Tweet
I have dug out the patched version of my ToT game and have decided to give this scenbuilding lark another go.
I have two scenarios on the go - one is a Diplomacy-style game with the Earth as it is in the present day, and the seven civs as America, Russia, China, India, the EU, the Islamic Neutrals, and the Democratic Neutrals. There will also be a considerable number of cities taken over by barbarians. It is planned to be a multiplayer game, with at least four players taking part. America is not supposed to be a player controlled power - I'm still trying to iron this out but I think we can leave it either computer controlled or allow human players to forego their 'normal' nation to play a turn as the Americans.
The other scenario is a Star Wars scenario in the manner of Rebellion (or Supremacy, as it was known in the EU). The map will consist of islands in an expanse of sea. A template will be applied to render these as planets,stars, moons, and asteroids in an expanse of space. Most of the combat in the game will be between fleets of starships, although the player will need to use ground troops to take and hold planetary systems. The ships involved will be drawn from a very wide array of SW games, including Dark Forces, X-Wing, TIE Fighter, and Supremacy itself.
However, I have a few questions.
Sounds:
I placed a Jet Fighter unit in the slot for an Archer, and the Jet Fighter keeps on using Archers.wav. This is true even if I delete or rename or replace Archers.wav. Does anybody know how to force a unit to use the sound you put in for it? I have tried altering the .wav entries in the rules.txt file but to no avail.
Map:
Is there a map editor that is powerful enough to handle gigamaps? One of the reasons I got ToT in the first place was to play gigamaps, but until I can find an editor to edit them, I will be forced to do so painstakingly by hand in the Scenbuilder's Shift+F8 function. (This takes a very long time.)
The game refuses to recognize the Star Wars scenario save slots from Civ2, so I will have to program the map for that one by hand from scratch. Without a specialized map editor I will be unable to do this in a timely fashion.
Units:
Are there any artists out there who would know of good unit gif libraries? I've got a few unit art requests to make - none too drastic, most of them are just for modern aircraft and military units.
As for the Star Wars units, I have pictures of most of them that I can grab from the games mentioned above, but I am not proficient enough with graphics programs to make them look polished. Can anybody suggest a good program to use, or better yet collaborate with me to touch up the pictures I capture?
Combat numerics
Right now this is giving me severe headaches. I'm trying to work out a paradigm that would work between land, air, and sea defences.
AEGIS Cruisers, for example, are the strongest defender against any given air attack in the normal game. Place them in a base with a SAM site and the defence score is 8 x 4 = 32 (and that doesn't include fortify orders or terrain concerns). This is far superior to Stealth Fighters, which get a 5 (innate defence) x 4 (for scramble) = 20. (Remember that SAM sites don't fire when a Fighter unit defends your territory in Civ2.)
So I'm trying to work out a suitable mathematical range of attack and defence values to allow for various things. First off, I've made Fighter units (all three of them) very weak in attack so their basic purpose is air defence and interception of enemy bomber units. Secondly, I have given Fighter units actual ranges (I think it was 2 or 3 range instead of the 1 range before). This means they spend more time in the air, but it also prevents a Fighter from attacking every square they move. Now, when they attack, they lose the rest of their movement points.
I still want Fighters to be the defence of choice against air attacks, but I'm leery of raising their defence ratings too high. (Otherwise ground troops launching an attack on the city, defended by a Fighter, might be defeated and that wouldn't make sense.)
Moreover, missile attacks are almost never defended by Fighters unless they're the last one in the city. This makes good sense, but it also means that ground defenders are still important, since they'll be the ones to absorb missile attacks. I am thinking about putting anti-missile units in the game, but do not know how to stop them from also posing lethal threats to attacking bombers. I'm not even sure if this needs to be done.
Essentially, I am keen to move away from having the AEGIS Cruiser as the defender of choice, as that doesn't make much military sense (and also gives a great advantage to coastal bases). But in my move to do that, I have to be careful that I don't overbalance one or another branch of military operations.
Reducing the AEGIS' defence has an attraction but that causes problems with the entire naval unit hierarchy. Does it make sense for another AEGIS Cruiser to take yours out when a missile can't do that?
Anyway, I'm ironing those out and hoping that the final scenario could make for interesting human vs. human vs. human vs human player action!
I have two scenarios on the go - one is a Diplomacy-style game with the Earth as it is in the present day, and the seven civs as America, Russia, China, India, the EU, the Islamic Neutrals, and the Democratic Neutrals. There will also be a considerable number of cities taken over by barbarians. It is planned to be a multiplayer game, with at least four players taking part. America is not supposed to be a player controlled power - I'm still trying to iron this out but I think we can leave it either computer controlled or allow human players to forego their 'normal' nation to play a turn as the Americans.
The other scenario is a Star Wars scenario in the manner of Rebellion (or Supremacy, as it was known in the EU). The map will consist of islands in an expanse of sea. A template will be applied to render these as planets,stars, moons, and asteroids in an expanse of space. Most of the combat in the game will be between fleets of starships, although the player will need to use ground troops to take and hold planetary systems. The ships involved will be drawn from a very wide array of SW games, including Dark Forces, X-Wing, TIE Fighter, and Supremacy itself.
However, I have a few questions.
Sounds:
I placed a Jet Fighter unit in the slot for an Archer, and the Jet Fighter keeps on using Archers.wav. This is true even if I delete or rename or replace Archers.wav. Does anybody know how to force a unit to use the sound you put in for it? I have tried altering the .wav entries in the rules.txt file but to no avail.
Map:
Is there a map editor that is powerful enough to handle gigamaps? One of the reasons I got ToT in the first place was to play gigamaps, but until I can find an editor to edit them, I will be forced to do so painstakingly by hand in the Scenbuilder's Shift+F8 function. (This takes a very long time.)
The game refuses to recognize the Star Wars scenario save slots from Civ2, so I will have to program the map for that one by hand from scratch. Without a specialized map editor I will be unable to do this in a timely fashion.
Units:
Are there any artists out there who would know of good unit gif libraries? I've got a few unit art requests to make - none too drastic, most of them are just for modern aircraft and military units.
As for the Star Wars units, I have pictures of most of them that I can grab from the games mentioned above, but I am not proficient enough with graphics programs to make them look polished. Can anybody suggest a good program to use, or better yet collaborate with me to touch up the pictures I capture?
Combat numerics
Right now this is giving me severe headaches. I'm trying to work out a paradigm that would work between land, air, and sea defences.
AEGIS Cruisers, for example, are the strongest defender against any given air attack in the normal game. Place them in a base with a SAM site and the defence score is 8 x 4 = 32 (and that doesn't include fortify orders or terrain concerns). This is far superior to Stealth Fighters, which get a 5 (innate defence) x 4 (for scramble) = 20. (Remember that SAM sites don't fire when a Fighter unit defends your territory in Civ2.)
So I'm trying to work out a suitable mathematical range of attack and defence values to allow for various things. First off, I've made Fighter units (all three of them) very weak in attack so their basic purpose is air defence and interception of enemy bomber units. Secondly, I have given Fighter units actual ranges (I think it was 2 or 3 range instead of the 1 range before). This means they spend more time in the air, but it also prevents a Fighter from attacking every square they move. Now, when they attack, they lose the rest of their movement points.
I still want Fighters to be the defence of choice against air attacks, but I'm leery of raising their defence ratings too high. (Otherwise ground troops launching an attack on the city, defended by a Fighter, might be defeated and that wouldn't make sense.)
Moreover, missile attacks are almost never defended by Fighters unless they're the last one in the city. This makes good sense, but it also means that ground defenders are still important, since they'll be the ones to absorb missile attacks. I am thinking about putting anti-missile units in the game, but do not know how to stop them from also posing lethal threats to attacking bombers. I'm not even sure if this needs to be done.
Essentially, I am keen to move away from having the AEGIS Cruiser as the defender of choice, as that doesn't make much military sense (and also gives a great advantage to coastal bases). But in my move to do that, I have to be careful that I don't overbalance one or another branch of military operations.
Reducing the AEGIS' defence has an attraction but that causes problems with the entire naval unit hierarchy. Does it make sense for another AEGIS Cruiser to take yours out when a missile can't do that?
Anyway, I'm ironing those out and hoping that the final scenario could make for interesting human vs. human vs. human vs human player action!
If you want it to sound like a jet, move the unit to a spot below the helicopter slot, type 
Comment