MALTA! 0.1 BETA availible!

[rmsharpe]

Link to the download page. It's in the first post.

The information below is a repost from the first post in the CDG thread.

Be sure to read the readme file before starting! Don't forget to add your comments on gameplay, etc.

Also, sounds and an updated Civilopedia will be added when all necessary gameplay tweaks are made.

====================

MALTA!

June 19th, 1984.

Dom Mintoff, Prime Minister of Malta, leader of the Labour Party of Malta, suffered a stroke and died in office at the age of 67. Mintoff would in some ways be remembered as a hero of Malta, but others may remember him as the man who befriended Libya's military dictator Col. Mu'ammar Qadaffi.

After Mintoff's death, a potential successor cannot be found, so Malta's House of Representatives called for a new election to be held the following month, in which two of Malta's veteran politicians step up for a fierce campaign. Coming to the surprise of many, the Maltese Nationalist Party candidate wins with 53 percent of the vote.

On July 27th, 1984, Edward Adami became Prime Minister of Malta. In his first address to the nation, the new Prime Minister had stated that he wished to reconcile ties with the United States and the European Economic Community.

A few weeks have passed since. The soothing waves of seawater crash against the rocks on Valetta's beaches, as to a distance a large freighter sailing from Libya begins to come into range of Malta. Such a sight is not uncommon in Malta, for Prime Minister Mintoff had been supportive of Col. Qadaffi's regime.

This ship, however, is one of many...and it's not carrying oil or goods. Instead, thousands of Libyan soldiers are preparing for an amphibious assault on Malta's southern coastline!

...

Can the Maltese, under your command, expel the invaders?

or

Can you lead the Libyans to a glorious victory?

...

Find out in MALTA!

-----

Historical Background

Dom Mintoff was the Prime Minister of Malta until he resigned in December of 1984. He was a socialist and a friend of Col. Qadaffi's.

And believe it or not, he's still alive at the age of 88.

-----

Gameplay Features

Malta's pro-Western government will be able to enlist the support of the USA, the UK, and more!

Beware! Libya can do the same, and call on their allies! The Cubans, North Koreans, and maybe even more sinister characters will come to Qadaffi's aid...

[curtsibling]

Grabbing it right now!



Damned good to see this one at last, rmsharpe!
Looking over the events, you have captured the coldwar tone perfectly!

I will play a game and get back with some feedback!

[Sarsstock]

Indeed you are Curt. There's a Cold War party on Malta and everybody's invited it seems. The graphics look great and the scale of the conflict is just perfect for the scenario.

I'll have have more comments upon further playesting.

[rmsharpe]

Thanks! Both of your kind words really mean a lot, being both well-respected (and deservedly so) members of the Civ2 world.

[Arthedain]

Just played through the scenario as Malta. On day 22 I expelled the Libyans from the main island. The AI was pretty dumb, not invading the island in the upper left corner, instead it sent backup to the main island. Anyways, using some pillaging of roads on one place, I could concentrate my counterattacks on another flank. I'm too tired to give you a more detailed report, but I did enjoy the scenario Next time I will try as the Libyans, and with a harder difficulty than Colonel.

[rmsharpe]

Unfortunately, the AI is very dumb, so the Libyans don't attack the upper island. Does anyone have any good ideas for a remedy of this? I've been thinking of just dumping some units here and not putting any transports up there.

[AGRICOLA]

I'm playing as Field Marshal and have only done a few turns of a scorched earth defensive strategy. A couple of Libyan Inf did land on North Island on Day 2 but haven't done much since. Would a GOTO make transports land units on N. iSLAND?

I'm disappointed by the inactivity of the Libyan air force. You might try changing their role from 3 to 0 (attack) to goose them into action. Case did that very successfully in Raging Dragon.

[rmsharpe]

Good idea, an attack role would be good for the Libyan planes.

[AGRICOLA]

You may want to do a minor fixup on the units icons. Some of the blue pixels that locate the health bars seem to be slightly off, disabling the bars. The ones that I've changed include the F-4, M-113 and T-72.

I don't know if you are being extra nice to those of us who ruthlessly sell off unneeded city improvements but the 40+ Police Services are of no help whatsoever to the Maltese. Selling them not only saves 80+ £ monthly but has increased the cash strapped Maltese treasury to £ 2600 on Day 2. The Maltese are waiting to use the cash to IRB F-4's when the requisite tech is discovered on Day 4.

If that much cash is not what you intended, you might consider removing all Police Services

BTW, the popup that appeared when I tested if Libyan engineers can build airfields is hilarious.

No question that, at 316 sq km, the country really isn't very big. Some of the "cities" must be hamlets or villages.

[rmsharpe]

Do'h! Meant to fix those units. Thanks for bringing that back to my attention. I fixed them immediately and they'll be included next time here in the next day or so.

The police services are the courthouse improvement, and I thought some cities needed those. Did they not have a significant impact on city production/commerce?

Yes, Malta is also terribly small and underpopulated to make a good sized scenario, so a lot of those little towns there are hardly a gas station and a couple houses.

I tried to simulate that smallness effect by not having things like factories and superhighway improvements and renaming them as smaller-sounding improvements, as they'd probably by themselves fill up the entire island.

My memory is also terrible, I forgot to include a title image! I'll include one in my next update. Sounds will also be coming. One of the hardest parts of doing this was getting every unit coordinated to the right sound spots. Maybe next time I should just go for TOT, it'd be easier.

[AGRICOLA]

A Courthouse (Police Service) does the following:

Decreases corruption by 50%. Makes city more resistant
to bribery by enemy diplomats and spies. Under Democracy, one content citizen becomes happy.

There are no diplos or spies in the scen and Malta is a Republic. The corruption affects research so it becomes very much a judgement call. The Police Services in the smaller cities can be sold off because the cities produce little research. Cities close to the capital have very low corruption so there is little loss of research if they have no Police Service.

I think that the question boils down to whether a player should be able to start Day 5 or 6 with a dozen or so F-4's or M-48 MBT's. I'm after the F-4's but others may prefer M-48's. My concern is that this early influx of either powerful unit may unbalance the scenario.

Perhaps we should wait until we see how long it takes the Maltese to wipe out the Libyans when playing at the Field Marshal level.

EDIT: Fuzzy thinking.

[Sarsstock]

This conflict reminds me of the fictional "Casablanca" scenario Case made afew years back, I believe it was Case anyways. It was the same idea, a small local conflict where the larger cold war players became involved and threatened to spark hostilities around the world.

It would be interesting to see other scenario's along these lines, from tiny South Pacific Island nations to small Middle Eastern Kingdoms and Emirates, to the Mediteranian and Caribean, scenarios where small conflicts are fought by the major world powers.

Do you have any other idea's for scenario's such as these rmsharpe?

[rmsharpe]

I think for now, I'd want to stick to larger-scale conflicts, because getting down to this is getting a little small. I'm tossing a few ideas around in my head, but don't have anything in stone as of yet.

[AGRICOLA]

The game is going along very well. The 15 F-4's that were completed Day 5 have wreaked havoc on Libyan units and smashed their advance.

But I've hit a problem with EVENTS. On discovery of the US Support tech, there is no popup, Malta doesn't get a 5000 cash bonus and doesn't receive any US Inf units. However, it can build US Inf.

To be absolutely sure, I tested this by re-extracting all files from the MaltaB1 zip, ran the malta DOS batch file and started the scen at Colonel level. I selected Consumer Society as the first tech to be researched and put all Maltese units to sleep. Consumer Society was discovered on Day 2 and research switched to US Support. When US Support was discovered on Day 4, none of the expected things happened. I repeated this several times.

The only unusual thing that I can see is that in the Science Advisor's list of discovered techs, US Support is not shown in white letters. Apparently the Maltese are not the first to discover it.

Any ideas or suggestions?

[rmsharpe]

It shouldn't matter if you discover it first, and I don't know why it shows it as being that way, maybe the barbarians have it already.

But like I said, it shouldn't matter since in the events text it is conditional only to the Maltese and not anyone else. I've ran it twice and it's worked normally.

I can't say I've really got a clue.