MALTA! 0.1 BETA availible!

[Leonidas]

Originally posted by AGRICOLA


I liked it a lot, especially the transition from desperate defense to all-out offense. Also, there was a pretty good Exodus democracy game in progress at the time. It provided a yardstick for how well I was managing to make a mess of things.

Sorry, but that's the only Israeli-Arab scen that I've tried.

Thanks bud

I will give it a try.

Some of these scenarios could use a graphics update.

BTW, browsing the Civ fanatics site I noticed there is a collection of Israel's wars called "Under Seige: The Wars of Israel", by Insurgent. It includes all the wars Israel fought.

I might also give that a try too.

Cheers!

[Sarsstock]

In my opinion "Under Siege" was the best of the Arab-Israeli conflict scenarios. Its events texts and overall setup was well ahead of its time, but yes the graphics are unfortunatly dated by todays measures. Does anyone know "Insurgent"? If so, perhaps he could be coaxed into giving the game a much needed graphical update.

If he's not active in the Civ II community however, perhaps somebody here on Apolyton could take the job upon themselves to conduct the update. I think it would be of great bennifit to the community.

[rmsharpe]

Insurgent is out of business, as it were. He lurks on CFC sometimes, but isn't really an active member.

[Leonidas]

If anyone does play the "Under Siege" scenarios be sure to read the comments about the scenarios on the CF forums.

The playtesters provided some advice for changes in them.

Unfortuntely, Insurgent never implemented the changes in a v2.0 of the scenario package.

Fortunately, many of these changes can be done by anyone easily via Rules.txt. The worst problem cited were the Israeli jets: they were too powerful and could attack many times on one turn.

To solve this: tone down the attack values plus give the jets the bomber movement of 2 - ie they can only move once and attack once on their turn.

Cheers!

[Sarsstock]

You wouldn't know where one could download a copy of "Under Seige" would you Leonidas? I lost the copy I had but would love to take a crack at some of those graphics.

Anyways, back to Malta. Have you given any thought rmsharpe to a sequel to Malta? I loved the text pop ups where we see just how angry both Thatcher and Regan would have been in the event of the fall of Malta. This I think set the stage wonderfully for a "a full-scale invasion of Libya" as Thatcher was quoted as saying in the pop up. I honestly can't see either Regan, Thatcher or any other NATO leader allowing Lybian troops and airplanes to be based a mere 150 km from the Sicilian shore.

[rmsharpe]

Sarsstock, you are very perceptive. I have planned on/thought about making a Libya invasion scenario. The question would be: make it between just the USA/NATO versus Libya, or to include other regional states like Egypt, Tunisia, and Chad (Libya's second front.)

As for Reagan's fury against Libya, there were many incidents between the U.S. and Libya in the 1980s. In 1981, we shot down two Libyan planes flying in the Mediterranean.

Libyan planes and ships continually violated the airspace surrounding U.S. warships in the mid-80s, thus leading to a number of skirmishes between USN fighters and Libyan planes.

I'm still confused about Qadaffi sending out Libyan planes evena after their ineffectiveness had been proven time and time again.

[Leonidas]

Originally posted by Sarsstock
You wouldn't know where one could download a copy of "Under Seige" would you Leonidas? I lost the copy I had but would love to take a crack at some of those graphics.

Sarsstock:

I think updating the graphics for the scenaro is a great idea.

Also read about the scenario improvement suggestions in the thread located at the download site.

The "Under Seige" scenario package (plus sounds) can be downloaded below (scroll down about 1/4 of the page):

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ2/downloads/scenarios/modern1/

[Sarsstock]

Well Leonidas I just downloaded "Under Seige" and have started the unit tweaking. It will take some time to modernize all the graphics involved in the game, the units, cities, icons and terrain and such. Also, do you know where I can find the suggestions you say were made by the various playtesters in regards to the possible changes to the rules.txt? I also remember that just before the great crash of '05 Steph had posted a unitset of modern warships he intended to use in Oktyabr I believe. Does anybody still have a copy of these warships at all?

Anyways, back to Malta. I would definatly suggest including Lybia's neighbours in the conflict, as its easy to imagine an invasion of Lybian soil sparking a wider conflict in the region. Besides, you did such a good job of internationalizing the battle for Malta I'd love to see the same idea in any sequel.

[Leonidas]

Sarsstock:

Go to the same place you downloaded the scenario. In the scenario description box there is a link that will take you to the discussion on the scenario.

EDIT: here's the link to the discussion:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=29373

PS: Maybe we should start a separate thread for the update for Under Siege.

[AGRICOLA]

@rmsharpe

Could you please check your PM. I sent you a message on 11-6 which you seem to have missed.

[gerryandersson]

Realy good work on this scenario.

[Sarsstock]

A great scenario indeed. I for one can't wait for the sequel when the US and Great Britain invade Lybia itself to remove the Qadaffi threat of North Africa once and for all.

I just wonder in such a scenario if Malta would be included on any such game map? Even if it would, I imagine it couldn't be much bigger than a single terrain hex with the city of Valletta.

[AGRICOLA]

I enjoyed playing the scen, even though it was a very short 10 turn game. I have some suggestions which might make the scen a truly desperate fight. I don’t think that the MALTA scenario needs much altering to make it a fair challenge for everybody.

I think that different EVENTS files for playing the Libyans and the Maltese are the easiest way, and probably the only way, to make the scen more difficult yet playable as either side. Alternately, you could make the scen playable only as Malta.

For simplicity, from here on, my comments assume that a player is playing Malta and that there are two EVENTS files.

1. IMO, the overall unit balance is good, especially the fact that the Mig-23's are definitely superior to F-4's and the other Mig's also have an edge on their Maltese counterparts. The only exceptions are the overly powerful US Inf and, possibly, the Leopard MBT. Reducing the US Inf to Mv=1 but keeping their other abilities might be a good idea. I'm no expert on tank performance but, for the sake of balance, it might be better if the Leopard did not have an edge on the T-72.

2. In addition to special events for outsider aid, the Libyans should receive regular reinforcements. The most compact way in terms of EVENTS space would be the method that Nemo uses in Red Front, where killing a German unit results in the spawning of one or more new German units.

@IF
UNITKILLED
unit=Wehrmacht
attacker=Soviets
defender=Germans
@THEN
CREATEUNIT
unit=Wehrmacht
owner=Germans
veteran=yes
homecity=None
locations
53,103
56,126
endlocations
@ENDIF

This approach would allow maintaining the initial Libyan unit strength without running the risk of giving them too many units. All new units would have to be spawned outside cities to avoid making some cities almost impossible to capture.

If the Libyans started with 6 or more re-spawning Mig 23's, it would pose major problems for the Maltese.

3. I think that the only way that you can have a significant fight on North Island is for the Libyans to hold 2 cities at the south end of the island at the start of the scen. This would be interesting because NI is a bit of a backwater right now. If you wanted to be really nasty, you could even have enough Libyan forces on NI so that they could conquer the island, making it necessary for the Maltese to reconquer it.

[rmsharpe]

OK, I've neglected this long enough

I'll get back into it here in the next day or so.

[H Tower]

/me checks the date of the last post.

Get back to work, slacker!