Kaiser Complete - Get Yer War On!

[curtsibling]

Not much I can do to control the AI, except change the role of the unit.

The problem stems for the fact that most lnd units in this scen are set to '0' for attack.

You'll agree that the enemy won't present much of a danger when sitting in a city, doing nothing!

[curtsibling]

Originally posted by AGRICOLA
Sorry to heap more work on your shoulders but it appears that my post about Trieste was just the tip of a major iceberg. I'm playing Germany/Deity/Dec. 1914 and have encountered problems in Australia, Britain, Greece and Africa.

After limited checking, it seems that many coastal cities that one would expect to be able to build ships cannot do so while at least one, Milano, can do so despite being inland in RL. As I haven't been able to find any pattern as to which ones can and which ones cannot, I assume that this is not intentional on your part. The problem exists along all coastlines.

I'm simply going to fix my last save so that the shipyards in Stettin and elsewhere can get back to work.


EDIT
Complete check with CivCity shows that many coastal cities are unable to build coastal improvements.
As a Canadian and ex-Torontonian, I must point out that at the time of this scen all the Great Lakes supported thriving fishing industries. The lampreys, zebra mussels and other European imports only showed up much later.
Furthermore, Great Lakes shipyards have built much of the large fleet of Great Lakes freighters as well as submarines and other naval vessels.

While I agree that the Great Lakes no doubt were host to much naval activity in RL,
The AI in game (when situated next to lake) always builds 'duck pond navies' -
that do nothing but spend the entire game staying in the same lake.

A complete waste of units, and in a game that likes to fling up the 'too many units' message,
I would rather keep the boat being launched from useful cities.

Massive Dreads and BBs are better launched from major cities, IMO.

But I will do a run through with civ-city and fix any obvious oversights like Stettin, etc.

[curtsibling]

Originally posted by Harry Tuttle
Anyways, Curt, any ideas on how to best tailor this to MP?

What ingredients do you reckon makes a good MP game?

I am used to gearing these things to SP, but I am open to ideas!

[AGRICOLA]

Originally posted by curtsibling
While I agree that the Great Lakes no doubt were host to much naval activity in RL,
The AI in game (when situated next to lake) always builds 'duck pond navies' -
that do nothing but spend the entire game staying in the same lake.

A complete waste of units, and in a game that likes to fling up the 'too many units' message,
I would rather keep the boat being launched from useful cities.

Massive Dreads and BBs are better launched from major cities, IMO.

But I will do a run through with civ-city and fix any obvious oversights like Stettin, etc.

Thank you for the explanation of the designer's point of view. Obviously, I was looking at it much too simplistically from the point of the player who wants to build a freighter or needs to build a harbour improvement to feed the poor little starving urchins in a coastal city.

Very interesting scenario. I'll get a progress report to you later today.

[Harry Tuttle]

Originally posted by curtsibling


What ingredients do you reckon makes a good MP game?

I am used to gearing these things to SP, but I am open to ideas!

Well, dimplomacy is a must. Plus an event file that doesn't cause a state of war between two nations would probably be necessary. Since this scenario is based on WW1 and you've already provided for a balanced game I guess all you'd have to do is do a quick edit of the events file.

[curtsibling]

Thanks chaps!

I will have a little design review of Kaiser at the Weekend,
to add any new fixes and make those changes for an MP events.txt...

[AGRICOLA]

@curtsibling

Did you get the e-mail with the progress report and my comments about a problem in the balance of KAISER?

[jasev]

Great job, Curtsibling

As soon as you release the next version, I'd like to upload it to the SCS.

[curtsibling]

Originally posted by AGRICOLA
@curtsibling

Did you get the e-mail with the progress report and my comments about a problem in the balance of KAISER?

Old chap!

My NTL email is kaput because of spamm.

I am using a secret email, to thwart the adware spammers.

At the moment, I must put my concentration on the unexpected university work that has been unloaded onto me this weekend.

I will be back this coming week to pick up on the threads and resolve any issues I see as outstanding.

What exactly is the trouble you speak of, can you give me a quick summary?

[curtsibling]

I have been handed reports that the Zeppelin is far too mighty, and the monoplanes are too weedy!

I will be fixing this issue!
So stay tuned!

[AGRICOLA]

@curtsibling

This really is a crazy way to pass information between someone who has just about no access to the net and someone who is suffering a bad case of spam jam.

The attached zip contains my comments and the current OPSUM as well as the latest saved game.

[curtsibling]

I will get looking at this right away!

Been writing a thesis all week!

[Boco]

Ouch! Conquering the world with Zeppelins. The Germans learned that was a flawed strategy sometime around 1916.

Agricola, you're one good playtester.

CS after his thecal material is complete!

[curtsibling]

Boco, You have a way with words!

Indeed it will be a relief to get the work done!

[AGRICOLA]

Here are a few interesting items that have cropped up as Germany has continued its predestined, inexorable and superbly executed march to world conquest.

1. The penalty for sinking an Ocean Liner seems to brings into play the Law of Unintended Consequences (i.e. I didn’t expect to find this particular fly in my soup). The penalty is triggered if any Liner is sunk on the high seas or in port, whether by enemy naval, air or ground units. This makes a Liner a very useful unit for port defence. As it costs an attacker 1000 euros to destroy a Liner, it can become very expensive to attack coastal cities that just happen to have a number of Liners in port.

This is not too bad in a SP game where one can empty the treasury by RB before attacking coastal cities. However, in MP it might be neither fair nor desirable to penalize the attacking player so severely.


2. There is an interesting situation in Bangui (central Africa). At the beginning of the scen, this supposedly Allied city is garrisoned by 3 Barb Fanatic Raiders!!! Subsequently, 2 of the Barbs leave the city and go to their just rewards when they attack nearby Allied cities. Later, the Allies built a couple of units in the city.

I stumbled across this when Germany tried to capture Bangui. If a spy had investigated the city, it would have seen only the two Allied defenders and not the Barb cavalry. Consequently, after Zeppelins got rid of the two Allied units, the gentlemanly and trusting German Cavalry was ambushed and hacked to bits by the Barbs when it tried to enter a city that was NOT flying a garrison flag. Hardly cricket. I thought the British were famous for their sense of fair play.

If anyone were designing a dirty tricks scen, it might be useful to stock a city with a few proper defenders plus one or more units from another civ.

Also, would you perhaps consider slightly rearranging the letters in Bangui and renaming it Ubangi, a name which not only sounds much more like a city in the center of darkest Africa but which, IIRC, provided material for innumerable very bad schoolboy jokes?


3. This one is in the “WTF is going on” category. The Allies RB a DH-4 in Winnipeg and attack Bismarck (International) in March ’16, killing an Inf, RB another DH-4 and kill the last Inf defender in April and then make no further hostile moves. The Allies and the International mob are NOT at war.

Subsequently, I used the cheat mode to set the human player to Allies and captured Bismarck. Then I reversed the roles and had the Internationals attack and capture an Allied city. In neither case was there a declaration of war or an objection from the senate. The diplomatic status between the Allies and the Internationals continued to be one of brotherly love. Playing Germany, I obviously have no objection to the warmongers wiping out each other’s units, but the situation does seem a bit unusual.


4. The Allies and Internationals both have six cities with palaces at the start of the scen. If one of these cities is lost, it costs their treasuries over 1000 gold near the beginning of the scen. There is always the message that the capital has been moved, usually to a city that already has a palace where there should be no RB cost for a new one. The Internationals are in a particularly difficult situation because 4 of their palaces are in Europe whereas their major production centres are in the US. Their European cities cannot be adequately defended against the Allies (Amsterdam, Madrid, Oslo?), Germany (Amsterdam, Oslo, Stockholm) or Italy (Madrid).

While there is no major difficulty with this in SP, it might be a problem in MP.