or something, idk)
Hungarian Empire (not likely since home region should be very large)
German/Prussian Empire
Polish Empire
British Empire (or English Empire if without Scotland)
Portuguese Empire
Austrian Empire
Dutch Empire (not likely)

 

[AnotherPacifist]

1. Every leader has a different personality. A strategy needs time to grow and develop, if the leader changes, then the AI strategy changes and if it changes too often, then everything fails.

*cough*USA every 4 years*cough*

On a more serious note, I think RFCE is not as great as RFC. Reasons:
--There are too many year-based UHV criteria. All you need to do is build up your infrastructure, kill a civ or 2, and occupy all your required land.
--No strategy to speak of like squatting, killing a civ at spawn to get their land, flipping Vikings across the ocean, first to get conquerors, etc. You might call these gimmicks, but that was what made RFC fun.
--The genius of RFC is, in a major part, the map. If you spawn in Mali, your strategy has to be limited by its deserts and jungles. Contrast that with Europe: in RFCE there's just way too many resources, and unless you're Arabia and have to found useless cities in the Maghreb, you can basically found cities anywhere and get decent food and production. The fun of deciding between Paris vs. Constance, Southampton vs London vs Nottingham, or Berlin vs Danzig or letting Frankfurt be your capital, is just gone.
--the lack of a whip means that history progresses in a time-limited fashion, and you can't take the risk of some unhappiness for a larger historic goal (e.g. get a wonder built sooner to beat the AI, or leaving a city empty of troops because you know you can whip it out soon).

 

[3Miro]

When I was talking about different leaders, I did not mean the traits. There is more detailed AI behavior then just the traits, in fact (for the AI) the traits do not dictate anything. Shaka will be a warmonger even of you make him spiritual and philosophical. Part of the AI is in the XML and part is in Python (mostly XML). Open the leaderhead file in Assets\XML\Civilizations and you will see what I mean.

For the dynamic names, I will have to think a little. There is still the issue of religion, i.e. if Simeon goes Catholic, he will not be a Tsar. Also Moscow started as Duchy, but Ivan IV upgraded it to Tsardom. At one point Bulgaria was a Knyajestvo (something like a Duchy) and so on.

All I am pointing is that there are many issues to consider, otherwise I actually like the idea. I will have to think more about it.

 

[3Miro]

*cough*USA every 4 years*cough*

On a more serious note, I think RFCE is not as great as RFC. Reasons:
--There are too many year-based UHV criteria. All you need to do is build up your infrastructure, kill a civ or 2, and occupy all your required land.
--No strategy to speak of like squatting, killing a civ at spawn to get their land, flipping Vikings across the ocean, first to get conquerors, etc. You might call these gimmicks, but that was what made RFC fun.
--The genius of RFC is, in a major part, the map. If you spawn in Mali, your strategy has to be limited by its deserts and jungles. Contrast that with Europe: in RFCE there's just way too many resources, and unless you're Arabia and have to found useless cities in the Maghreb, you can basically found cities anywhere and get decent food and production. The fun of deciding between Paris vs. Constance, Southampton vs London vs Nottingham, or Berlin vs Danzig or letting Frankfurt be your capital, is just gone.
--the lack of a whip means that history progresses in a time-limited fashion, and you can't take the risk of some unhappiness for a larger historic goal (e.g. get a wonder built sooner to beat the AI, or leaving a city empty of troops because you know you can whip it out soon).

RFCE has major flaws, first is that it is still only in Alpha. If you have suggestions to improve it, please share them with us.

 

[Michael Vick]

Here's an idea, since Civilization is based on cities as you pointed out, what about making the crowns based in cities? We could have specific cities be the seat of each crown.

Portugal- Lisbon
Leon- Leon
Castille- Toledo
Navarre- Pamplona
Aragon- Barcelona/Zaragoza
Cordoba - Cordoba
(After Unification) Spain - Toledo
Aquitane - Bordeaux/Toulouse (Have Burdigala spawn as indy)
Neustria - Paris
(After Unification) France - Paris
England - London
Scotland - Edinburgh
Ireland - Dublin
(After Unification) Great Britain - London
Milan - Milan
Naples - Naples
Holland - Amsterdam
Flanders - Antwerp (or first city founded in flanders establishes County of Flanders)
(AU) Netherlands - Amsterdam
Denmark - Copenhagen
Norway - Tonsberg ( because it's already there, I would prefer Stavanger)
(AU) Denmark - Copenhagen
Sweden - first city founded, after spawn of Sweden, Stockholm
(AU with Finland) Sweden - Stockholm
Lorraine - Strasbourg (or first city founded)
Wirtemberg - Stuttgart (or first city founded)
Bavaria - Augsburg(I would prefer Munich to be the indy that flips to Germany)
Hanover - Hanover
Saxony - Leipzig/Dresden (or first city founded)
Brandenburg - Berlin
West Prussia - Danzig
East Prussia - Konigsberg (or First city founded
(AU) Prussia - Berlin
(AU2)Germany - Berlin
Bohemia - Prague
Austria - Vienna
(AU) Bohemia - Vienna
Hungary - Budapest

Just controlling the single cities gives you the crown. They're each like the capitol of the mini-region. They could even have special buildings like a kind of minor palace to show their importance. Surely city based Crowns will lighten the load of work.

 

[jessiecat]

I'm also a bit dubious about what these crowns and inheritances would bring to actual gameplay. Yes, diplomacy would be more complex in the late game I guess but how much more interesting would that be? And would the AI be able to cope with it? I'd rather see enhanced diplomacy based on Papal edicts/bulls/alliances etc. similiar to the AP functions in RFC. I also partially agree with APs point about the UHVs, which I'd like to be less conquest or date based and somewhat more creative. Though I don't share his fondness for squatting, flipping, whipping and other gimmicks which can be easily exploited by the more clever players like himself to achieve an early and completely ahistorical outcome. Unlike some people I have no interest in amassing 75,000 in gold and conquering the entire map in 1400, thank you.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

RFCE has major flaws, first is that it is still only in Alpha. If you have suggestions to improve it, please share them with us.

OK, here goes:
1. Allow some year-based criteria to be open-ended: e.g. Acquire all luxury items by year instead of in year x. Give some definite numbers for certain criteria, e.g. instead of making Paris the most cultured city in 1700, make it 25000 culture, or for the Portuguese, give a certain gold amount to achieve (so it's up to the player whether he wants to produce things other than culture, how quickly to turn up the dial for gold vs culture).
2. It's probably too late for this, but the map should be about 1/4 smaller
3. allow chopping and whipping early on with a certain tech. You don't have to call it slavery.
4. Roman roads should be present in a lot of Western Europe. This is important if you want civs to be able to found alternate cities.

 

[Tigranes]

On a more serious note, I think RFCE is not as great as RFC.

I think RFCE has it's own unique attraction, and I would not compare those two at this point. It's just amazing how much work is requred to create a mod. I really enjoyed RFCE already at alpha stage and looking forward for beta and oficial release. Remember, you've been complaining that RFC is dead, well RFCE is not even in the legal age for drinking

 

[Tigranes]

Re: whipping

I would say my entire Civ feeling had changed because of no whipping. First time I was actually saving some units for reserve to act in case of emergencies It's very realistic to think about ur entire city population as slaves who get killed in one turn constructing the Granary, isn't it? .

 

[3Miro]

OK, here goes:
1. Allow some year-based criteria to be open-ended: e.g. Acquire all luxury items by year instead of in year x. Give some definite numbers for certain criteria, e.g. instead of making Paris the most cultured city in 1700, make it 25000 culture, or for the Portuguese, give a certain gold amount to achieve (so it's up to the player whether he wants to produce things other than culture, how quickly to turn up the dial for gold vs culture).
2. It's probably too late for this, but the map should be about 1/4 smaller
3. allow chopping and whipping early on with a certain tech. You don't have to call it slavery.
4. Roman roads should be present in a lot of Western Europe. This is important if you want civs to be able to found alternate cities.

1. In the case of by year x, the condition will have to be verified every turn. It makes the game run slower. Also, some of the "in" conditions really have an implied "survive" condition in them (Bulgaria and Byzantium vs the Turks for example).
2. The map can no longer really be changed. Way too much work and besides, which region would you make smaller? All of them evenly? Even now some areas are somewhat crowded and not all historical cities have a chance of being founded. It does make the game run slow and yes perhaps we should have made it smaller.
3. Early in the development we decided to remove the whip (regardless of how you call it, slavery, serfdom or whatever). The entire RFC gameplay is concentrated on the whip, even USA is best player with a powerful initial whip. We want to make something different. Some people will like it and some will not.
4. Adding pre-build roads to western Europe is an idea. Right now, workers work fast enough so it is not an issue for long, but having some initially might help.

 

[3Miro]

A point that I was considering for some time (and brought up by AnotherPacifist) is about the UHVs. Many of them come too late, which makes them either easy or requiring simply to wait around and do nothing. Also we should avoid many victories ending in the exact same year. Right now e have at least 5 - 6 associated with 1500AD. Part of the problem is that no European civ from our period has fallen like Babylon and Egypt, however, we will have to sacrifice some accuracy to gain more reasonable gamplay. Here are some examples:

-- Arabia - next to France, this is the worst example. Arabia starts early and who in his right mind will wait for 450 turns to get the UHV. It is way too much. We should make it shortly after the Turks spawn to 1500 - 1520 max. (The Ottoman conquest was in 1510 - 1520)
-- Bulgaria - force the Bulgarian survival to 1453 (the year Constantinople fell). Conquest of the land is doable by 1000AD and the construction should not be later than 1100AD. It is too easy otherwise.
-- Burgundy - Why 1500AD for Burgundy, could we make it sooner perhaps.
-- Byzantines - it is fine, just the question is "richest civ" or amass x gold (depends on the gamplay testing on how easy/hard it is).
-- Cordoba - put a time limit on the wonders (perhaps). The only competition for some of them is Arabia anyway. We should force Cordoba to be a bit faster in construction. Also make the survival 1492AD, the year Granada fell.
-- French - instead of control, make it: no English cities on this side of the British Channel (we should call it La Manche in the UHV)
-- Genoa - push all goals earlier, make it more challenging, but I have to test it on how fast it is possible.
-- Germany - 1700 is too late, Germany does spawn relatively early.
-- Hungary - 1650 gives too much wait for the Hungarians. We should make it: destroy Turkey or capture/raze/liberate 3 Turkish cities. If the Byzantines are at war with Turkey (and they will probably be) getting OB will not be a problem. Then just go for the crusade.
-- Kiev - Carpathian control should be in 1293. That was the last major victory of the Tatars over the Rus enslaving them until the liberation.
-- Poland - again too late? Will have to read some history to see.
-- Portuguese - survival is too late, pull it earlier.
-- Venice -- pull the goals earlier (make it more challenging).

I have little experience with the last three so I am not completely sure.

What do you guys think?

 

[Michael Vick]

OK, here goes:
1. Allow some year-based criteria to be open-ended: e.g. Acquire all luxury items by year instead of in year x. Give some definite numbers for certain criteria, e.g. instead of making Paris the most cultured city in 1700, make it 25000 culture, or for the Portuguese, give a certain gold amount to achieve (so it's up to the player whether he wants to produce things other than culture, how quickly to turn up the dial for gold vs culture).
2. It's probably too late for this, but the map should be about 1/4 smaller
3. allow chopping and whipping early on with a certain tech. You don't have to call it slavery.
4. Roman roads should be present in a lot of Western Europe. This is important if you want civs to be able to found alternate cities.

I found a map of the the main roads in the Roman Empire. This is 300 AD and shows only the most important so this should be what we need. I mapped it out on the civ map, here are screenshots. I also learned about lots of old Roman cities that developed at these intersections, which leads to make some suggestions.
I think there should be more indy cities at the start of the game. I put them as landmarks on the map, as well as with Roman spellings of the cities that are already there. Most of these I think they should be in the game from the the get-go, no spawning in 600 or 700. Among these are cities like Durocortorum (Reims) and Lugdunum (Lyon), I think France and burgundy should each get an extra on the flip now that their infrastructure has a bit of a jumpstart with these roads. A city I forgot to put in is Brigantium(La Coruna), placed at the end of the road in Galicia.

 

[Michael Vick]

OK, here goes:
1. Allow some year-based criteria to be open-ended: e.g. Acquire all luxury items by year instead of in year x. Give some definite numbers for certain criteria, e.g. instead of making Paris the most cultured city in 1700, make it 25000 culture, or for the Portuguese, give a certain gold amount to achieve (so it's up to the player whether he wants to produce things other than culture, how quickly to turn up the dial for gold vs culture).
2. It's probably too late for this, but the map should be about 1/4 smaller
3. allow chopping and whipping early on with a certain tech. You don't have to call it slavery.
4. Roman roads should be present in a lot of Western Europe. This is important if you want civs to be able to found alternate cities.

I found a map of the the main roads in the Roman Empire. This is 300 AD and shows only the most important so this should be what we need. I mapped it out on the civ map, here are screenshots. Not shown is North Africa, it starts in Fez, goes up to Tangier, and the rest just hugs the coast. There is a fork at Alexandria, one road goes down to Cairo and off the map, the other continues to Jerusalem. You know what would be really nice? For the Roman roads we could use those nice, cobbled roads from the Charlemagne mod. They would look nicer and they could give a movement bonus to show their superiority over crappy medieval European roads. I also learned about lots of old Roman cities that developed at these intersections, which leads me to make some suggestions.

I think there should be more indy cities at the start of the game. I put them as landmarks on the map, as well as with Roman spellings of the cities that are already there. Most of these I think should be in the game from the the get-go, no spawning in 600 or 700. Among these are cities like Durocortorum (Reims) and Lugdunum (Lyon), I think France and Burgundy should each get an extra on the flip now that their infrastructure has a bit of a jumpstart with these roads. A city I forgot to put in is Brigantium(La Coruna), placed at the end of the road in Galicia. Also not included is Tingi, on the Northern tip of Morocco. These extra cities will give the early game a more crowded feel, which there should be IMO, because it's Europe.

 

[jessiecat]

A point that I was considering for some time (and brought up by AnotherPacifist) is about the UHVs. Many of them come too late, which makes them either easy or requiring simply to wait around and do nothing. Also we should avoid many victories ending in the exact same year. Right now e have at least 5 - 6 associated with 1500AD. Part of the problem is that no European civ from our period has fallen like Babylon and Egypt, however, we will have to sacrifice some accuracy to gain more reasonable gamplay. Here are some examples:

-- Arabia - next to France, this is the worst example. Arabia starts early and who in his right mind will wait for 450 turns to get the UHV. It is way too much. We should make it shortly after the Turks spawn to 1500 - 1520 max. (The Ottoman conquest was in 1510 - 1520)
-- Bulgaria - force the Bulgarian survival to 1453 (the year Constantinople fell). Conquest of the land is doable by 1000AD and the construction should not be later than 1100AD. It is too easy otherwise.
-- Burgundy - Why 1500AD for Burgundy, could we make it sooner perhaps.
-- Byzantines - it is fine, just the question is "richest civ" or amass x gold (depends on the gamplay testing on how easy/hard it is).
-- Cordoba - put a time limit on the wonders (perhaps). The only competition for some of them is Arabia anyway. We should force Cordoba to be a bit faster in construction. Also make the survival 1492AD, the year Granada fell.
-- French - instead of control, make it: no English cities on this side of the British Channel (we should call it La Manche in the UHV)
-- Genoa - push all goals earlier, make it more challenging, but I have to test it on how fast it is possible.
-- Germany - 1700 is too late, Germany does spawn relatively early.
-- Hungary - 1650 gives too much wait for the Hungarians. We should make it: destroy Turkey or capture/raze/liberate 3 Turkish cities. If the Byzantines are at war with Turkey (and they will probably be) getting OB will not be a problem. Then just go for the crusade.
-- Kiev - Carpathian control should be in 1293. That was the last major victory of the Tatars over the Rus enslaving them until the liberation.
-- Poland - again too late? Will have to read some history to see.
-- Portuguese - survival is too late, pull it earlier.
-- Venice -- pull the goals earlier (make it more challenging).

I have little experience with the last three so I am not completely sure.

What do you guys think?

A couple of comments and some suggestions. There are a few people, including me, who enjoy long games so a long UHV victory is not necessarily a bad thing. Regarding changes in UHVs I did post a full list months ago but that seems to have been lost in the mists of time. Anyway, here are my suggestions incorporating the comments you've made above. I've done some research on key dates and these might be more realistic and doable.

Byzantines - no change but a fixed gold target is a good idea

Bulgaria - UHV1 to 1400 (was 1500)
................UHV2 to 1200AD (was 1400)
.................UHV3 to 1450AD (was 1600)

France - UHV2 - Paris to amass 15,000 culture pts. by 1680AD

Burgundy - UHV3 to 1470AD (was 1500)

Arabs - UHV3 to 1540AD (was 1700)

Cordoba - UHV2 -build the 3 wonders by 1300AD
...............UHV3 - Instead of not lose a city, - control 4 cities in Iberia and 4 in N.Africa by 1490AD

Norse - UHV1 to 1100AD (was 1050, Norman conquest of Sicily was actually in 1091)
................UHV2 to 1280AD (100 years earlier if Black Sea not included)

Germany - UHV1 -Control east bank of the Rhine by 1360AD (was 1500)
...................UHV2 -3 vassals by 1460AD (was 1600)
....................UHV3 -largest army in 1540AD (was 1700)

Venice - UHV1 to 1420AD (was 1500)
.................UHV2 to 1500AD (was 1600)
..................UHV3 to 1570AD (was 1700)

Genoa -UHV1 to 1540AD (including Milan, Marseilles, Corsica, Sardinia, Crete, and Sicily but not the Crimea)
................UHV2 - Build 2 corporations and 8 banks
.................UHV3 - open borders with 10 civs in 1640AD

England - no change except maybe just 3 cities anywhere in France west of Paris

Spain -UHV1 to 1520AD (was 1600)
...............UHV2 to 1580AD (was 1650)
...............UHV3 - Build 5 colonial projects (was 3)

Portugal -UHV1 changed to build 6 cities west and south of Iberia by 1530AD
.................UHV2 - never lose a city before 1640AD
..................UHV3 - build 3 colonial projects (as before)

Hungary - UHV1 -Control most territory by 1490AD
.................UHV2 - never lose a city to barbs or Ottomans by 1560AD
..................UHV3 - Be the first to adopt free religion (as before)

Poland - UHV1 to 1540AD (was 1600)
................UHV2 to 1600AD (was 1650)
.................UHV3 to 1660AD (was 1700)

Kiev - UHV2 to 1350AD (was 1400)
...............UHV3 to 1430AD (was 1500)

Moscow - UHV2 to 1600AD (was 1650)
.................UHV3 to 1670AD (was 1600)

Ottomans - UHV1 to 1520AD (was 1500)
..................UHV2 to 1620 AD (was 1600)
...................UHV3 to 1700AD (was 1750)

Dutch - UHV1 - have 10 open borders in 1640AD (was 1600, 20 years after spawn?)

Sweden - no change