Gold Gulch Playtest!

[Harry Tuttle]

First off, thank you all for your kind comments. I'm extremely happy that everyone likes the scenario even if it's only a playtest!

Changes as of 11:04 pm EST 9/30/04

The appropriate zip and rules.txt has been updated.

Changes:

1) Hookers have been moved farther apart. This should prevent any pre-emption by the first turn player.

2) Pioneers have been given an extremely low shield cost. This is still disportionate for disbandment, but I'd like to hear any recommendations to a remedy to make the pioneers disband at a higher pay off. I could have the pioneers pop up as civ specific, allowing for a free bonus, with the possibility of bribery from the hookers, but that will require more event space. I'll have to look into this.

3) The saloon owners have been given the maximum shields possible. This should, in theory, cause the storm units to attack the main saloon.

4) The cavalry units, all three kinds, have been given higher shields, making them extremely costly to bribe.

5) The animal units have been given two space visibility. Maybe now they will be able to spot your pioneers.

I am working on the sounds right now because that has piqued my interest at present. I promise plenty of sound bytes from the Duke!

I was thinking of using Civswap to wipe out the events each turn so as to eliminate the ANYBODY event problem. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure it will wipe out the "Have tech -> get unit" events I have worked in for the special celebrity units causing multiple "hero" units to pop up each turn.

I may have to use Civswap to reload events each turn, each with a town terrain square popping up at a turn number, so as to keep the regular events intact and add additional space for a civ specific "postANYBODY" event. Of course the hero units will have to have some other trigger, but that can be worked out. Hell of a way to do things, but I think I may be able to work out a solution.

Do me a favor and add to my draft letter in the Civ2 Source Code Petition thread so we can fix this unusable command once and for all.

Keep the ideas coming! Thanks

[Mercator]

Originally posted by Harry Tuttle
I was thinking of using Civswap to wipe out the events each turn so as to eliminate the ANYBODY event problem. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure it will wipe out the "Have tech -> get unit" events I have worked in for the special celebrity units causing multiple "hero" units to pop up each turn.

I'm not sure if that's feasible. Letting CivSwap wipe out events each turn would mean people will have to reload every turn (that's the only thing CivSwap can't automate). That's pretty bothersome, I'd say.

Apart from that, actually, I don't think you would even need CivSwap here.

I've looked in the events section of savegames quite a bit (I'm about 25% through, I think). I haven't really looked at this yet, but I am quite sure that the ANYBODY always remains in the savegame. That is, the fact that ANYBODY changes to the first civ that triggered it is only done in Civ2 memory and isn't stored in the savegame.

I think that simply reloading the game (without using delevent on it, so no need for CivSwap) will already do the trick. Still, that comes down to the same thing. People would have to load the autosave every turn.

Hmmm, then again, you might be able to replace all ANYBODY events by 7 different events, for each civ separately. You would need several event files then, to make it all fit, but then you could use CivSwap.

Of course, that is only possible if your events run on fixed turns. If all/most events could be triggered any time, splitting the events files won't help either. Each separate file would still end up being too large, since all those events would need to be in every events file.

[Cyrion]

Small bug

I just verified what I suspected: the Opium Emporium doesn't work!

As the Emporium replaces the Cathedral, it needs the Monotheism (MT) tech to work, and it's pre-requisite is currently Mon (which stands for Monarchy, not Monotheism )

So you need to swap Healthy Endeavors with Dope to get the desired effect!

Note: but maybe you already adressed that in a new rules.txt file? I don't think so, but am not really sure...

[Harry Tuttle]

Re: Small bug

Originally posted by Cyrion
I just verified what I suspected: the Opium Emporium doesn't work!

As the Emporium replaces the Cathedral, it needs the Monotheism (MT) tech to work, and it's pre-requisite is currently Mon (which stands for Monarchy, not Monotheism )

So you need to swap Healthy Endeavors with Dope to get the desired effect!

Note: but maybe you already adressed that in a new rules.txt file? I don't think so, but am not really sure...

Dang it! I already switched it but I mistook "mon" for monotheism. Ok, I'll change it tonight.

[Cyrion]

Re: Re: Small bug

Originally posted by Harry Tuttle
Dang it! I already switched it but I mistook "mon" for monotheism.

Yeah, that's what I thought, so I wrote the Mon/MT explanation...

[Harry Tuttle]

ok, tech fixed, thanks for the head up

also, the cavalry general name and US prez in the gold gulch.txt have been fixed.

[Sarsstock]

Here's a thought Harry, with the events engine you've created its possible to recreate..... SID MEIR'S COLONIZATION!!! Which I always considered one of the greatest turn based games ever.

The only thing you wouldn't be able to do is to declare independance in order to win the game.

[Harry Tuttle]

Originally posted by Sarsstock
Here's a thought Harry, with the events engine you've created its possible to recreate..... SID MEIR'S COLONIZATION!!! Which I always considered one of the greatest turn based games ever.

The only thing you wouldn't be able to do is to declare independance in order to win the game.

Spaceship? And as for the events, well, they still need to be fixed. I just have to find a good night to hammer them out. But do tell, what are the similarities?

[Sarsstock]

Well, here are some similarites I can think of off the top of my head.

Colonization is about the race for resources, plentifull fishing ground, rich timberland, bountifull farmland and most importantly... GOLD. Gold can be represented by a "gold unit" that when discovered will yield great sums of money for its disoverer.

Like in Civ II there are city improvements of course, the biggest difference was that instead of wonders of the world you had the continental congress, which was various individuals throughout history that shaped the exploration of the New World. People like Simon Bolivar, Pochahantas, Jean De Brebeuf, John Paul Jones and so on.

As for dividing up the civ's fairly this would be my idea. Four european civ's, and three native civ's. The european civ's would be England, France, Spain and Holland. The native civ's would be the Iroquois, Aztec and Inuit, with another native tribe being the barbarian civ. Thus, we have a chance to not only be the europeans struggling to build a colonial empire, but also the natives struggling to survive against the european way of life.

[hardjoy]

Just downloaded the test - I enjoy the novel idea a lot.

I experienced the same events problem as mentioned though (with the gold - anyone/triggerattacker event), which can be easily solved, however, as mentioned, by making an individual event for each civ.

A couple of questions/comments :

Why can't you hire prostitutes in your saloons? It seems a bit strange to me they start the game in the farthest end of the map.

I suggest upping the move of all units, so that it is possible to 'rush' somewhere faster. Slow units could be kept to wagontrains and other cumbersome units. Fast units would be able to mount and go by horse somewhere pretty fast.

Lowering the cost of some units (especially wagontrains) will make the game pace faster, since they will allow you to spread out and expand more quickly. The settlements seem to spring up disproportionately with the units general move abilities.

I really enjoy the altered diplomatic messages - they're quite funny

[Harry Tuttle]

Originally posted by hardjoy
A couple of questions/comments :

Why can't you hire prostitutes in your saloons? It seems a bit strange to me they start the game in the farthest end of the map.

They are available through research. Look for prostitution on the list.

I suggest upping the move of all units, so that it is possible to 'rush' somewhere faster. Slow units could be kept to wagontrains and other cumbersome units. Fast units would be able to mount and go by horse somewhere pretty fast.

There are mounted units that can be researched. They should show up later in the game. I wanted to keep the pace slow to start out because of the close confines of the camp.

Lowering the cost of some units (especially wagontrains) will make the game pace faster, since they will allow you to spread out and expand more quickly. The settlements seem to spring up disproportionately with the units general move abilities.

Well, the saloons should only be built on or near the town terrain squares. I don't want people building conclaves up in the hills away from the "people" traffic. I wanted to make settling a saloon something you could only do after accumulating a lot of cash - which should be accomplished by exploring for gold, rustling cattle, and disbanding pioneers.

I really enjoy the altered diplomatic messages - they're quite funny

Thanks! I wanted to make them as blatantly western as I could.

[jeibel]

I've only seen new settlement on the east side of the river sprout only once in like 300 turns, while you have like ten events for that...
I didn't look if thay had different coordinates. Perhaps you could adjust that to make the scen more dynamic.

[Harry Tuttle]

Really? Only a few times? Hmmmm, I'll have to see what's up. I've seen the majority of the east side settlement pop up in only 50 turns or so. I'll check tonight.

[hardjoy]

Originally posted by Harry Tuttle
I wanted to keep the pace slow to start out because of the close confines of the camp.

Well, the saloons should only be built on or near the town terrain squares. I don't want people building conclaves up in the hills away from the "people" traffic. I wanted to make settling a saloon something you could only do after accumulating a lot of cash - which should be accomplished by exploring for gold, rustling cattle, and disbanding pioneers.

It works well that way - I was quickly looking for ways to get cash to outgrow my competition - But I was a bit frustrated when I found out my boxers and railmen couldn't get to my new saloons fast enough to rally up opposition, when they were approached by my rivals.

It is quite easy to fix the events, btw. It just means you have to make 5 events for each one *ANYONE/TRIGGERATTACKER* event (one for each saloon respectively). The triggerattacker flag works only for the first civ to trigger it, so they work well with the JUSTONCE flag - otherwise they won't work as intended with MGE.

This has the benefit, however, that it enables you to personalize the events-text for each saloon triggering the gold-event (and the other triggerattacker events I noticed).

Looking forward to the next update :-)

[Harry Tuttle]

Originally posted by hardjoy
It is quite easy to fix the events, btw. It just means you have to make 5 events for each one *ANYONE/TRIGGERATTACKER* event (one for each saloon respectively). The triggerattacker flag works only for the first civ to trigger it, so they work well with the JUSTONCE flag - otherwise they won't work as intended with MGE.

This has the benefit, however, that it enables you to personalize the events-text for each saloon triggering the gold-event (and the other triggerattacker events I noticed).

I know, I know, I need to fix it. Though, from the previous posts in this thread you can see how much of a pain it will be, especially since the saloon terrain creation events take up so much space in the events.txt. I'll have to produce multiple event files to get the ANYBODY events to work.