Finally - Empire of the Rising Sun Full Beta

[Sarsstock]

I might have given these to you already but I'm not sure. They're large icons of flags from EOTRS that I modified out of the red flag that was in the icon set Curt used in Dictator .

Flags like this could possibly be used to represent civ specific techs perhaps, or any number of wonders with just afew edits.

[Patine]

You actually did give them to me already, but thanks for the thought. Appreciate it!

[curtsibling]

Nice!

[curtsibling]

I will be working on a range of new WW2 cities soon!

So I probably can produce those Dutch cities also...

[Patine]

Thanks greatly if you could, Curt!

[AGRICOLA]

The name Balikpapen is misspelled as Balkpapen in all 6 events files, resulting in NONE freights from that city.

Also, some of the freighters spawned in the south are a long way from Japan and can take 4 or 5 turns to get to a homeland city. They use up a significant fraction of the limited support shields available in some of the cities. Any chance of making them NONE? The alternative would be to rehome them on the way to Japan.

[Patine]

The spelling of Balikpapen will be fixed, and freighters will be created with a NONE home city. Thanks for pointing that out.

[AGRICOLA]

There is a Bermuda Triangle in the Pacific

The attached save is from the start of the Nov '42 Japanese turn.

1. Note the US task group of 16 ships cruising off Tokyo.
2. End the turn by using the End Turn option in the ORDERS pulldown.
3. The task force has vanished, a miracle that the Japanese attribute to the same Divine Wind that once saved them from a Mongol invasion fleet. Sadly, the explanation is much more mundane.

The phenomenon appears to be a variation of what I discovered some time ago when testing How Few Remain by our_man. The relevant post is at

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=90131

On the turn that the Rebs took Boston, a Union port city, there was a stack of 4 Union ships in the Bermuda Triangle, just NW of the British base at Bermuda.

The stack contained

Frigate (NONE)
Monitor (Boston)
Monitor (NONE)
Frigate (Boston)

When the Rebs captured Boston, all 4 ships were lost, rather than only the two homed to Boston.
A little bit of testing found that, if any stack contains one or more ships homed to a city that is captured, the whole stack is lost. It does not matter if the other ships, ground units or aircraft in the stack are homed to NONE or to other cities. Also, somewhat dismayingly, the same thing happens to a human player’s stack if the AI captures the home city of one of the ships in a stack. Furthermore, the bug is present in both scenarios and regular CIV II games.

In the present case, the cause is Seattle going into anarchy and the AI trying to restore order by taking squares out of production to create more Elvises.

Unfortunately, the AI takes one too many squares out of production and creates a shortfall of 3 shields. Consequently, the 3 ships in the stack which are homed to Seattle are no longer supported and are disbanded. This destroys the rest of the stack.

Also, just north of the task force are 2 AA units bobbing up and down in the Pacific. Back in June '42, this started out as a stack of 6 ground units homed to Oakland and San Francisco. The cities have had problems with anarchy since then so that only 2 units still remain.

You may want to rehome a lot of units to NONE at the start of the scen; it is the unhappiness with away units that is causing major happiness problems for the US.

Three additional, minor points:
Should Naval Armor be added to the Yamato BB tech tree?
There is no reason why anyone would ever build a Hydro Plant.
You may want to blank out the pollution triangles that appear on city screens. They are useless clutter in a scen with no pollution or global warming.


After capturing the last 2 island cities in the south Pacific, I intend to spend '43 in preparing for the American counterattack in '44 and '45. Three trade routes to Sydney will be established for all cities and 20+ freights will continue to be delivered monthly. The express Pusan - Sigapore and India - China RR's will be completed. Money making and production improvements will be built in all cities that warrant it. The defences of many island and front line cities will be improved by transforming city squares to hills (already under way in many cities). A minimum of 3 or 4 vet 88mm AA units will garrison all cities that may be possible targets for US or Soviet attacks. All airbases that might be used by the enemy will be pillaged. The disbanding of all original infantry and naval units will be completed (including any Giyugen Hohei that I can get my hands on ) and replaced by superior units. In other words, Japan is going to adopt a defensive posture. However, if required, the 65 Howies sitting idle near Peking can spearhead any needed major offensive.

I'm doing this in order to be able to fully test both versions of events in '44 and '45.

[AGRICOLA]

I’ve finally finished the Dec ‘43 turn. I find that the scen is not playing the way that I believe you would like. Here are the biggest problems I’ve had playing 1943 (option 2).

I should add that I have used ’43 only as a year to improve the Japanese economy and defences. In Jan ’43, Japan held everything except Syney west of a line between Sapporo and Papeete. By Dec ’43, all cities have 3 trade routes with Sydney (American), marketplace, bank, stock market and, if warranted, superhighways. The net monthly income is 15,000+ million yen, more than enough to RB much of what is needed. All front line cities have 3-5 fortified AA units plus fighters and bombers. Wherever possible, front line city terrain has been transformed from grassland/plains to hills. Well over half of cities have Munitions Plants.


AMERICAN UNITS IN CHINA

The American units spawned in China are not even a minor nuisance to the Japanese. When they first appear in Jan ‘43, they are all near cities and it doesn’t require much skill to locate and kill the 11 units and then use Kihei (later replaced by food freights) to block the spawning sites.

You might try the following:
a. In Rules 2, change the Communist Chinese into a partisan unit which can pillage roads and RR’s. Use RANDOM, COUNT= and RANDOMIZE to spawn them all over backwoods China but not near cities where they are too easy to spot.
b. Forget about introducing American ground units in China; historically it didn’t happen. Instead throw in both P-40’s and B-24’s so that there is more punch to the air units. Again, do not spawn them where they are easy to locate. Make the Japanese search for them.

None of the spawned units will be able to capture cities but they should be a significant and continuing nuisance.

PROGRAMMING NOTE:

I think that you need to take a hard look at TOT scens by Techumseh, Curtsibling etc to see how to fully use the features possible in TOT events.

For example, rather than using 11 MGE-type events to generate 11 US Marines and Warhawks, very much a brute force method which makes player countermeasures easy,

@IF
TURN
turn=every
@THEN
CREATEUNIT
owner=Americans
unit=US Marines
veteran=yes
homecity=none
locations
44,108
endlocations
@ENDIF


take advantage of what TOT offers and use 2 events like the one below to achieve much more than can be done with the 11 MGE type events.


@IF
TURN
turn=every
@THEN
CREATEUNIT
unit= US Marines
Count=n
owner=Americans
veteran=yes
homecity=none
randomize
locations
X1,Y1
X2,Y2
.
.
.
.
.
Xn,Yn
endlocations
@ENDIF

This saves a great deal of events space and makes player responses much more difficult. Sorry, but I have no idea of how many alternate spawning locations can be included in one event.


SUBMARINES

Events spawn some cowardly, running dog US subs SW of Japan. Rather than looking for Japanese naval targets, all immediately head back to Honolulu and Waikiki Beach. It probably would not hurt to try spawning them in the Sea of Japan, Yellow Sea, East China Sea, Formosa Strait and anywhere else where there might be Japanese sea traffic.

Actually, as is, the subs pose no problem. If you check the save, you’ll see that all Freighters on their way to Japan travel in stacks and every stack includes an obsolete Hayabusa fighter. This makes them impervious to subs.

You can fix that problem by giving subs the “can attack air units” flag. This allows them to attack freighters even if the freighters are stacked with aircraft. Come to think of it, this might be a good idea for naval and ground units specific to the AI. It negates the old player trick of using an aircraft to protect stacks of naval or ground units from all but fighter attacks.


88mm AA Guns

Curtsibling mentions earlier in this thread that he had reservations about this unit. He was right to have some reservations. If the unit is used properly, it makes the defence overwhelmingly powerful against air attacks.

I ran a small test at Agana which was garrisoned by 3 vet, fortified 88mm AA and a vet Zero. Like all Japanese front line cities from Sapporo to Papeete, engineers had transformed the city terrain to hills (+100% defence). 15 vet American B-29’s were used to attack the city. All were destroyed by the defenders who suffered heavy damage but no losses.

The only units which do reasonably well in this situation are vet battleships and 15cm field guns. Only 5 BB’s were lost and 3 damaged before the defenders were destroyed. 15cm field guns did even better because they did not have to contend with a Coastal Fortress.



AMPHIBIOUS ATTACKS

You apparently haven’t playtested the Tarawa invasion. The event does not work. An empty Landing Craft appears offshore but no other units. I’ve seen discussions somewhere in the SL forum to the effect that ground units cannot be spawned aboard a ship at sea. Consequently, cities on 1 square islands are almost impossible for the AI to capture.

The Bougainville and New Georgia invasions are a waste of event space. If the Japanese sink the accompanying landing craft, the ground units will spend the rest of the war beachcombing and eating coconuts.

The unit mixes for the invasions of New Guinea (Hollandia, Port Moresby) and New Britain (Rabaul) are incapable of carrying out their intended missions. Firstly, the invasion stacks are inadequately protected during the turn when they are spawned. Including a couple of AA and some aircraft in the invasion stack would make Japanese countermeasures much more difficult. Secondly, the invasion forces include no units designed to attack cities (i.e. with ignore city walls flags). The invasion forces need to include B-24’s, 105mm Howies, 15 cm Field Guns and BB’s if they are to have any hope of actually capturing cities. Marines and tanks may be historically accurate but are incapable of capturing cities in this game.

If you need to attack any cities that are on 1-square islands, I would suggest increasing the size of the islands to at least 2 squares so that you can spawn the invading ground and air force on land. Furthermore, to eliminate any Japanese units which might occupy the spawning square (either coincidentally or as a deliberate tactic by smartass players), consider a CHANGETERRAIN before spawning the invasion stack. This will both destroy any units that occupy the square and eliminate stackability. However, if the new terrain is mountains, then the units should be able to withstand most Japanese attempts to destroy them. Keep reinforcing the invasion force until the city is taken. Techumseh’s Market Garden scen has some excellent examples of how flags can be used to control events so that more reinforcements aren’t spawned once the city is captured and the changed square can be restored if necessary.


MISCELLANY

There is an error in 5Events. The SR.sav file does not load properly after selecting #5 in Sunrise.bat.

The Atomic Bomber tech should be given to US by events at the appropriate time. In the present game, if the AI doesn’t waste time researching Future Techs, the Americans can get Atomic Bomber in Dec ’43.

The Japanese-Soviet alliance is interesting. There are a few Soviet freights wandering around but otherwise the alliance has posed no problems so far. However it allows the Japanese to build their own version of the Trans-Siberian RR, linking all Soviet cities. I don’t know if the alliance will be broken by events but, if that happens, Japan will be in a position to carry out the mother of all Blitzkriegs.

Increasing the cost of Yamato-class BB’s to 350 shields appears to work just fine.

The US M-26 Pershing did not appear until late 1944.


I had a bit of trouble with the syntax in the following message from 2Events:

“At the end of this turn, save a game as SR.sav, retire, check your
victory status, then activate the Sunrise.bat, and select option 3
if you have won, when you retire, a Japanese stalemate or any level
of defeat, or select option 4 if you have won, when you reitire, a
Japanese marginal or decisive victory, then reload the SR.sav file
and begin the next turn.”

The following is a bit simpler and you don’t need to retire.

At the end of this turn, save the game as SR.sav.
Check your CIVILIZATION SCORE and activate the Sunrise.bat file.
If there is a stalemate or any level of Japanese defeat select option 3.
If the Japanese have won a marginal or decisive victory select option 4.
Then reload the SR.sav file and begin the next turn.


I did a fast forward through 1944 using option 3 and not changing anything in the attached saved game for the 12 turns. The results were disappinting. No ground units showed up for the landings on Kwajalein, Saipan and Guam/Tinian, all 1-square islands. The 1944 attacks on Hollandia and Quezon City failed because of the wrong unit mix in the attacking forces. Japanese losses were limited to engineers and freighters sitting out in the open. The B-29’s had no success against AA units in cities. The US discovered Atomic Bomber in March, but did nothing with the few that it built.



I don’t think that there is much point in my continuing to playtest the present version. So much needs to be done to rebalance the scen to slow down the Japanese and to make events function properly that it will be an entirely different game by the time you finish. The basic approach appears to be fine, it just needs a lot of fine tuning. Sorry to be so slow in reporting in but it took me a week to eradicate a self-replicating virus and replace a worn out CD drive.

[curtsibling]

Damn fine report, Agricola!

You are a real boon to the CIV2 forum here!



PS
If you want to make use a virus is dead, make sure you clear your restore point 'Cab' files.

Worms tend to hide in there.

.

[AGRICOLA]

Thanks for the kind words and the tip on Cab files.

The virus problem showed up as an unknown WINSUPDATE file in Task Manager. It used up CPU at a ferocious rate so that things slowed down to a crawl. It also blocked access to REGEDIT, the CD drive and some other things.

The virus is first mentioned on the net in March '05 but there is nothing about how to get rid of it. Absolutely no useful tips on what software can be used to detect and destroy it.

I had to burn all important files on CD's, format the hard drive several times using different software, install XP, install all anti-virus and anti-spy software, download all updates for these and only then start downloading my own files, checking for infections at every step. What a waste of time, especially downloading the 90 Meg Service Pack 2 through a standard phone line.

[Broken_Erika]

I was smart, i ordered service pack 2 on cd
mabe you should too,

[Patine]

My computer's been in the shop for over a week, and thus I've been unable to post. However, I believe this scen needs a major overhaul, and thus I will get right to that. Your advice will be reread and utilized to maximum benefit, AGRICOLA; thanks a lot for the comprehensive playtest. I'll get right to work on this now that my baby's back on my desk.