[submod] Cross' Overhaul: New Civs, Shia Religion, More Wonders, Civics Rework, Crusades and Much More!

[CrossRFC]

Normans spent 200 years in Southern Italy and Sicily. Since English now start as Normans we could have a small nod in that direction: at the very least labeling those areas as a Conquest zone and possibly an AI Norse or English event for Mediterranean?

I'll add it to the English conquest map.
AI Norse already end up with Southern Italy in their possession fairly often, and Southern Italy is a land up for grabs by most of the European civs, I don't think there's a need to force anything with a conquest event.

 

[Tigranes]

I'll add it to the English conquest map.
AI Norse already end up with Southern Italy in their possession fairly often, and Southern Italy is a land up for grabs by most of the European civs, I don't think there's a need to force anything with a conquest event.

We also need a new text for your early Spain. Here's what I propose:

It is the year 526 AD. Theodoric the Great lay dead and once united Goths are split again. Your newly independent Visigothic kingdom will see it's share of trials and tribulations, being almost wiped out by the armies of Islam. The several Christian kingdoms that will survive in Northern Iberia, will usher an intermittent southward military expansion and repopulation, known as the Reconquista, repelling Islamic rule in Iberia. United as Spain, you are destined to pioneer the exploration and conquest of the New World, and form one of the largest empires in human history!

 

[Tigranes]

I never posted that screenshot of the tech tree; here it is, although it is slightly out of date: Hanseatic League is now in Compass rather than Guilds.

Religious Orders tech can be a great fallback option for founding Catholicism in case Orthodox Cathedral gets delayed too much or we don't get more than half of Orthodox cities outside of the Orthodox civs. With so many new (Orthodox) civs it becomes an increasingly a tall order to fulfill. If all fails, it can be founded in Rome after 1050. It my game Paris was chosen as a Catholic holy city, which I felt, was a very unfair boost: my competitor gets Shrine Wonder built for free being chosen randomly. At least Rome is a historical choice and often no man's land.

EDIT: It appears Cathedral does not found Catholicism in this modmod. I was going by un-updated Vanila Pedia.

With all those new Corporations we also need a slide bar to Corporation Screen please:

 

[CrossRFC]

Religious Orders tech can be a great fallback option for founding Catholicism in case Orthodox Cathedral gets delayed too much or we don't get more than half of Orthodox cities outside of the Orthodox civs. With so many new (Orthodox) civs it becomes an increasingly a tall order to fulfill. If all fails, it can be founded in Rome after 1050. It my game Paris was chosen as a Catholic holy city, which I felt, was a very unfair boost: my competitor gets Shrine Wonder built for free being chosen randomly. At least Rome is a historical choice and often no man's land.

With all those new Corporations we also need a slide bar to Corporation Screen please:

Next patch will remove free shrine on founding of Catholicism, which levels things out more.

I don't think I need to force it with Religious Orders, as the schism naturally occurs at about the right time, and I don't want a tech to force the Schism if you're an Orthodox player like the Byzantines and doing well enough to prevent it.

 

[CrossRFC]

New Patch
I need to run more games to 1700 and 1867; I was focused on having a really nice tech progresion to 1580. There will surely but more tech balance patches in the future, as it is the hardest to get consistently correct throughout the centuries.

• More adjustment of new tech costs and tech priorities
• Almost all techs of the Early Modern, Industrial, Global and Digital eras have been given cost reductions. Some Classical and Medieval techs were made a bit more expensive.
• Holy Rome and Poland get extra tech on birth.
• Norse starting tech and research buff.
• Slight buff to Poland's modifiers.
• Give Strelets a 25% plains defence.
• No longer automatically create the Catholic shrine when the schism happens.
• Templar corporation much more likely to spread to crusading areas (Holy Land, Middle East) than other places.
• Further incentives for Hanseatic League to favour the Baltic Sea and North Sea. France is further de-prioritized.
• Replace Algonquin longbowmen with Dog Soldiers. Other slight changes to Native American post colonial spawns.
• Change Brazil UHV to be plantations rather than Slave Plantations.
• Hellenistic colony gives 15% maintenance discount + generates 2 gold.
• Slightly reduce cost of lancers and their UUs. Slightly increase cost of Longbowman.
• Swap Firearms for Exploration tech as requirement for one of the Spanish and Portuguese colonial acquisition events.
• Reset Austria's previous city counter after Germany flips their land, like what happens with Rome after Byzantium's spawn.
• Reduce willingness of Portuguese leaders to become vassals.
• Add 25 more turns between 1490 and 1800 (should help tech catch up in Early Modern period).
• Update Spain Dawn of Man.
• Buff Thailand starting units.
• Privateer now requires Optics rather than Exploration.
• Swap tech requirements of Versailles and St Basil's Cathedral.

 

[Tigranes]

English need to start at war with whomever is holding island of Britain. In my game Norse forged the North Sea Empire, completely erasing Saxons. English spawned and just unloaded your redesigned Cogs in Normandy, sitting idly.

Speaking of Saxons, they deserve another city in Frisia or Saxony proper to engage Charlemagne in epic Saxon Wars. Lonely Hamburg becomes an easy victim.

 

[CrossRFC]

English need to start at war with whomever is holding island of Britain. In my game Norse forged the North Sea Empire, completely erasing Saxons. English spawned and just unloaded your redesigned Cogs in Normandy, sitting idly.

Speaking of Saxons, they deserve another city in Frisia or Saxony proper to engage Charlemagne in epic Saxon Wars. Lonely Hamburg becomes an easy victim.

Sure, I can have the Normans declare war on whomever owns a city in Britain.

There is another city in Germany for the Saxons to take, which they often do if the Franks don't get it first. Maybe Frisia will get its own barbarian city someday, I will see.

 

[Triquetra]

New Patch
I need to run more games to 1700 and 1867; I was focused on having a really nice tech progresion to 1580. There will surely but more tech balance patches in the future, as it is the hardest to get consistently correct throughout the centuries.

• More adjustment of new tech costs and tech priorities
• Almost all techs of the Early Modern, Industrial, Global and Digital eras have been given cost reductions. Some Classical and Medieval techs were made a bit more expensive.
• Holy Rome and Poland get extra tech on birth.
• Norse starting tech and research buff.
• Slight buff to Poland's modifiers.
• Give Strelets a 25% plains defence.
• No longer automatically create the Catholic shrine when the schism happens.
• Templar corporation much more likely to spread to crusading areas (Holy Land, Middle East) than other places.
• Further incentives for Hanseatic League to favour the Baltic Sea and North Sea. France is further de-prioritized.
• Replace Algonquin longbowmen with Dog Soldiers. Other slight changes to Native American post colonial spawns.
• Change Brazil UHV to be plantations rather than Slave Plantations.
• Hellenistic colony gives 15% maintenance discount + generates 2 gold.
• Slightly reduce cost of lancers and their UUs. Slightly increase cost of Longbowman.
• Swap Firearms for Exploration tech as requirement for one of the Spanish and Portuguese colonial acquisition events.
• Reset Austria's previous city counter after Germany flips their land, like what happens with Rome after Byzantium's spawn.
• Reduce willingness of Portuguese leaders to become vassals.
• Add 25 more turns between 1490 and 1800 (should help tech catch up in Early Modern period).
• Update Spain Dawn of Man.
• Buff Thailand starting units.
• Privateer now requires Optics rather than Exploration.
• Swap tech requirements of Versailles and St Basil's Cathedral.

Sorry to bring this up again, but Muscogee longbows are still spawning

 

[Tigranes]

Out of curiosity, why did you emphasize Pampalona instead of Zaragoza (1S)? Aragon was more important than Navarre. Alternatively you could opted for very early Basque city, if the goal was to help Spain to stay with 2 cities after Moor's arrival...

 

[CrossRFC]

Out of curiosity, why did you emphasize Pampalona instead of Zaragoza (1S)? Aragon was more important than Navarre. Alternatively you could opted for very early Basque city, if the goal was to help Spain to stay with 2 cities after Moor's arrival...

City placement issues on the map.

Sorry to bring this up again, but Muscogee longbows are still spawning

Yeah, I'm aware of that one, but since the last patch they spawn with 1 longbow and 2 dog soldiers rather than 2 longbowman, making it more manageable.

 

[Tigranes]

Almoravid Barbarians only focusing their attacks in Africa turn the entire Reconquista logic upside down. They end up hurting Muslim Moors and helping Christians in Iberia, who benefit from (often) Moor collapse. It should be the other way around: Almoravid Barbarians should skip the Africa, like this are skipping Al Andalus and instead appear on random Christian tile in Iberia. Both Almoravids and Almohads delayed the Reconquista significantly and perhaps should be represented instead as Muslim (Moor) "crusades" in case of the human Iberian player. I know AI Spain is struggling already and enjoying special treatment to live up to their colonial glory. I hope collapsing Moors with Barbarians in Africa is not the part of that treatment?

 

[banzay13]

Now even Firelancer much stronger than Arquebusier. Tercio, Janisarry will eat all others civs army like peace of cake. Maybe 9 strength for all unic units and Arquebusier? And 8 to Firelancer?

 

[CrossRFC]

Now even Firelancer much stronger than Arquebusier. Tercio, Janisarry will eat all others civs army like peace of cake. Maybe 9 strength for all unic units and Arquebusier? And 8 to Firelancer?

Agree on Firelancer and Janissary (since Janissary gets 25% bonuses against non-gunpowder). For Tercio, reclassification as melee and modifying some of its promotions (shock instead of pinch, remove light cavalry bonus) will do fine.

The Arquebusier didn't just get nerfed to 8 strength; it also got a withdrawal chance of 30% and up to 25% collateral damage on 3 units. The Tercio, Janissary and Strelets UU's don't have that feature.

Almoravid Barbarians only focusing their attacks in Africa turn the entire Reconquista logic upside down. They end up hurting Muslim Moors and helping Christians in Iberia, who benefit from (often) Moor collapse. It should be the other way around: Almoravid Barbarians should skip the Africa, like this are skipping Al Andalus and instead appear on random Christian tile in Iberia. Both Almoravids and Almohads delayed the Reconquista significantly and perhaps should be represented instead as Muslim (Moor) "crusades" in case of the human Iberian player. I know AI Spain is struggling already and enjoying special treatment to live up to their colonial glory. I hope collapsing Moors with Barbarians in Africa is not the part of that treatment?

You've got it backwards. The Almoravids did more long term damage to the Muslim position in Iberia than they helped. They fought against the Taifa kingdoms more so than the Christians and fatally overextended themselves within a generation.

 

[Tigranes]

You've got it backwards. The Almoravids did more long term damage to the Muslim position in Iberia than they helped. They fought against the Taifa kingdoms more so than the Christians and fatally overextended themselves within a generation.

After the fall of Toledo taifas sent a desperate appeal for help, because they were collapsing very short term ! Almoravids significantly slowed down the Reconquista by intervening in the Iberian Peninsula and militarily reinforcing the Muslim territories against the advancing Christian kingdoms, most notably with their decisive victory at the Battle of Sagrajas in 1086, which temporarily halted Christian progress; however, their power eventually waned, allowing the Reconquista to continue and ultimately succeed. One has to survive short term to talk about long term, wouldn't you agree? This is a very basic fact, you can check any source from ChatGPT to academic books, so I am not even going to argue about it.

Moving on, a question. Wouldn't you think that the island of Fernando Po (now known as Bioko) and few surrounding coastal tiles should be Historical for Spain, given Spanish Guinea?

 

[CrossRFC]

New Patch

• Normans declare war on any owner of a city in Britain on spawn.
• Techrate buff: Rus
• Techrate nerf: HRE, France, Netherlands, Ottomans
• Make some late Renaissance and early Industrial techs a bit more expensive (but still less expensive than originally).
• Reduce Burmese first respawn period from 1885 to 1600.
• Alterations to Janissary, Tercio, Firelancer.
• Add missing TXT_KEY_SWEDEN_COMMUNIST
• Replaceable Parts now depends on Scientific Method as well.
• Add Spanish Guinea to settler/war map

 

[banzay13]

For some reason Dutch conquers use heavy Swordsmans (within few turns should spawn after Auto save, version from 24/02/25)

 

[CrossRFC]

New Patch

• Diversify trading company conquest stacks.
  • Different stacks if before or after Replaceable Parts (Musketeers)
• Heavy swordsmen upgrade to grenadiers rather than musketeers.
• Try to fix "random" crashes during autoplay:
  • Fix forest event crash with refactored function. I'm not certain I fixed it but I have isolated it as a cause of crashes.
    • Disable "Apple Seed" rare random event. It required an unimproved plains tile which grew a forest. A very marginal event that I've never actually experienced, so I'm disabling it because it had caused a crash.
• More tweaks to European techrates.
• Longbowman now only upgrades to Arquebusier without option for Grenadier.
• Slightly reduce cost of heavy swordsman, arquebusier.
• Slightly increase cost of swordsman, longbowman
• Reduce strength of longbowman by 1, eliminate its offensive terrain bonuses and replace them with more potent defensive bonuses.

 

[CrossRFC]

New Patch

• Move wine 1N of Aleppo
• Qin should not start with a civic it doesn't have the tech for.
• Increase priority of Firearms tech for Ottomans.
• Slight buff to Ottoman, French modifiers.
• Redefine arquebusiers default AI as city defence so the AI is encouraged to upgrade crossbowmen to Arquebusiers.
• Tweak tech priorities for a few civs.
• Add Potato south of Berlin in 1700 for the Prussian spawn.

 

[banzay13]

Can you prevent collapsing civs in India, Indochina, ME and Malaysia/Java to natives? They to easy target for anyone.
Like Leoreth made it (opposite, no independent or barbs) for Americas?

 

[CrossRFC]

Can you prevent collapsing civs in India, Indochina, ME and Malaysia/Java to natives? They to easy target for anyone.
Like Leoreth made it (opposite, no independent or barbs) for Americas?

They will only collapse partially into natives when they are below a certain Era; the cities are made to be easy targets when they collapse.

New Patch

• Add deer to Iran between Hamedan and Isfahan