Tips for Stability and Plague and a Minor Improvement Suggestion

[OzCiv]

First of all, for the record: RFC's a great mod. City names, unique powers, even things like Stability and Plague -- as challenging as they are -- make this very realistic and a real challenge.

I'm playing with the Turks and so far loving it. It's very amusing to see how some of the things in the game map to the real world. I find it ironic for instance that building a Turkish empire becomes many times easier if you convert to Christianity early on and therefore only have to keep small deterrent forces in the Balkans and Black Sea to keep your fellow Christian neighbors at bay. I think my next RFC game is going to be with America but after that I can't wait to play the Turks again and this time try to stick to Islam and see what kind of trouble that gets me in with the West. (No EU for the heathen I guess )

Now after that short praise, comes my plea for help. On two RFC-specific fronts:

1. The Plague! Can we get some more information on this? I don't find this forum particularly easy to search for RFC-only content and the Rhye's wiki doesn't say much about this. The question I'm interested in is this: What is the proper way to deal with the Plague with just a few turns of warning? And I'm not interested in cheats -- i.e. don't tell me to open the map with an editor and take out the Plague. I'm interested in resolving the real world scenario of a leader facing the Plague without an opportunity to pre-plan or get Medicine anytime soon. Is moving units out of cities a legitimate defense against unit-death? It makes sense, since you are reducing their exposure to the disease by taking them away from high density areas. How does plague damage spread from the city center out? Is one square distance enough to save lives or should they be even further? Do units get damaged every turn of the plague? Or do they just get hit once per unit? How long does the plague last and once it spreads fast throughout your cities, what is the best way to get rid of it?

2. Stability! I have 2 stars for Cities, 2 for Civics, 4 or 5 for Economy, 3 for Expansion and 4 for Foreign. That's one average, two above-average and two below-average stars. Shouldn't that add up to an average of 3-stars: "Stable"? Well.. for some reason I'm "Unstable" and "Shaky" at best. Why is that? Do these five categories have different weights?

3. Both of the Above! Is there a synergy between the plague and stability? I'm asking this because in my game all was fine and dandy. I had "Unstable" in stability with the above distribution but things didn't really seem that bad. I had cities celebrating "We love the Monarch" days. I wasn't at war. I was superior to all my neighbors. Highest score etc. And I hit "Enter to End Turn" and the next thing you know the Plague ripped through my cities, half of my units died and Shiraz -- where I had just seen fireworks celebrating the Monarch -- declared its independence. I hit F2 in shock and now see some improvement up to "Shaky" but with the same star numbers in categories as before.

What is going on here? Is the Plague affecting stability? Or is it that the Plague kills my units and lack of units in an area along with "unstable" rating causes cities there to go Indep?

One more question: Do cities that go Independent because of stability come back to your empire if you get stable again and increase your culture or do you have to take them back by force? I know, for instance that a city doesn't do a culture-flip to its original owner if it's been conquered by force. Does this apply to cities that go Independent?

Oh and my minor improvement suggestion for Rhye is: I don't think it looks realistic when cities that celebrate "we love the monarch" declare independence on that same turn or the next one. There should probably be some sort of check for this.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

1. The Plague! Can we get some more information on this? I don't find this forum particularly easy to search for RFC-only content and the Rhye's wiki doesn't say much about this. The question I'm interested in is this: What is the proper way to deal with the Plague with just a few turns of warning? And I'm not interested in cheats -- i.e. don't tell me to open the map with an editor and take out the Plague. I'm interested in resolving the real world scenario of a leader facing the Plague without an opportunity to pre-plan or get Medicine anytime soon. Is moving units out of cities a legitimate defense against unit-death? It makes sense, since you are reducing their exposure to the disease by taking them away from high density areas. How does plague damage spread from the city center out? Is one square distance enough to save lives or should they be even further? Do units get damaged every turn of the plague? Or do they just get hit once per unit? How long does the plague last and once it spreads fast throughout your cities, what is the best way to get rid of it?

I think my guide in plague in the wikipedia is not adequate because I don't know the code behind plague. But from what I can tell, plague will spread by trade routes (e.g. if plague hits city X which has trade routes to cities A,B,C, the next turn A, B, C will get the plague), and proximity (especially by water or land routes). If you have a big empire with lots of health resources, not all your cities will have plague (I played as the Persians and I only had 5/10 cities with plague, and since other vassal civs were giving me all their health resources plague went away after 6-7 turns). I build lots of warriors before getting iron or copper just to prepare for their mass sacrifice during plague. Usually 1-2 units will start dying but if they have enough hit points they'll survive. The other units in the city should not be affected, so that's another argument to concentrate all your troops in one small stricken city. If your city can be happy without military, by all means move your troops outside (I think 3 tiles away from any city will be safe for that unit).
And don't forget to whip your cities by to health and build some infrastructure in doing so (more pop=more unhealthy). Buildings also contribute to unhealthiness but 3 pop>1 building.

2. Stability! I have 2 stars for Cities, 2 for Civics, 4 or 5 for Economy, 3 for Expansion and 4 for Foreign. That's one average, two above-average and two below-average stars. Shouldn't that add up to an average of 3-stars: "Stable"? Well.. for some reason I'm "Unstable" and "Shaky" at best. Why is that? Do these five categories have different weights?

Economy and expansion tend to trump other categories. As Persia, Arabia and Germany I had a 5+ star economy while my expansion was 1 star, but because I had good civic combinations (3 stars), good foreign relations (5 stars) and good happy cities with infrastructure (3 stars) I was very stable. Your cities need more happiness it seems--maybe you need emancipation?

3. Both of the Above! Is there a synergy between the plague and stability? I'm asking this because in my game all was fine and dandy. I had "Unstable" in stability with the above distribution but things didn't really seem that bad. I had cities celebrating "We love the Monarch" days. I wasn't at war. I was superior to all my neighbors. Highest score etc. And I hit "Enter to End Turn" and the next thing you know the Plague ripped through my cities, half of my units died and Shiraz -- where I had just seen fireworks celebrating the Monarch -- declared its independence. I hit F2 in shock and now see some improvement up to "Shaky" but with the same star numbers in categories as before.

No units in cities when you're shaky or below will mean that a city will declare independence eventually. Maybe you have too many cities?
Plague will hit your economy which when it shrinks will make your economy go down.

One more question: Do cities that go Independent because of stability come back to your empire if you get stable again and increase your culture or do you have to take them back by force? I know, for instance that a city doesn't do a culture-flip to its original owner if it's been conquered by force. Does this apply to cities that go Independent?

No, you have to conquer them by force or flip them by culture, they don't come back to you will full culture. The Turks are an exception though with their UP.

Oh and my minor improvement suggestion for Rhye is: I don't think it looks realistic when cities that celebrate "we love the monarch" declare independence on that same turn or the next one. There should probably be some sort of check for this.

I agree. Maybe celebrations should add a stability point, Rhye?

 

[say1988]

The Plague:
The only last ditch defence I know of is to cut off open borders with anyone who gets it. This generally delays it at the very least (giving you time to prepare), and can stop it entirely.
Keep in mind that some plagues, such as those in the Americas upon first contacting Europeans are unavoidable.
Supposedly maintaining high health in your cities helps, but I haven't seen any hard data.

I am not sure the mechanics, but all units in your territory seem to take damage each turn. On these same lines, your units in foreign plague ridden territory take damage, even when you have medicine (at least that occurred the one time I tried it).
My question about this: does the plague have any effect outside of cultural borders?


Stability
Some sections are more heavily weighted than others. Do you have the newest version? That helps you understand what is going on considerably.
I don't know much about the mechanics, I find stability is something you have to learn and play by feel. Now I can general predict where it is going, but I don't really know why.

Both of the Above
Not directly, but stability kills population and lowers the level of your towns, thereby decreasing your GDP, and stability along with it.
High unhealthiness decreases stability.
Lost units might (though that may only be from combat).
There are likely other connections too, but I don't know them (as I said I fly by the seat of my pants when it comes to stability).

 

[blizzrd]

1. The Plague! Can we get some more information on this? I don't find this forum particularly easy to search for RFC-only content and the Rhye's wiki doesn't say much about this. The question I'm interested in is this: What is the proper way to deal with the Plague with just a few turns of warning? And I'm not interested in cheats -- i.e. don't tell me to open the map with an editor and take out the Plague. I'm interested in resolving the real world scenario of a leader facing the Plague without an opportunity to pre-plan or get Medicine anytime soon. Is moving units out of cities a legitimate defense against unit-death? It makes sense, since you are reducing their exposure to the disease by taking them away from high density areas. How does plague damage spread from the city center out? Is one square distance enough to save lives or should they be even further? Do units get damaged every turn of the plague? Or do they just get hit once per unit? How long does the plague last and once it spreads fast throughout your cities, what is the best way to get rid of it?

If you see the Plague with another civ before it gets to you, try closing borders with that/those civs and with any civs who have open borders with that civ. Once as Japan, I had a Greek ship turn up off my coast while Greece was under the Plague. By refusing open borders with Greece, I never acquired that particular Plague. I later went back and reloaded, accepted Open Borders and hey presto, Plague all over my empire.

Once the Plague hits, I usually send my units out of my cities if I want to keep them alive. Especially move workers more than one tile away from any city with the Plague.

I've never been able to effectively combat the Plague with health resources. Often even when I am well ahead with Health, my cities still get the Plague. I'm not convinced that Health has much weight in the probability of a city getting the Plague, but maybe this is just my experience.

2. Stability! I have 2 stars for Cities, 2 for Civics, 4 or 5 for Economy, 3 for Expansion and 4 for Foreign. That's one average, two above-average and two below-average stars. Shouldn't that add up to an average of 3-stars: "Stable"? Well.. for some reason I'm "Unstable" and "Shaky" at best. Why is that? Do these five categories have different weights?

I read a neat summary about Stablity somewhere on this site, but I'm afraid I can't recall the exact location. Perhaps another can post the link? The bottom line is that Stablity is quite a bit more complicated than just averaging the 5 ratings. I recommend taking a look at that Stability article though.

What is going on here? Is the Plague affecting stability? Or is it that the Plague kills my units and lack of units in an area along with "unstable" rating causes cities there to go Indep?

I think the relationship is that your lack of units (and likely reduction in happiness) has an immediate effect on your Stability.

One more question: Do cities that go Independent because of stability come back to your empire if you get stable again and increase your culture or do you have to take them back by force?

This has never happened for me.

I am fairly sure that dates which see a new civ spawn also trigger a check for old civs to respawn within civs that are unstable (such as Egyptian cities declaring their independence when America spawns).

In my current game as Germany, I collapsed Russia after conquering Moscow and Volgograd and saw Kiev and a few other cities on the Persian frontier become independent. Spain managed to conquer Kiev before I could, but Spain was horribly unstable at the time. A few turns later, when America spawned, I saw the message that "The Russian Cities have declared their independence" as I was booted out of Moscow and the Spanish were booted out of Kiev. Very annoying, but I was able to reclaim Moscow and
Kiev in short time without too much disruption.

It is not clear to me though whether these sort of triggers which see old civs respawn also relate to stablitiy checks being made for independent cities.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

I've never been able to effectively combat the Plague with health resources. Often even when I am well ahead with Health, my cities still get the Plague. I'm not convinced that Health has much weight in the probability of a city getting the Plague, but maybe this is just my experience.

...
In my current game as Germany, I collapsed Russia after conquering Moscow and Volgograd and saw Kiev and a few other cities on the Persian frontier become independent. Spain managed to conquer Kiev before I could, but Spain was horribly unstable at the time. A few turns later, when America spawned, I saw the message that "The Russian Cities have declared their independence" as I was booted out of Moscow and the Spanish were booted out of Kiev. Very annoying, but I was able to reclaim Moscow and
Kiev in short time without too much disruption.

It is not clear to me though whether these sort of triggers which see old civs respawn also relate to stablitiy checks being made for independent cities.

Having lots of healthy resources will not completely prevent plague from spreading to certain cities, but it will shorten the duration of plague, and your population will not die as much. E.g. I had plague in my Indian satrapy (probably due to lots of jungle) but then my American holdings never had plague even though half the world had it and could have spread to it. My largest city (Sirajis on the elephant) was 16 pop, died to about 13 but stayed there and plague went away after 5 turns.
In a previous game, with no wheat, Timbuktu died to 1 pop and plauge stayed a total of 12 turns.

If you're not stable or above, and both you and an existing unstable civ have cities in another civ's historic territory, when the latter respawns yours will go to the new civ.

The following, not really a corollary, is also true:
If you're stable, and both you and an existing unstable civ has cities in another civ's historic territory, when the latter respawns yours will stay yours,.

 

[blizzrd]

If you're not stable or above, and both you and an existing unstable civ have cities in another civ's historic territory, when the latter respawns yours will go to the new civ.

The following, not really a corollary, is also true:
If you're stable, and both you and an existing unstable civ has cities in another civ's historic territory, when the latter respawns yours will stay yours,.

Really? I was Solid at the time that I described in my German game when Russia respawned. I was most surprised by this turn of events (and obviously was not well prepared for it).

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Really? I was Solid at the time that I described in my German game when Russia respawned. I was most surprised by this turn of events (and obviously was not well prepared for it).

, and if you have enough culture in your conquered cities. (I left this out in my previous post)

 

[Riker]

you can load units into boats to save them from the plague

 

[mushyman]

One more point about stability - I've seen it stated on this forum somewhere that the stability ratings are on a numerical scale and the star ratings only give a very broad view of whereabouts on the scale your ratings are. Your overall stability is not based on the ratings but on the numbers behind them.

For example, you can have say four 3* and one 2*, but if the actual position is near the bottom of the range for your 3* categories you'll probably be Unstable. This is something impossible to tell with the current system.

Personally, I find the arrows completely useless as an indication of what your stability might do next. I've previously had Shaky stability and up arrows that goes to Unstable and equals with a click of the "end turn" button.

 

[Rhye]

we love the king's day cities are immune from secession - as long as they celebrate. I can't tell if they were celebrating the turn before

 

[Rhye]

This code explains how respawning cities are collected:

Spoiler :

if (gc.getPlayer(iOwner).getNumCities() >= iMinNumCitiesOwner):
                                                                                        if (iOwnerStability < -20):
                                                                                                if (not city.isWeLoveTheKingDay() and not city.isCapital()):
                                                                                                            cityList.append(pCurrent.getPlotCity())
                                                                                                            #print (iDeadCiv, pCurrent.getPlotCity().getName(), pCurrent.getPlotCity().getOwner(), "2", cityList)
                                                                                        elif (iOwnerStability < 0):
                                                                                                if (not city.isWeLoveTheKingDay() and not city.isCapital() and (not (city.getX() == tCapitals[iOwner][0] and city.getY() == tCapitals[iOwner][1]))):
                                                                                                        if (gc.getPlayer(iOwner).getNumCities() > 0): #this check is needed, otherwise game crashes
                                                                                                                capital = gc.getPlayer(iOwner).getCapitalCity()
                                                                                                                iDistance = utils.calculateDistance(x, y, capital.getX(), capital.getY())
                                                                                                                if ((iDistance >= 6 and gc.getPlayer(iOwner).getNumCities() >= 4) or \
                                                                                                                    city.angryPopulation(0) > 0 or \
                                                                                                                    city.healthRate(False, 0) < 0 or \
                                                                                                                    city.getReligionBadHappiness() > 0 or \
                                                                                                                    city.getLargestCityHappiness() < 0 or \
                                                                                                                    city.getHurryAngerModifier() > 0 or \
                                                                                                                    city.getNoMilitaryPercentAnger() > 0 or \
                                                                                                                    city.getWarWearinessPercentAnger() > 0):
                                                                                                                            cityList.append(pCurrent.getPlotCity())
                                                                                                                            #print (iDeadCiv, pCurrent.getPlotCity().getName(), pCurrent.getPlotCity().getOwner(), "3", cityList)
                                                                                        if (iOwnerStability < 20):
                                                                                                 if (city.getX() == tCapitals[iDeadCiv][0] and city.getY() == tCapitals[iDeadCiv][1]):
                                                                                                         if (pCurrent.getPlotCity() not in cityList):
                                                                                                                 cityList.append(pCurrent.getPlotCity())

So, if you are:
Solid -> no risk
Stable -> only capitals can revolt
Shaky -> any city enough distant from your palace and with a kind of unhappy face
Unstable -> any city that's not a capital and that's not celebrating

NOTE: translate the zones for the AI: Very Solid -> no risk, etc.

Then, to start a respawn, 2 or 3 cities are needed.
So, if you are stable as Germany and own Moskow, it will revolt only if 1 or 2 other cities, under an unstable occupier, are joining. Otherwise, one city alone will never revolt (except for Netherlands).

 

[AnotherPacifist]

So culture has nothing to do with respawning? Aw shucks. (Most of my former independent cities I acquire by culture flipping, and I never see them flip even though the ones conquered by my neighbors do)

 

[blizzrd]

So, if you are:
Solid -> no risk
Stable -> only capitals can revolt
Shaky -> any city enough distant from your palace and with a kind of unhappy face
Unstable -> any city that's not a capital and that's not celebrating

NOTE: translate the zones for the AI: Very Solid -> no risk, etc.

Then, to start a respawn, 2 or 3 cities are needed.
So, if you are stable as Germany and own Moskow, it will revolt only if 1 or 2 other cities, under an unstable occupier, are joining. Otherwise, one city alone will never revolt (except for Netherlands).

Thanks this helps a lot. I was pretty sure that the fact that the Spanish were in Kiev was linked to the Russian respawnn, but this confirms the process.

In hindsight, I will not be giving the Spanish open borders next time...

 

[OzCiv]

Folks, thanks for all the tips and Rhye, thanks for the info about stability and cities. Really helpful stuff.

 

[OzCiv]

I just realized, one of my questions was never answered--or was it?--: Do your cities which split and become independent come back to your empire culturally or when your stability increases again?

 

[say1988]

It was answerd: No.

 

[Dabur]

If you see the Plague with another civ before it gets to you, try closing borders with that/those civs and with any civs who have open borders with that civ. Once as Japan, I had a Greek ship turn up off my coast while Greece was under the Plague. By refusing open borders with Greece, I never acquired that particular Plague. I later went back and reloaded, accepted Open Borders and hey presto, Plague all over my empire.

Once the Plague hits, I usually send my units out of my cities if I want to keep them alive. Especially move workers more than one tile away from any city with the Plague.

I've never been able to effectively combat the Plague with health resources. Often even when I am well ahead with Health, my cities still get the Plague. I'm not convinced that Health has much weight in the probability of a city getting the Plague, but maybe this is just my experience.

Hi , instead of sailing away , get at least two medics in a citry , three or four are better , get a few cities with medics and no units will be lost ( !! )

sailing away makes you a nice target for other civs and its not always the way to escape the plague , .... in a few games the plague came back when the troops came back ashore a couple turns later , ....

a good tactic is to have at least one city that is more or less healthy and to have at least five percent of your troops graduate as medics , ... your army will be improved if you have at least ten percent become medics , ....

the more health resources you have the less inpact the plague will have , if you have a vassal , demand if needed , ....

Have a nice day

 

[Dabur]

I just realized, one of my questions was never answered--or was it?--: Do your cities which split and become independent come back to your empire culturally or when your stability increases again?

Hi ,


yes that may actually happen , depending on the circumstances


example playing as japan , after conquest of seoul , seoul revolts or becomes independent , a while later thanks to a great work of art and some other culture the citizens of seould decide to join your empire , ....


Have a nice day