Finally - Empire of the Rising Sun Full Beta

[Patine]

Thanks for the initial comments. I may have well overstacked the Pearl Harbour planes; in my playtest, I had some left to attack Hilo and Midway Island. Japan starts with so many units so they can perform their initial series of rapid conquests, but attrition and high unit costs slow that down. I may likely take your advice on the far Northern US cities (I assume you mean Fairbanks and Yellowknife) and stack the West Coast. As for mining icons and US/Brit Cities, I'd be most grateful. Looking forward to more reports!

[Patine]

Oh, and the red cities build only Neutral Garrisons, up to the typical barb limit. I may raise their build cost to 160 shields (seeming max for unit cost). As for the button shields, those are courtesy of Chris. And I plan fully edited flavour text for the final version.

[curtsibling]

Great stuff!

Just don't make my Dictator mistake of those minor civs filling the map with dud units....!

[Sarsstock]

Speaking of taking Curt's leads, I went and put together this compilation of "waving" flags similar to the ones Curt used in Dictator. The fact that they're waving, at least to me makes them look more like flags as oppose to simply slanted graphics.

I can't wait to see what Curt's further advice on the graphics will lead to.

[our_man]

Is my scenario so bad no one is willing to post a criticism for fear of offending me? C'mon guys, I put a lot of work into this scenario. At least give me something, if even a scathing (but please constructive) criticism. I've faced worse for my projects.

It takes some time to play through a scenario, especially one such as this with so many units to move. So the only comments I can really offer you immediately or that the unit graphics are incredible, the tech tree looks great and the Japanese seem to be completely overpowered from the start. Keep in mind I'm only on turn 2, so I could be in for a shock yet, but at the moment it doesn't look too difficult.

[Broken_Erika]

Originally posted by Sarsstock
Speaking of taking Curt's leads, I went and put together this compilation of "waving" flags similar to the ones Curt used in Dictator. The fact that they're waving, at least to me makes them look more like flags as oppose to simply slanted graphics.

I can't wait to see what Curt's further advice on the graphics will lead to.

personally i prefer these kind of "waving flags", mabe you i think this style is the most relistic,

[AGRICOLA]

This really has nothing to do with EOTRS specifically, but you could save a lot of Events space in the future if you took a look at how COUNT= and RANDOMIZE are used in scens like Dictator TOT and Market-Garden.

[AGRICOLA]

I'm still looking things over.

The first turn money bug is alive and doing well. Taking Kuala Lumpur and Quezon City on turn 1 empties the Brit and US treasuries. If you wish, I can remove the bug in the next version.

The industrial squares pose a problem for players because it is impossible to tell whether the square has a road, a RR or neither. They look a lot like the industrial squares in Curt's Dictator TOT, the ones whose icon I had to change to a small industrial plant with a scarlet roof for visibility and to be able to see topography and roads/RR's.

I'm a bit disappointed that there are no resource rich cities in SE Asia. Balikpapan (check your spelling) with its oil fields and Malayan cities with rubber and tin might be expected to generate a significant number of either shields or trade arrows.


The following points are from the README.

1.)Make the Philipines, Burma, Malaya, Singapore, Hong Kong, the Dutch East Indies, New Guinea, the Solomons, and the Aleutians your first priority. Taking them all by mid-1942 will make the events work best (and you should begin with enough forces to do it).

Hawaii still looks like a tempting target, ripe for capture on turn 3 or 4.

2.)When Freight and adjacent Freighters are generated in Southeast Asia, load the Freight onto the Freighter and take it to cities in the Japanese Home Islands (Tokyo, Osaka, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Kagoshima, Niigata, Sapporo, and Naha).

I assume that it is OK to rehome the NONE freights in SE Asia before delivering them to the Home Islands. NONE freights generate almost nothing in cash or flasks. If they cannot be rehomed a player may do better by disbanding them in Home Island cities.

Open a trade route (despite the fact no Japanese home city demands 'SE Asian Goods,' you'll make up for the loss of trade in the volume of this Freight) Then, disband the Freighter in a Home Island port for shields

Meaning of "make up for the loss of trade in the volume of this Freight" is not clear.

DO NOT use Freighters as free troop transports; though they may pick up troops stranded at sea because their Landing Craft was destroyed, they MUST then deposit them in a friendly port, not an attack beach.

DO NOT use these free Freight (Freights?) to trade with cities not on the Home Islands, or disband Freighters in other cities.

WARNING: after a time, US Submarines will make shipping lanes in the area unsafe.

These rules also apply to the one Freight and one Freighter in French Polynesia (no more will be generated free there).


3.)Build ONLY Thai Infantry in Thai cities (Bangkok, Nakhon Sawan, Mae Soi, Chumphong, and Songkhia), build ONLY French Indochinese Inf in French Indochines and French Polynesian cities (Saigon, Hue, Hanoi, Phnomh Penh, Vientiane, and Papeete), at least until late '43 when the Japanese can be assumed to have 'invaded' them, and, build ONLY Kantogun Hohei in Manchuran cities (Shenyang, Kirin, and Harbin); DO NOT build these units in other cities. For garrisons in captured cities, use Kempetei [red]Kempetai?[/red] on the mainland and Senpaku Hohei on other islands (and non-Asian continents).

I think that 3.) is extremely unclearly written, puts unreasonable demands on players and, in part, makes no sense.

A. Does "until late '43" apply only to Thai and French cities or also Manchuria? Why '43?
Didn't the Japanese gain control of French Idochina in 1940 or '41 and Manchuria in 1931, the date given in the Intro. Certainly. Manchurian cities should be able to build any unit. What is meant by "late '43"? Does this mean that Thai, French and Manchurian cities cannot build city improvements at any time? Can they Capitalize rather than build lousy units?

B. I do not at all understand the house rule about using particular units to garrison certain cities. I read it as something that asks players to play stupidly rather than to the best of their abilities. Are players restricted to only those units or can they sneak in the odd Zero or 88mm AA?

C. The whole business of building only unit A in certain cities, having other cities that can build only unit B, using unit C to garrison particular cities while unit D must be used elsewhere is a recipe for mass confusion, especially for players who have bothered to read the README.

You know the scen far better than any of us. Is there really no way to cut down on both the number and complexity of the house rules?

I may not like house rules but I'm very much for any necessary ones. You may want to add one to the effect that 2-engined bombers cannot land or take off from carriers. [HINT]In this regard, I did manage to persuade one excellent designer that bombers could be loaded onto a carrier in one city and offloaded in another, more or less like the B-25's of the Doolittle raid were loaded on the Hornet.[/HINT]

I'm going to hold off playing until at least some of the above concerns have been addressed.

[Patine]

I see your many points here, AGRICOLA. Certainly, I only dictated garrisons to avoid the player building regional units (Thai Infantry, French Indochinese Inf, and Kantogun Hohei) in other cities. I should change that to otherwise allow any unit to be built in a city. As for those regions (Thailand, French Indochina, and Manchuria) I'll settle for starting regional units there, otherwise build as you please. And feel free to rehome Freight. I didn't think of that actually; duh! In the next version, I'll add more industry to certain SE Asian cities and use your mining icon. And, go for Hawaii on turn 3 or 4; I'll add that one.

[AGRICOLA]

Thanks for sorting out my questions so quickly, especially the ones which dealt with very fundamental aspects of playing the scen. Honolulu, brace yourself. Here come the brave soldiers of the Emperor.

BTW, please believe me, you don't want my small, childish, grey cube with its red top, two black smokestacks and 6 black pixels for windows. It looks like something done by a slightly backward kindergarten brat. Unfortunately, I can't remember which scen has a truly excellently rendered headframe and mine.

[Patine]

Good stuff, AGRICOLA! I saw the glaring issues as soon as you mentioned them. Please get back to me with more. And anyone else whose trying this one, too.

[N35t0r]

I can't seem to find either of my civ2 CD's... If all else fails, I'll burn a backup one with an empty civ2 folder..

[AGRICOLA]

End of TURN 1

1. I found the first turn to be much too easy and Japanese progress too fast. Some of the Japanese units are very strong and they have a lot of them. In my previous test, a total of 6 enemy cities were captured in Dec '41. This time 15 were captured, primarily because of my better appreciation of the abilities of Japanese units and how to best employ them.

2. Lhasa, Urumchi and Kashgar are the sole remaining Chinese Nationalist strongholds. The ChiComs are hanging on to Ulan Bator, Thimpu and Kathmandu. To make the conquest of China more difficult, would you consider giving the Chinese the Partisan tech. It does not seem unreasonable for them to have it and it would really slow down the Japanese Blitzkrieg in Dec '41.

3. I think that I used some questionable methods in getting the 3 Freights as far as Shantung, from where they can be delivered to Tokyo in Jan '42 if they can board a Landing Craft after the Freighter reaches Kagoshima. All 3 were rehomed to Bangkok, freighted to near Saigon, transferred to a waiting Freighter, freighted to near Nanning, transferred to the next Freighter and then freighted to Shantung. I don't think that this should be possible.

Rehoming Freights has greatly altered what I believe you intend . . . . . simply load a Freight on a Freighter and take it to Japan with no side trips for rehoming. Rehoming brings up the possibility of Freights moving by road/RR and loading more than one Freight on a Freighter.

A solution might be to spawn both a Freight and a Freighter in a port city. The first such pair can be spawned only in Bangkok. The second pair can spawn only in Balikpapan, if and when the the city is captured by the Japanese. The third pair can only spawn in an Indian or Australian city once it has been captured. This would model the increasing resource traffic resulting from Japanese conquests, especially if the number of trade arrows increases from Bangkok to Balikpapan to city Z. Also, set Freighters so that they can carry only 1 Freight, do not allow Landing Ships to carry Freights and forbid road/RR movement by spawned Freights (but only SPAWNED Freights). The way I see it, once thousands of tons of freight are aboard a freighter, they should stay there until the ship reaches Japan.

4. You eliminating a couple of the confusingly named Japanese units has helped a lot. However, I got tired of having to click on icons to distinguish Senpaku Hohei, Kempeitai and Giyugen Hohei. They now have been issued lurid green, blue and red helmets. The lads with the red helmets cannot be disbanded. Also, the Type 97's now have a radio antenna with a bright blue pennant to distinguish them from the Type 94's. My abject apologies to Gareth for butchering his super artwork in the interest of expediency.

[atawa]

I cant load the scenario, says its from a newer version then the game? Anyone know how to fix this?

[Patine]

@AGRICOLA: I fully agree with your ideas on spawnd Freight and Chinese partisans. I'd have to switch the Chinese Infantry and Chindit unit slots, I think. Keep me posted?

@atawa: Are you trying to load it with MGE or ToT? It is a ToT scen.