Gold Gulch Playtest!

[Sarsstock]

What I love best about the concept that Harry has come up with for this scenario is the fact that it can be applied to donzens of other scenario's, like a colonization of Mars, the Moon, maybe the colonization of North America.

This will surely make for some great future scenario's.

[GoPostal]

Originally posted by Harry Tuttle


Yeah, I thought it might. I need to get the thesaurus out. How many saloons did you have and where did you place them?

In the settlements, and often they were destroyed through combat.
But, I must say, I love the 'build from scratch' scenarios.

[germanos]

Harry,

While I have no idea how events work and how they are embedded in the saves (be they .sav or .net) and I don't understand what you mean with the 'flag', I CAN tell you that a PBEM is essentially nothing more than a SP, with the only exeption that everybody uses a different 'human player'.

scenario-makers do tend to release seperate event-files for SP and PBEM though.

Hope this helps.

PS.: The save rotates through the players, there is not really a set of saves. Scenario conditions (like difficulty level, barb activity and so forth, are set by the first player. After that, there is no altering that.

[Henrik]

The problem will definatly persist in PBEMs/MP.
The entire problem is due to the fact that the game will replace the anybody entry with the name of the civ who first triggers it in the events embeded in the savefile.

[Sarsstock]

Say Harry, I have a question with the whole space ship construction issue. Since its the Train to Chicago that in this case allows Space Ship Construction, are you going to change the SS Structual, SS Component and SS Module into different components of a cross country train to Chicago?

It might make for an interesting race, who can build the first round trip train between Gold Gultch and Chicago.

BTW, which state is Gold Gultch in again?

[Harry Tuttle]

@Sarsstock - Oh yes, there are plenty of ideas out there. Just think, if someone were to create red canyons like on Mars, that are on caliber with Favoured Flights mountains, then we could battle it out for the resources of Mars. There are some very cool ideas. Oh yeah, on another note, I've also worked up some really cool graphics for a beachhead assault scenario too. Muhahaha!

As for the spaceship parts I was thinking of something exactly on those lines. I just have to make the icons. I could conceivably borrow the DLL graphics from one of the many train games out there.

And the Black Hills Territory, including Gold Gulch (which is a fictional name) is now located in South Dakota. The famous town of Deadwood is located there, famous for its gold strike, it's proceeding lead mines, it's unlawful history, and the site of Wild Bill Hickock's last poker game. And what was the name of the hand he held when he died? Anyone? "The Dead Man's Hand"

@Germanos, Henrik - Hmmmm, well if the problem persists because of embedded events, then it would really be no problem to have the events un-embedded each autosave... I have to look at Merc's CivSwap readme a bit closer and do some testing but I think there is hope! Thanks for responding!

[Cyrion]

Playtesting...

Harry, this is just amazing!

You managed to create a scenario which is at the same time fully different from any other CivII game (concepts, mecanics, graphics, ...) and fairly typical for an excellent CivII scen (the "one more turn syndrom" in full power...)!

And now for a few comments:
- the graphics are beautiful! the screen is really a pleasure to look at, and all the units and terrains go together well!
- the game is pleasing to play: even if you have to build your empire from scratch (or nearly), you have plenty to do from the beginnign on! and the things you can do are interesting and varied!
- from what I saw, the tech tree and the improvement structures have been really well thought out!
- fully subjective: I really like it!!

Now a few "playtester" comments:

- in the "introduction" test, don't forget to change the XXX for the names of US Cavalry General and for the US President!

- in the first turn, I use my "lady in waiting" to bribe her closest colleague, who in turn bribed the next, and so on: I then controlled the 5 ladies, and the other saloons had none! While I think being able to bribe the other w*ores is a good opportunity, I really believe you should spread ( ) them apart at the start to avoid that the first to move can buy them all!

- I then used my ladies to bribe all the pioneers who appeared, as well as all the US cavalrymen in the valley, and even a gunboat! The pioneers are really expensive and, if I used them as intended (i.e. disbanding them in a saloon), not worth their money! Is there another way of using them??
The US cavalry are not expensive, and powerful! So I wonder if it's allowed to bribe them? And if yes, if it's a good idea... Maybe making their civ a Democracy would prevent that (ok, it might generate other problems...), or maybe they are barbarians (forgot to check yesterday...)??

- I noticed that the animals are not really aggressive against my prospectors (not that I complain...), and that even if the prospectors should die, their construction cost is incredibly low (maybe too low?)

- I played for a few hours, and settled all the "developped" plot on the southern shore (haven't seen any concurrence there); I'll soon start attacking the other saloons on the northern shore with my currently regrouping bribed US cavalry

That's all for now, I can't wait till tomorrow when I can play a few more turns!

[Harry Tuttle]

Re: Playtesting...

Originally posted by Cyrion
Harry, this is just amazing!

You managed to create a scenario which is at the same time fully different from any other CivII game (concepts, mecanics, graphics, ...) and fairly typical for an excellent CivII scen (the "one more turn syndrom" in full power...)!

Thank you. I wanted to make this one as fun and user friendly as possible.

And now for a few comments:
- the graphics are beautiful! the screen is really a pleasure to look at, and all the units and terrains go together well!
- the game is pleasing to play: even if you have to build your empire from scratch (or nearly), you have plenty to do from the beginnign on! and the things you can do are interesting and varied!
- from what I saw, the tech tree and the improvement structures have been really well thought out!
- fully subjective: I really like it!!

I wanted to keep the player involved early on so that the game would remain fun. As for the tech tree and improvement mapping I've begun to use a planning technique I started with Atomic Eagle. Everything is mapped out, making it easier to change and avoid mistakes.

Now a few "playtester" comments:

- in the "introduction" test, don't forget to change the XXX for the names of US Cavalry General and for the US President!

Will do! I almost forgot about that. The names slipped my mind so I need to do my research.

- in the first turn, I use my "lady in waiting" to bribe her closest colleague, who in turn bribed the next, and so on: I then controlled the 5 ladies, and the other saloons had none! While I think being able to bribe the other w*ores is a good opportunity, I really believe you should spread ( ) them apart at the start to avoid that the first to move can buy them all!

I was thinking of that. The close grouping does give an advantage to the player with the first turn.

- I then used my ladies to bribe all the pioneers who appeared, as well as all the US cavalrymen in the valley, and even a gunboat! The pioneers are really expensive and, if I used them as intended (i.e. disbanding them in a saloon), not worth their money! Is there another way of using them??
The US cavalry are not expensive, and powerful! So I wonder if it's allowed to bribe them? And if yes, if it's a good idea... Maybe making their civ a Democracy would prevent that (ok, it might generate other problems...), or maybe they are barbarians (forgot to check yesterday...)??

The Pioneers will have to be adjusted so that the trade off is a bit more justifiable. I remember cost equaling the shield bonus from disbandment, so I'll have to check. Also, the Pioneers have an incredibly high rate of movement to facilitate disbandment, so maybe I'll try something different, like making airfields that look like small tent camps where the pioneers can paradrop from. You could use them as scouts, but that would not really be their purpose.

The US Cav are tough, but bribable, owing to the fact that they were the predominant force in the Black Hills and their morale wasn't so hot. I might make them appear away from the prostitutes so that you can't just step two squares and bribe a unit. Also, they should be a big roadblack for your units later in the game, so I'll try to get them to attack more. Or maybe I'll make them really expensive so that you can't just bribe them all, but maybe one or two. And yes, the Cav are Barbs.

- I noticed that the animals are not really aggressive against my prospectors (not that I complain...), and that even if the prospectors should die, their construction cost is incredibly low (maybe too low?)

Good point. I'll make some changes.

[curtsibling]

This is one of the best scenarios around!

The amount of work that has been put into it is staggering.

One minor point.
I think the player's own unit should be an actual person.
It would create more of a link with the player, and entice you to protect him!

Otherwise, I love the design - New ideas like this are the future of our CIV2 community!

PS
Love the 'hooker race' that breaks out near the start!

[Cyrion]

Originally posted by curtsibling
This is one of the best scenarios around!
The amount of work that has been put into it is staggering.

Fully agree!

One minor point.
I think the player's own unit should be an actual person.
It would create more of a link with the player, and entice you to protect him!

I would like it too, even if I don't mind the actual unit design too much, it just doesn't feel like an unit.

PS
Love the 'hooker race' that breaks out near the start!

Do you mean you like them the way they are, or that you agree that they should be further apart from each other? as they are now, there is no race: the first one to move can bribe all the others!

[curtsibling]

In my game:

The hookers all seem to move after each other from the valley they start in!

I'ts like a mad race!

[Harry Tuttle]

Originally posted by curtsibling
One minor point.
I think the player's own unit should be an actual person.
It would create more of a link with the player, and entice you to protect him!

This is planned, Fairline was/is going to do the graphics for them, but he's been a bit busy lately. For the release I plan to have them be actual people. Wouldn't let you guys off with just a cop out shield.

As for the hookers, I will be setting them a little farther apart at least so they can't be bribed on the first turn so as to give the players a chance to maneuver. The scenario is best played with other human players, of course, so bribing my be a bit harder with someone real on the other end moving their units.

I'll try to post an update later tonight or tomorrow night. I just got back from recruiting some interns so I am a bit worn out.

[curtsibling]

Looking forward to it!

[germanos]

I must congratulate Harry on making such a fine scenario. It's a releive to see such a new and inventive way to use civ2

My first glimpse at the scen makes me share the remarks made on the closeness of the hookers, and the discrepency between the bribe-cost of the pioneers and their 'disband-value'.
The hookers are too cheap to bribe, and thus the first player has a huge advantage over the others.
As things stand now, there really is little incentive to bribe the pioneers, as there will be too little reward for them.

Originally posted by Harry Tuttle

The scenario is best played with other human players, of course, so bribing my be a bit harder with someone real on the other end moving their units.

I would certainly like to play this scen in a PBEM, or in MP. Perhaps there are more posters here to join?

[Cyrion]

Originally posted by germanos
I would certainly like to play this scen in a PBEM, or in MP. Perhaps there are more posters here to join?

Count me in for a PBEM!

An MP game would be even better, but finding a convenient time-frame might prove impossible (at least in the next 2 weeks...), even if we are in the same time zone...