Rhye's And Fall Of Civilization
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''Rhye's and Fall of Civilization'' (''RFC'') is a "fan scenario" (
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) for the
2005 2005 was designated as the International Year for Sport and Physical Education and the International Year of Microcredit. The beginning of 2005 also marked the end of the International Decade of the World's Indigenous Peoples, Internationa ...
computer game ''
Sid Meier's Civilization IV ''Civilization IV'' (also known as ''Sid Meier's Civilization IV'') is a 2005 4X turn-based strategy video game developed by Firaxis Games and published by 2K (company), 2K. It is the fourth installment of the Civilization (series), ''Civilizatio ...
''. It is an 'Earth simulator' that uses a variety of scripted events to mirror history much more closely than a typical game of ''Civilization''. The name of the scenario references its core feature—the dynamic "Rise and Fall" of civilizations through time—and its creator, Gabriele Trovato, known as "Rhye" in the forums community. A version of the scenario was included in the second official
expansion pack An expansion pack, expansion set, supplement, or simply expansion, is an addition to an existing role-playing game, tabletop game, video game, collectible card game or Miniature wargaming, miniature wargame. An expansion may introduce new rules ...
, '' Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword''. It is the second most popular ''Civilization IV'' mod (after ''Fall from Heaven 2'') by number of downloads on Civilization Fanatics Center, a large ''Civilization'' fan website.


Development

''Rhye's and Fall of Civilization'' built upon Gabriele Trovato's earlier mods for
Civilization II ''Sid Meier's Civilization II'' is a turn-based strategy video game in the ''Civilization'' series, developed and published by MicroProse. It was released in 1996 for PCs, and later ported to the PlayStation by Activision. Players build a ...
and
Civilization III ''Sid Meier's Civilization III'' is the third installment of the ''Civilization (series), Sid Meier's Civilization'' turn-based strategy video game series. It was released in 2001, and followed by ''Civilization IV''. Unlike the original game, ''C ...
, especially ''Rhye's of Civilization'' which also sought greater historical accuracy. The popularity of these prompted ''Civilization IV'' developers
Firaxis Firaxis Games, Inc. is an American video game developer based in Sparks, Maryland. The company was founded in May 1996 by Sid Meier, Jeff Briggs, and Brian Reynolds following their departure from MicroProse, Meier's earlier venture. They we ...
to invite him to contribute content for inclusion in the game upon its release. The result was two maps ("Earth" and "Ice Age Earth") and two historical scenarios ("Earth 1000 AD" and "Greek World"). The first alpha version of ''Rhye's and Fall of Civilization'', then called "Rhye's Catapult", was released on 26 April 2006, featuring an elaborated Earth map and the "Rise and Fall" mechanism. With the release of the first official ''Civilization IV'' expansion, ''
Warlords Warlords are individuals who exercise military, economic, and political control over a region, often one without a strong central or national government, typically through informal control over local armed forces. Warlords have existed throug ...
'', the mod was forked into two versions: one incorporating the new ''Warlords'' content and one that remained compatible with '
vanilla Vanilla is a spice derived from orchids of the genus ''Vanilla (genus), Vanilla'', primarily obtained from pods of the flat-leaved vanilla (''Vanilla planifolia, V. planifolia''). ''Vanilla'' is not Autogamy, autogamous, so pollination ...
' ''Civilization IV''. A third fork was made with the release of the second expansion for the same reason. The ''Beyond the Sword'' version of ''Rhye's and Fall of Civilization'' was one of the three user-created scenarios that shipped with the official Firaxis expansion (along with ''Fall from Heaven'' and ''Road to War''). Development of all three forks continued concurrently, with new features being incorporated into all as far as possible. The final versions of all three were released on 2 June 2010. As of May 2010 there are two 'variants' of ''Rhye's and Fall of Civilization'', which alter the core gameplay in some way. The first, ''RFC MP'', was released on 21 October 2007 and enables multiplayer games of ''Rhye's and Fall of Civilization'' over the internet,
LAN Lan or LAN may refer to: Science and technology * Local asymptotic normality, a fundamental property of regular models in statistics * Longitude of the ascending node, one of the orbital elements used to specify the orbit of an object in space * ...
or locally in hotseat mode. In order to make this possible, several gameplay features had to be disabled. The second variant, ''RFC RAND'', was released on 28 July 2008. It is similar to regular ''Rhye's and Fall of Civilization'' but is played on a randomised map of various sizes, climates and "Earth likeness". Other parameters are also randomised, such as which civilizations will appear in the game and when and where they will "spawn". The variant is intended to provide "something halfway between RFC and standard Civ", but the reaction to it has been mixed.


Gameplay

''Rhye's and Fall of Civilization'' is set on
Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...
and is designed to mirror a historical Earth as closely as possible. To this end, most civilizations have historically accurate starting locations and times, instead of random starting locations all at 4,000 BC as in a typical game. When a new civilization appears, any foreign cities in its core territory will "flip" to the new civ; this can have the effect of simulating such historical events as the breakup of the Roman Empire and the American Revolution. Each civilization also gets a passive power based on its history. For example, Russia has a power, called " General Winter", that makes enemy units inside its borders take a small amount of damage, while England has a power that gives its naval units two extra first strike chances called "The Power of the
Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...
". One of the main features of ''Rhye's and Fall of Civilization'' is the game's ability to monitor the stability of national governments, taking into account war, disease, corruption, invasion, and other factors which might influence the fall of a nation. If a "major power" controlled by the AI in the game becomes extremely unstable, it will cease to exist and its former territory will be split up into several independent nations. These smaller countries are not barbarian-controlled, and do not normally attack major nations unless attacked first. When a human player collapses, only about half of their cities become independent; the other half remain loyal. After one civilization has discovered nationalism, ancient or collapsed civilizations may respawn, either in independent lands or in lands belonging to relatively unstable civilizations. For example, in the nineteenth century the Greek civilization may declare its independence from an occupying power, which is usually the Ottoman Empire. The game spawns plagues randomly through the world around certain dates; for example, a plague will generally begin in the 14th–15th century to simulate the Black Death. Plague spreads from country to country, entering cities. A city afflicted with plague will lose one population point per turn, as well as a hefty unhealthiness penalty. Units garrisoned in or close to plague-affected cities will take damage until they die or the plague ends. The more health bonuses that a civilization has, the faster the plague ends. Plagues can be permanently avoided by a nation once the technology "Medicine" is researched. ''Rhye's and Fall of Civilization'' is also designed to simulate the drastic impact that the arrival of Europeans had in the
New World The term "New World" is used to describe the majority of lands of Earth's Western Hemisphere, particularly the Americas, and sometimes Oceania."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: ...
. Upon sailing any unit from Europe to the Americas, the player is instantly granted several military units to simulate the exploits of the Spanish conquistadors. This also spawns a plague exclusively amongst the Amerindian civilizations to simulate smallpox. Unless they are destroyed by the conquistadors, Mesoamerican civilizations such as the
Aztecs The Aztecs ( ) were a Mesoamerican civilization that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the ...
and the
Mayans Maya () are an ethnolinguistic group of Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica. The ancient Maya civilization was formed by members of this group, and today's Maya are generally descended from people who lived w ...
typically become vassals to colonial powers, including Spain, France, England, and
Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...
. English expansion in North America usually comes to an end when the territory changes to that of
America The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
in 1776 AD although it is possible to maintain a presence in Canada. Besides the typical victory conditions in the game, every civilization has another victory option – Unique Historical Victories. These usually include three historical achievements that the nation managed or attempted. For example, Rome's Unique Historical Victory is to have a barracks, amphitheatre and aqueduct in 5 cities by 200 AD, emulate (at least) the reaches of the
Western Roman Empire In modern historiography, the Western Roman Empire was the western provinces of the Roman Empire, collectively, during any period in which they were administered separately from the eastern provinces by a separate, independent imperial court. ...
by 450 AD, and never lose any city to barbarians by 1000 AD. Upon completing two Unique Historical Victories, a Triumphal Arch is built in the capital which increases military unit production, and a new golden age starts. Once three civilizations discover the "Nationalism" technology, World Congresses will occur once every 25 turns. Major nations are invited to participate. Each civilization has the opportunity to choose from a list of cities which they would like to occupy; the others then vote yes, no or abstain. For the city to change control, there must simply be more "yes" than "no" votes, and the change takes place instantaneously. If a city controlled by a human is voted to be handed over, the player can either comply or refuse the decision; refusing may mean war with nations who voted "yes." World Congresses end once the United Nations has been built. In ''Rhye's and Fall of Civilization'', not every civilization starts at the same time. In the 3000 BC starting scenario, only Egypt, Babylon, China, and India are initially present; in the 600 AD start, only China, Japan, the Vikings, and Arabia (along with the unplayable Byzantine Empire) are initially present. Other nations such as Spain and Turkey appear later in the game (at 720 AD and 1280 AD respectively). If a player chooses to be one of the civilizations that are not in the game at the start, then the game will play the initial nations automatically until the player's chosen nation would appear. Until the research of Nationalism, civilizations are able to hire mercenary units, and also lend out their own units. In order to hire a mercenary unit, a lump sum of gold is required to be paid, and you must also pay a maintenance cost for the unit, as for other military units. Typically, the more experienced a unit is, the more gold it costs to hire, and hiring out a more experienced unit also increases gold received. Mercenary units have a civilization's name (or a barbarian city's name) attached as a prefix e.g. Thracian Crossbowman or Egyptian Swordsman. A unit being hired out can be recalled at any time, arriving in the civilization's capital three turns after it is recalled. Two large and many small changes were made to the
technology tree In strategy games, a technology, tech, or research tree is a hierarchical visual representation of the possible sequences of upgrades a player can unlock (most typically representing the research progress of a given faction). Because these tre ...
. The relationships between Civil Service, Constitution, Military Tradition, and Nationalism were completely rearranged so that Music and Military Tradition were no longer "dead end" technologies and Civil Service was now an optional prerequisite, rather than an absolute one, for many later-era technologies. The relationships between Gunpowder, Chemistry, and Military Science were also rearranged so that Military Science was no longer a "dead-end" technology. Numerous buildings, units, civics, religions, etc. had their prerequisites altered, and some became obsolete with different technologies as well; Monuments, for example, became obsolete with Calendar instead of Astronomy.


Reception

The inclusion of fan scenarios in ''Beyond the Sword'' was well received by critics. ''Rhye's and Fall of Civilization'' was singled out for praise by several reviewers. Tom Chick of
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called it "one of the most exciting and robust mods you'll ever see for a game", while
GameSpot ''GameSpot'' is an American video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information on video games. The site was launched on May 1, 1996, created by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady, and Jon Epstein. In addition ...
's Andrew Park said it "provided a fresh new coat of paint to the core Civilization gameplay". A review of '' Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword'' also praised Rhye's and Fall for being superior to the official Firaxis game mods.Buxton, Chri
PC Review: Civilization IV Beyond the Sword Review
Computer and Video Games


References


External links


Official websiteRhye's Wiki
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