Should there be more civs add to Rhye's

[Panopticon]

Yeah, that's all (or mostly*) true.

But none of it justifies making the Mayans or Vikings, say, united civilisations rather than independent cities. To say that the Mongols controlled the largest empire in world history is not the same as saying it requires a single united civilisation to represent it - or, indeed, saying that the Black Sea khanates and Mongol China were united by anything other than the ethnic descent of the ruling class.

Independents and instability are in the game for a reason. It does seem like the patch increases their potency by quite a bit - I saw an independent Britain today while playing as the Japanese! It would be of great help to game performance if these effects overwhelmed certain civs more, so I never again see a huge 20th century Mongol Empire.

* Depending on your definition, the British Empire may have been larger than the Mongolian possessions. The determinant is whether you count dominions like Canada, Australia, etc.

 

[CyberChrist]

@Panopticon:
I am only going to be able to agree with you on 1 point. I wouldn't mind seeing Mongolia taking a forced severe Stability hit (at least if being AI) somewhere after the year 1400 - or perhaps the hit could occur at any time once they have grown beyond a certain size.

A Stability hit like this could in fact be given to all civs once they reached the point when they started to loose importance historically. Of course it would be hard to justify giving such a hit to certain civs that are still around today.

 

[Rex rgis of Ter]

While I recognise the fact that performance in late game is wretched, some civs already in could be made playable. The Celts could start between Greece and Germany, as they did inhabit that region, and no one spawns there. In addition, they could harass Grecce and Rome as they did historically. Their UP- no stability minus for cities in homeland.

 

[Riker]

Why not Poland then?

 

[CyberChrist]

While I recognise the fact that performance in late game is wretched, some civs already in could be made playable. The Celts could start between Greece and Germany, as they did inhabit that region, and no one spawns there. In addition, they could harass Grecce and Rome as they did historically. Their UP- no stability minus for cities in homeland.

The Celts are already in and harassing the Romans(as an Independant type civ), but a proper playable Celtic civ in the ancient times would be nice.

The Celts

Spoiler :

Spawn date: 1000BC
UP: Power of Migration (Settlers are hidden, +1 move, ignore terrain costs, can move through rival territory)
UHV:
1) found 2 cities in each Spain and France + 1 city in each Thrace, Wales, Scottland and Ireland by 400AD
2) sack Rome before 400AD (just need to capture it once, don't have to hold it)
3) move capitol to Britain and build Stonehenge in capitol by 400AD

However, I don't see the Celts surviving the stability hits (or wars) from all the other other europeans, as they start eating their cities on spawn.


Continuing my thoughts (from my previuos post in this thread) about historical long gone civilizations being given a stability hit to make them go away at certain dates. Then this hit could occur whenever a civ fails to fulfill an UHV requirement/date. Obviously this hit would be massive if all UHV requirement was to be met on the same date (and all was failed).

I don't recall ever seeing the AI succeed even a single UHV requirement with Carthage or Mongolia so this way would take care of them naturally (not taking any freak recoveries from the stability hit into account). On the other hand then civs like China and Inda always meets at least 1 of theirs.

Also, this idea could be extended to work the other way around as well. Whenever a civ completed an UHV requirement then the civ would experience a boost to stability.

 

[Panopticon]

This would be a very, very good idea. I am tempted to tinker with stability.py and see if I can write in a penalty like that for Mongolia and Vikings - I'm playing as the Russians and the continuing presence of Kublai Khan is beginning to be a problem in colonising Siberia.

 

[Úmarth]

A Celt civ would make thinks very difficult for Rome, not mention that there wasn't really any such thing as a single unified Celtic civilisation.

I don't think forced stability hits is a good idea, RFC and civ in general is as much about alternate history as it is history. Carthage did not just collapse, it was conquered. If Rome hadn't conquered it, and then the Arabs hadn't either then yes a Phoenician civilisation might still exist in North Africa. So if those conditions happen in RFC, why shouldn't the result be the same?

Same with Mongolia, the main reasons for the Empire's collapse into the khanates are already represented in RFC -- stability loss due to (over)expansion and plague. Admittedly there is a (in my opinion quite a big one, but I am a bit of a Genghis Khan "fan") problem with Mongolia not expanding nearly aggressively enough which lets it survive too long but this really isn't the solution.

indeed, saying that the Black Sea khanates and Mongol China were united by anything other than the ethnic descent of the ruling class.

Well up until 1294 they were all under the jurisdiction of a single khagan...

* Depending on your definition, the British Empire may have been larger than the Mongolian possessions. The determinant is whether you count dominions like Canada, Australia, etc.

And why wouldn't you?

 

[CyberChrist]

A Celt civ would make thinks very difficult for Rome, not mention that there wasn't really any such thing as a single unified Celtic civilisation.

Not sure I can agree with that. Sure they were never a unified nation as such, but they shared a common culture. The same is true for some of the other civilizations already playable in RFC.

I don't think forced stability hits is a good idea, RFC and civ in general is as much about alternate history as it is history. Carthage did not just collapse, it was conquered.
...
Same with Mongolia, the main reasons for the Empire's collapse into the khanates are already represented in RFC -- stability loss due to (over)expansion and plague.

Who is to say they wouldn't also have collapsed, if their leaders had failed to meet with the peoples expectations to accomplish certain goals?

 

[Ryry]

Hey, I don't know if this was mentioned already 'cause I didn't want to read the whole thread. But:

Can't we add civs but limit the total number of civs? I mean, there could be 30 civs, but no game has more than 18. You could pick the civs at game start, or have them randomly assigned.

Ryry

 

[kairob]

Instead of forced stability hits for the Mongols, how about larger stability penalties for failing to expand fast enough, so we would either see Mongolia or China but rarely both?

Also any chance of Mongolia spawning at war with China? I know its a little predetermined but no more so than Romes war with the Celts.

 

[Panopticon]

There appears to be a consensus that Mongolia is too persistent.

The difficulty, from a historical perspective, is exactly what has been raised earlier by another writer: The heyday of the Mongol Empire was over by 1300, but the game can't simulate such a rapid rise and fall by a single civ. (Which is why waves of barbarians may well simulate it better.) Mongolia's persistence creates an unbalancing superpower in Asia and hinders the realistic colonisation of Siberia by Russia. We may also question whether it is really realistic for such a decentralised state (by necessity - we are talking about a gigantic 13th century steppe empire here) to survive united, just because it's in its historical area of expansion. It also adds to the generally slow performance of the game.

It would be nice to have a situation where Mongolia either loses its western territories, or goes into civil war, around 1500 at latest. Ideally, we would see it in control of the Gobi desert, the Baikal region and China. How to do this is the dilemma.

My solution would be to penalise Mongolia heavily for all expansion west of the Gobi desert, while still creating incentives for the AI to do this.

 

[onedreamer]

uhm, I never saw Mongolia preventing expansion in Siberia. Expansion in Siberia is prevented by Siberia itself: it is a crappy place not worth the maintenance costs. About Mongolia's persistance, it's the same with many other civs, Rome is the typical example that more often than not (certainly more often than Mongolia) is among the first 3 superpowers in the modern age. Why picking on poor Mongolians ? Just because they have different eyes due to desert storms ? Bah... In the end I think we should play a game, not play a video documentary on human history.

 

[kairob]

The Mongols stopped my eastward expansion when I played as Russia, gonna have to fight them now.

 

[Panopticon]

uhm, I never saw Mongolia preventing expansion in Siberia. Expansion in Siberia is prevented by Siberia itself: it is a crappy place not worth the maintenance costs. About Mongolia's persistance, it's the same with many other civs, Rome is the typical example that more often than not (certainly more often than Mongolia) is among the first 3 superpowers in the modern age. Why picking on poor Mongolians ? Just because they have different eyes due to desert storms ? Bah... In the end I think we should play a game, not play a video documentary on human history.

Please don't call me racist. Mongolia is a civ I have chosen to address because like Rome, it is unrealistically persistent, but unlike Rome, there is quite a simple solution - penalise its expansion westwards, to recognise that although it did and should expand that way, it shouldn't get to keep those possessions forever. That is how history happened - it is unreasonable to say that such an empire could have lasted forever, for a number of practical reasons. It's not about historical determinism, but historical realism. The Mongol Empire was not designed to last forever.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Instead of expanding westward, maybe the Mongolians should try to realize what Kublai Khan failed to do--conquer Japan. That will certainly prevent a large empire westward. I basically used the Turkish cities for getting to my razing goal.
How about breaking up an AI Mongolian Empire into khanates (all vassals to the main Chinese/Yuan dynasty) at a certain time (e.g. 1550)? This will simplify politics to a certain degree since direction will come from the master. Of course if they become unstable these vassals should respawn as independent countries (Persia, India).

 

[memdee]

Continuing my thoughts (from my previuos post in this thread) about historical long gone civilizations being given a stability hit to make them go away at certain dates. Then this hit could occur whenever a civ fails to fulfill an UHV requirement/date. Obviously this hit would be massive if all UHV requirement was to be met on the same date (and all was failed).

I don't recall ever seeing the AI succeed even a single UHV requirement with Carthage or Mongolia so this way would take care of them naturally (not taking any freak recoveries from the stability hit into account). On the other hand then civs like China and Inda always meets at least 1 of theirs.

Also, this idea could be extended to work the other way around as well. Whenever a civ completed an UHV requirement then the civ would experience a boost to stability.

I dont think this is a very good idea for the simple reason that not everyone (including me) plays for UHVs. I rarely go for UHVs because they're always more or less the same. I rather go for a fun game.
So, giving stability penalties for not met UHV-conditions is limiting my ability to play the way I want.
I'd rather not see this in RFC - however historical it might be.

 

[Úmarth]

How about breaking up an AI Mongolian Empire into khanates (all vassals to the main Chinese/Yuan dynasty) at a certain time (e.g. 1550)? This will simplify politics to a certain degree since direction will come from the master. Of course if they become unstable these vassals should respawn as independent countries (Persia, India).

I like that idea, it reflects history and would stop Mongolia becoming a modern power. But it would only really work if Mongolia expanded as rapidly as it should. Which it doesn't. I think if we saw Mongolia regularly conquering China and Persia/Babylonia much of the problems of it persisting would be solved anyway.

 

[CyberChrist]

I dont think this is a very good idea for the simple reason that not everyone (including me) plays for UHVs.

Maybe I didn't make this point of my "stability hit(s) based on failed UHVs" idea clear, but I only meant these stability hits to apply to civs controlled by the AI.

Although I wouldn't mind if the human player was required to meet at least 1 of the 3 UHV requirements - or suffer a stability hit.

 

[Virdrago]

uhm, I never saw Mongolia preventing expansion in Siberia. Expansion in Siberia is prevented by Siberia itself: it is a crappy place not worth the maintenance costs. About Mongolia's persistance, it's the same with many other civs, Rome is the typical example that more often than not (certainly more often than Mongolia) is among the first 3 superpowers in the modern age. Why picking on poor Mongolians ? Just because they have different eyes due to desert storms ? Bah... In the end I think we should play a game, not play a video documentary on human history.

I agree. Rome is usually around for quite awhile; Babylon has stayed to almost 1500 in a couple of my games.
Mongolia does one of three things in my games: half the time, it sits around, with a lot of cities, but nothing else, then China respawns, and the Mongols are weaker. Sometimes they are stronger, and control most of northern China (never all). Sometimes China actually pushes back and takes the Mongols out themselves. I've never seen a superpower Mongolia yet.

Although I wouldn't mind if the human player was required to meet at least 1 of the 3 UHV requirements - or suffer a stability hit.

When would you suffer a stability hit for not razing seven cities? There's no timeline for that.

 

[CyberChrist]

When would you suffer a stability hit for not razing seven cities? There's no timeline for that.

Indeed not, and several other UHV requirements for other civilizations doesn't have a date either. Solution would be to have a seperate - and historically appropriate - date for checking against UHV goals (the last date for any of the UHV goals might fit the job). So civs with at least 1 UHV goal met at that date would suffer no hit, while civs having met no goals at all would have to endure an appropriately sized hit to stability.