Why we love DoC

[ChineseWarlord]

Just thought I'd make a little post sharing why I love this Mod and the RFC concept in general. Everyone's welcome to share their thoughts as well.

First of all, it is realistic to history. As we all know, traditional games of Civilization are played on a more-or-less randomly generated map. This feature makes it good for more abstract strategy games, but terrible for simulating actual history. While earth and scenario maps aren't randomly generated, that is where their similarity to history ends.

I particularly like the UHV victory type for not only providing direction and immersion, but also for, funnily enough, allowing some variety in play. You can't really understand the Roman Empire's challenges in keeping stable if there's nothing stopping you from playing tall.

 

[Pawlak]

For me DoC is the realisation of vision behind RFC modes which, for me at least makes any Civ game playable for more then 2-10 games. I am bias for sure, never been fan of Civ series (Alpha Centauri being exception), while I am fan of various Paradox games. So the core of RFC for me is stability, the way it's implemented by Rhye is even much better then any Paradox games that have this feature, in say EU it's a minor issue you need to keep track unless you play like Ming China or get into a really taxing multiplayer war. In RFC it's something that you have to shape your entire gameplay around. It's amazing anti-snowball mechanics which also adds historical flavor. Think about it, is there any other historical strategy game where some state blobs into absolutely dominant position and does not stay that way without player challenging it? If you have any examples, please share I would love to play it.
So yeah for me RFC is mostly about stability and yes historical starts add up to it nicely.

DoC is the same, but more and improved experience on world map. Can't wait for larger map and more civs. Out of a number of other modmods which added civs and or tech to RFC on world map this is the best in my opinion not cos it adds most but precisely cos it does not add anything unnecessary. For me it is perfected RFC and I am thrilled it keeps on going.

As for UHV I like that feature despite never really going for such victory. I rarely go for any kind of victory to be honest, I just play until I get bored with world state either cos I am too dominant or cos my polity it unable to affect global situation anymore. I do like to get 2 out of 3 UHV at least though, in order to get golden age but I always try to do it in such a way as to keep my civ stable and playable for later ages. My fav kind of gameplay is taking ancient or medieval civs into modern era way past their golden age and try to keep up with late game dominant power (typically USA and or Russia).

 

[Cosmos1985]

Man, I could write a whole essay about why I love DoC.

To me it's the pinnacle of the Civilization franchise, that's really all there is to say I guess. I don't even wanna know how many countless hours I put into Civ I and II back in the days, but since playing hours became a tracked feature on Steam, there's only one other game I ever played more than Civ IV, and that is 100 percent due to DoC. I can't even play Civ V or VI at all because it feels empty and boring in comparison.

In 10 and 20 years I'll still be playing this, I am completely certain of that. If Leoreth is still developing at that point, I'll buy a real-sized golden statue of him in my garden. As a meager schoolteacher I'm not rich enough to finance a proper Great Wonder dedicated to him as he really deserves, but that will have to do.

 

[1SDANi]

RFDOCIV inspired in me a love and knowledge of history, geography, politics, and researching where my local school system failed to, I still remember playing as Babylonia in high school, wondering why my capital kept getting attacked by barbarians around the same time each game, and finding a wikipedia article about a sacking of the city from that time. I have friends because that love of history and politics combined with a bizarre series of coincidences involving Spongebob, speedrunning, Youtube, Twitch, and modding, I exist because that love of history, politics, researching, those friends, and MGS2, which I probably wouldn't have played had it not been for MGRRV and memes, helped me survive my Big Shell Incident, and... well, geography didn't contribute much to my life, but I can say I'm now ashamed that, 10 years ago, if you asked me what direction New York was compared to my home state, I'd have had no clue, let alone be able to point on an unmarked map where something like China or Britain was.

Beyond being the first 4X history sim I played, I def agree with the above statements re: stability, especially with how it gives actual repurcussions for being an authoritarian or warmonger, no more whipping, drafting, and razing cities with wild abandon as your happy police keep your enemies away and your populace complacent. The UHV system is also absolutely insane! Every civ having a victory condition of their own is already tons of replayability and gameplay variety, but it also serves to fix like, every single problem every Civ game ever has had. The UHVs act as perfect tutorials, each additional civ slowly adding more elements of gameplay and testing you on each so you won't just speed past, for example, the Ancient era and not understanding the power of production hurrying. They all have wildly varying lengths, so if you only have time for a 30 minute game you have a solid half dozen civs to play, and a half dozen more if you already know their strategies. They also serve as like, actual difficulty options, instead of like "the AI all start in the Classical era", civs are harder or easier based on their goals. Not to mention that they push you out of your comfort zone and force you to experiment, I've never used a slider in a civ game as much as I have in RFDOCIV, using the culture slider for the first few turns of a new game to help cities get up to snuff is an insane strat I only just learned when playing a Japan game and realizing I'd be better off popping the BFC for the first few turns than like, 1% progress towards my next tech.

There's also the natural gameplay variety. In most 4X games, different societies usually either feel the same or only feel different because they have a single special effect or maybe a few unique builds, but here modifiers and geography work together to massively shape each civ. Some push you towards science, others towards espionage, some towards production, others towards commerce, some towards cottages, others towards specialists, and religion only further changes how you play, shaping your allies, your enemies, your production priorities, your government system and what wonders you can build, and those wonders only further shape your gameplay.

Honestly, the only things I don't like about RDDOCIV are the things that are built into CIV's engine, be it the difficulty of implementing nomadic or independent civs, which RFDOCIV has already massively improved over CIV, or the oddity of settling implying the land was uninhabited previously, or populations being largely uniform with no identity of their own, or civs spawning at fixed points instead of from separatist and migration movements.

 

[Dracosolon]

For me DoC is the realisation of vision behind RFC modes which, for me at least makes any Civ game playable for more then 2-10 games. I am bias for sure, never been fan of Civ series (Alpha Centauri being exception), while I am fan of various Paradox games. So the core of RFC for me is stability, the way it's implemented by Rhye is even much better then any Paradox games that have this feature, in say EU it's a minor issue you need to keep track unless you play like Ming China or get into a really taxing multiplayer war. In RFC it's something that you have to shape your entire gameplay around. It's amazing anti-snowball mechanics which also adds historical flavor. Think about it, is there any other historical strategy game where some state blobs into absolutely dominant position and does not stay that way without player challenging it? If you have any examples, please share I would love to play it.
So yeah for me RFC is mostly about stability and yes historical starts add up to it nicely.

There's also the natural gameplay variety. In most 4X games, different societies usually either feel the same or only feel different because they have a single special effect or maybe a few unique builds, but here modifiers and geography work together to massively shape each civ. Some push you towards science, others towards espionage, some towards production, others towards commerce, some towards cottages, others towards specialists, and religion only further changes how you play, shaping your allies, your enemies, your production priorities, your government system and what wonders you can build, and those wonders only further shape your gameplay.

Honestly, the only things I don't like about RDDOCIV are the things that are built into CIV's engine, be it the difficulty of implementing nomadic or independent civs, which RFDOCIV has already massively improved over CIV, or the oddity of settling implying the land was uninhabited previously, or populations being largely uniform with no identity of their own, or civs spawning at fixed points instead of from separatist and migration movements.

I'll echo these points in particular. The basics of RFC provide a good framework for mitigating the snowball problem of Civ (and strategy games in general), but can feel a little bare because it mostly sticks with Beyond the Sword features. DoC has a ton of new features without feeling overwhelming, it hits the right balance between the complexity of more simulationist games like Paradox's and the simpler appeal and wider scope of Civ.

Leoreth's continuous work in general and the big map in particular have also probably done a lot to keep this mod popular. I'm a bit burnt out on playing it since I've spent a lot of time trying to progress through the UHV, but I'll go back to it for sure.

 

[GuitarDemon]

Ah man too many too list but to keep it short I think the constant updates and changes have the kept the game fresh and increased the replay appeal. I've gone into each update more or less blind so going back and replaying civs with the new changes has always felt fresh.

Another big one is that it's expanded my knowledge of world history. I'd even go so far to say that when I've researched certain CIVS and then tried to reproduce what they accomplished in the real world in game its actually helped me builder a stronger CIV. So the fact that real world history translates well into the game is a testament to how good the gameplay is.

I also like that while some balances have been made to keep things true to history its not so on rails that every game plays out the same. So that variety keeps things fresh. Sometimes civs become super powers, sometimes they collapse early, etc etc

Anyways I could go on but I'll keep it short

 

[Tigranes]

I can go on and on about why I love DoC, but here is just one of the pictures that is worth more than a thousand words. Compare two pictures. To the left AI Regent Marathon Persia on the Turkic 3000 BC start (551 AD). To the right Sasanian Empire in the year of our Lord 621. Obviously, every start is different, which is one of the cool features of DoC. Not sure what has happened here: most likely Byzantium never spawn, due to the weak Rome and stable Persia? What we have here is a merger of Achaemenid and Sassanid achievements. Achaemenids never took Yemen and Sassanids never captured Constantinople, but this regular not buffed AI Persia did both during one of the random runs.

Notice the lovely city of Doriscus. It is notable as it was one of the few Persian towns in the Europe that remained under the Persian sway, even after the Second Persian invasion of Greece. The Athenian general Cimon that led the conquests after the Persian retreat was unable to capture it. Herodotus states that Doriscus "was never taken" from the Persians, it was later abandoned instead. Doriscus' site is located at the modern village of Doriskos, Eastern Macedonia and Thrace, Greece. I did not know that, but even the city names in DoC make me to learn something new every time I play. I am more into history than into gaming, but this combination realism and unpredictability makes DoC simply the best global history simulators, covering the entire 5000 years of the written history of the globe. Other commercial titles, such as Old World or EU4 cover only part of the historical period and part of the world. Others (like Humankind and vanila Civilization), even set on the Earth's map, are never able to produce screenshots like above. It's simply amazing that in 2024 global 5000 years commercial historical game with the right balance of realism and unpredictability simply does not exist. But we have free DoC, with Civ4 engine, 10 years into development, during Civ7 development.

 

[banzay13]

View attachment 687329 View attachment 687330

I can go on and on about why I love DoC, but here is just one of the pictures that is worth more than a thousand words. Compare two pictures. To the left AI Regent Marathon Persia on the Turkic 3000 BC start (551 AD). To the right Sasanian Empire in the year of our Lord 621. Obviously, every start is different, which is one of the cool features of DoC. Not sure what has happened here: most likely Byzantium never spawn, due to the weak Rome and stable Persia? What we have here is a merger of Achaemenid and Sassanid achievements. Achaemenids never took Yemen and Sassanids never captured Constantinople, but this regular not buffed AI Persia did both during one of the random runs.

Notice the lovely city of Doriscus. It is notable as it was one of the few Persian towns in the Europe that remained under the Persian sway, even after the Second Persian invasion of Greece. The Athenian general Cimon that led the conquests after the Persian retreat was unable to capture it. Herodotus states that Doriscus "was never taken" from the Persians, it was later abandoned instead. Doriscus' site is located at the modern village of Doriskos, Eastern Macedonia and Thrace, Greece. I did not know that, but even the city names in DoC make me to learn something new every time I play. I am more into history than into gaming, but this combination realism and unpredictability makes DoC simply the best global history simulators, covering the entire 5000 years of the written history of the globe. Other commercial titles, such as Old World or EU4 cover only part of the historical period and part of the world. Others (like Humankind and vanila Civilization), even set on the Earth's map, are never able to produce screenshots like above. It's simply amazing that in 2024 global 5000 years commercial historical game with the right balance of realism and unpredictability simply does not exist. But we have free DoC, with Civ4 engine, 10 years into development, during Civ7 development.

I can't double tap "like", so this be second