The Sword of Islam: RFC Medieval Middle East

[Jusos2108]

Why are they overpowered? They are if you're trying to conquer as the Timurids, but what about everybody else?

They are always a pain for the Ghorids, when conquering India. Sindh usually haves them. Their city defense bonus could be weakened to +25% (it is now +50%).

 

[MessageMan]

IIRC the Best Defense quest for the KoJ requires 5 cities. Since they lost 2 cities, can this be adjusted? Can the PoA get it too?

Is there any way to figure out what's the defense for your cities? Do you add up all the different percentage bonuses and multiply that by the strength of the unit?

I wish there was a unit to counter Missile Cavalry since the Spearman don't work for them anymore. But was there in real life? I wish I could remember. It's been a long time since I've read up on this stuff.

Anybody here have a book on Timur's battle tactics? From what I understand they used the horse archers to soften up the enemy, then they'd ride away and let the heavy troops charge. So maybe they should get an increased retreat percentage?

 

[Tigranes]

First to embriodead! Impressive effort. Your work spawn from simingly nowhere. I am espessially enjoying mouse over effect for the names of provinces.

Started as Armenia (obviously ). Enjoying the game a lot, especially loved to build Tigranakert . Seljuk Turks came from nowhere and took Karin. I was too busy with churches to care about large army (very historically) but somehow not very historically I was able to buy mercenaries and easily repell both Barbarian Seljuks and "Civilized" ones. Perhaps, one could increase mercenary costs and increase/create more units for both types of Seljuks?

Where did you got that Armenian music from? To my shame I never heared it before. It sounds pretty cool as it is, but I would assume the most "landmark" music for Armenia would be any piece from the Armenian Orthodox Mass (Badarak), for example Ter voghormea (God have mercy)

I have accomplished the first UHV and need to fight Normans for Malatia -- only 25 turns left before the 2nd UHV checks. I am second in score. Few questions and remarks:

1. If I remember correctly, in RFC newly spawned Civ was able to clean its core from the foreign culture. I have created major problem for Georgians with my culture from the Kars. Georgians did not found any city except for their capital. Their settler was sitting in Tbilisi for handreds of years. I think this is the biggest problem I have discovered so far.

2. Why wouldn't you add Cilicia as "border" province for Armenia (i.e. no penalty for expanding here). Can I as a human player get expelled to Cilicia, if my Capital in Greater Armenia get captured, somehow?

3. In general, don't you think that the last Armenian UHV could be something about Cilicia? Lets say -- move your capital to Sis (Cilicia) by 1300s. Or provide some help to the first Crusade -- for example donate certain amount of resources to the KoJ, could be very interesting. Or to build some quantity of merchant ships. Cilician saga really deserves to appear somewhere in UHV, just my two lumas

4. Some flics work really strange for some units. When the unit is moving they look differently, when they rest they look like vanila Workers, Wariors and Swordsmen.

5. City Stability does really wierd jumps from -14 to +1 in only 2 turns. I have only traded for couple of "happy" resources. I know that ratio of happy/unhappy citizens does influence City Stability, but by how much did you change Rhye's original code of stability -- ingridients and their values?

6. Why do the Caravan yield the same 50 gold no matter where you send him? AI does not build them at all (haven't seen one yet). Does one get gold if he kills Caravan unit?

7. There been posts about the Silk road, I just wanted to double check -- why could not it be implemented aa a paved road? Timurid's could have a UHV -- control the entire Silk road. If one fixes Caravan gold dependency on the distance traveled this could be a very strategic road to control.

8. Why could not Abbasids start with as many cities as Byzantines, at least? They are not very impressive -- flipping cities instead of owning them like their enemy empire.

9. On the default Sultan difficulty game somehow feels like Viceroy in RFC. Human player can easily lead the tech race.

10. Finally I have a feeling that AI Empires dont build many new cities. Very seldom do I see any Settler activity.

Please excuse me for my list -- I am really enjoying your mod.

 

[embryodead]

Ok, in general, civs are respawning TOO frequently, TOO soon, ESPECIALLY the Sultanate of Rum and the Abbasids. In the case of the Sultanate of Rum, they die, then a few turns later they just respawn under a different name, and flag, and they reposes all their territories, this is BAD, because it does not give the Ottomans any room to expand, what needs to happen, is that when the Sultanate of Rum dies, they should respawn perhaps 20-30 turns later, and with a much smaller spawn zone, which should make them considerably weaker, but for the better.

I already explained it. Resurrections are just as frequent as in RFC, nothing changed there. You're referring to a special case of historical resurrection, which happens once per game. When Ottomans spawn, Beylik of Karaman is also respawned with just one province. Can't make it smaller really. Yes, Sultanate of Rum is often more powerful than it should be - that is a problem, but please, stop extrapolating a single issue on everything.

CAN YOU PLEASE stop the crusaders from taking Medina and Mecca, I mean, this is starting to become quite ridiculous, as it constantly happens

I've seen it happen once in about 100 games, and no, I can't fix it, unless someone has a better idea than RFC mechanics to do it.

Also when the Mughals spawned, I realized that when they built Agra (by the way Delhi Sultanate was VERY strong), all their troops were ejected, and sent to Delhi, but what happened, was that, then a Delhi Sultanate horse archer came, and took the defenseless Agra, BOOM! the huge Mughal Army outside of Delhi disappears, and the Mughals are erased, you might want to re-look at the Mughal spawn zone and starting units. Personally I don't know how you can change this.

The new patch simulates Complete Kills setting for the first 25 turns after spawn, so a civ won't die just by losing their 1st city.

 

[embryodead]

IIRC the Best Defense quest for the KoJ requires 5 cities. Since they lost 2 cities, can this be adjusted? Can the PoA get it too?

The Best Defense is a global quest, same for everyone.

Is there any way to figure out what's the defense for your cities? Do you add up all the different percentage bonuses and multiply that by the strength of the unit?

The tooltip only shows the exact math when you're attacking, so I guess there's no automatic way. You'd have to take the strength and add unit bonuses and the city bonus displayed above the name.

I wish there was a unit to counter Missile Cavalry since the Spearman don't work for them anymore. But was there in real life? I wish I could remember. It's been a long time since I've read up on this stuff.

There wasn't, that's why Turks and Mongols were so successful. Eventually Mamluk heavy cavalry defeated the Mongols, and here counter-attack with other cavalry, either heavy or light w/ skirmish promotion, is the best defense. That, and firearms.

@all
As for Timurids & Marksmen, I'll lower the defense for the next patch, but don't be surprised if it turns out it's too easy to capture cities in general.

 

[The Turk]

@all
As for Timurids & Marksmen, I'll lower the defense for the next patch, but don't be surprised if it turns out it's too easy to capture cities in general.

Thanks! But we can just test it, and if it doesn't work out too well, then we can scrap the idea in the following patch. Also, don't lower their defense TOO much, I would just suggest lowering their strength by a tiny bit

And sorry for my previous comments, if those annoyed you

PS. Sorry, but I'm quite a noob when it comes to acronym's, but what exactly does IIRC stand for?

 

[embryodead]

First to embriodead! Impressive effort. Your work spawn from simingly nowhere. I am espessially enjoying mouse over effect for the names of provinces.

Started as Armenia (obviously ). Enjoying the game a lot, especially loved to build Tigranakert . Seljuk Turks came from nowhere and took Karin. I was too busy with churches to care about large army (very historically) but somehow not very historically I was able to buy mercenaries and easily repell both Barbarian Seljuks and "Civilized" ones. Perhaps, one could increase mercenary costs and increase/create more units for both types of Seljuks?

Hello and thanks As for the raids, on the other hand you've got complains that barbs roll through the Caucasus and raze everything, so it's rather difficult to balance. I'm considering a mercenary system overhaul, one that would localize mercenary availability.

Where did you got that Armenian music from? To my shame I never heared it before. It sounds pretty cool as it is, but I would assume the most "landmark" music for Armenia would be any piece from the Armenian Orthodox Mass (Badarak), for example Ter voghormea (God have mercy)

Well it's not easy to find specific stuff that is always available online, i.e. on youtube. I just looked for medieval Armenian music... don't remember what it was exactly.

1. If I remember correctly, in RFC newly spawned Civ was able to clean its core from the foreign culture. I have created major problem for Georgians with my culture from the Kars. Georgians did not found any city except for their capital. Their settler was sitting in Tbilisi for handreds of years. I think this is the biggest problem I have discovered so far.

I was kind of aware of this, though it doesn't happen with the AI, but if the human player places Kars on the edge of the province, or just spams culture, he can block Georgia indeed. The culture should be cleared but it pops back there before Georgia can found another city, it seems. I'll have to look at this again.

4. Some flics work really strange for some units. When the unit is moving they look differently, when they rest they look like vanila Workers, Wariors and Swordsmen.

Please disable "Frozen Animations" in your game options. Basic RFC doesn't use custom units but most mods that do will not work properly with this setting.

5. City Stability does really wierd jumps from -14 to +1 in only 2 turns. I have only traded for couple of "happy" resources. I know that ratio of happy/unhappy citizens does influence City Stability, but by how much did you change Rhye's original code of stability -- ingridients and their values?

I did change a lot in economy and a bit in expansion and civics, but cities - not really. 1 happy face in 1 city can add +1 Stability in RFC, assuming you also have negative stability from other factors, like religion.

6. Why do the Caravan yield the same 50 gold no matter where you send him? AI does not build them at all (haven't seen one yet). Does one get gold if he kills Caravan unit?

It does yield from 30 to 70 gold, depending on distance and city size. The AI does build them, I see them a lot tbh, but they use them to explore the map, not trade (which is intended, it's the only real scout).

7. There been posts about the Silk road, I just wanted to double check -- why could not it be implemented aa a paved road? Timurid's could have a UHV -- control the entire Silk road. If one fixes Caravan gold dependency on the distance traveled this could be a very strategic road to control.

I don't think a paved road going from China to Levant would be realistic. And the Caravan mechanic cannot be relied on, it's not really good tbh...

8. Why could not Abbasids start with as many cities as Byzantines, at least? They are not very impressive -- flipping cities instead of owning them like their enemy empire.

750 AD is when the Abbasids took over the Caliphate from the Umayyads in a civil war, which continued for a few more years until all the Umayyads were dead (except Abd ar-Rahman, who fled to Spain). Baghdad was built then, as the new capital (actually in 762, but that's close enough). Hence the settler in Baghdad's place and flip.

9. On the default Sultan difficulty game somehow feels like Viceroy in RFC. Human player can easily lead the tech race.

I agree in general, though Armenia has been noted to be particularly easy before, it's something that needs balancing.

10. Finally I have a feeling that AI Empires dont build many new cities. Very seldom do I see any Settler activity.

I'm not sure what's the deal here - could I see a screenshot maybe? In all my games, and other people's screenshots, this seems fine, the AI builds exactly where I wanted them to, in all spots, minus you blocking Georgia, obviously.

Thanks for the feedback!

EDIT: I forgot the respond to the parts about Cilicia. If you play with another civ, you'll notice that when Armenia dies, it respawns in Cilicia, with a new flag and new core province. Making human resurrections in RFC would be a lot of work, and little gain really, because who really plays to lose?

 

[embryodead]

Thanks! But we can just test it, and if it doesn't work out too well, then we can scrap the idea in the following patch. Also, don't lower their defense TOO much, I would just suggest lowering their strength by a tiny bit

And sorry for my previous comments, if those annoyed you

PS. Sorry, but I'm quite a noob when it comes to acronym's, but what exactly does IIRC stand for?

It's OK! and IIRC = If I Remember Clearly, or similar variants.

 

[Jusos2108]

They are always a pain for the Ghorids, when conquering India. Sindh usually haves them. Their city defense bonus could be weakened to +25% (it is now +50%).

IMO this would be enough. However, if the weakening doesn't work out I might recommend increasing the hammers needed for castles. When the Timurids spawn, every significant Seljuk city has a castle, it is a bit unrealistic. As for Ghorids, when you get to Sindh, they have castles and the trebutches don't really help you against them.

BTW, finished the Khwarezmian UHV yesterday and it worked really well, no real issues. The barbs were strong and annoying, but I managed to defeat them every time, although I had a couple of close calls.

 

[Jusos2108]

It's OK! and IIRC = If I Remember Clearly, or similar variants.

I think the most often used variant is: if I remember correctly.

 

[MessageMan]

Castles are a big pain if you want to bombard them. You need an army of just them if you want to take a city somewhat quickly.

 

[AOS9001]

Yea, I was meaning to bring that up. In this mod, it seems castles reduce catapult bombard damage to 1% a turn and Trebuchets to 2%, if I remember right. I haven't had much time to play in the last few days, and in other games, I never encounter AI castles frequently. Is this intended for this mod, or has it always been this way in Civ IV?

 

[embryodead]

Yea, I was meaning to bring that up. In this mod, it seems castles reduce catapult bombard damage to 1% a turn and Trebuchets to 2%, if I remember right. I haven't had much time to play in the last few days, and in other games, I never encounter AI castles frequently. Is this intended for this mod, or has it always been this way in Civ IV?

It's exactly the same as in CIV IV, but it's walls that soak most damage, not castles:

Walls +50% defense, -50% bombard damage
Castle +50% defense, -25% bombard damage

Same bombard for catapults and trebuchets too, 8% and 16% per turn, which becomes 2% and 4% with walls + castles. Can be more with promotions.

 

[Jusos2108]

It's exactly the same as in CIV IV, but it's walls that soak most damage, not castles:

Walls +50% defense, -50% bombard damage
Castle +50% defense, -25% bombard damage

Same bombard for catapults and trebuchets too, 8% and 16% per turn, which becomes 2% and 4% with walls + castles. Can be more with promotions.

Okey, if you are reluctant to change the Marksman, you could change the latter percentages into 4% and 8%. This would make castles bearable. However, the +25% city defence for Marksman might be worth a try anyways. Currently a fortified Marskman with the usual CGII promotion and castle, gives it a defence strength of over 19.00. Heavy Infantry with CRIII promotion has <10% odds against that. Heavy Lancer with SIII doesn't stand a chance either. Also note that in my example the promotion for attackers are better.

 

[MessageMan]

Currently a fortified Marskman with the usual CGII promotion and castle, gives it a defence strength of over 19.00.

How'd you calculate that?

 

[Jusos2108]

How'd you calculate that?

Original strength 6.00 +90% for city defending (with CGII, or is it 95%?) +100% from castle +25% for fortified unit +something little for first strike: equals just above 19.00.

 

[Barak]

Something occurs to me. Shouldn't there be a title for India or some kind? The other map areas have an associative title, but not India. Granted I have NO idea what one would be.

 

[embryodead]

Something occurs to me. Shouldn't there be a title for India or some kind? The other map areas have an associative title, but not India. Granted I have NO idea what one would be.

The one thing all these titles have in common is that they have a long history and tradition. They were claimed by, and survived several different empires. There's nothing like it for India, which was mostly a collection of small states, and even when a major conqueror came, i.e. Babur, he didn't claim any ancient title.

 

[MrBanana]

I got some xml errors when trying to run the new patch. There are a whole bunch of errors regarding the terrain_wasteland code in unit infos and unit promotions.

 

[Tigranes]

Something occurs to me. Shouldn't there be a title for India or some kind? The other map areas have an associative title, but not India. Granted I have NO idea what one would be.

Perhaps Samraat?

Despite its literal meaning, unlike many other titles meaning Great King, neither Maharaja nor Rajadhiraja ('King of Kings'), nor even its equivalent amongst Maharajas, 'Maharajadhiraja', ever reached the standing required for imperial rank, as each was soon the object of title inflation. Instead, the only Hindu title which is commonly rendered as Emperor is Samraat or Samraj(a), a personal distinction achieved by a few rulers of ancient dynasties such as the Mauryas and Guptas; the Muslim equivalent of emperor would be Padshah, applied to the Mughal dynasty.

I am far more concerened about Pala Empire. Buddhist dynasty rulled much of the India present in the mod from 750&#8211;1174 -- exactly the timeframe of the mod! And talk about Budhist UHV! In my game Buddhism is 0% all the time!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pala_Empire