Suggestions and Requests

I wouldn't question this post, I have it on good authority that it's qualitatively above everything anyone else has posted in this subforum.
 
Both the Yellow river and the Yangtze river are big enough to support harbours technically not at the coast. So I see no problem for Zheng He yet.
 
Actually during the first Punic war the Romans even build a fleet without acces to the sea at all. (they just dug a canal after they built the boats)

So at the time of Zheng He even a temporary landlocked navy wasn't without precedence.
 
Wait a minute...



I know this post is a few days old, but I suddenly got the urge to respond to this specific part of it. If China supposedly had no coastal cities before European colonization, how in the world did they assemble Zheng He's treasure fleet? :confused:

You don't seem to understand what I mean by "coastal" cities. Go on google maps, and look up Shanghai and Nanjing. Nanjing is close enough to the coast, in that it is on a major river (Yangtze), that leads into the East China Sea.

Now look at Shanghai. It is literally right on the coast of the ocean, built around a river. Shanghai only flourished as a European trading entrepot. Before then it was an insignificant fishing village, akin to Macau or Hong Kong (remind me where those are positioned again ;) ).

Look at Tyre, Rome, or Harappa. Two of these cities were not founded on trans-oceanic trade, one of them was. Want to guess which one ;) You don't build cities next to open ocean, except if you have a specific commercial reason for doing so, and the Chinese in Yangtze and Yellow River did not have this reason, since there was no one to trade with in the open ocean, until much later on. Quanzhou, Guangzhou etc, would only flourish later, when the monsoon trade winds were discovered, and trans-Indian Ocean trade flourished from Alexandria to Quanzhou (which ibn Battuta called the biggest port in the world, at the time).

But remember that Pelambang (in Sumatra), was itself inland, but at the end of a major river leading to the coast. I don't know how significant Pelambang was, except for its defensive position, that made it valuable as the Srivijayan capital.

As for the others talking about Zheng He building ships inland... no that did not happen. Please look at the size of the "treasure fleets" he commanded. These are not ships which can be easily shipped down river tributaries. Especially ones with already so much traffic.
 
You are responding to a post that asserts the unimportance of Tokyo before 1900!

What is the port of Tokyo? It is Tokyo itself? I'd check out Yokohama for that ;)
 
Actually during the first Punic war the Romans even build a fleet without acces to the sea at all. (they just dug a canal after they built the boats)

So at the time of Zheng He even a temporary landlocked navy wasn't without precedence.

Port of Ostia seems to contradict that.
 
As for the others talking about Zheng He building ships inland... no that did not happen. Please look at the size of the "treasure fleets" he commanded. These are not ships which can be easily shipped down river tributaries. Especially ones with already so much traffic.

Well where were they built then? :confused:
 
Well where were they built then? :confused:

They were built in dry docks. As I am away from my key book on the topic, you will have to wait a day for me to find the proper reference. But as I remember it, the Chinese were early pioneers of dry docks, and then assembled the ships close to sea. As Civ4 has no navigable rivers, I would not have inland cities be able to produce ships, especially not the great big treasure fleets of Zheng He. Unless you can clearly point out specific rivers for being navigable, and deep enough for different kinds of ships. There is a reason why Aden in Yemen was so sought after, because it was a deep water port, meaning that you could dock your large ships filled with cannon or trade goods, right at the city harbour itself. It should be noted that Aden is literally inside an extinct volcano.

I wouldn't question this post, I have it on good authority that it's qualitatively above everything anyone else has posted in this subforum.

When it comes to South Asian horses and the history of camel varieties in Inner Asia, you better believe it :cool:
 
You know when the height of the British Empire was? Late 19th century. You know, a little after Canada's spawn takes away a seizable portion of their territory. Never mind that if you play England for UHV you often don't even get to see much of the 19th century, which is just completely against historical flavor. It's as if Spain's UHV would trigger before Optics, or America's before the 20th century. I don't need a global British Empire until the end of the game, I just want it to last until the early 20th century at least, as it did in real life.

Okay, I'm curious about this...

Is it possible to make canada spawn as a vassal? Essentially give England three options.
1) Accept Indipendent Canada
2) Accept Vassal Canada (Wage war on USA and or France)
3) Reject Indipendence (war with Canada)
 
Yeah, so this is once again one of those things where many cool things could become possible when civ spawns have been rewritten, which means that I won't put a lot of effort into it until then.
 
Yeah, so this is once again one of those things where many cool things could become possible when civ spawns have been rewritten, which means that I won't put a lot of effort into it until then.

Okay!

When that time comes I'll bring it up again. To be honest... I'm filing this under the civil war ideas section. In part because that may be an appropiate time (whenever it comes) to revisit spawns.
 
How about spawning Canada with a defence pact with England. That's more realistic. Canada fought many wars because England was at war. And England defended Canada against American invasion in the war of 1812.


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How about spawning Canada with a defence pact with England. That's more realistic. Canada fought many wars because England was at war. And England defended Canada against American invasion in the war of 1812.

Or how about just make Canada only spawn if British stability is shaky. This is how it should be for the Americas civs in general. With the possible exception of the UK.

You have to remember that Canadian "Independence" in 1867, just made it a Dominion Territory, not a fully independent nation. But it was preceded by riots, the Finean Raids (Irish rebels who occupied swaths of Western Canada), amongst other growing issues in Quebec amongst the French. All of this can be simplified into a bit of instability in the British Empire.
 
Or how about just make Canada only spawn if British stability is shaky. This is how it should be for the Americas civs in general. With the possible exception of the UK.

You have to remember that Canadian "Independence" in 1867, just made it a Dominion Territory, not a fully independent nation. But it was preceded by riots, the Finean Raids (Irish rebels who occupied swaths of Western Canada), amongst other growing issues in Quebec amongst the French. All of this can be simplified into a bit of instability in the British Empire.

Um, the Fenian Raids were very small-scale, pretty much completely unsuccessful and accomplished absolutely nothing except scaring the British North American colonies into uniting for fear of invasion. And the Rebellions of 1837 had nothing to do with the French resenting British rule specifically, but rather the oligarchic and undemocratic government of Lower Canada; note that the exact same thing happened the same year in English-speaking Upper Canada.

But yes, generally speaking the default path for Canada should be to spawn as a vassal of Britain. It shouldn't require low stability (Confederation happened with full support of Britain who thought it would make their position in North America stronger, and none of the Fathers of Confederation would have ever gone ahead without British support), but refusing to grant independence or autonomy (i.e. vassalhood) should result in a rebellion/normal spawn if the holder less than stable.
 
Um, the Fenian Raids were very small-scale, pretty much completely unsuccessful and accomplished absolutely nothing except scaring the British North American colonies into uniting for fear of invasion.

Um, no... According to the Penguin History of Canada, written by Professor Robert Bothwell:
Spoiler :
“The Fenians proposed to strike at Great Britain, not in distant Ireland, but in the adjacent British colonies. This definitely alarmed the colonial governments, which had to mobilize troops of their own to counter the Fenian threat.”(pg. 210)

and this led to....
Spoiler :
“The Fenians did invade from time to time, most notably on the New Brunswick frontier in April 1866 and then across the Niagara River in June. The American government didn’t support them, and instead confiscated their arms and cut off their supplies. The Fenian menace eventually subsided, but it had been an expensive lesson for the colonists who had for the first time seriously to pay for their own defence. Money, as always, talked, in this case speaking to the colonists about what it meant, and what it cost, to remain British." (pg 210)


No, I'm not saying that Canada was going to be traded for Ireland, being a likely scenario. But like the countless servile revolts in Ancient Rome, or whatever example you want to use, this was expensive to put down and end the threat, and caused people to think of how to do things differently. But to be perfectly clear, the Fenian raids were not idle threat.

And the Rebellions of 1837 had nothing to do with the French resenting British rule specifically, but rather the oligarchic and undemocratic government of Lower Canada; note that the exact same thing happened the same year in English-speaking Upper Canada.

I never said they did, you decided to make that connection. I'm saying there was general unrest in both Lower and Upper Canada, but for different reasons. The Catholic Quebecois were not given the same freedoms as the Anglo-Protestants.

But yes, generally speaking the default path for Canada should be to spawn as a vassal of Britain. It shouldn't require low stability (Confederation happened with full support of Britain who thought it would make their position in North America stronger, and none of the Fathers of Confederation would have ever gone ahead without British support), but refusing to grant independence or autonomy (i.e. vassalhood) should result in a rebellion/normal spawn if the holder less than stable.

Have it still spawn as a vassal, BUT have it also spawn ONLY if stability is even a little bit shaky. Canada should be a frequent sight, but if the colonies are happy, I don't see why you should force the player to release Canada. There was nothing "inevitable" about releasing Canada in a single Union. Don't let a nationalist narrative of Canada teach you that.

Another quote from Professor Bothwell on how discontent (instability) was the force behind unification (or Canada in our game frame):

Spoiler :
“The driving force behind union was discontent in the western part of the province of Canada, the former Upper Canada, sometimes called Canada West. ” (pg. 211)*

*Later Bothwell talks about the process not being smooth, as Lower and Upper Canada had to deal with population differences and representation... but that is beyond the scope of this game...
 
Leoreth is already working on the next version after the upcoming version. In this next version he is extensively reworking the techtree (see Dev Diaries: Plans for 1.15 for details)

The best request I read over there sofar was to keep the old techtree also availabe (on git).

I would like to go a step further. (first suggestion/request)

Expanded Menu

Wouldn't it be awesome if you could pick besides difficulty and gamespeed also features like:

*kind of techtree
*amount/kind of random events
*slightly randomized resources
(*al the results of the resources could be randomized in manually)
*excluded/included civs
*customizable victories
*quests

in a menu whilst playing the game ? (because if you (as a player) put some time and effort in you can probably achieve these very things by installing some additional mods)

Also (second request/suggestion)

Obsolete Technologies

I would love some undiscovered techs to become obsolete (unresearchable) when techs that give similar but better options are researched.
 
Okay!

When that time comes I'll bring it up again. To be honest... I'm filing this under the civil war ideas section. In part because that may be an appropiate time (whenever it comes) to revisit spawns.
That's exactly what I meant. I think spawns, respawns, secession and civil war can reuse most of the same rules and code.

I would like to go a step further. (first suggestion/request)

Expanded Menu

Wouldn't it be awesome if you could pick besides difficulty and gamespeed also features like:

*kind of techtree
*amount/kind of random events
*slightly randomized resources
(*al the results of the resources could be randomized in manually)
*excluded/included civs
*customizable victories
*quests

in a menu whilst playing the game ? (because if you (as a player) put some time and effort in you can probably achieve these very things by installing some additional mods)
Every Git branch with different tech trees would essentially be a different mod (or modmod, whatever you want to call it). It's impossible to have multiple tech trees in the same mod, so this decision is outside of the scope of a game settings menu.

Other settings might be feasible if we use Custom Game instead of Play Scenario, but currently that doesn't work if the scenarios are ... scenarios.
 
Would it be possible to forbid warriors exiting the cultural boundaries.
This would hinder the ancient exploration and sneaky early raids.

And maybe deny gifting cities before flip happens.
So no easy extra troops from flip refusals.
 
That's a nice idea that would make scouts more valuable.
 
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