Star Wars scenario... no, seriously!

[Alinestra Covelia]

1. Apart from eliminating Airport city improvements altogether, is there any way you can stop people from Airlifting troops?

I suspect there's a sneaky way of doing it by simply mapping the "L" key to nothing (which prevents a player from doing it in the same way as simply deleting the "Steal Tech" spy option prevents only the player) but I was wondering if there's a more elegant solution.

2. I've put a river on an impassable terrain type. The river has made the terrain passable again. Is there any way to stop this?

[Boco]

[list=1][*]Can't think of any that you haven't implied. You can remove the option from Menu.txt. AFAIK, reassigning the letter in Rules.txt changes the display in the unit's order box, but not the letter that does the dirty deed. I suppose you could permanently deploy an enemy fighter within intercept range.[*]Never seen this myself, but I've been able to create rivers in terrain that stays impassable. Perhaps if you edit more terrain types temporarily to be impassable before you create the river, then switch 'em back afterwards.[/list=1]

The problem is the ocean squares appear to be default set to movement 1. Is there any way I can reduce this for the ocean squares in map two?

Not that I know. I s'pose you could have triggers on the hyperspace map (cities or units) that lead to CreateUnit actions in the desired spot. The 0mf cost does work well with land units (except alpines).

[:) Smiley]

Does Airlift merely require an Airport or is the Radio tech also required?

[Boco]

Just the airport.

[Cyrion]

Originally posted by Boco
Just the airport.

Wrong!

I'm sure the radio tech is need (at least in MPGE) for the airport to be functional!

I learnt it the (not so) hard way while designing Discworld, and I definitely had to use the radio tech to make the airport work; before that, though the buildable, they didn't do anything...

So my advice is: make the pre-req for building the airport the radio tech (bad side of that is: with radio, you can build airbases too, so if you don't want them, no airport... )

[Boco]

Oops! Yes, I'm partially wrong! Just the "L" key command works without "Rad". The menu option is activated by Rad. I'm not much of a menu user for that operation. If you're depending on limiting air transfers by Rad instead of airports, though, you better have a House Rule about the "L" command.

That's for ToT, but I imagine MGE is the same.

[Cyrion]

Do you mean the "L" command works even without the Radio tech?? I can't swear it isn't so for MPGE, and so I might well be partially wrong too...

But maybe there is a difference between ToT and MPGE, and so we could consider both of us partially right instead?

[Broken_Erika]

Z-95 Headhunter and Y-Wings should be coming soon,

[Boco]

Originally posted by Cyrion
Do you mean the "L" command works even without the Radio tech?? ... so we could consider both of us partially right instead?

Yep, I just confirmed that it works that way in MPG, too. So, we're both right and wrong: menu command requires Rad, key command doesn't.

[Alinestra Covelia]

So practically speaking, I could just delete the keymapping of "L" so a player can't airlift units, and then delete Radio from the tech list.

That would allow airports to be built (with a separate tech) but not allow players or AI to airlift, right?

[Cyrion]

Originally posted by Alinestra Covelia
So practically speaking, I could just delete the keymapping of "L" so a player can't airlift units, and then delete Radio from the tech list.

That would allow airports to be built (with a separate tech) but not allow players or AI to airlift, right?

And I suppose they wouldn't bring any bonus upon trade delivery.. Not sure though, Boco ??

[Alinestra Covelia]

The TechTree is almost done. I've borrowed the planning ladder system used by Alpha Centauri, and given them all numerical levels to indicate how far they are on the ladder. There's a Base tech tree that's up to level 7.

I've done something that's never happened before... I've run out of Tech improvements! I only have about ten slots left to play with. As far as I can see, there are two types of improvements/units that I have to deal with.

1. The type where most civs have access to except for one or two.

2. The type where only one or two have access to, and most civs do not.

Situation 1. is pretty easy: I'm trying to build those into the Base tech tree, and then give an (unresearchable) obsoleting tech to the relevant civs.

Situation 2. is harder to solve. I'd have to burn a non-Base tech to give to the relevant Civs.

The Imperials have a pretty huge tech tree - about the same size as the Base tech tree, with top level 8 - which yield some pretty good stuff if you can be bothered to go all the way through it. This tech tree is heavily intertwined with the Base one, so the Imperial player will be facing a real momentum problem when trying for tech.
For peacekeeping purposes, they have Temples plus Mysticism plus Oracle, but the Oracle becomes obsolete if they suffer certain military defeats. Under normal circumstances, simply building a Temple will quell about four or five dissidents just like that.

Because they're in a hugely wasteful Monarchy type government, the Empire also starts off with the SETI wonder, which becomes obsolete when a certain barbarian skirmish takes place. The obsolescence of either of these will generally hurt the Empire bad.

The Rebels have a somewhat more abbreviated tech tree (mostly because they have much more limited unit choices). They get their X-Wing and Y-Wing starfighters (level 3) a bit earlier than the Imperials get their TIE Interceptors and TIE Bombers (level 4), so as long as the Rebels keep up the momentum they should do fine. They also get their Mon Cal Cruisers at about the same time as the Imperials get Victory Star Destroyers.
If they keep hammering the Imperials, the TIE Advanced and Assault Gunboat (level 6) and TIE Defender and Missile Gunboat (level 7) might never make a significant appearance.

Everybody can build the Dreadnought (early massive troopcarrier), the Assault Cruiser (early massive jet carrier) - both good for bombard. Corvettes will be quick small jetcarriers, and Assault Transports will be quick small troopcarriers, whereas Carrack Cruisers will be simply quick and small, like Destroyers in the original.

I'm trying for some vestigial tech trees for the other civs, which generally include one or two unique mass produceable units to give them a bit of color. For example, the Neutrals will have two basic ground units (attack and defense) and nothing else special, while the Hutt may have two ranks. This will be heavily dependent on whether I can pare down the tech tree more efficiently.

I've decided to make the Rebellion a Communism-styled government, to show it's easier for them to maintain happiness but they still need to devote some energy to it - they also would have suffered under the science cap. Not only will their Spies be Veterans, but they will also be the only ones able to build Spy Bothan units. Every else will have to make do with R2-D2s.

The Separatists are a Fundamentalism, and they can churn out infinite numbers of 1-row Combatdroids. They also receive a set amount of gold every turn, to reflect their profits and their low operating costs.

Finally there's the Extragalactic nation, which will sort of be like a second barbarian race (even moreso than the Hutt). Their sole purpose will be to lurk unhealthily in the wings of the galaxy, sending occasional ships to raid and pillage other nations. They get all the techs they need at the start and just spend their time being militaristic from there on.

I'm thinking of giving some sides special characters. Palpatine and Vader, for example, continually respawn at various points around the Imperial galaxy if they are defeated in combat by anything other than Luke Skywalker, and vice versa. If those three are ever defeated for good, various units or wonders stop working.

Once the Emperor is killed, however, several of the Rebels' own wonders also stop working, to reflect the stated aims of the Rebellion have been achieved.

[:) Smiley]

Tech trees with storylines are always good. With this many sides though, it is easy to run out of techs. Maybe those that aren't intended for human player use can have their tech trees pared down and the effects of said tech fudged through other means.

[Broken_Erika]

some star destroyers and z-95's
....crap,

[Broken_Erika]

here,