Playtesting "The River War v4 beta (for ToT)"

[AGRICOLA]

Edited the wrong column of @UNITS_ADVANCED

Of course I edited the wrong columns!
If I'd edited the right ones, I wouldn't have gotten a post out of it.

Seriously, thank you very much for correcting my error. The triggers had me totally stymied.

Edited and saved Rules.txt, then loaded a SAV or SCN file without first exiting ToT.

Managed to figure that one out by attending the local Trial and Error Academy.

what's your building strategy?

I had trouble deciding what is best. The building rate in most of the dusty, motheaten towns is so low that, during the course of the scen, they have time to build at most one unit. The cash flow from Caravan Financing is equally pitiful.

I'm letting them all build Sudanese Inf on the assumption that science may eventually allow me to switch the accumulated shields to RB something useful like gunboats. There should be adequate funds for that because the payoffs for capturing Dervish towns are pretty decent.

[Boco]

One new(?) trick of the AI in v4 is the Ansar's (that's Dervish army for sane nongeeks) williness to pillage city improvements. I noticed that at Dongola, where those heathens caused a near famine after its capture. Perhaps Allard, you changed the founder between versions? In my next test, I might leave an both Egyptian Cav and an Egyptian Inf there to prevent this.

Agri, are you finding any cities vulnerable to this after their capture?

Hope I wasn't being too pedantic with suggestion #2. I'm a graduate of the Calvin & Hobbes Crash-then-Think Univ myself.


This is definitely my style when it comes to scenario design.

[AGRICOLA]

Hope I wasn't being too pedantic with suggestion #2. I'm a graduate of the Calvin & Hobbes Crash-then-Think Univ myself.

Heck no, advice is advice and you can't possibly know what idiocies I may have been up to.

I'm discontinuing my efforts to rid myself of triggers because the situation is becoming curiouser and curiouser.

1. CHEAT mode tells me that the Dervishes have
16 - DarfurTriggers
22 - FedilTriggers
5 - Triggers
26 - FashodaTriggers.

2. I always play at SHIFT Z zoom. At that zoom, I can see the Darfur and Fashoda triggers but not the other two.

3. If I zoom in 3 clicks, the Darfur and Fashoda triggers disappear.

4. If I zoom out, health bars start appearing where the other 2 triggers might be.

5. There may be a problem at the bottom of the @UNITS_ADVANCED where the number of 00000, 0000 . . . . rows does not match the number of units in @UNITS.

Allard can probably sort this out in a minute.

Agri, are you finding any cities vulnerable to this after their capture?

Can't answer that one yet. The advance to Kerma has been slow because of the need to build RR's. Consequently, most units have esily kept up with the advance and newly captured cities have had sizeable garrisons, including both artillery and gunboats.

In order to maximize the probablity that these key units will become vets, I've used arty and boats to attack Dervishes immediately outside town. Also, with the slow advance, the sizeable garrison, including a MG, has stayed for a couple of turns, giving it a chance to attract and destroy any nearby hostiles.

I miss Calvin and Hobbes.

[fairline]

Originally posted by AGRICOLA

Can't answer that one yet. The advance to Kerma has been slow because of the need to build RR's. Consequently, most units have esily kept up with the advance and newly captured cities have had sizeable garrisons, including both artillery and gunboats.

Still can't comment about the ToT version, but in the FW/MGE versions there were enough engineers (3 IIRC?) to build a couple of sections of track per move. Is this still the case?

[Boco]

Originally posted by AGRICOLA
2. I always play at SHIFT Z zoom. At that zoom, I can see the Darfur and Fashoda triggers but not the other two.

3. If I zoom in 3 clicks, the Darfur and Fashoda triggers disappear.

4. If I zoom out, health bars start appearing where the other 2 triggers might be.

5. There may be a problem at the bottom of the @UNITS_ADVANCED where the number of 00000, 0000 . . . . rows does not match the number of units in @UNITS.

Allard can probably sort this out in a minute.

I'm not seeing this. The two @UNITS sections have the same unit count in my file. Is the difference evident in the untouched Rules file?

What you describe in 2-4 is typical of Mercator's tall sprites. Icons do disappear at higher Z if they're something like 768 pixels high. Merc can't chastise us for not reading the original thread on this one. That you're seeing this suggests that the sprites are not being overridden.

In my test, all triggers behave the same. When I don't override the spr, the keyless icons disappear at high z. When I do, they look like normal units with keys. Likewise if I set the invisible-until-attack to on, then I can't see any trigger except by the Dervish view. Because of that, it isn't necessary to override the spr's.

BTW, I was wrong about the need to restart ToT. These changes were visible simply on reloading 62.sav.

Here's an edited version of Allard's file. Allard, I hope you don't mind that I'm uploading this. If you do, I'll edit the post ASAP.

@Fairline. It takes 2 RE per square across Unstable Ground. IIRC, you start the game with 2. To build a Rwy from Wady Halfa to Kerma requires 5 RE/Turns. Mr. has introduced some tension here. Should I get RE's first or regular troops? It's up to the player. Eventually there are plenty of RE's.

[AGRICOLA]

@Boco

The culprit was a missing sprite override flag for the DarfurTrigger. Everything is copacetic now. Thanks a million.


@fairline

I've been running 70% Science/ 30% Taxes since the start. As of September '96 I have researched Rail Engineers 1 & 2 and begun Ship Building 1. This will give me 4 RR Engineers in October; one freshly spawned in Assuan; one (slightly pre-charged en-route) doing a bit of irrigating at Wady Halfa; one building RR's on the fertile squares around Dongola; and one starting the Kerma-Merowe RR.

I'm a bit leery of researching Rail Engineers 3 because it occupes the Flight slot in the tech table. IIRC, getting Flight imposes a 30% penalty on the rate of research. It may not do so in this scen but right now I need ships more than additional Engineers.

[Boco]

I thought Fli had just a 1/3 hit on caravan payoffs (and the related tech payoffs). If you're right, I should take advantage of that in EA!

Where are you going to park your boats during the 1st dry spell, between Dongola and Abu Hamed?

[Allard HS]

A little update with some of the remarked things in this thread corrected, as well as some other minor things. It should be no problem with your savegames, but you should use the delevents program on the savegame to use some of the new events (otherwise it might not even work).

I couldn't be bothered to update the whole zip file at the start of this thread.

@Fairline: those units are amazing! I feel a bit ashamed of not using all of them, actually. But I will use more British units anyway in a later stadium.

I'm still not sure about the Camel Corps. In some wargaming sites I saw, the Camel Corps looked like British troops, with some egyptian and sudanese helpers rather than purely a Egyptian or Soudanese army part.

You know, Allard, you really shouldn't feed hapless obsessives like Fairline and myself with such an excellent Overzicht of your design in Excel.

Hehe, I even updated my own overzicht now, thanks to the webpage you linked to.

Allard, I suspect you've read this book, too. No color plates of the non-Brits (so many of the 21 Lancers, though, that I thought I'd find one of their cook), but the text explicitly confirms the website.

Being a stereotyped cheap Dutch guy, I could not bring myself to spend so much money on my little hobby.

You can also turn on the "invisible until attack" and "override .SPR file for this unit" switches in @UNITS_ADVANCED. Saves having to use alternative files.

Very nice trick! You can see I'm not yet so used to ToT; I still use old FW/MGE tricks, while there are much better ways..

Unit balance appears to be spot on. The gunboats are the critical attack unit because of the risk of razing towns with no Zeribas. Riverwar is an apt name.

Wait till you have to leave the river, and your boats are useless! But that's only after Omdurman, where the second (or third actually) phase of the scenario starts.

Gameplay is in Aug '96, the east side of the Nile has been captured as far as Kerma and the town is stuffed full of units preparing to attack Dongola.

Don't let yourself get too distracted by Dongola, it's Abu Hamed you should try to get as early as possible. After all, the game objective is to capture as much as possible within the limited amount of turns, and if you use your whole army to attack Dongola, you will lose precious time.

Well, I must admit I'm not the greatest strategist, so I might actually be wrong. If it works for you, let me know.. So I can learn to beat my own scenario better.

A Raider unit, spawned every 2 or 3 turns at random locations near towns along the rivers would do much to keep certain players honest.

Done. Might be a bit too busy now, but you guys will have to judge that

Lack of a garrisons doesn't appear to affect happiness. AH, is the AE 'monarchy' a republic? Looks like an ungarrisoned city can build and deploy one Soudanese Inf. (R) without revolting. The second such deployment causes unhappiness.

Yes, it's a fake-monarchy. I deliberately didn't want to distract the player too much from the purely military campaign to do too much micro-management, so I left a whole area of opportunities out, such as food, happiness, etc. It's really only a side-thing in this scenario.

I don't yet know how AH is in v4, though.

So, I'm AH now?

I'm letting them all build Sudanese Inf on the assumption that science may eventually allow me to switch the accumulated shields to RB something useful like gunboats.

What do you mean? There is no way to build more various units in later phases. Research only gives some units, and only one time. I thought that it would not be historically possible and would upset game balance too much.

One new(?) trick of the AI in v4 is the Ansar's (that's Dervish army for sane nongeeks) williness to pillage city improvements. I noticed that at Dongola, where those heathens caused a near famine after its capture. Perhaps Allard, you changed the founder between versions?

I don't really understand what you mean by that. I didn't notice that, anyway. Yes, I think I might have changed the founding civ somewhere a while ago already, but I didn't know that that affected AI in any way.

5. There may be a problem at the bottom of the @UNITS_ADVANCED where the number of 00000, 0000 . . . . rows does not match the number of units in @UNITS.

?? I have the same amount of rows in both sections...

I miss Calvin and Hobbes.

Yes, they're gone in Dutch newspapers too, unfortunately. They were called Casper en Hobbes

I'm a bit leery of researching Rail Engineers 3 because it occupes the Flight slot in the tech table. IIRC, getting Flight imposes a 30% penalty on the rate of research.

Hmm, that's right. Haven't thought about that one. Accidentaly, it's not so bad actually. I think I'll just leave it that way.

[Boco]

In 1896, the CC was from the Egyptian Army: British officers, Egyptian (Sudanese?) ranks. In the ill-fated 1885 campaign, it was a British Army outfit.

I don't really understand what you mean by that. I didn't notice that, anyway. Yes, I think I might have changed the founding civ somewhere a while ago already, but I didn't know that that affected AI in any way.

If the AE capture a city founded by the Dervish, the Dervish rarely pillage the city's squares. They'll pillage squares of enemy-held cities that were founded by other civs. At Dongola, a Raider(?) stopped on the outer ring of Dongola and pillaged the irrigation. Nice and nasty!

[fairline]

As Boco said, the Camel Corps in the 1896-98 Sudan campaign were Egyptian Army units; there were both Sudanese and Egyptian companies, uniformed as I've tried to depict them. AFAIK there were no British camel-borne units in the later Sudan campaign.

In the Gordon Relief expedition of 1885 there were several ad-hoc British camel units - this is the Guards Camel Regiment uniform:

[AGRICOLA]

@Boco

I thought Fli had just a 1/3 hit on caravan payoffs (and the related tech payoffs). If you're right, I should take advantage of that in EA!

Where are you going to park your boats during the 1st dry spell, between Dongola and Abu Hamed?

You're right about Fli only affecting freight bonuses. I was thinking of a scen where science was 10% and I was delivering just enough freights to get a tech every turn. Here, Fli had a definite effect on the cost of research.


I intend to capture Merowe during the dry spell and get as many units into it as I can before the cataracts below Abu Hamed again become passable. Units will be moved by a combination of steamer and by the RR u/c. Some of the gunboats are a bit banged up and need time in a port, probably Merowe.

[Allard HS]

Another little update; the dll files to accompany the scenario... It's mostly about the tiles, btw, the intro.dll is not too interesting.

http://apolyton.net/upload/view.php?file=59_dlls.zip

Nice to know that the CC problem is sorted out then.

The Dongola thing I still do not understand, because it ís founded by the Dervishes - I checked it with CivCity, so they shouldn't plunder it. Well, I added some moveunit commands in the latest update, so that should give them more hurry to invade, and less time to plunder.

[AGRICOLA]

@Allard HS

Originally posted by Allard HS

Originall posted by AGRICOLA I'm letting them all build Sudanese Inf on the assumption that science may eventually allow me to switch the accumulated shields to RB something useful like gunboats.

What do you mean? There is no way to build more various units in later phases. Research only gives some units, and only one time. I thought that it would not be historically possible and would upset game balance too much.

My comment was the result of deliberately not looking at the EVENTS file in order to retain any surprise elements in the scen. Also, as there is no explanation for what tech advances do, I was hoping that one of them might allow the building of something more useful than Sudanese Inf.
False hope.

Originally posted by Allard HS

Originall posted by AGRICOLA 5. There may be a problem at the bottom of the @UNITS_ADVANCED where the number of 00000, 0000 . . . . rows does not match the number of units in @UNITS.

?? I have the same amount of rows in both sections...

Sorry about that one. It's amazing what reducing font size from 10 to 9 does to better organize parts of the RULES file.

[fairline]

Allard, here's some redone artillery. I was a bit confused reading rules.txt - you have a Maxim-Nordenfeldt MG, whereas the Maxim-Nordenfeldt available to the Egyptian army was a field artillery piece as opposed to the Boer War-era 1-pdr 'Pom-Pom' of the same manufacturer. All MG's in the Sudan were .303 Maxims, mounted on two different wheeled carriages IIRC; one for the infantry and the 'galloping Maxim' for the cavalry. I've included an icon of the latter. The tripod mount was used in India and the Boer War but not the Sudan, as Boco has pointed out. According to WC's OOB for Omdurman there was one Independant British Maxim Detachment and one Egyptian, with Maxims attached to one British and five Egyptian infantry battalions.

WC has the following artillery present:

British:

32nd Field Battery RA (Heavy arty with 2 40-pdrs, 6 other guns (12-pdr QF?)
37th Field Battery RA (with 5" howitzers)

Egyptian:

The Horse Battery EA (Krupp 6.5cm)
No's 1, 2, 3 and 4 Field Bttys EA (Maxim-Nordenfeldt field guns)

BTW, horse artillery were generally armed with lighter pieces than field artillery, although I see you have higher stats for the horse arty (?)

[AGRICOLA]

The game has progressed to May 1897; Marowe was captured in Dec '86 and Abu Hamed in March '97. Here are a few things that I have tripped across.

1.

Originally posted by AGRICOLA
I'm letting them all build Sudanese Inf on the assumption that science may eventually allow me to switch the accumulated shields to RB something useful like gunboats.

Originally posted by Allard HS
What do you mean? There is no way to build more various units in later phases. Research only gives some units, and only one time. I thought that it would not be historically possible and would upset game balance too much.

I'm researching Rail Engineers 4. The Pedia says that its discovery will allow building RR Engineers in all cities. A quick fast forward showed that this is indeed the case. This does not agree with your quote. Is the version that I'm playing (59_RiverWarv4beta2.zip) possibly not the latest one?


2. The Pedia gives no expiry techs for Numidian Pyramids, Jebel Al-Barkal and other wonders. The Pedia does not seem to agree with RULES. In RULES the effect of both wonders is terminated by British Tech (X7). When the British captured Merowe and both wonders, the wonders had no effect on British happiness.


3. Should Caravan Roads be included in the city impovement list in Pedia or will you explain it and other city improvements in a readme? It would be helpful for players to know that it is the same as a marketplace. Furthermore, the high carrying cost of this improvement at best equals the additional money gained from having it. A player's best bet seems to be to sell Caravan Roads as soon as possible and use the 120,000 quid to RB RR Engineers.


4. Have you or anyone actually been able to gain an overwhelming Brit victory within 48 turns (capturing 35 of 37 OBJECTIVES). I'm asking this because there are 4 Dervish OBJECTIVE cities scattered randomly in the outback, with not even a trade route hinting at their existence or location.

Unless EVENTS provides some clue, there will have to be a lot of Native guides running around in the boondocks looking for them. Surely, some intelligence regarding their existence and location must become available from prisoners, traitors and traders.

Also, is there a reason why Rufa'a is the only non-OBJECTIVE Dervish city along the Nile?


5. I've been very careful to attack river cities only with gunboats because they are the only units which are not affected by city walls, their successful attacks do not decrease city size even if there is no city wall and because none of the ground units has the ignore city walls flag. This precaution has prevented the razing of at least 1 Dervish city. Are there adequate measures for preventing unwanted razing of cities that are not on rivers? Accidental razing a couple of cities could make overwhelming victory impossible.

This is why I was very concerned about Tokar getting razed at the start of the scen.