Welcome to Rhye's and Fall of the Greek World (Revived again)

[Edmund Ironside]

Now that 2.0 is released, what's next on your to do list?
Merging with Advanced Civ, or some other stuff first?

 

[bluepotato]

Now that 2.0 is released, what's next on your to do list?
Merging with Advanced Civ, or some other stuff first?

Yeah, the AdvCiv merge is probably what the next major release will be. There's plenty of new features I have in mind that I'd like to add, but they'd probably cause trouble in the merge so I'll leave them for later.

 

[DuskTreader]

Does this mod have something like original RFCs "historical area" which doesn't make you collapse but doesn't flip to you when you spawn?

 

[bluepotato]

Sort of. Every civilization has core provinces where population is counted as a bonus to expansion stability. Population in neighboring provinces of these isn't counted as much as population in other provinces, but still counts as a negative, and owned plots with a settler value lower than 90 are also counted as a negative.

So if you want to conquer lots of territory then it's important to have a high core population and not conquer too much land with low settler values.

 

[Samson]

Sort of. Every civilization has core provinces where population is counted as a bonus to expansion stability. Population in neighboring provinces of these isn't counted as much as population in other provinces, but still counts as a negative, and owned plots with a settler value lower than 90 are also counted as a negative.

So if you want to conquer lots of territory then it's important to have a high core population and not conquer too much land with low settler values.

How do you know the settler value of a plot?

 

[bluepotato]

Currently you can only check that in the WorldBuilder, you should be able to find it somewhere in the RFGW maps section.

 

[DuskTreader]

That makes sense, its just really frustrating as the Germanics, because your core starts out tiny (obviously) and even if you only control land in areas that historically had goth/vandal/etc. kingdoms, your still inevitably collapsing.

On the other hand, if you position your units right, you can reconquer the newly independent cities for MOAR swordsmen each time you collapse

 

[Autumn Leaf]

Just played a Scythian game with the 900 BC map. Smooth play, no fatal bugs. Odd observations:

• When capturing Babylon from Ashurbanipal (Hammy was still alive, in Larsa) I was prompted to return it to "%s1"; looks like an orphaned tag that should have been replaced by "Larsa".
• When Cyrus spawned and flipped Hasanlu, I was not given the option to refuse the flip.
• The 900 BC starting map is quite sparse; if I had played through from 4400 BC there would be cities all over. Needs more initial Indy cities in plausible locations.
• I hate that Settlers and Workers only have 1 move, unlike the 2 moves they have in other RFCs. I know this isn't a bug, I just wanted to gripe about it . The Scythians spread widely; movement is key.
  
• It would be nice if the initial Scythian horsies had Mobility. They kinda hold up the parade later on but their combat promotions make them invaluable.
• The Scythian spawn site sucks.
  
• Otherwise, solid map, fun UHV conditions - just challenging enough to be interesting, not so much as to result in excessive hair-tugging.

 

[DuskTreader]

What did we learn today? Apparently independents can win a score victory, that's what. How could my master plan of "collapse everyone" have possibly failed?!

 

[bluepotato]

When capturing Babylon from Ashurbanipal (Hammy was still alive, in Larsa) I was prompted to return it to "%s1"; looks like an orphaned tag that should have been replaced by "Larsa".

That's strange. Are you sure it wasn't something like "city state of %s1"? Do you still have a save file?
Edit: just read your other post, where it is indeed city state of %s1, which makes more sense. I'll check the code.
Edit 2: should be fixed now.

When Cyrus spawned and flipped Hasanlu, I was not given the option to refuse the flip.

Yeah, there's no option at all. I kinda dislike the RFC defection mechanism and wanted to avoid adding it, but since I still haven't found a better alternative and having no choice is even more frustrating, it'd make sense to re-add it.

The 900 BC starting map is quite sparse; if I had played through from 4400 BC there would be cities all over. Needs more initial Indy cities in plausible locations.

Agreed, do you have any concrete suggestions?

What did we learn today? Apparently independents can win a score victory, that's what. How could my master plan of "collapse everyone" have possibly failed?!

Whoops, my bad. Should be fixed now.

 

[Autumn Leaf]

Agreed, do you have any concrete suggestions?

The tricky part is avoiding cities that mess with later civ spawns or that existed earlier but were destroyed/abandoned in the downfall and so don't exist in 900 BC. It's kinda hard to identify some of these; it's like there was some sort of dark age in between. However, these seem good to me:

• Colchis, from the 13th C (hence already exists in 900 BC) - can be represented by an Indy city in Caucasus at x=45, y=36.
• There should be something on the Black Sea coast of Anatolia. Indy Sinope at x=42,y=34 would fit. Assign it to the same Indy leader as Colchis, or make it barb.
  
• Troy should not exist in 900 BC (there should be ruins on the site) but it can profitably be replaced by Indy Ephesus/Miletus at x=36,y=28 (Miletus was burned in the downfall but was rebuilt). This close border could have interesting effects on Athens (Ephesus was an Ionian/Attic settlement. Miletus was rebuilt by Ionian invaders.)
• Knossos should be ruins; it should be replaced by Indy Gortyn (either west of or on the Marble; the latter is a better site, the former is more calculated to irritate perfectionist players or please players who want to build a second city in eastern Crete).
  
• There should be something in India, but I acknowledge that on this map it's hard to find a spot that won't spoil the Mauryans or draw the Persians east. There could be an Indy or barb city at x=60,y=26 that would be downgraded to a Town (i.e. be destroyed) a few turns before Maurya spawns. The Mauryans would thus spawn into an improved landscape but would not inherit a large, well-developed city. A human player might capture the city and build wonders in it but they'd only do that once. (I've stolen the idea of downgrading cities from, IIRC, RFC:Europe, which pulls this stunt in Britain just before the English spawn.)
  
• Saba' at x=45,y=6 in the southern corner of Arabia. This may require a reallocaion of Arabian food resources, as the existing resources are designed to facilitate an Meccan Arabian civ, which is out of scope for this mod, while those massed resources draw greedy human players away from their proper targets. In the RFC-GW period, Yemen (Sheba) is far more important than Mecca. The Sheep and an Incense (at least) should be relocated into the city's BFC to allow it to grow and give it some interest.

Apart from these cities (some of which could be scripted to pop up in the 4400 BC scenario too), there should be city ruins here and there. There should be city ruins on the sites of Harappa, Shusan, Hattusa and Mycenae, for example. For whimsy, I would also put ruins on the site of Stonehenge (roughly x=12,y=49) . There should be odd roads and patches of cultivation here and there not associated with a living city.

My focus is Anatolia and the middle-east, but that's OK; most of Europe was still undeveloped at the time. Adding the above cities in 900 BC won't crowd the map but it will fill some of the more obvious gaps without hindering future spawns or giving existing civs too much of a leg up. The general idea is to make it look more like many civs have previously flourished on this map and collapsed in a great disaster (which is what really happened), leaving ruins and fragments, and survivors still picking themselves up.

 

[DuskTreader]

Would be fun to make Stonehenge a unique improvement ala FFH or Civ5. I think FFH's Letum Frigus has the right art.

 

[Autumn Leaf]

Just a note - discovering a tech via a Great Person is *NOT* being treated the same as discovering it by normal Research.

In other words, if you need a specific tech for a UHV then you have to discover it the hard way. I'm not sure whether this is deliberate or not, but it is undesirable and unexpected behaviour.

Test file attached. Except when the game demands another choice, just hit Enter on the first time through till you get Cuneiform. You should achieve UHV 1. On the second time through, use the GS provided to discover Roads on turn 1. Then continue as before: if I am right you will not get UHV 1.

[ETA: Could be specific to conditions on Turn 1.]

 

[bluepotato]

[ETA: Could be specific to conditions on Turn 1.]

That's most likely the case, given that there's this code in Victory.py:

def onTechAcquired(self, iTech, iPlayer):
	if not self.allowEvent(): #checks if script data is loaded at all, probably redundant
		return

	iGameTurn = gc.getGame().getGameTurn() #the lines in question:
	if iGameTurn == gc.getGame().getStartTurn():
		return

I believe this is to avoid fulfilling UHVs which have already expired when the game starts. Not sure if it's still necessary since the mod should set finalInitialized to false while spawning players on the first turn, which should in theory disable onTechAcquired events.

LMK if this problem also occurs on later turns, that'd definitely be unintentional.

 

[HighFunctioningAlcoholic]

Not sure if this is the right place to ask this, but were goody huts removed? I haven't played any of the versions other than the most recent, but they appear to be absent.

 

[bluepotato]

Not sure if this is the right place to ask this, but were goody huts removed? I haven't played any of the versions other than the most recent, but they appear to be absent.

It is the right place, and no they weren't removed... on purpose. I just managed to mess up the goody hut spawning code. Fixed on the development version, I'll update the zip file later today.

 

[Autumn Leaf]

That's most likely the case, given that there's this code in Victory.py:
...
LMK if this problem also occurs on later turns, that'd definitely be unintentional.

Nope, I'm fine with it. I only encountered it because I was playing a for-fun game and wanted to give myself that tech from the outset. Based on what you say we can definitely classify this as Not A Bug. Who in a fair game starts with a GP anyway? I can wait for turn 2 ...

 

[Autumn Leaf]

It is the right place, and no they weren't removed... on purpose. I just managed to mess up the goody hut spawning code. Fixed on the development version, I'll update the zip file later today.

I kinda liked their absence. If there are goody huts, I will hunt them; if there aren't, I'll do without them. I suspect they help the AI more than the human player anyway, since on Monarch and above the AI plays at a lower level of difficulty.

 

[bluepotato]

I kinda liked their absence. If there are goody huts, I will hunt them; if there aren't, I'll do without them. I suspect they help the AI more than the human player anyway, since on Monarch and above the AI plays at a lower level of difficulty.

I'm unsure if I'll keep them (mostly because I still don't like the results of the goody placement algorithm) but since they were supposed to be in 2.0 they're enabled for now.

In other (but related) news,
RFGW 2.0.2 released! It's just a bugfix release, includes every fix since 2.0. It can be downloaded here.

 

[Autumn Leaf]

I'll admit it's a bit broken that Egypt can do that, IIRC previously Sumeria always took the GS if Egypt went for Mysticism.

When you have some spare time, you might think about tweaking Religions to disengage them from any specific technology. The issue is placed in sharp relief in my 2nd Egypt game. Egypt wants early Masonry for obvious and entirely valid historical reasons. Sumeria can also get it early. Indus Valley has pre-requisite techs (but its 3290 BC spawn makes it less likely to get Masonry first). So why is Hellenism attached to Masonry? If an earlier-spawning player successfully prioritises Masonry, they get lumped with an unwanted foreign religion. It's supposed to be discovered by Minoa, for whom it becomes their native religion.

A lot of mods have tried to fix religion foundng. DoC tried both decoupling it and regionalising it, for example, with sometimes unpleasant results. RFC:Europe has "Classical" and "Arabic" Knowledges that are expensive to Research but which the appropriate civs start with. A simpler solution for RFC-GW might be to give the religion co-requisite tech requirements, if you're not simply going to spawn the civ with missionaries. Founding Hellenism might require both Urban Settlements (TECH_URBAN_CULTURE) and Masonry (TECH_MASONRY) or Boat Building (TECH_BOATS), for example, as Minoa spawns with all of those but AI civs spawning earlier are unlikely to discover both by 2690 BC.

Or you could take a leaf from the original RFC model, where if Judaism and Cristianity have not been founded by certain dates, they are automatically founded in Jerusalem. This would allow you to eliminate tech requirements for religions entirely. Civs that are supposed to start with a specific religion would spawn with missionary units. Those that don't start with it could be given a missionary unit when they discover a key tech (even if they're not the first to discover it); this would mean a human player would not get "stuck" with an unwanted ahistorical religion. (AI civs tend to use 'em if they have 'em; hence the common trick of gifting missionaries to AIs with whom you have an open border but who are running a civic that prevents the spread of foreign religions) If the religion still has not been founded within a reasonable period after it should have been, it would spontaneously arise in some city in or near the appropriate province and start spreading. Your Holy City mechanism would later migrate it to a cultured city. This mechanism could even respawn a religion if it is entirely eliminated.

Not urgent at all, as only those civs spawning before Minoa are affected by the Masonry issue and a wise human player can hold off finishing researching Masonry until Minoa has taken Hellenism. But I thought it should be on the table.

ETA: Downloaded v2.0.2.