1. It would be nice to play as the Zengids. Not sure what their UP would be, but something allowing them to maintain a compact and powerful empire would be nice. UU could be a strong militia or something. IIRC the Zengids were one of the first Seljul sucessor states to move away from the emphesis on horse archers.
Zengids are currently a "military spawn", they are born without a settler or a city, but with a big army, including a named leader. They get more units created out of nowhere in subsequent turns - and attack Antioch/Edessa - so this is an AI civ aimed making the life harder for Abbasids and Crusaders. Making it playable isn't impossible but it will set precedence for civs being completely different depending on whether they are AI or Human controlled.
2. When I tried out the Ghorids I noticed a strange thing, the Seljuks just collapsed. They had a somewhat large empire (just the eastern side of the mountains near Iraq and a few other cities) and they weren't at war with anyone. Then the next turn they just collapsed.
What was their stability though? Wasn't there a message they collapsed due to a civil war? Because it sounds like the normal RFC civil war from "Unstable / Collapsing" stability.
3. This is a minor thing, but more culturaly specific mercs or units would be nice, like the ability to activly recruit a limited number of Daylami units in certain provinces.
Not sure what you mean - Daylami tribesmen in particular are available through the mercenary system in Tabaristan, Jibal and Khorasan. Currently there are: Zanji Swordsmen, Pashtun Warriors, Varangian Guard, Assassins and several Elephant and Camel units - more can be added, though this has to be something that is really different from the ordinary mercenaries.
EDIT: Or if you mean normal unit training on a per-province basis, it's possible though it kind of makes the exotic hired mercenaries obsolete.
4. Constantinople needs more food. I saw it a pop1 a couple times. Some fish would be helpful.
There's fish and pigs there already - in total Constantinople has enough food for pop21 - could be 1 for many reasons like plague or barbs.
5. The Timurid UP doesn't appear to work. I masacred the population of Merv (3 dead) and Samarkand (capital) didn't gain any culture. I razed a former Khwarzmian city to the ground(11pop) and I still didn't get any culture boost.
The color is correct (Hospitallers used black early on, then changed to red for knights only) but you're right the names are wrong, should be the other way round - fixed.
9. The monument is too strong. Its cheaper than a Mosque.
That's true, it may as well be removed completely TBH, there's several early buildings that provide culture. Or maybe it could be moved to late tech like City Planning, since there's no late cultural buildings...
10. The Khwarzimian Lancers sole benefit is that it is faster than other lancers. I think the bonus should be more related to strength than speed. Speed seems more of a steppe/horse archer thing.
I've made it fast since Khwarezm needs it - they on the edge of the map and have to conquer Persia, getting through deserts etc. If it stays with a speed of 2, there will be no point to use them over Heavy Horse Archers.
Thanks for all the comments Oh, as for Ak Koyunlus, they would make more sense as non-playable I guess... they are meant to fill a vacuum that was usually there, and to keep Abbassids, Armenians and Turks from growing too much.
EDIT: also regarding Crusaders - they get reinforcements only if they lose cities, and there's a maximum of 10 crusades, with min. interval of 15 turns. IF they get reinforcements without losing a city then it's a bug.
Ok, I have played this “modmod” only a couple of hours. But it is really impressive, especially as it suddenly appears “from nowhere”, with so many innovations and work. Historal accuracity, re-using and improving of main RFC concepts, many different civilizations with various kind of playing…. I think it does contain all I am looking for in a Civilization mod. The historical and geographical context is somewhat a bit unknown for me, but it is also a good opportuny to have interest for it.
I really like the corporations mechanics (at least what I’ve read), the importance of mercenaries, the conditional respawns, the concept of Provinces. And the various situations, historical goals, unique powers/units/buildings of all these civilizations is very promising.
A few comments now on my quick first attempt, with the “south-egyptian christian civilization” (sorry, I forgot the name) :
- To be honest, I think it is one of the less interesting civilization, due to his very excentred position : only one neighboor, and the UHV didn’t sound very exciting (but this is not a reproach). Anyway, I think it was a good choice for a first attempt, to get familiziared a bit with the new tech tree.
- The first UHV doesn’t seem to work, unless it requires 6 different luxes ressources : I had 3 ivory and three other luxe ressources in 1000 AD, but the victory screen still says “not yet”.
- It seems the academy is not available : then the great scholar can “only” be used as Golden Age, scientist research or scientist-specialist? Or is there a tech requirement for such building?
Finally : have you planned some kind off offline version (internet site, pdf manual, detailled post in forum...) of the civilopedia?
Thanks for the comments and reports I agree about Makuria, but some civs will just have little action due to their location, Yemen also has this issue.
For the Makurian luxury UHV, you need 6 *different* luxuries. So Ivory counts as 1, no matter how many Ivory you've got. This is meant to force you to import luxuries from abroad.
"Academy" type building is available with Alchemy, it's called "Alchemist's Lab".
I'll see about adding info to Rhye's Wiki, and the PDF ReadMe bundled with the mod could be expanded to some kind of manual I guess.
Very small patch mainly fixing two python errors, including the Timurid UP:
0.1.1 Patch
- Fixed a python error that popped up when a mercenary was fired
- Fixed the Unique Power for Timurids
- Culture at Crusaders' starting area should now be cleared now so that they always found Acre
- Added some Bedouin barbarians near Yemen and Oman
- Gold & Culture bonus from Sufism reduced by 1/3
- Fixed some typos and added a few missing texts
- Switched Hospitaller Knight's and Sergeant's names
corovanrobber,
No, Eastern Thrace is not in Crusaders' core/border provinces (to see them all just check Crusader's civilopedia). I don't think it should be, for that matter, since that would be like launching the Fourth Crusade from Jerusalem.
Eh I'm out of historical territory to conquer, already holding the Holy Land and Lower Egypt. Besides the Byzantines have been declaring war on me multiple times.
What was their stability though? Wasn't there a message they collapsed due to a civil war? Because it sounds like the normal RFC civil war from "Unstable / Collapsing" stability.
Perhaps. I was under the impression though that in a civil war the entire civ wouldn't immediatly become rebels.
EDIT: also regarding Crusaders - they get reinforcements only if they lose cities, and there's a maximum of 10 crusades, with min. interval of 15 turns. IF they get reinforcements without losing a city then it's a bug.
Okay, that explains why. They had briefly taken Alexandria and lost it, which would explain the reinforcements. Perhaps limit the reinforcements so they only appear when a core province is lost?
For human players only, for the AI the civ just collapses into rebels.
Okay, that explains why. They had briefly taken Alexandria and lost it, which would explain the reinforcements. Perhaps limit the reinforcements so they only appear when a core province is lost?
Actually it's already limited to Palestine, Northern Syria, Cyprus, Jazira (=Edessa but also Rakka, Harran) and Transjordan. Core would be Palestine and Northern Syria only, which may as well be good idea, alternatively maybe Jazira should be taken out.
Alexandria at least shouldn't have triggered reinforcements, but I'll double check it.
EDIT: seems to be working right, though I've changed it to Core only as you've suggested.
Critique on The Sword of Islam: RFC Medieval Middle East
First off, let me say how much fun I had playing this mod, it was truly a great experience, and I want you to know, that none of what I will say below is an attack, its purely constructive criticism, and if you want you can ignore it (except the bugs, which I hope you will consider fixing anyways ). If I really did not like your mod, then I wouldn't take up so much time writing out notes, and organizing them into this post, so please remember I'm just trying to make this mod the best it can be!
I played several EXCELLENT games, and I will definitely play more, but I played as the Byzantines, the Fatmids, the Ayyubids and the Mughals (but I just began the game, no comments yet). And I played all games on Prince, but I wanted to ask you; what are the most balanced settings? I mean, what is the difficulty and speed level which you tested and fixed the game accordingly? Oh and finally, before I start, if you have ANY questions, about ANY of my suggestions or comments, PLEASE ask them, as I'm sure I can better explain myself in fuller detail.
So here we go! I'll put this in a spoiler, so I don't force anybody who doesn't want to read this into having to scroll over it.
Spoiler:
Bugs/Small Changes:
1. Khwarezmid should be instead called, "Khwarezmian Shahdom"
2. When Civ's spawn, or when they first pop up in my list of contacts, they do not pop up to speak to me, like it is in RFC or in normal CivIV, I think its just a bug though.
3. Byzantium should start off at war with the Abbasids. If you could code this, having an event which "forces" the Byzantines to have to pay tribute to the Abbasids and Bulgarians each turn, in exchange for peace, would be fun to play with.
4. I don't get the option to flip to another civilization
5. Why dosen't the catapult texture, have 2 catapults shown? In this game there is only one, and its kind of annoying, especially since they are at 100% health (same problem with some other artillery)
6. When Jerusalem is captured by the Arabs (actually it should start off as part of the Abbasid Empire), it should be called Al-Quds, not Quds, the same goes with Qahira, which should in fact be Al-Qāhira
7. Limit the spread of non-historic religions, such as Shi'ite Islam spreading to Byzantium, and I know that the world is broken up into provinces, so I'm sure you can dictate where religions are most likely to spread to.
8. When playing as the Byzantine's, an event happened, which spawned a lot of "Barbarian" Seljuk's into Anatolia (that was really great, historically wise), but they were not owned by the actual Seljuk player, why is that? I would have to recommend you to have ACTUAL Seljuk troops spawn near Anatolia, so they spur the invasion of the Byzantines.
9. Why is the Sultanate of Rum Capital: Eskisehir, when in reality their capital was Nicaea then Iconium? That should be changed quickly.
10. The Sultanate of the Rum, should spawn with MANY Sunni Imams, or else, like, in my game, they will convert to Orthodox Christianity, which ruins the game.
10. In 1097, when playing as the Byzantines, 5 of my cities automatically and quite randomly converted to Sunni Islam? Why is that?
11. When the Crusaders arrived in my game, they flipped Quds (which should be called Al-Quds) and renamed it Hierosolyma, what's up with that? It should be called Jerusalem, what's up with the weird name? Also Jerusalem should become the capital of the "**Kingdom** of **Jerusalem**", not Tripoli, or whatever it was (Damn I forgot now!)
12. When the crusaders spawn, they shouldn't be flipping camel archers, and other uniquely Arab units. I mean the Crusaders didn't have any "friendly" Arab mercanaries anyways. So just like in RFC, when a city flips, to a new civilization, it should push out all the old inhabitants, and perhaps a new "archer" type unit should spawn in its stead, so we don't have Crusader Camel lancers or what not.
13. One of the Crusader cities, is missing a name, but you've already noted that I think, but if you want I can offer suggestions in what the city should be called.
14. There was a Makuria Diplomacy buy, when I was playing as the Ayyubid's. At first I was at peace with them, and then they declared war on me, but I was able to instantly make peace with them, and then nothing happened, its hard to explain, but the diplomacy with Makuria, is quite glitchy.
15. The King of Cilicia, when he opens diplomacy, he does not say anything. There is no opening text basically.
16. The idea of Muslim nations getting Italian mercenaries is a bit ridiculous, I would suggest that you have to be Catholic, or perhaps also Orthodox, to get the ability to train "Italian" Mercenaries. Because I'm pretty sure the Turks or the Ayyubids never had any "Christian" Mercenaries fighting for them against the crusaders
17. Isen't Karbala the greater Holy City for Shi'ite Islam than Kufa?
Visual Performance (Eye Candy):
1. Merkurios LH, looks quite bad, I think you can find a better one, in his animation, he looks mentally challenged, if you could find another LH for Merkurios, I think that would be best
2. Your background picture in the Title Menu, should look nicer, just having some text, which doesn't look to nice, isn't that appealing, when you have time, I would encourage you to making it look grander.
3. The Safavid Leader, Shah Abbas, looks excellent, but I think you should change the background, I know I will try for my mod I'm trying to create, but if you could put him near some famous monument in Isfahan, I think that would be the best. For example this photo, would make a good background: http://www.panoramio.com/photo/1344153
4. Harun Al Rashid LH, looks quite bad, in its lack of originality, if I were you, I would definitely be looking for a replacement
5. The city of Sur, in modern day Lebanon, is NOT part of Palestine, I would have to encourage you to change the province to Phoenicia OR at the very least Greater Syria, and the up side to this, is that due to the regions high number of Catholics, you could have a unique unit, called the Maronite Archers, (kind of ripped from MTWII), which can help to the defence of the region, once the crusaders arrive.
6. What happened to the physical Silk Road? In RFC there is an actual road, leading from China to Europe, that should be the same here as well, with a road (which actually is already their), that leads from the Hindu Kush, all the way to Constantinople (runs through Baghdad), not to mention its really easy to implement, and I would advice you to do it, as it would look quite nice.
7. You should name the Barbarians. I'm not sure how to do this, but in RFC Europe, they were able to name the barbarians as Mongols, Timurds, Seljuks etc. But for this mod, you could name the barbarians who spawn NW of Constantinople, the Bulgarians, and the barbs North of Georgia/ Armenia the Kipchaks/Cumans etc. but it would nice to know which barb was attacking your frontier.
8. As mentioned before, the Byzantine's, as heritage to their Roman past, they should have paved roads stretching Anatolia, (and even perhaps down the Levant, up to you), I would strongly urge you to expand that, and allow the Byzantines to build paved roads, as a UP, (which increases unit speed)
9. PLEASE GET BACKGROUND MUSIC! (but I know your working on it)
10. Armenian Music is a bit strange, I would consider changing it if I were you.
11. Italian Maceman? I mean, I think the Venetians can have a better unit than that, if anything have their unique unit be a kind fast moving ship, I think that would fit the description of the Venetians the best. (Battle of Lepanto anyone? )
12. Whatever happened to the Delhi Sultanate?
Gameplay Performance/ Balancing Issues:
1.The Byzantine UP is kind of silly, plus one espionage doesn't do much for you, especially when most players (such as my self), ignore EP completely. I'm sure you can think of another one, perhaps the power of infrastructure, which allows workers to build paved roads, (which allow you to move faster), rather than the normal "cart path"; but its really up to you.
2. As for Georgia's UB, the Ikonar's Studio, I thought that was Byzantine, when you think of icons you always think Byzantine. If I were you I would remove the Byzantine Hippodrome, which doesn't do much for them, and change it with the Ikonar's studio, which can give them more culture, and a boost to religion, (there can be a boost between Orthodox temples and Ikonar's studio). And then you can change the Georgian UB to something else.
3. I was kind of confused by the Ayyubid UP, you get +2 attitude from each civ? Is it like the French UP, where civ's are nicer to you? Personnaly I feel that the Ayyubid's should get the power of Religious Tolerance over the Fatmids, especially since Saladin, never massacred any of the Christians or Jews during the Crusades, and was farely tolerant to them. And even when he recaptured Jerusalem, he didn't wash the streets with Christian blood, but rather he purified the city with rose water. But if you can prove to me that the Fatimids were more Tolerant, I guess its fine, but when I think of Tolerant and ""Liberal"", I always think of Saladin, and the Ayyubid's.
4. Who exactly are the Ak Koyunlu, I've never actually heard of them, and I think there are many different civs you could add, before them, but if you think they are so important, I guess they can stay, its just that after looking on wikipedia, they look liked the vassals of Tamerlane, and should therefore be unplayable like the Zengids, and instead just start off as the vassals of them, I think that would be better for them.
5. The Mughal UHV, which has them build several wonders should have a time limit, or else, I have a feeling it will be too easy
6. More Byzantine cities are needed from the beginning of the game, (see picture, for the two extra cities that should be added, and where they should be added). The problem is that Anatolia is not fully covered, and it looks quite bad at the beginning, so adding a 2-3 more cities would be a good idea
7. The Byzantines should start off with the Civic Empire (instead of Monarchy), it just makes a lot more sense if you ask me, especially since Byzantium could use the reduction to maintenance, it would be better if they start of with that.
8. At first I thought this was REALLY bad, but after reading quite a bit about Byzantine history, I've come to the conclusion, that making the Byzantines start off quite bad money wise, was a good idea, it got to the point where my cities were revolting, and my army deserting me, but I realized this could only offer probably the best image of Byzantium in the 8th century. So that is a warning to all future players
9.Although I understand that later in the game, more cities spawn, and the map gradually fills up, I would have to strongly advice you to add more cities, especially for the Abbasids, who by the 8th century, were still on the advance, rather than a few cities in Mesopotamia, just look at their empire in 850AD, a hundred years after the start of the game, and their still large and grand:
Spoiler:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Abbasids850.png
I would suggest that you give the Abbasids more cities, and let them have control of all the independent cities (or most of them anyways), from Alexandria to Jerusalem, to Mecca, all the way into Persia, including Antioch, as they controlled 3/5 of the patriarchs of the Holy Church. And slowly, when the empire starts to fracture, and the Turkish nomads invade, then let their empire slowly disintegrate into just a few cities in Iraq, rather than disposing them to this fate from the beginning. In fact on the score board the Abbasids should be above the Byzantines by a long shot.
10. I would also encourage you to allow the Byzantines to have 2-3 more workers, especially considering how big their empire is, it would also help in building plantations, to get rid of the money burden.
11. Just like in real life, barbarians, shouldn't be able, or at least, shouldn't want to actively capture cities, (as they knew they wouldn't be able to hold them), but instead were more interested in the plunder, of pillaging the countryside, harrasing workers, and if you could code this, it would be cool to see the Barbarians plunder a city, (reduce culture and population), but have the city remain in your hands.
--- Also I noticed you implemented the Realism Mod, and there is a feature which stops other civ's and barbarians from burning a city to the ground (if it has a pop of more than 3) instantly, and instead it takes several turns, before the city is burnt down, if that could be implemented in this game, that would be awesome!)
12. Constantinople should be better defended, I think they should get 2 archers at least, and the swordsman can be removed (or relocated)
13. The Makurians should start off with an extra settler, especially since the Sudan, is so barren, they could use the boost.
14. The Armenians are a bit too hostile to the Byzantines at the beginning of the game(see "Other Ideas" #5)
15. What happend to the mighty Byzantine fleet? They should AT LEAST start off with a few war ships (just 2)
16. Rebel Cities, should be better defended, (more archers at the very least) they are currently WAY too easy to be taken, and I would implore you to add more of them, and give some to the Abbasids.
17. The Seljuk's should start with more settlers, once again (2-3) more settlers should spawn with them, since Persia tends to be quite barren, and they never really get close to their historic expansion.
18. The Armenian settler map, should be adjusted, they expanded a bit too fast, and to far for my taste, they should be stopped from doing that, as its very unhistorical for small Armenia to expand like that. (see photo), I mean them settling Edessa, was pushing it a bit TOO much.
19. Add Nicaea and Iconium, to the list of Byzantine cities, I am very surprised they are not represented, especially since they were so important in the Byzantine history, and later became the capital's of the Sultanate of Rum.
20. The Ayyubids should start of with one extra settler AND archer; they should also start off with 1-2 more Sunni Imams, or else there is a risk they will convert to another religion. Also and most importantly, the Ayyubid's NEED to start off with a larger army to counter the gigantic army which the Crusaders have. I would suggest having a large army with trebuchets, cavalry and heavy spearmen, spawn right next to the borders of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Also Damascus, needs to be better protected from the Zengids. Its strange too, since, by the time Saladin had come to prominence in Egypt, the Zengids were in rapid decline, so I don't know why they spawn such powerful armies at all, although, I understand that when they first spawn around 1127, they SHOULD have a large army (and spawn a few more later on), by the time the Ayyubid's spawn, they should be disintegrating, read this:
Spoiler:
Nur ad-Din was preparing to invade Egypt to bring Saladin under control when he unexpectedly died in 1174. His son and successor As-Salih Ismail al-Malik was only a child, and was forced to flee to Aleppo, which he ruled until 1181, when he was murdered and replaced by his relation, the Atabeg of Mosul. Saladin conquered Aleppo two years later, ending Zengid rule in Syria.
21. The Persecution civic needs a bit of a boost, it doesn't do much, and I don't know why you would pick it. To boost this civic this is what I would add, (you don't need to implment these specifically, but I would still suggest you boost the civic some other way):
1. The Persecution Civic should be required to build an "Inquisitor" unit
2. "Greater" culture from state religions churches/mosques
3. No non-state religion spread, +1 unhappiness per non state religion
22. Egypt does not have ANY horses OR iron?? I think this is probably the BIGGEST problem, out of EVERYTHING else, you should AT LEAST have one source of horses and one source of iron in Northern Egypt for all the Egyptian dynasties, or else they are hopelessly weak!
Other Ideas:
1. I can't remember if you already have this, but a good idea for a building for the Muslim Empires, would be a "distiller" or you could call it, "Perfume Distiller", and you would get extra coin from it, as it would act as your local pharmacy/cosmetic shop, distilleries, were a big part of the Middle East, and should be represented as such.
2. You should add the RFC European Bulgarian leader, Simeon, as Basil I, and have him come before Basil the Bulgar Slayer. I think Simeon from RFCE, would make a good Basil the Macedonian, then he would be succeed by Basil II (who was also part of the Macedonian Dynasty)
3. This suggestion, really could also go under, "eye candy" improvements, but its quite radical, and might take some time to code, but would make the game so much more fun. As you know RFC Europe uses wonders, to represent colonies. Instead of colonies, and more importantly, instead of having the Silk Road, represented by the silk resource near Constantinople, I would suggest doing something like this: (originally posted in the RFC Europe playtesting Thread)
Spoiler:
So you have these transit routes, which are just arrows in the ground, their like a resource, and to collect this resource, you would need to build a Caravan (camp) , improvement on it (which would be unlocked for the Arabs at the start). Then, to build the "Silk Road Trade", "Sub-Saharan Africa Trade" or the "Indian Ocean Trade" National Wonder, you would need that "Transit" resource with the Caravan (camp)** improvement built on it.
Basically its the same as building a chariot, you need a pasture on the horse resource to build a chariot, the same logic, except your building a National Wonder which gives you these resources. Note: The Caravan Stop DOES NOT give you the resources, you need to build the National Wonder to get the resources.
And the same logic goes for the Byzantines, and everyone else.
4. Instead of having Embassies, (which I know you removed), how about having building an ambassador's quarter for each civ, to keep in contact, because I think its kind of ridiculous, when the Byzantines remain with contact with the civ's in India, that really shouldn't be.
5. The Armenian's, should start off as vassals of the Byzantines, as they were in real life, I'm sure you can play as a vassal in BtS, as I've done it before, and I'm sure you can do it for this mod as well, but I find that the Armenian's are a bit TOO hostile to their long time friend in the West (Byzantium)
6. There should be an event in 1054 for the Byzantines, which pops up and says that relations with the Western Pope, have broken off, that would be nice for historic reasons, and you can follow up with the Venetian crusade (The Fourth Crusade)
--- I don't know if you have implemented the Fourth Crusade, which took Constantinople, (at least I didn't notice it), but in 1204, you should have a large Venetian Army which spawns close to Constantinople. Just like you have the Portuguese later in the game (as a non-playable), you should have the Venetians as well as a non-playable faction, who can setup the Latin Empire, if they successfully capture Constantinople. And if they do capture it, then a trigger should be sent for around 1261, for another Byzantine army to come and retake it. I think that would be quite a lot of fun to see happen.
7. Again another idea for the Byzantine's, since the game starts in 750AD, which was smack in the middle of the reign of Constantine V,(who was a die hard Iconoclast) you should have an event, which pops up that says "Your Empire is experiencing turbulence due to the Iconoclastic behaviour of the Emperor", (but of course you could/should say something different), this should last all the way until around 800 AD, (so just 50 years), and what should happen is that during these 50 years, randomly some of your cities should get a few unhappy faces, and revolt for 1-2 turns, and then it stops in that city, and starts up in another city. Iconoclasm, was a VERY big event in Byzantine history, but is usually overlooked, but it really did shake the core of the Empire. then when it reaches to 800AD, another event says, Emperor Irene, denounces Iconoclasm, which should end the controversy, and end the random revolts. I hope you implement this one, as I like the thought of it
8. Krek de Chevaliers, should spawn when the Crusaders arrive, with the wonder" Krek de Chevaliers" inside of it already, I don't know if you already have the wonder, but it should spawn with the Crusaders, (and the wonder bonus could be extra defence for the city), and because of this, the crusaders could remove a few units from their spawn.
General Questions:
1. How are the Varangian Guard represented? Because I know they were an integral part of the late Byzantine Army, (although they were expensive to maintain), but how do they show up in this game?
2. I don't know if you have, but do you have any plans (or have you already implemented), some way to represent Byzantine "Greek Fire"?
3. I'm confused about the special role mercenaries play in this game, could you explain it better.
4. Why seemingly randomly, do some of my cities revolt for 1 turn? I was playing as the Byzantines when it occurred. I'm fine with it happening, (it can represent the iconoclastic struggle), but I'm unsure why it happens.
5. Can you explain in fuller detail what the icons below the Science, Culture and EP output display are?
6. Why do the Ayyubid's need to have trade relations with the Genoans and Venetians, when they were their sworn enemy (since both Italian states traded with the crusaders heavily)? If you can prove me wrong, and say why it should be part of their UHV, then fine, but I personally think that a much better UHV could be thought of for the Ayyubid's.
7. How can "you" become a Catholic Saint, to fulfil the Kingdom of Jerusalem UHV?
8. To gain a title, such as "the Caliph of Baghdad" or "the Roman Emperor", do you just have to conquer Baghdad and Constantinople respectively?
PS. Please fix "Gameplay Performance/ Balancing Issues" #22, because that is a HUGE hindrance to the game
First off, let me say how much fun I had playing this mod, it was truly a great experience, and I want you to know, that none of what I will say below is an attack, its purely constructive criticism, and if you want you can ignore it (except the bugs, which I hope you will consider fixing anyways ). If I really did not like your mod, then I wouldn't take up so much time writing out notes, and organizing them into this post, so please remember I'm just trying to make this mod the best it can be!
I played several EXCELLENT games, and I will definitely play more, but I played as the Byzantines, the Fatmids, the Ayyubids and the Mughals (but I just began the game, no comments yet). And I played all games on Prince, but I wanted to ask you; what are the most balanced settings? I mean, what is the difficulty and speed level which you tested and fixed the game accordingly? Oh and finally, before I start, if you have ANY questions, about ANY of my suggestions or comments, PLEASE ask them, as I'm sure I can better explain myself in fuller detail.
First off, thanks, that's A LOT of input! Secondly, I said it in the 1st post - until the mod is balanced, please play on Monarch/Sultan and Normal speed only
I'll need a day or two to answer the questions, though skimming through them I can see that some are a bit rushed - for instance - Sultanate of Rum's capital is Konya etc. Why is it Eskisehir in your game - I don't know - maybe barbs, or the fact that you played on Prince or Epic bugged something - still, 90% of the time it's Konya. And for linguistic issues, I can offer valid explanations for everything Many suggestions are good though, like disabling Italian unit for Muslims etc.
11. When the Crusaders arrived in my game, they flipped Quds (which should be called Al-Quds) and renamed it Hierosolyma, what's up with that? It should be called Jerusalem, what's up with the weird name?
Bugs/Small Changes:
1. Khwarezmid should be instead called, "Khwarezmian Shahdom"
2. When Civ's spawn, or when they first pop up in my list of contacts, they do not pop up to speak to me, like it is in RFC or in normal CivIV, I think its just a bug though.
3. Byzantium should start off at war with the Abbasids. If you could code this, having an event which "forces" the Byzantines to have to pay tribute to the Abbasids and Bulgarians each turn, in exchange for peace, would be fun to play with.
4. I don't get the option to flip to another civilization
5. Why dosen't the catapult texture, have 2 catapults shown? In this game there is only one, and its kind of annoying, especially since they are at 100% health (same problem with some other artillery)
6. When Jerusalem is captured by the Arabs (actually it should start off as part of the Abbasid Empire), it should be called Al-Quds, not Quds, the same goes with Qahira, which should in fact be Al-Qāhira
7. Limit the spread of non-historic religions, such as Shi'ite Islam spreading to Byzantium, and I know that the world is broken up into provinces, so I'm sure you can dictate where religions are most likely to spread to.
8. When playing as the Byzantine's, an event happened, which spawned a lot of "Barbarian" Seljuk's into Anatolia (that was really great, historically wise), but they were not owned by the actual Seljuk player, why is that? I would have to recommend you to have ACTUAL Seljuk troops spawn near Anatolia, so they spur the invasion of the Byzantines.
9. Why is the Sultanate of Rum Capital: Eskisehir, when in reality their capital was Nicaea then Iconium? That should be changed quickly.
10. The Sultanate of the Rum, should spawn with MANY Sunni Imams, or else, like, in my game, they will convert to Orthodox Christianity, which ruins the game.
10. In 1097, when playing as the Byzantines, 5 of my cities automatically and quite randomly converted to Sunni Islam? Why is that?
11. When the Crusaders arrived in my game, they flipped Quds (which should be called Al-Quds) and renamed it Hierosolyma, what's up with that? It should be called Jerusalem, what's up with the weird name? Also Jerusalem should become the capital of the "**Kingdom** of **Jerusalem**", not Tripoli, or whatever it was (Damn I forgot now!)
12. When the crusaders spawn, they shouldn't be flipping camel archers, and other uniquely Arab units. I mean the Crusaders didn't have any "friendly" Arab mercanaries anyways. So just like in RFC, when a city flips, to a new civilization, it should push out all the old inhabitants, and perhaps a new "archer" type unit should spawn in its stead, so we don't have Crusader Camel lancers or what not.
13. One of the Crusader cities, is missing a name, but you've already noted that I think, but if you want I can offer suggestions in what the city should be called.
14. There was a Makuria Diplomacy buy, when I was playing as the Ayyubid's. At first I was at peace with them, and then they declared war on me, but I was able to instantly make peace with them, and then nothing happened, its hard to explain, but the diplomacy with Makuria, is quite glitchy.
15. The King of Cilicia, when he opens diplomacy, he does not say anything. There is no opening text basically.
16. The idea of Muslim nations getting Italian mercenaries is a bit ridiculous, I would suggest that you have to be Catholic, or perhaps also Orthodox, to get the ability to train "Italian" Mercenaries. Because I'm pretty sure the Turks or the Ayyubids never had any "Christian" Mercenaries fighting for them against the crusaders
17. Isen't Karbala the greater Holy City for Shi'ite Islam than Kufa?
1. The civ is actually called "Khwarezm Shahdom", "Khwarezmid Empire" and "Sultanate of Khwarezm" depending on the context (dynamic names).
As for Khwarezmians vs Kharezmids, both forms are found in historical texts in English, with Khwarezmids referring to the dynasty only, and Khwarezmians referring also the inhabitants of Khwarezmia (that's my impression, at least). The land is also called both Khwarezm and Khwarezmia...
2. The spawning, early war and contact mechanism is different in this mod but you're right that they should pop up.
3. There's no Bulgarians in the mod, save for the barbs, so lets skip them. I don't really know what was the particular situation exactly in 750 AD, but OK, they might as well be at war - it's kind of boring start with the Byzantines otherwise.
4. I disabled it because I never liked this feature and considered it an annoyance - but if people think it's needed, I'll turn it back in.
5. BTS Trebuchet uses 1 model, Cannons with 2 models overlapped, so I changed them and the capult accordingly. If that's too confusing it's easy to change back too...
6. I'm no expert on transliteration of Arabic, obviously, but looking at various texts, I got the impression that the definite article "al-" is dropped in many contexts, much like the English "the", or at least, most of those cities can be found in English texts without "al-". I dropped it from all names - if I'm to put it back again, then I'd also have to fix Al-Jazira, Al-Kufah, Al-Basrah, Al-Mosul and so on, and many of those names have just stuck in most minds without the definite article.
I know that more cities should be part of the Caliphate in 750, but that would be boring and imbalanced (essentially they should have most of the map up to Khwarezm and Balochistan). The explanation is that you start right at the end of the civil war with Umayyads, and still have to re-capture those few rebel cities. Makes sense?
7. From deterministic religion spreads in Anatolia, there's 7 Sunni attempts and 2 Shia attempts. As far as I've read, there was a sizeable Shia community in Anatolia but Ottomans deported them during Safavid era.
8. Seljuk invasions work like this: a barbarian invasion happens, then after few turns, when the cities are captured, the actual Civ is being born and flips the cities and units. This way you have realistic invasion AND a playable civilization i.e. when human player starts as Sultanate of Rum, he will spawn in Anatolia that has already been raided for several turns, and the barbarian units flip to his side. Now if Great Seljuks were Human-controlled and you spawned Seljuks in Anatolia as Seljuks and not Barbarians, you're giving the player 30-40 free units out of nowhere, in a remote area. The only Civs that work the way you suggested are Zengids and Portuguese, but for this reason they are not playable.
9. Like I said, the capital of Rum is Konya 90% of the time (they start with a settler and a big army in Iconium's spot).
10. I don't know what's the deal with your games... I haven't seen Turks or Ottomans as Christian for months. I'd love to know why this happened, because Rum and Ottomans are artificially discouraged from switching, and there are several other mechanics to prevent it - like you said, when playing as Byzantines your cities started converting to Islam following the Turkish invasion. Of course adding another Imam (they start with 2) won't hurt.
11. Jerusalem is English. Crusaders mostly spoke French, and officially used Latin - and that's the Latin name. As for kingdoms, they are in English like in RFC... of course we could call the kingdom "Regnum Hierosolimitanum" but then we would have to call the caliphate "al-khilafah al-‘abbasiyyah" and it would get messy.
The capital of Kingdom of Jerusalem is Acre, again there's something wrong going on in your game, since it's another case of a civ not using their settler and instead moving capital to the first city it flips. Maybe you could post your save game so I can look at it?
12. Crusaders did use friendly Christian Arabs/Syriacs and Turks(Turkopoles). I disabled flipping of some special units like Hospitallers etc. This is extra, because maybe I missed something, but from what I can tell RFC flips all units indiscriminately, doesn't it? Garrisons are pushed out during resurrections only.
(13) is fixed, I've seen (14) happen myself, so far no idea what is it, though and with (15) I'll check for missing diplomacy texts, never really touched them TBH.
16. Well, it was Italians that shipped the Ottoman army to Thrace and saved them from slaughter from Timurids... but you're right, hiring those Genoan/Venetians units doesn't make much sense, I'll disable that.
17. Najaf is the most important as it has the Tomb of Ali, and it's right next to Kufah. I can rename Kufah to Najaf but the former was the bigger and more important city throughout the period. As for Karbala, it's too close to Baghdad.
1. How are the Varangian Guard represented? Because I know they were an integral part of the late Byzantine Army, (although they were expensive to maintain), but how do they show up in this game?
2. I don't know if you have, but do you have any plans (or have you already implemented), some way to represent Byzantine "Greek Fire"?
3. I'm confused about the special role mercenaries play in this game, could you explain it better.
4. Why seemingly randomly, do some of my cities revolt for 1 turn? I was playing as the Byzantines when it occurred. I'm fine with it happening, (it can represent the iconoclastic struggle), but I'm unsure why it happens.
5. Can you explain in fuller detail what the icons below the Science, Culture and EP output display are?
6. Why do the Ayyubid's need to have trade relations with the Genoans and Venetians, when they were their sworn enemy (since both Italian states traded with the crusaders heavily)? If you can prove me wrong, and say why it should be part of their UHV, then fine, but I personally think that a much better UHV could be thought of for the Ayyubid's.
7. How can "you" become a Catholic Saint, to fulfil the Kingdom of Jerusalem UHV?
8. To gain a title, such as "the Caliph of Baghdad" or "the Roman Emperor", do you just have to conquer Baghdad and Constantinople respectively?
1. There is a Varangian Guard unit that can be only hired by an Orthodox ruler and only in Constantinople, through the mercenary system. VG is on par with Marksmen (and better than Marksmen vs. Melee) but can be hired since the beginning, and can be used offensively too.
2. It's already implemented as a Byzantine-only quest event that requires you to build a fleet of 6 ships - if you succeed, all your ships get a "Greek Fire" promotion (20% Collateral Damage & 1 First Strike). It's random but guaranteed to happen once per game.
3. There is the mercenary system you know from RFC, but apart from the usual units, it also allows hiring of "rare" units that are limited to a specific geographic area. Varangian Guard is one example. Another are Daylami Tribesmen, which will appear in your Mercenary Screen only if you have a province in northern Iran etc. There's like 10 rare units so far, but I'm open to adding more.
4. Most revolts have a message associated with them so you should know why they happen. The messageless revolts are because of low Stability - and it's a mistake on my part - they should of course have message too.
5. This is just an interface enhancement I borrowed from BUG and expanded:
- the first one is Stability - so you can see at all the time,
- the second one is Piety, similar to RFCE's faith points but the mechanics are more like Piety in M2TW - if you hover over it you'll see the effects of your current piety level
- the 3rd and 4th line are from BUG, they just show your Great People / Great General progress
6. I based this UHV on the Economy section of Ayyubid wikipedia entry, which can be summed up as: The Ayyubids profited from selling luxury stuff (both domestic products and imports from India) to Europeans, through Genoans and Venetians, who traded with Ayyubids durings times of peace and well after most of the Levant was lost. That's wikipedia of course, but a rather non-POV topic and well-sourced, besides, googling the subjects throws at least excerpts of articles outlining trade between Europe and Ayyubids and Mamluks after the Crusades.
7. "Saint" is the highest piety level (>90) - piety is explained in Civilopedia -> SoI Concepts -> Religion; to make the long story short, spread your religion, get rid of other religions, build religious buildings and wonders, don't attack or massacre your buddies (includes Orthodox Christians in case of Jerusalem).
8. More or less - the previous title holders must be dead too - all requirements are listed in the Civilopedia, under Titles.
I've got one question to those that played a game or two: do you see the cities of Konya (in Anatolia) and/or Acre (in Palestine) founded or are they missing? I can't really reproduce what The Turk reported, i.e. Seljuks of Rum always start at Konya in my games. Acre I've seen not founded once due to culture from Sur.
I've seen the crusaders rule Acre. Heck the name even changed to the Kingom of Acre even though they still held Jerusalem. (However, that might be because they conquered Acre first. You might want to add a script that automaticaly sets Jerusalem as the capital but after that it can be moved around normaly.)
This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
It's fixed in the patch I've just uploaded.
Oh, as for Ak Koyunlus, they would make more sense as non-playable I guess... they are meant to fill a vacuum that was usually there, and to keep Abbassids, Armenians and Turks from growing too much.
I agree about Makuria, but some civs will just have little action due to their location, Yemen also has this issue.
). If I really did not like your mod, then I wouldn't take up so much time writing out notes, and organizing them into this post, so please remember I'm just trying to make this mod the best it can be!
)
)
