First, praise and thanks to Rhye and the team for the general level of the mod. There are many features that brings back the feel of RAF CIV4, which is great.
I chose to try out Persia and Inca for the first tryouts of the mod, as they seemed to be lacking in a victory conditon first and foremost. I played persia on prince, and Inca on king difficulty. Some main points first:
-the government selector is great, as it gives identity to the civilazation in a way I did not expect. I would like that each government variety had an evolved version based upon having filled out 10 policies(two trees), or that you unlocked extra combinations after having completed certain trees that would give you a thematic bonus or something similar. I would also suggest a slight buff to the later policies, since the cost of switching is prohibitive, especially between trees, but also inside the tree itself.
- the government cap on cites that result is also great, but has some challenges that I would like some interractivity on (promoting/demoting). Also, the ability to buy buildings in puppeted cities would be great, especially happiness, culture and science, as this it seems are added globally, and therefore impacts both large and small empires. could be at the end of commerce, or a improved buff part of certain governements. It would be an implementation of the venice UA, so the functionality should be in the code.
I have tried to give ideas to VPs that can be found somewhat in the game already, so that is should be feasible to implement.
Persia:
As Persia, the gameplay feels quite explosive in the beginning, as you flip a large amount of cities and units, making the conquest of the remaining almost trivial. As can be seen in the picture, Sinope and Artashat flipped on spawn, and Babirush was captured after 3 turns once i figured out that cities are very weak in the earlygame, much more similar to CIV5 at launch. I captured Sur a few turns later, and ended up with most of the classical Persian empire as a result. I left Yerushalayim alone, as the CIV5 aversion to many cities kicked in. The gameplay from here on out was mostly to temper the different spawn ins and to keep the empire.
The main gameplay challenges was:
- GOLD. With the spawn of barbarians between the cities, outside cultural borders, you actually need a standing military defending the heartland. This cost gold. Culture building cost gold. Roads are very costly, but necessary to keep moving troops around. To maintain a positive treasury and not incur science penalties, I ended up tributing two citystates for gold as often as I could. I found this to be a great addition, both historically and gameplay wise, as large empires often asked for tribute from their bordering lesser states. After a while, this abated trought growing cities and tech. Markets are extremely important in the earlygame. The actual need to use trade routes externally to keep afloat was also a great for roleplaying, as the persian empires of history have profitted and maintained itself oon trade routes from east to west.
- Invasions. Barbarians, Arabs, Mongols and Turks (No greeks though :/ ), they all wanted that fertile crescent. As quite a few cities flip, this created the need to recapture parts of the empire. This breaks up city building, and makes for great gameplay. The Arab unit conversion is quite punishing, as if you have 1 spearmen in front of three archers, if one unit borders that spearmen unit, all 3 will be converted. This meant that I had to raise multiple new armies to combat the threat. It was also the only time i went to wipe out the CIV completely, as their workers and missionaries(flipped from india) could show up at any time, stealing my units. This probably led to my inevitable collapse, as I ended up with to many cites. The turks where child play to put down however, only ravaging two of my best cities.
- Growth and happiness. The inital conquest created happiness problems, and there are just about enough luxuries to break even. This is a great challenge in this region, as you actually need to trade with other civs. The growth is slow, even with happiness, and any plague that actually spread would have ended the run. The lack of growth also severly hampers technology progression, which made it impossible to keep up with the later spawn ins, and doomed the run with no Victory condition. I dont know how the growth formula is tweaked(if at all), but having the cities grow to size 4-5 almost as fast as the base game would maybe help a little, especially when building get destroyed in uprisings/revolts/spawn ins.
- Religion: India and hinduism is way to dominant, and it had spread all the way to Rome when they generatated catholicism. When you generate your own religion, it does not even generate a majority in the founding city. Could pressure in cites be tuned down initially, and increased by technology over time?
Over all, I found the gameplay very engaging. There however some changes i would suggest for the civ, as well as for possible Victory conditions.
Satraps court. This building has always been wierd to me as a bank replacement, and is even more unsuited in this mod where the game is most likely gone when you research banking. My suggestions is to make it into a Courthouse replacement. Because of the constant reconquest of the levant, you will have it in almost all cities by the end of spawn ins. It would help with the gold problem early, and could also provide happiness for growth at a suitable timeframe. My suggested yields would be:
Satraps court:
+ 2 happiness, and no unhappiness from annexed citizens
+ 2 culture
0 upkeep
As for victory condtion/points, I would suggest that it primarily be centered around the royal road: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Road , gaining points for cities that are
- connected to the capital by road/railroad
- located in the stable area/levant
- are above size 6, reflecting their status as "royal recidencies". This could also include that they are actively governed, further leaning into the historical government part of the road, and the suggested change to the satraps court. It would also push Persia into governments like Monarchy or dictatorship with the current cultural setup.
- 1 point per city, up to a maximum of 5. This will yield 200 turns shortest possible time to reach 1000 points, with an average of about 300-400.
Roads are expensive early, while yielding a net loss financially until capital and city is at size 3 on average. This adds to the challenge. It also adds the necessity to actually have cities that are far enough apart to suppport a size 6 population, necessating conquest, and the point accumalation will drop when the different civs spawn and invade, making it disruptable for a player to stop the runaway persian train if needed.
Also, sums for Greece, Egypt and Babylon not existing could be flat points, like 50p, leaning into the conquests of Persia. This would make it a little faster to get too 1000p, at the cost of stability issues. And if they respawn, you have to reinvade, as the points are dependent on them not existing.
In summary, Persia is great fun to play, and I think the victory conditions that is listed above would create a playtime on average to about 400 -450 turns, lower for the once that will tryhard of course. That will span 2/3 of the mods timeframe (700? turns), and allow for a feel of rise and fall of the civ, bouncing back as the persians often did.
some screenshots from the persia playthrough:
Inital conquest. Babylon needs some help, as it is an absolutely useless city, which is in stark contrast to its historical role as the city of cities in the middle east until the early middel ages. I have some ideas, but will suggest them first after I have tried playing babylon as a civ as well. Also, Persia should maybe be a little more hilly, and another mountain tile should be placed in between babylon and parsa to actually reflect the zagros mountains, while not sacrifizing to much gameplay.
Around mongol spawn and my capture of Samarqand, my finances was finally stabilizing. I could not release/return samarqand as a city state, which permanently hampered the empire. But later when I recaptured artashat from turkey, I could release it as a city state? seems to be a bug, as both are listed as middle eastern cities.
The collapse of the Persian Empire. Many cities and low population meant that I was hopelessly behind in tech, so there was no reason to continue after this.
The nutmeg tile beside Makkah is great, but it is not possible to access it. I tried both forts and great person improvements(citadel), but it is just a nice tile with no happiness. I am sure this could be given the plantation improvement as others to be improved.
Inca(King):
The location is decent, and you have to work to make the most out of the land. As I had tried persia already, I tried to test a little around with different functions.
- Settling the coast is a challenge, as the second settler is extremely expensive to generate. It took me about 50 turns, which feels to long. is it possible to increase cost scaling by number of cities/settlers produced? with half the production cost of the first produced settler, same as now for the second and increase in the third and so on? I barely managed to settle coqimpu before the Spanish showed up. The slow settler matches the settling patterns of the andeas somewhat, so that was nice.
- The invasion by Spain was trivial to stop, even with recurve bows. the spawned tercio, canon and caravel was easy to destroy while at sea and with ranged combat values beeing so high. Any spawned units should be given the embarkation promotion at a minimum, and the colonizers should probably be given at least one more unit, either another musket or a pikeman to make it a challenge.
- The rest of the game was spent sim citying, which made me actually catch up in tech in the 1880s. This was done with the standard tall gameplay of civ V, with lots of internal traderoutes and specialists. The extra science from the specialist bonus in rationalism is great in combination with the market, which also seems quite historical, as specialist in trade and production(workshop) lead much of the science before dedicated specialists became the norm. The andeans is extremely poor in late game resources however, and you need to capture brazil to actually become a global power.
- Spain needs a nerf, as it dominates Europe and the new world every game. With the addition of so many natural wonders, it seems they get supercharged compared to the rest. They were also listed as collapsing for a long time, but never broke, meaning they would have won VP victory in a couple of turns at the end.
Some bugs:
- switching from republic to dictatorship did not give me more governable cities, and the free cultural building showed up as theaters, not monuments. This hampered my late empires as i was locked too only 3 cities, even though I Spent 2 policies to switch. Also, switching government type is extremely punishing with the cost of mine beeing about 1100 culture, at a time I had about 30-40 culture per turn.
- the switch between governable cities and puppeted ones are actually somewhat annoying, as Qocimpu and Quito traded that status back and forth for many population levels. This will hamper any small and tall civs with a strategic city(to control territory) if a plague should come. Suddenly that reserve city have taken one of the spots of the main cities. While historical, that will make playing small and tall almost impossible. could the active cites be designated, and a decision to change a city to pupppet status be introduced?
- No plague on conquistadors spawn, making defense trivial. Also, no conquistador unit on conquistadors spawn, which is somewhat breaking the immersion
Suggestions for victory condtions.
as with Persia, the Inca is famous for their roads, and I will suggest something similar as a victory condition for them. The simple suggestion would the check for how many tiles with roads they have inside their borders, and give points for that. There are ~30 tiles on the west coast of south america at the current map, and a challenge to access the east side.
So a simple 1p for 10 tiles with roads/railroads, 2p for 20, 3p for 30, 4 p for 40 and 5p cap for 50 could be a ticking score. This would also be a somewhat increase in running costs of the empire, creating a challenge for the player, especially early.
the other one is to reflect the other great attraction of the incas to the region, their farming prowess and food security. As such 1p for 100 gross bushels, 2p for 150, 3p for 200, 4p for 250, 5p for 300.
both ticking VPs are based upon keeping your territory, fighting of invaders and developing into a competitive nation. It is easily sabotaged by the player, as invasions and blockades will starve the Inca. With both at max, it will take 100 turns to reach 1000 VPs, but for most of the game you will acquire way less. at my present position in this game, I control 39 tiles, and produce 248 bushels, whilc would have given me 6p/turn, or ~166turns to victory from 0. This should yield at least 250 turns to victory from the outset, as achieving 4p/t will be hard, but easier when you have consolidated. Your lack of resources should also leave you at a disadvantage lategame.
I would also add a modifier to civs that are <100 points left to victory, creating coallitions to stop the likely victor.
Some pictures from the game:
initial consolidation.
End state of the campaign, Brazil is spawned in and Spain retain Cartagena. England settled but got crushed by spain.
The end demographic. I am producing almost the same science as spain, but with way less cities, making me tech lead after a few bulbings of great scientists.
Once again, the mod is great and engaging. This write up became quite extensive, which reflects the fun and engagement I felt with the mod itself. Hopefully it is helpful!
I chose to try out Persia and Inca for the first tryouts of the mod, as they seemed to be lacking in a victory conditon first and foremost. I played persia on prince, and Inca on king difficulty. Some main points first:
-the government selector is great, as it gives identity to the civilazation in a way I did not expect. I would like that each government variety had an evolved version based upon having filled out 10 policies(two trees), or that you unlocked extra combinations after having completed certain trees that would give you a thematic bonus or something similar. I would also suggest a slight buff to the later policies, since the cost of switching is prohibitive, especially between trees, but also inside the tree itself.
- the government cap on cites that result is also great, but has some challenges that I would like some interractivity on (promoting/demoting). Also, the ability to buy buildings in puppeted cities would be great, especially happiness, culture and science, as this it seems are added globally, and therefore impacts both large and small empires. could be at the end of commerce, or a improved buff part of certain governements. It would be an implementation of the venice UA, so the functionality should be in the code.
I have tried to give ideas to VPs that can be found somewhat in the game already, so that is should be feasible to implement.
Persia:
As Persia, the gameplay feels quite explosive in the beginning, as you flip a large amount of cities and units, making the conquest of the remaining almost trivial. As can be seen in the picture, Sinope and Artashat flipped on spawn, and Babirush was captured after 3 turns once i figured out that cities are very weak in the earlygame, much more similar to CIV5 at launch. I captured Sur a few turns later, and ended up with most of the classical Persian empire as a result. I left Yerushalayim alone, as the CIV5 aversion to many cities kicked in. The gameplay from here on out was mostly to temper the different spawn ins and to keep the empire.
The main gameplay challenges was:
- GOLD. With the spawn of barbarians between the cities, outside cultural borders, you actually need a standing military defending the heartland. This cost gold. Culture building cost gold. Roads are very costly, but necessary to keep moving troops around. To maintain a positive treasury and not incur science penalties, I ended up tributing two citystates for gold as often as I could. I found this to be a great addition, both historically and gameplay wise, as large empires often asked for tribute from their bordering lesser states. After a while, this abated trought growing cities and tech. Markets are extremely important in the earlygame. The actual need to use trade routes externally to keep afloat was also a great for roleplaying, as the persian empires of history have profitted and maintained itself oon trade routes from east to west.
- Invasions. Barbarians, Arabs, Mongols and Turks (No greeks though :/ ), they all wanted that fertile crescent. As quite a few cities flip, this created the need to recapture parts of the empire. This breaks up city building, and makes for great gameplay. The Arab unit conversion is quite punishing, as if you have 1 spearmen in front of three archers, if one unit borders that spearmen unit, all 3 will be converted. This meant that I had to raise multiple new armies to combat the threat. It was also the only time i went to wipe out the CIV completely, as their workers and missionaries(flipped from india) could show up at any time, stealing my units. This probably led to my inevitable collapse, as I ended up with to many cites. The turks where child play to put down however, only ravaging two of my best cities.
- Growth and happiness. The inital conquest created happiness problems, and there are just about enough luxuries to break even. This is a great challenge in this region, as you actually need to trade with other civs. The growth is slow, even with happiness, and any plague that actually spread would have ended the run. The lack of growth also severly hampers technology progression, which made it impossible to keep up with the later spawn ins, and doomed the run with no Victory condition. I dont know how the growth formula is tweaked(if at all), but having the cities grow to size 4-5 almost as fast as the base game would maybe help a little, especially when building get destroyed in uprisings/revolts/spawn ins.
- Religion: India and hinduism is way to dominant, and it had spread all the way to Rome when they generatated catholicism. When you generate your own religion, it does not even generate a majority in the founding city. Could pressure in cites be tuned down initially, and increased by technology over time?
Over all, I found the gameplay very engaging. There however some changes i would suggest for the civ, as well as for possible Victory conditions.
Satraps court. This building has always been wierd to me as a bank replacement, and is even more unsuited in this mod where the game is most likely gone when you research banking. My suggestions is to make it into a Courthouse replacement. Because of the constant reconquest of the levant, you will have it in almost all cities by the end of spawn ins. It would help with the gold problem early, and could also provide happiness for growth at a suitable timeframe. My suggested yields would be:
Satraps court:
+ 2 happiness, and no unhappiness from annexed citizens
+ 2 culture
0 upkeep
As for victory condtion/points, I would suggest that it primarily be centered around the royal road: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Road , gaining points for cities that are
- connected to the capital by road/railroad
- located in the stable area/levant
- are above size 6, reflecting their status as "royal recidencies". This could also include that they are actively governed, further leaning into the historical government part of the road, and the suggested change to the satraps court. It would also push Persia into governments like Monarchy or dictatorship with the current cultural setup.
- 1 point per city, up to a maximum of 5. This will yield 200 turns shortest possible time to reach 1000 points, with an average of about 300-400.
Roads are expensive early, while yielding a net loss financially until capital and city is at size 3 on average. This adds to the challenge. It also adds the necessity to actually have cities that are far enough apart to suppport a size 6 population, necessating conquest, and the point accumalation will drop when the different civs spawn and invade, making it disruptable for a player to stop the runaway persian train if needed.
Also, sums for Greece, Egypt and Babylon not existing could be flat points, like 50p, leaning into the conquests of Persia. This would make it a little faster to get too 1000p, at the cost of stability issues. And if they respawn, you have to reinvade, as the points are dependent on them not existing.
In summary, Persia is great fun to play, and I think the victory conditions that is listed above would create a playtime on average to about 400 -450 turns, lower for the once that will tryhard of course. That will span 2/3 of the mods timeframe (700? turns), and allow for a feel of rise and fall of the civ, bouncing back as the persians often did.
some screenshots from the persia playthrough:
Inital conquest. Babylon needs some help, as it is an absolutely useless city, which is in stark contrast to its historical role as the city of cities in the middle east until the early middel ages. I have some ideas, but will suggest them first after I have tried playing babylon as a civ as well. Also, Persia should maybe be a little more hilly, and another mountain tile should be placed in between babylon and parsa to actually reflect the zagros mountains, while not sacrifizing to much gameplay.
Around mongol spawn and my capture of Samarqand, my finances was finally stabilizing. I could not release/return samarqand as a city state, which permanently hampered the empire. But later when I recaptured artashat from turkey, I could release it as a city state? seems to be a bug, as both are listed as middle eastern cities.
The collapse of the Persian Empire. Many cities and low population meant that I was hopelessly behind in tech, so there was no reason to continue after this.
The nutmeg tile beside Makkah is great, but it is not possible to access it. I tried both forts and great person improvements(citadel), but it is just a nice tile with no happiness. I am sure this could be given the plantation improvement as others to be improved.
Inca(King):
The location is decent, and you have to work to make the most out of the land. As I had tried persia already, I tried to test a little around with different functions.
- Settling the coast is a challenge, as the second settler is extremely expensive to generate. It took me about 50 turns, which feels to long. is it possible to increase cost scaling by number of cities/settlers produced? with half the production cost of the first produced settler, same as now for the second and increase in the third and so on? I barely managed to settle coqimpu before the Spanish showed up. The slow settler matches the settling patterns of the andeas somewhat, so that was nice.
- The invasion by Spain was trivial to stop, even with recurve bows. the spawned tercio, canon and caravel was easy to destroy while at sea and with ranged combat values beeing so high. Any spawned units should be given the embarkation promotion at a minimum, and the colonizers should probably be given at least one more unit, either another musket or a pikeman to make it a challenge.
- The rest of the game was spent sim citying, which made me actually catch up in tech in the 1880s. This was done with the standard tall gameplay of civ V, with lots of internal traderoutes and specialists. The extra science from the specialist bonus in rationalism is great in combination with the market, which also seems quite historical, as specialist in trade and production(workshop) lead much of the science before dedicated specialists became the norm. The andeans is extremely poor in late game resources however, and you need to capture brazil to actually become a global power.
- Spain needs a nerf, as it dominates Europe and the new world every game. With the addition of so many natural wonders, it seems they get supercharged compared to the rest. They were also listed as collapsing for a long time, but never broke, meaning they would have won VP victory in a couple of turns at the end.
Some bugs:
- switching from republic to dictatorship did not give me more governable cities, and the free cultural building showed up as theaters, not monuments. This hampered my late empires as i was locked too only 3 cities, even though I Spent 2 policies to switch. Also, switching government type is extremely punishing with the cost of mine beeing about 1100 culture, at a time I had about 30-40 culture per turn.
- the switch between governable cities and puppeted ones are actually somewhat annoying, as Qocimpu and Quito traded that status back and forth for many population levels. This will hamper any small and tall civs with a strategic city(to control territory) if a plague should come. Suddenly that reserve city have taken one of the spots of the main cities. While historical, that will make playing small and tall almost impossible. could the active cites be designated, and a decision to change a city to pupppet status be introduced?
- No plague on conquistadors spawn, making defense trivial. Also, no conquistador unit on conquistadors spawn, which is somewhat breaking the immersion
Suggestions for victory condtions.
as with Persia, the Inca is famous for their roads, and I will suggest something similar as a victory condition for them. The simple suggestion would the check for how many tiles with roads they have inside their borders, and give points for that. There are ~30 tiles on the west coast of south america at the current map, and a challenge to access the east side.
So a simple 1p for 10 tiles with roads/railroads, 2p for 20, 3p for 30, 4 p for 40 and 5p cap for 50 could be a ticking score. This would also be a somewhat increase in running costs of the empire, creating a challenge for the player, especially early.
the other one is to reflect the other great attraction of the incas to the region, their farming prowess and food security. As such 1p for 100 gross bushels, 2p for 150, 3p for 200, 4p for 250, 5p for 300.
both ticking VPs are based upon keeping your territory, fighting of invaders and developing into a competitive nation. It is easily sabotaged by the player, as invasions and blockades will starve the Inca. With both at max, it will take 100 turns to reach 1000 VPs, but for most of the game you will acquire way less. at my present position in this game, I control 39 tiles, and produce 248 bushels, whilc would have given me 6p/turn, or ~166turns to victory from 0. This should yield at least 250 turns to victory from the outset, as achieving 4p/t will be hard, but easier when you have consolidated. Your lack of resources should also leave you at a disadvantage lategame.
I would also add a modifier to civs that are <100 points left to victory, creating coallitions to stop the likely victor.
Some pictures from the game:
initial consolidation.
End state of the campaign, Brazil is spawned in and Spain retain Cartagena. England settled but got crushed by spain.
The end demographic. I am producing almost the same science as spain, but with way less cities, making me tech lead after a few bulbings of great scientists.
Once again, the mod is great and engaging. This write up became quite extensive, which reflects the fun and engagement I felt with the mod itself. Hopefully it is helpful!
