Rhye's of Europe Organized Development Thread

[st.lucifer]

@ onedreamer: i like the idea of having venice and genoa as competing civs that have primarily economic goals. i will vote against sicily as a playable civ, as it changed hands so many times and never exerted any economic or military power outside of its borders.

@squirreloid: i like the proposal for the templars' power. for the hospitalers, what about free medic 1 promotion for melee units built in that city? too powerful?
for the teutonic knights, free shock promotion from stables?
along those lines, UHV for germany: found teutonic order in gdansk/danzig?

arguments for kiev/golden horde:
(from wikipedia; i'll dig through my empire of the steppes/russian history books later if more information is needed)
-founded in 5th century
-capital of eastern slavic kingdoms until 1240, when it was razed completely by mongols; subsequently a provincial capital under lithuania, poland, russia
-center of rus kingdom; city population at time of mongol invasion estimated at 100k (one of largest cities in the world at that time)
-importance greatly diminished post-mongols; kiev was a vassal state/province to lithuania, then poland, then russia
-mongols maintained the khanate of the golden horde in southern ukraine and the crimea until the 1480s or so; outer edges of the khanate were continually chipped away at by the eastern european powers
-KGH was powerful enough to sack moscow as late as the 1380s
-replaced by the khanate of the crimea, a vassal of the ottomans in 1475; this khanate was powerful enough to reclaim much of the land that had previously been lost.
-at its peak, included modern-day ukraine, north past moscow, south to the caucasus and tabriz, and east to the western shore of lake balkhash.


upon reading this, it seems like this is two separate entities - an early russian/viking state, based on the fur and timber trades, and the westernmost range of the mongol empire, which persisted longer than most of its other pieces.
i'd argue that both of these are relatively important to european development, the second more so than the first. as we're doing dynamic civs, it would be really interesting to have the first UHV goal be related to the expansion of the state/control of resources/trade, and the second involve the arrival of the mongols - which do have a place in europe.


thoughts?

 

[st.lucifer]

is switzerland really important enough to make the civ list? they have a long tradition of banking, neutrality, and providing mercenaries, but are sort of...inert, for lack of a better term. i have a hard time coming up with specifically swiss accomplishments, with calvinism being the only thing that really springs to mind. as that area is going to be rather crowded, does it make sense to implement a 1-2 city civ whose major goals would have to be neutrality and the accumulation of wealth?

 

[mitsho]

Switzerland only became peace-seeking after Marignano, where the French King defeated them by bribing half the army not to fight. Otherwise, probably Milano would have fallen and a real Swiss Empire would have been created.The only reason Switzerland didn't participate in the 30 years war was that it itself was distinctively made up of Catholics and Protestants, leading to many big inner-swiss fights. The main goal of Swiss state formation was - as you were right - the Alpine North-South trade. Thus conflicts with Milano & France and earlier on with the Habsburgs (arch-enemy of CH, kinda ironic as their home castle is situated here and for example some of their famous kings&queens were buried here and had to be transported costly away to Vienna again). Then there are distinct conflicts with Burgundy (we "killed" them at last) and the "HRE" itself. Not enough conflict? CH of course was very disunified (like HRE) which would need to be represented (by Civics?). I could imagine the following:

UHV:
- Secure the Alpine trade route from Milano to Strasbourg by 1500. (conquer the area!)
- Have a annual (per turn) profit of x through mercenaries by 1600 AD.
- Spread Calvinism to 30% by 1650

(second and third dates are by chance...)

UP:
- Power of Mercenaries (Mercenaries give double profit; only an example

To your idea of 1-2 city civ. Imho, the map should be chosen to be not too large, but allow many cities near to each other.

I will comment on other things when I have time

m

 

[Squirrelloid]

is switzerland really important enough to make the civ list? they have a long tradition of banking, neutrality, and providing mercenaries, but are sort of...inert, for lack of a better term. i have a hard time coming up with specifically swiss accomplishments, with calvinism being the only thing that really springs to mind. as that area is going to be rather crowded, does it make sense to implement a 1-2 city civ whose major goals would have to be neutrality and the accumulation of wealth?

I seem to recall arguing elsewhere that Switzerland was at least as deserving as Poland, so I can hardly object to their inclusion. That said, it was Mitsho who first proposed adding them (they are notably absent from my initial list). It wouldn't pain me greatly to remove them, but who would you replace them with? We've already got room for 2-3 "additional" civs, and of the current proposed ones only Kiev hasn't been objected to.

Thinking about the Kingdom of Sicily and the Norman invasion of England - should we make a Norman civ, start them about 1000AD with a city in Normandy, and armies in Normandy and Southern Italy? I mean, on the one hand, it would be nice to be able to play Anglo-Saxon England as distinct from Norman England. On the other hand, the Kingdom of Sicily is a Norman conquest as well. Further, while it would change hands frequently, the Kingdom of Sicily actually survives as a unified entity until the Napoleonic wars (and with some interruptions until the unification of Italy). Its just the nature of its ruler who changes. (rulers run something like Norman -> Hohenstaufen (spelling?) -> Angevin -> Aragon/Spain (eventually Habsburg) -> Bourbon just after the time period considered)

 

[Zhuge_Liang]

Firaxis should include this mod in their next patch.

 

[holy king]

no poland?
and noone has started a poland rant yet?

 

[LuKo]

no poland?
and noone has started a poland rant yet?

Civ list:
Poland-Lithuania

Hmmm... Probably the problem with "Polish nationalists" is a problem with people who don't like Poles and like them fighting with others.

 

[Squirrelloid]

no poland?
and noone has started a poland rant yet?

In addition to LuKo's pointing out Poland-Lithuania, the most recent civ list starts them as Lechia, which as far as I can tell is historically accurate. (Someone with better knowledge of Polish history could correct me).

 

[st.lucifer]

Switzerland only became peace-seeking after Marignano, where the French King defeated them by bribing half the army not to fight. Otherwise, probably Milano would have fallen and a real Swiss Empire would have been created.The only reason Switzerland didn't participate in the 30 years war was that it itself was distinctively made up of Catholics and Protestants, leading to many big inner-swiss fights. The main goal of Swiss state formation was - as you were right - the Alpine North-South trade. Thus conflicts with Milano & France and earlier on with the Habsburgs (arch-enemy of CH, kinda ironic as their home castle is situated here and for example some of their famous kings&queens were buried here and had to be transported costly away to Vienna again). Then there are distinct conflicts with Burgundy (we "killed" them at last) and the "HRE" itself. Not enough conflict? CH of course was very disunified (like HRE) which would need to be represented (by Civics?). I could imagine the following:

UHV:
- Secure the Alpine trade route from Milano to Strasbourg by 1500. (conquer the area!)
- Have a annual (per turn) profit of x through mercenaries by 1600 AD.
- Spread Calvinism to 30% by 1650

(second and third dates are by chance...)

UP:
- Power of Mercenaries (Mercenaries give double profit; only an example

To your idea of 1-2 city civ. Imho, the map should be chosen to be not too large, but allow many cities near to each other.

I will comment on other things when I have time

m

works for me. thanks for the explanation.

i just wondered about it when tagging my european map with civs yesterday - even on a large map, they'll get maybe 3 cities max, and marginal food/production. with burgundy on the map, there's not much room for expansion north; the alps are south and east, and genoa will be competing for savoy/piedmont.

do we give them the landsknecht as their UU?

 

[Squirrelloid]

do we give them the landsknecht as their UU?

Reislaufer, please.

 

[st.lucifer]

Thinking about the Kingdom of Sicily and the Norman invasion of England - should we make a Norman civ, start them about 1000AD with a city in Normandy, and armies in Normandy and Southern Italy? I mean, on the one hand, it would be nice to be able to play Anglo-Saxon England as distinct from Norman England. On the other hand, the Kingdom of Sicily is a Norman conquest as well. Further, while it would change hands frequently, the Kingdom of Sicily actually survives as a unified entity until the Napoleonic wars (and with some interruptions until the unification of Italy). Its just the nature of its ruler who changes. (rulers run something like Norman -> Hohenstaufen (spelling?) -> Angevin -> Aragon/Spain (eventually Habsburg) -> Bourbon just after the time period considered)

not a bad idea, but if you give them brest or rouen, i would think that it would be hard to convince the AI to go after england rather than france - particularly if they've also got an army in sicily.

i think that since the normans absorbed french language and culture so quickly (at least in normandy and england), this would be a really tricky balancing act - one potential way to do this is to give them the army, brest, a fleet of longships, and ten turns before their 'homeland' flips back to france. (while rouen would be more historically accurate, brest isolates them a bit more and makes the invasion of england a little more logical.)

if the same civ has a cluster of cities in sicily and another cluster in normandy/england, won't that make stability and corruption a huge issue? would we have them spawn a summer palace in the first sicilian city they take?

lots of things to think about here. why couldn't the vikings have just stayed in scandinavia and made this easier for us?

 

[Squirrelloid]

More thoughts on game features:

So, as I was thinking about Genoa and Venice, what they were competing for was trade in the mediterranean. However, the trade model in CivIV is really insufficient for modelling this. I propose the following:

(1) A "Merchant Caravan" unit, which can be activated in another civ's city to establish a Trading Partnership. A Trading Partnership represents that the creating civ handles all of that city's extra-national trade.

(2) Creating a Trading Partnership creates a building in your capital. This building gives you +1 gold per city which has a trade route with the city you built it in, or trade route it has with another city. (Ie, the trade routes are directed through your city, and you profit thereby).

(3) Merchant Caravans require you have open borders agreements with the nation. Ending OB also ends all Trading Partnerships with that nation.

This would allow, among other neat dynamics (like allowing Byzantium to actually be an important trade hub), the Genoa and Venetian UHVs to contain: "Control the most Trading Partnerships in the Mediterranean in $year", which would accurately represent what they were historically attempting to accomplish. It would also lead to lots of dirty diplomacy. (Cancel deals with those nasty Venetians! No no no, declare war on those dirty Genoese bastards!).

I suppose the alternative is to have Genoan and Venetian trading companies, limit Merchant Caravans to them, and run them like the corporation dynamic. But I already like the corporation replacement proposed above. And it would stop anyone else from trying to compete for trade dominance in the mediterranean (unless they wanted to take Genoa or Venetia).

 

[Squirrelloid]

not a bad idea, but if you give them brest or rouen, i would think that it would be hard to convince the AI to go after england rather than france - particularly if they've also got an army in sicily.

i think that since the normans absorbed french language and culture so quickly (at least in normandy and england), this would be a really tricky balancing act - one potential way to do this is to give them the army, brest, a fleet of longships, and ten turns before their 'homeland' flips back to france. (while rouen would be more historically accurate, brest isolates them a bit more and makes the invasion of england a little more logical.)

if the same civ has a cluster of cities in sicily and another cluster in normandy/england, won't that make stability and corruption a huge issue? would we have them spawn a summer palace in the first sicilian city they take?

lots of things to think about here. why couldn't the vikings have just stayed in scandinavia and made this easier for us?

Actually, I was thinking of creating a civics choice that made distance not matter, but increased maintenance for number of cities slightly, to represent decentralized authority. (Modeled vaguely on one of my french UP proposals, which would no longer be in competition for french UP). That would help them out immensely, and they'd be starting late enough that they should start with the tech for it.

Oh yeah, civics that have to go: State Property and Environmentalism. Seriously after the period we're talking about.

You can also influence the AIs choice of places to attack by giving them preferences. I don't know exactly how this works but you could basically make them strongly prefer London.

 

[st.lucifer]

You can also influence the AIs choice of places to attack by giving them preferences. I don't know exactly how this works but you could basically make them strongly prefer London.

that's right, i forgot you could do that. that'll work.

Actually, I was thinking of creating a civics choice that made distance not matter, but increased maintenance for number of cities slightly, to represent decentralized authority. (Modeled vaguely on one of my french UP proposals, which would no longer be in competition for french UP). That would help them out immensely, and they'd be starting late enough that they should start with the tech for it.

also sounds reasonable - would certainly be necessary for venice and genoa, and any other civ that depends on a far-flung but sparsely populated empire (our caliphate will need something similar.) i think the automatic summer palace idea might also be workable - certainly in the case of the caliphate, they should start with cities, infrastructure, and a secondary capital.

Oh yeah, civics that have to go: State Property and Environmentalism. Seriously after the period we're talking about.

no argument there! suggestions for replacement civics:

government:

-absolute monarchy - rep. hereditary rule

-feudalism - rep. police state

-regency - rep. representation

-electorate - rep. universal suffrage? (universal suffrage has no place in this mod either) (modeled on HRE electorate)


legal:

barbarism, vassalage ok; keep bureaucracy?

- thing law - (based on viking system) rep. nationhood

- magna carta or common law - rep. free speech

labor:

tribalism, slavery, serfdom ok

- apprenticeship - replaces caste system; similar bonuses - high upkeep. possibly an overall trade bonus: grocer/market give slight increase in trade or science?

- free peasantry - rep. emancipation

economic:

keep decentralization and mercantilism; maybe free market?

- guilds - increased production bonuses, maybe a science penalty?

-communalism - rep. state property? no upkeep; maintenance in cities -25%; gold (not trade) by -50%

religion:

-pacifism should probably be taken out. add monasticism? should theocracy be a religion or government civic?


thoughts? some of these obviously aren't very developed, but i think that the names and concepts at least are closer to those of the period.

 

[Whitefire]

Sorry for disappearing guys. I don't have any spare time right now. I'm in class from 6am-2pm most days, then I end up at the bar for 6 hours. I hope y'all can put this together.

 

[Vince-G]

Whitefire, if you want me to cede back the project to you, I shall

 

[Disenfrancised]

but are sort of...inert, for lack of a better term. i have a hard time coming up with specifically swiss accomplishments

Expanding their territory 600% from a few small towns via military might, and beating all comers up until the 16th century? Invented quite a lot of stuff too. Having lots of cool conflicts between cantons as well.

'Too small' is an acceptable criticism of Switzerland inclusion, 'inert' certainly isn't .

 

[mitsho]

hmm, after having looked into possible maps I must say, STOP! we need to reevaluate and find a good map first!

The Problem I've encountered mainly is that the maps are either too large or too small. Most have a insanely big "eastern Europe", we don't need that. On the other hand, in central europe we are hopelessly lost Yes, I must say that a Switzerland doesn't make sense that way. Neither a Genoa for that matter or Rome & Naples. Even Burgundy would be too small. But most of these maps leave enough place on the other side for Austria, Hungary, Bohemia, and many more. Let's not even start with Ukraine or Russia, insane... Even Iberia with its three civs normally has enough place but is very cropped if we compare it to a normal game of civ...

Thus, Imho, we need to turn the angle or change the map, so the parts where we want to have many civs are larger than the others. Kinda like Europe and the rest of the World in normal RFC! I have thus a few propositions of which the first on is based on Paint (after I gave up searching for a perfect initial map). This is based on Rhyes suggestion of the other thread (If you'd open the map you'd see that even here there be way too few room for the Italian and Western Central civs.

a)

black - first suggestion, poses obvious problems of more land rather than fewer...
red, bordeaux & yellow - second suggestions, I like bordeaux most. Problem here is that Russia is kinda excluded. But the problem with Russia is, it is so far away from the rest that it just takes up so much space in a civ map which could be used better... (we could kick Russia out *ducks* )
Dark Green is the normal angle perspective.

b) Create a entirely new map (who?) with an enlarged area in the middle and Eastern Europe "comparatively" smaller.

c) use the one proposed in the other map, but then we can delete a few civs and for example just have one generic Germany... (that'd be the dark green box on my map above).

I absolutely think that this needs to be decided first before we can go on! (then take a look at the Tech tree, respectively how long should the game be and how much do we want to change (as there need to be graphics for all of that => immense workload, so I just say we take the tech tree from the beginning up to X and change the names), anyways! Map first! ^^

Mick

PS: @Onedreamer, didn't ignore your post and now think that Naples-Sicily really should be in (first as a Norman state), if we have room (and can make/find a "coherent" civ), but as I just said, see the Problem above!

 

[onedreamer]

RFC kinda solved the map issue by placing more resources in crowded areas. But I think that turning the map is a good idea, anyways. Why not using EE3 map though ?

 

[mitsho]

Just look a bit at some maps. Of the existing ones (also the ones proposed in the old thread), none has really enough room for Genoa, Venezia, Rome, Naples and a independent Milano for example .... way too crowded. Given the impact, Italy should be bigger, but we really don't need a ~50 tile Ukraine (I'm sorry, it's not meant that way).

m