Rise And Rule Revisited (epic mod)

[Belofon]

Thank you! On my mind, optional techs are useful, but mostly player just have far more important researches to do (for example, it's sometimes easier to reach Middle Ages and research Fundamentalism rather than go to Horse Archers). There are very few must-have optional techs - for example, Seafaring (because of harbors/shipyards/ports) and Fundamentalism (because of TKs/other fanatics). Also, some non-optional techs (like Siege Warfare and Architecture) are almost useless in comparison with other techs and researched in very end of their era only to reach the next one - may be there should be some connection with main tech tree (like with Sonar or Naval Aviation)?
By the way, I've just mentioned another error on screenshots: old fighters have 2 speed while RARR flavors have only 1.
Also: what about additional game options, like accelerated production, regicide and victory points? I've just started hotseat game with victory points, so could this game end through victory point scoring?

 

[Civinator]

Belofon, thank you very much for your additional input to RARR.

Yes, in your current RARR game victory point (VP) scoring is activated, as it is needed to let the supply shipments work. The score for such a victory is set to be unreachable high (I think 1.000.000 VPs without looking in the game), so in practice with the current settings such a victory to end the game by VPs can not be reached - but when the game is ending by turns, the VPs are counting. The background for such a setting was the famous CCM succession game, where the players wanted to win by flying to the moon, but the game ended long before they were able to start a rocket, as they have killed such a lot of enemy units, that their score reached the old VP-limit (of 200.000 if I remember well).

Due to a post of Izengrimm in the CCM2 thread (that many, including me haven´t understood when it was posted first) the next version of RARR will be completely customizable, meaning you can set different values for victory conditions, per example if the game should last more turns than the 540 it will have normally, how many VPs are needed for a VP-Victory, a culture victory and so on.

Belofon, I would like to see more posts of RARR players about needed optional techs and nearly 'useless' normal techs in the RARR techtree. Of course here I have my own opinion, but I´m interested in the opinions of other players about this topic without influencing them with my own opinion.

Belofon, concerning the 2 MV of planes in RAR, some planes in RARR that also have 2 MV and many planes in RARR that only have 1 MV you are correct. Two movement points in the settings of aircraft mean, that this plane has two actions in a turn (3 MV would mean three actions in a turn). So per example a plane with 2 MV can rebase to another city and fly a mission from that city in the same turn. I have the feeling, that in RARR and RAR aircraft are massively overpowered, as they have both lethal land- and lethal seabombardment and the AI doesn´t produce and handle them to well. Of course here I´m open to different opinions of other RARR players. At present, the next RARR biq doesn´t hold any more MV 2 planes.

 

[jlvfr]

Belofon, I would like to see more posts of RARR players about needed optional techs and nearly 'useless' normal techs in the RARR techtree. Of course here I have my own opinion, but I´m interested in the opinions of other players about this topic without influencing them with my own opinion.

My take on this: I'm a tech freak. If I see something out of the ordinary, I will research/grab it even if I don't see much use for it, or if it just produces something seemingly unimportant; I just have to get some "Light Bicycle Royal Infantry", or a "Hotdog Stand". and I still hope to see some battlemechs some day... so I'm all for moar techs.

As for "useless"? Well, one man's useless is another man's vital. Maybe the creator of the scenario had somethin in mind that we don't get. Or it's just there for added flavour...

 

[Takeo]

Belofon, I would like to see more posts of RARR players about needed optional techs and nearly 'useless' normal techs in the RARR techtree. Of course here I have my own opinion, but I´m interested in the opinions of other players about this topic without influencing them with my own opinion.

The 'useless' or 'empty techs do irritate me; I would like to have something new to play with when a tech is achieved. Then the problem comes up that there is only 256 possible buildings, and there are already enough types of units in the game.

The techs that are not needed for age advancement are difficult for me to comment on, cause the RAR/RARR mods on my personal computer have no optional techs. My personal taste wants to see(and use) the wonderful swordsmen, chariots, war elephants and the like that have been created by other Civ3 fans/modders. So, requiring every tech makes the age last longer, I can build an army and use these awesome units.

Also, with so many techs, the player can research a different path from the AI and have something to trade. An 'empty' tech may not be worth much in trade but you might be able to put together a package deal like the empty tech and a resource.

 

[Belofon]

Well, optional techs have some advantage: you can research them and sell to other player in exchange for something useful... or another optional tech On my mind, optional techs should be in game, because sometimes they are very useful (if you going to begin war on sea in Ancient Times or Middle Ages, you should research Latin Sail - at least to occupy your ships with bombardment of enemy shores after destruction of his fleet, but otherwise this tech would be useless) and they provide some choice for player.
Continuing with errors: during hotseat game I've mentioned that Indians cannot build Horse Archers and Persians cannot build Spearmen. This is Persian techtree (unfortunately Indians were already wiped out, so I can't send screenshot of their techtree)

Also: Constuction still (that's old RAR mistake) needs Urbanization, though it's prerequisite for Dynasticism (which is prerequisite for Bronze Working). This isn't an error, but still could be optimised.

 

[Civinator]

jlvfr, Takeo and Belofon, thank you very much for your input about optional techs in the RARR techtree. It seems most of you like these techs still included in the RARR techtree, so some of them could be changed from optional to normal techs in the techtree.

Belofon, thank you very much for reporting these additional errors. Your report comes just in time to fix them in the next RARR biq.

- Prerequisites of the tech Construction: You are correct. The arrow, coming from tech Urbanization, is superfluos and will be deleted.

- India now will have horsearchers in the next biq.

- The missing Persian spearman (or swordsman) is an error. Here the fix is a little bit more complicated. With the tech 'Bronzeworking' the Persians receive the Immortal, a unit that has a spearattack-animation as its main combat animation. That´s the reason why in my mod CCM the Immortal replaces the normal spearman. In RARR the Immortal has a better attack value, so the better defense value of a spearman is missing - and a Persian swordsman is missing completely (as the swordsman in RAR was substituted by the Immortal).

What about reducing the attack value of the Immortal to 2 (compared to 1 of the normal spearmen) and raise the defense value to 3 (the normal defense value of a spearman) and add a Persian swordsman with the normal attack value of 3 for a swordsman ?

 

[Belofon]

I think that idea with immortals is good, but unfortunately there is already spearman with 2 attack - Numidian Spearman (Carphaginian). Perhaps this could be solved by preserving current ranged attack and adding Iron as resourse (like in Conquests), but this would greatly handicap Persians if they haven't iron, so this is doubtful idea. Certainly there is better solution, but I can't find it .

P.S. I've just mentioned another error in editor. None of MDIs (Medieval Infantry) upgrades to Native Brave. That means that Americans, Sioux and Iroquois continue to build swordsmen after invention of Warrior Code along with native braves. Also, the game still craches if player tries to build Heavy Frigates.

 

[Takeo]

The arrow, coming from tech Urbanization, is superfluos and will be deleted.

There are also two arrows coming from Aristocracy to Military Training.

 

[Belofon]

Continuing with errors (from F6 and civilopedia of the same hotseat game):

• Chinese have both Early Fighters and I-16 availible, while they use only I-16.
• Arabs naven't Humvees nor any of their flavors.
• Battleships go obsolete with Nuclear Power rather than Naval Aviation, since they upgrade to Carriers rather than WW2 Carriers (I hope this is correct, but in this case you should fix Civilopedia description).
• (May be not an error) Complete mess with destroyers. Under some reasons, corvettes and privateers upgrade to destroyers rather than WW1 destroyers and destroyers upgrade to missile destroyers rather than modern destroyers. Also, why Frigates upgrade to Destroyers (normal or WW1, I don't remember) while weaker War Galleons upgrade to Heavy Frigates (which leads to Cruisers)? Continuing this topic, it would be logical to make Iron Frigates upgradable to Predrednoughts (because iron frigate-like ships were the first step of ironclad evolution and predreadnoughts were the second).

 

[Civinator]

There are also two arrows coming from Aristocracy to Military Training.

Takeo, thank you very much for reporting this graphical glitch. The second arrow from Aristocracy to Military Training must be wiped out.

 

[Civinator]

Continuing with errors (from F6 and civilopedia of the same hotseat game):

• Chinese have both Early Fighters and I-16 availible, while they use only I-16.
• Arabs naven't Humvees nor any of their flavors.

Belofon, thank you very much for reporting these two errors and your additional input about RARR.

Battleships go obsolete with Nuclear Power rather than Naval Aviation, since they upgrade to Carriers rather than WW2 Carriers (I hope this is correct, but in this case you should fix Civilopedia description).

Battleship become obsolete when the tech Naval Aviation is researched and the player has the needed resources to build aircraft carriers. This means they cannot been built any longer, but they don´t upgrade to carriers. This is written in the textbox of civilopedia battleship entries (see the screenshot below). The obsolescence of the battleship is created by setting the unit in the editor to be allowed to upgrade to a certain different unit, but also to set the unit to be not upgradeable. Unfortunately the game adds an additional wrong hardcoded entry for the player, that the battleship can be upgraded to a carrier and this additional hardcoded entry cannot be avoided with the settings above.

Civilopedia entry for a battleship in RARR (Not-player-civ):

Here a screenshot of a battleship of the player´s civ (taken out from my mod CCM2 -but in RARR it´s the same problem):

(May be not an error) Complete mess with destroyers. Under some reasons, corvettes and privateers upgrade to destroyers rather than WW1 destroyers and destroyers upgrade to missile destroyers rather than modern destroyers. Also, why Frigates upgrade to Destroyers (normal or WW1, I don't remember) while weaker War Galleons upgrade to Heavy Frigates (which leads to Cruisers)? Continuing this topic, it would be logical to make Iron Frigates upgradable to Predrednoughts (because iron frigate-like ships were the first step of ironclad evolution and predreadnoughts were the second).

This is a complicated chapter, that will not be solved with the next version of the RARR biq (may be with the exception, that the ships of the line will be pushed back from era 3 to era 2, as it was with DyP and as I described it some posts above).

RARR introduced some new lines of warships, as there are a lot of outstanding new units, created since the time of RAR and DyP. These ships should have 'a place on the map' and not become upgraded to the next unit when they are constructed. RARR has no limitations in time to research the next tech, even 1 turn researches are possible. This problem becomes worse with playing in the eras 3 and 4, so it can frequently happen that these ships will not appear in the game, because when they are constructed, the next unit can be built. This is one of the reasons, why the upgrades mostly are timed to the generation of ships that come after the next generation. In real life also not all conventional destroyers did dissapear, when the first destroyers armed with missiles did arrive. It´s especially the number of older ships that can only be upgraded to a certain type of unit, that assures, that the present generation of ships has a chance, to be present on the map.

The other reason is the strategy of many players, that they don´t like to send their ships across the seas, when the ships can be upgraded in a nearby harbour in the next turn (or the turn after).

But here a lot still must be done. The battleships will be set from era 3 to era 4 to give the iron frigates (ironclades) and dreadnoughts more room to become active in the game. At present the distance in research (techs) between iron frigates and predreadnoughts is very small.

 

[Belofon]

Thank you for your reply! In case of Battleships I mean that Battleships disappear with Nuclear Power (because aircraft carriers - not WW2 carriers - appear with Nuclear Power)

Also: what about errors above?

I've just mentioned another error in editor. None of MDIs (Medieval Infantry) upgrades to Native Brave. That means that Americans, Sioux and Iroquois continue to build swordsmen after invention of Warrior Code along with native braves. Also, the game still craches if player tries to build Heavy Frigates.

 

[the_owl]

There was a Japanese ship which had been planned as a battleship but it was completed as a carrier.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_aircraft_carrier_Shinano

 

[Civinator]

Belofon, thank you very much for remembering me about the upgrading problem of the Amerindian swordsman to Native Braves. This error is fixed now.
With the next version of the RARR biq I have no problems with building heavy frigates -and especially no crashes:

About the unit Battleship: At least in the next RARR biq, even the wrong hardcoded upgrade link points to the WWII carrier, coming with tech Naval Aviation (even for the Ottoman civ):

It´s another question if this will stay when the techtree of era 4 should be reworked (what will propably not happen with the next version of the RARR biq).

 

[Belofon]

In this case, most likely these are my biq problems. However, I've encountered more errors in game:

1. No Crossbowmen for Siam:

2. Not a RARR error. Unfortunately my civilization CD missed conquests and their data, and because of this game crashes when I get Atomic Bombs:

Does anyone know where can I get missing files?

 

[XTC]

look here:

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/rise-and-rule-revisited-epic-mod.549166/page-35

 

[Civinator]

Belofon, thank you very much for reporting the upgrading error for the Golden Archer of the Siam civ. It is fixed now. In the next version of the RARR biq, the unit will upgrade to the Asian Crossbowman.

XTC, thank you very much for pointing to the page of the RARR thread, where I posted a solution for civers, who have a problem with the search path of the Atomic Bomb. The post with the replacement unit on that page can be found here: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/rise-and-rule-revisited-epic-mod.549166/page-35#post-15393873

 

[Belofon]

Thank you very much! During hotseat game I've mentioned that Persians are unable to build not only Spearmen (as I reported before), but Medieval Infantry as well.
Also, I've found the reson why Battleships upgraded (due to hardcoded entry) to aircraft carriers rather than WW2 ones - because I watched Civilopedia as Arabs and Arabs haven't WW2 carriers.

 

[Civinator]

Belofon, thank you very much for reporting two more errors. You are now one of the best RARR-error-hunters!

 

[Belofon]

Thanks for kind words! However, there are still some errors to report.

1. There is no Modern Armor for Siam
2. Long Range and Strategic Bombers flavors haven't transport capacity of 1. This means that they can land on carriers.