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  • New (maybe) scenario: Red Star Over China

    I've got a lot of free time over this summer and I want to do something with RONTAP. I'm hoping to work on a series of little scenarios linked together to detail the rise of the Chinese Communist Party in China during the 1920s through to 1940s. I have a fairly good understanding of the time period, based not least in part on Edgar Snow's classic journalistic reports "Red Star Over China".

    The main problem for me is that I am not familiar with the scripting language at all. I understand a very very small amount of C++, so the layout of the functions is not alien to me. However, I'm going to end up with lots of questions. I hope I can ask them here.

    Currently, the first scenario I'm thinking of doing is this. If any of you have ideas as to how to implement this in code, or design ideas as to what would be more fun to play, I'm happy to hear them!

    Part One: The Shanghai Massacre:

    Background:
    In the late 1920s, the Chinese Communist Party had grown into a large political entity that was still largely civilian in nature. The Nationalist government ordered a large scale sweep of their main base, Shanghai, to eradicate the Communists. This action destroyed the Communists' urban support networks, forcing them into their communes in rural China. However, key personnel, including a rising leader Mao Zedong, managed to escape.

    Gameplay:
    This scenario would consist of a small map, filled almost entirely with buildings and cities representing Shanghai's many different suburbs. The gameplay consists of the human player controlling various non-combat units, including Scholars, Civilians, and maybe even a Spy or two, and trying to move them all to the western side of the city, where a friendly Fort awaits them.

    This would simulate the evacuation from the city of key Communist personnel. The personnel would "pop up" at points in the city every so often (perhaps appearing garrisoned in buildings, if that's even possible) and the player has to get them safely across the enemy city and over to the Fort.

    In opposition, the Nationalist forces will have foot soldiers performing sweeps of the neighborhoods looking for Communist leaders, and they will shoot on sight. The human player has a few Spies that cannot bribe, but which can plant informers in buildings. The Spies can plant informers at key locations around the city and suburbs, giving the player visibility of where the enemy's patrols are currently.

    A canny player can figure out when the coast is clear to send the Communist personnel across.

    The human player will also have some ability to "bribe" certain houses in the city, which will allow him to garrison units inside. This could be useful in areas of high patrol frequency, where a Communist personnel could benefit from hiding out.

    As long as one Communist personnel member makes it to the fort, the human player can continue the campaign, but there will be benefits to be had if others survive with him.


    What do you think of this idea for a starting scenario? How do you think I should go about making it? Is a script even necessary? (The first thing that springs to mind is that I'd need to disable the enemy's attrition, otherwise the player doesn't really have a chance.)
    "lol internet" ~ AAHZ

  • #2
    Here's the map I'm thinking of using for the CTW campaign:



    I'm thinking the scenario will start off with the Communists fleeing Shanghai to go through warlord (barbarian) territories until they reach Yan'An.

    Each turn, the Nationalists will put armies into territories they own but will not engage the Communists directly. While that's happening, Japanese armies will enter and seize coastal areas.

    It should take the Communists about 5 turns to get to Yan'An, at which point they can begin diplomatic dealings, e.g. talk to the Soviets or the Nationalists. Eventually they must accede to an Alliance against the Nationalists.

    This then gives China two attacks per turn against Japan (Nationalists and Communists each get one) which will eventually drive Japan's armies off the mainland.

    Once that happens, it's a mad scramble to declare war against each other, with the Communists having a lot of cheap units and the Nationalists with more artillery and planes.
    Last edited by Alinestra Covelia; January 31, 2008, 15:30.
    "lol internet" ~ AAHZ

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    • #3
      This is a reduced size version of the background file I'm hoping to use for this scenario. I want to use this as a "Communist victory" art.



      Copyright: me
      Last edited by Alinestra Covelia; January 29, 2008, 00:58.
      "lol internet" ~ AAHZ

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      • #4
        ...and here's a similar reduced size picture that I'll be using if you beat the scenario playing as the Nationalists (Kuomintang) under Chiang Kai Shek.



        Copyright, still me
        "lol internet" ~ AAHZ

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        • #5
          I'm working on a background art file for the scenario when it loads. This is just the concept art. I'm sure I'll put more on it in future.



          Copyright me
          "lol internet" ~ AAHZ

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          • #6
            An updated splash background for the scenario loading frame:

            This time I've added in the four flags of the major players in China at this time: the Communists (later the PRChina), the Nationalists (later ROChina in Taiwan), the Qing dynasty flag, and the Japanese Imperial flag.

            "lol internet" ~ AAHZ

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            • #7
              I have now hit a snag with the CTW map. I was led to believe that merely putting a CTW map in the Conquest folder will allow the RONTAP engine to create a new .xml file in the same folder. All I have to do is to start up the game, select the new map, and quit out of the program once the map loads.

              The map loaded fine, and I quit out.

              The directory did not create a "CTW_RedStar_Map_01.xml". Instead it created a "strings" xml which had some information. But it didn't create an .xml with the same name as the map png.

              I need an xml file to appear otherwise I can't get it running. I've tried to make my own xml file, by paring down the Cold War .xml file, but that still crashes the game.

              Anybody know what I should do?
              "lol internet" ~ AAHZ

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              • #8
                Alinestra

                We now have a news article and hopefully can get some qualified people on board to assist!

                Best of fortunes and hang in there!

                Grandpa Troll
                Hi, I'm RAH and I'm a Benaholic.-rah

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                • #9
                  Yay! Thanks, Grandpa Troll!

                  So, right now I'm vexed about creating the "Red_Star_Map_01.xml" file. Does anybody know how to force the game engine to make one, and what sort of bare minimum stuff needs to be in it?


                  Edit: I am not particularly bright.

                  Even if you run RONTAP, it will create it in the "conquest" folder in the original RON directory, not in the RONTAP directory.

                  Well, we solved one mystery.
                  Last edited by Alinestra Covelia; February 3, 2008, 00:40.
                  "lol internet" ~ AAHZ

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                  • #10
                    Haven't modded RoN in years but it sounds like you're doing the right things.

                    The image you posted is JPG, is that the same file you're trying to import into RoN? I think that only takes PNG files. And even if it does take JPG, the JPEG compression does weird things with the colours which can screw up the map generation -- if you zoom in on the border regions of the territories in the image you posted you can see that there's odd artifacting going on there. PNG is lossless so it doesn't have that problem.

                    If you have a PNG, could you post it here? I'll see if I can find anything wrong with it, try to import it myself. If you're using the JPEG you posted, take the original, make sure it doesn't have any artifacts (clean it up if it does) and convert it to PNG, BMP, GIF or some other lossless format that RoN can handle (I'm not sure which are, other than PNG).

                    Edit: oh, you do need a rendered image as well, that needs to be the same size as the map image. Have you got that? And if you post the PNG, could you post that too?
                    Administrator of WePlayCiv -- Civ5 Info Centre | Forum | Gallery

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                    • #11
                      Hey there Locutus! Good to see you around again.

                      All graphics in game are indeed .png files. (The reason why I uploaded the jpgs is that I wasn't sure if Poly will correctly display then as attachments or [img] URLs.) I'll upload the "render" that I made, although that's currently in a very rudimentary stage.

                      The map .png file has absolutely no stray pixels. I spent the best part of a day going through and erasing the stray pixels that were left over when I imported one selection from a .jpg by mistake. You can bet I won't be doing that again!
                      "lol internet" ~ AAHZ

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                      • #12
                        Here are the two map .png files I have, in a zip format.
                        Attached Files
                        "lol internet" ~ AAHZ

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                        • #13
                          Hmm... I tried loading the map, which at first seemed to go alright in that T&P recognised it as a new map for which new XML needed to be generated, but while loading I got a fatal error: no valid nations defined (well duh, that's what the XML generation is supposed to do). I tried the same thing in the original RoN and that worked fine, I could play a scenario and everything and the XML was generated as expected. Tried again in T&P a couple of times, including after copying the XML generated by the original game over to the T&P folder, but always with the same result: no valid nations defined.

                          That said, my RoN install seems a bit buggy anyway, tried to play a normal game but it crashed to desktop within 15 minutes, something which I never recall the game doing when I was still actively playing it. Maybe my install is just messed up.

                          Either way, I have the XML generated by the original game, I've attached that, maybe that'll help you along. You can easily see what the XML is 'supposed' to look like by opening the files of an existing campaign -- it seems like the bare minimum for a playable game is there in my attachment, but then I don't get why it's not playing. It's not a whole lot, but I hope this helps...
                          Attached Files
                          Administrator of WePlayCiv -- Civ5 Info Centre | Forum | Gallery

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                          • #14
                            Thanks Locutus
                            Hi, I'm RAH and I'm a Benaholic.-rah

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                            • #15
                              Very interesting! So it seems that there is something the original RON can do (xml generation) which the add-on cannot do.

                              Cool!

                              Thanks again, Locutus! I'll get bashing on with this and then come back sobbing furiously when the next snag hits!
                              "lol internet" ~ AAHZ

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