Rough Draft of Scen While Waiting for EotRS Thread

[Patine]

Before I started my 'Vietnam War' scenario (which previously had its own thread and was last posted on the 'Submissions for the SLeague' thread), which was the last one I'd finished before starting 'Empire of the Rising Sun,' I'd come close to finishing this scenario. It's based on the Contemporary (post-Cold War) Middle East, in all its grandeur and torment. I didn't finish it, as I was waiting at the time for certain key news events to occur to finish my events files. I've now finished these events files, and am now posting this scenario for comment and criticism while I wait for my 'EotRS' thread to reappear, as I need some key posts from it to finish that scen (which I hope make it through this).

BTW, when I made this scen, I didn't yet know that the editor erased unit sigs. Please forgive this error (after all, this is only a rough draft). As well, the units were taken from a number of sources, and may not all be current. If anyone wants to provide more up-to-date units (or any other graphics), please feel free.

[Patine]

Here's the first sound file.

[Patine]

Here's the second.

[Patine]

The third.

[Patine]

And finally the fourth.

[jim panse]

I will give it s shot this weekend (= Sunday late afternoon/evening). Sorry, I have no time for it earlier *shame on me*

[Patine]

No problem, Steph. I eagerly await your input.

BTW, I love your 'Highway to Hell: the Great War' scen!

[jim panse]

First impressions ...

* I think I´ve seen the layout before. I guess it´s based upon a Microprose Conflicts in Civilization scenario about the Gulf War 1991?

* The intro text is too long - at least at 1024x768 pixels its text box is too big.

I will dive deeper into it

[:) Smiley]

Some graphics suggestions to improve clarity:

- Don't mix and match city name and population number colors, put both greens to one civ and both yellows to another. Likewise, make the Israel city names white- the blue is confusing and hard to read.

-City size numbers are hard to read with the dark green, and to a lesser degree the blue

- A brighter shade of blue for the oceans and a brighter desert terrain would add to the hot desert atmosphere

-Give either the Iraqis or the Iraqi Insurgents a different shield color

-

[Eivind IV]

These are just some initial observations:

When loading either of the *.bat options, I get a message saying"events header not found". It seems no matter what option I chose it starts in 1990 with Iraq destroying all those Iraqi Rebels.

As Steph said, the intro text is way too big. Try to shorten it down to a couple of paragraphs only.

I get a little confused at the beginning with these city colours. I loaded the further war on terror scen variant. Off the bat the Iraqis, which is orange, attacks some insurgent type units outside their cities. They are red, and so are the city size colour and shield colour of the iraqis. I took a look at the ciy.gif. The barb civ is red. But you must change the shield colour in the iraqi civ to orange to distiguish these units from each other.

You should do what smiley says. It would make it much easier for the player.

In that scen variant, the coalition forces have tactical nukes on their boats in the Med. Are they supposed to?

Alos, a lot of shields are misplaced. They are not coherent with the placement of the blue dots that decide where the game shield will be. So, in game they are off the borders of the drawn on shields.

Talking of shields. You have some generic units. For example the Apache. Both the coalition and the Israeli uses this. But it has an American flag on it. So does many other units. I would maybe add a more generic shield to those units that are used by many civs, or none at all.

Maybe you could add some proper peoples.gif to the scen? Right now I'm playing with ancient Egyptions.

Some city styles should be changes as well. The Iraqi cities are western industrial. They should have the middle eastern style that the rest of the arabs have. And maybe the coalition civ could have a more turkish styled cities.

Having size 1 cities is pretty annoying as they get eradicated from the face of the earth when attacked.

Is tel-Aviv really this big?

Air forces in this scenario seems to be the deciding factor in an event of war. They are extremely effective against ground units. The Mig 21 is chopped to pieces when attacked.

I'd say that you've done a decent job, but there are indeed many things that should be corrected before released. Keep on the good job and let me know if I could assist you in any way!

[:) Smiley]

Originally posted by Kobra
Talking of shields. You have some generic units. For example the Apache. Both the coalition and the Israeli uses this. But it has an American flag on it. So does many other units. I would maybe add a more generic shield to those units that are used by many civs, or none at all.

Maybe it's a political statement

[N35t0r]

I edited the bat to play the first part, as israel, and when the more reactonary arabs attacked me the US joined and capured about 5 of their cities from Turkey... You should make them neutral or something like that.

[Patine]

@Steph: I guess you're right about the introductory text being too long; I suppose I could shorten it a bit. And, yes, the city names and locations, at least, are taken from a CiC Gulf War scen, though I added most of the CIS and all of the Afghan and Pakistani cities myself.

@Smiley: I see merit in all of your graphics suggestions. How do you change the city name color, BTW?

@Kobra: First, I'm not sure why your .bat file doesn't work; mine works just fine. Maybe check to see if it's corrupted. I've heard the US Eastern Mediterranean fleet has nukes on its subs, but the details are hard to come by; I defaulted to them being there. Chris has commented on my shields; I kind of forgot to fix them before I released this scen. Most generic units have no shields, but a few mistakes were made. Sorry. A people.gif and Iraqi cities harmonized with the other Arabs in style, as well as Turkish-style cities for the Allies would, upon reflection, improve the graphic quality of the scen. As for city sizes, most were taken directly from the CiC scen and could probably be improved. Air supremacy was sort of deliberate, given how things turned out early on in MidEast conflict; I admit it's not as appropriate in more recent struggles. If I need anything (and I think I may before this is over), I may take you up on that offer.

@N35t0r: The alliance between Israel and the US and Allies was meant to reflect political closeness; though, peace with a very good attitude may do the same, for a while...

[Patine]

@Kobra: I hope you get this before going offline. I have a few questions, which deal somewhat with your comments. First, how do you change the city's name color (and thus the dots on the map)? Second, do you know a good source of MidEast city pops as of 1990? Third, how should I adjust air units stats, given your comments on them? And fourth, should I undo the alliance between Israel and the US and Allies and just make it peace with a good attitude?

BTW, anyone else may feel free to answer these questions; I just addressed them initially to Kobra as I noticed he was online, and he had offered his help.

Thanks!

[Eivind IV]

Originally posted by Patine
@Kobra: I hope you get this before going offline. I have a few questions, which deal somewhat with your comments. First, how do you change the city's name color (and thus the dots on the map)? Second, do you know a good source of MidEast city pops as of 1990? Third, how should I adjust air units stats, given your comments on them? And fourth, should I undo the alliance between Israel and the US and Allies and just make it peace with a good attitude?

BTW, anyone else may feel free to answer these questions; I just addressed them initially to Kobra as I noticed he was online, and he had offered his help.

Thanks!

I'd love to be at service! Hope this is useful info or tips

Look at the flag. Do you see the yellow dot? That spot is what decides the shield and city name colour. If you copy the colour from the bar above the flag yo this dot, it's all good baby. The dot is 5 pixels down from the top right corner, and 4 midwards on all flags.

Do you mean pop ups as in pics? If so, I only know of google.

The stats, hmm. I took a quick view at them. The most powerful bomber seems to be the B2. It has 20 in attack, 3hp, 2fp. I would call it an overkill unit when all ground units have a defense of at most 4, and at most hp 3, 1fp. Even the "crappy" Mig21, with 4 attack and 2hp, 2fp, got to yellow after killing a couple of units. The attack stats of these planes could maybe be lowered, or the ground units defense raised. At least maybe introduce a Sam missile battery or something. Maybe a stinger unit. Or the AEGIS flag to some selected ground units to represent them carrying stingers. Just some thoughts. Take a look at Alejandro's New World Order scenario. It has many good unit ideas, to compensate for powerful air units.

The Israel thing. Hmm, USA've never aided Israel before with actual troops, and they've been attacked several times. But you could make an event where Israel could get funds if arabs invade maybe. Btw, can Iraq build cruise missiles? If not, wouldn't it be neat if Iraq had scud missiles, in range to fire at Israel?