EXTERMINATE! - Dalek Tyranny Development!

[AGRICOLA]

If you storm any of the enemy capital cities on the Earth map - Interesting things happen!

I guess that only applies to storming ANZAC and UNIT HQ. I just took TIME CORRIDOR but, aside from getting a pretty good wonder and 90 PC, nothing unusual happened.

However, the unusual did happen when UNIT HQ grew to size 10. I was bumbling along in my usual state of blissful suspended animation, secure in the the knowledge that the UNIT Garrison (Cathedral) in the city would protect it from the horrors of disorder until size 13. My bliss was rudely interrupted by the appearance of the disorder icon next to the city when it reached size 10.

A bit of checking showed that, although everything appears to be OK in rules, there is neither an icon for the improvement in the happiness window nor does the improvement become activated until the acquisition of Infrastructure 3. I have no real idea why except that Philosophy may not work as the requisite tech for Cathedrals. Monotheism might be needed.

So I did the logical thing..........sold all 4 of them and changed a citizen to Elvis in UNIT HQ.

[curtsibling]

Aha!

My plans of Davros go askew!
I'll check how the 'MT' tech is set up in the scenario...
I hope I have not allocated it to something important!

[Patine]

Pssst, Curt...you can rename the maps as they appear over the mini-map. Just scroll all the way down to the bottom of game.txt, then slowly scroll back up till you see 'Earth,' Map1,' Map2,' and 'Map3' (it's VERY near the bottom of the file). You can then rename them 'Earth,' 'Skaro,' 'Saucer,' and 'TARDIS,' or whatever. It'd add a bit more flavour, I think.

[typhoon]

Its just a guess, mind, and a very inaccurate one at that, but I suspect that is an addition likely to be made in the final release of the scenario

[curtsibling]

@Patine :

Cheers, man!

I actually had forgot about that little detail, the reminder is most welcome!

PS
Will be dealing with those units for you soon!

[Patine]

Will be dealing with those units for you soon!

Thanks a lot, Curt! And I look forward to the final Dalek release!

[AGRICOLA]

Playing UNIT/Deity, I've come up against the units limit at the end of turn 111. Before doing something about it, I checked the approximate unit count of the various civs. Here's the data on the number of units / units in production.

• Imperials...............497 / 35
  UNIT....................260 / 9
  Skaro Daleks.........453 / 19
  Thal.......................4 / 0
  Human.................521 / 0
  Timelords.............303 / 19
  
  TOTAL................2038

The problem may arise later in the game if someone is playing something less difficult than Deity, but it probably will crop up just the same.

As a stopgap, I'm going to clean out 2/3 of the Defence Turrets on the Timelord saucer and 2/3 of the Dalek Troopers on the Imperial and Skaro planets. Despite a great temptation to wipe out the damn Human refugees, I'm not going to mess with the forces on Earth.

To my great disappointment, UNIT never gets a chance to take on any of the monsters on their home turf. Surely the best nerds, boffins and other skilled types could figure out how to operate a captured Transmat Beamer.

Otherwise, the scen has played very well so far, but I fear that a bloodbath is about to begin as UNIT forces start recapturing Imperial areas. Dealing with Imperial SWD's and Dalek Troopers as area defenders brings to mind the horrors of WWI.

EDIT: Apparently 48 + 255 = 303, not 503.

[curtsibling]

Interesting data, AGRICOLA!

There are some solutions I could implement here.

Events are meant to transport a small army of your chosen faction's finest
to the enemy home map when you capture certain cities...I check this out.
I reckon giving UNIT or the Humans transmat beamers when a capture happens
is also a good idea...!

Also!

I could restrict certain units from being built on all maps, except for earth.
These would include robomen, and dalek troopers. This might save some clutter.

Also I could increas the range of all units, to get them into battle quicker and
increase attrition levels, thus, helping ward off the evil of the 'too many units'
message! I think it would lead to a more rearding game too, as you could send your
troops into battle with foes far quicker.

What do you think...?

[Sarsstock]

All right, I realize this playtest has been underway for some time now, sorry for not reporting back earlier Curt on my progress as the tried and trusty Thals. Now for all I know this problem of mine may have been ratified already, but I'll report it none the less just in case.

It took me 135 turns to do it but I finally managed to research "Movellan Virus" which allowed me to build the wonder "Anti-Dalek Bio Attack". Upon completion of this wonder I got a pop up that lead me to believe that units were about to be created. Unfortunately I got slapped with this game stopper posted below, telling me that there are too many units in play at the moment.

By my count it popped up consecutively at least ten times, probably more because I didn't keep an accurate count. Oddly enough I'm still able to build new units the old fashion way for my major push into the Dalek city, who's entrances I now control from two points.

Aside from this the game is just what I thought it was and a whole lot more. Sometimes when the computer's having they're turn I'll just kick back and listen the beautiful sound of Dalek's, humans, Cybermen and Doctors fighting it out for control of the earth.

[curtsibling]

Cheers, Sarsstock!
I am bummed that the AI is churning out so many units, but I feared it would happen on such a large game area.

But there are ways to miniaturize the problem...!

I'll make a promise:
I will work hard to try and eliminate the dreaded showstopper with whatever means I can!

[AGRICOLA]

Originally posted by curtsibling

Events are meant to transport a small army of your chosen faction's finest to the enemy home map when you capture certain cities...I check this out. I reckon giving UNIT or the Humans transmat beamers when a capture happens is also a good idea...!

MULTIPLE MAPS

I must admit that I was expecting something along the lines of the Midgard scen, where units can use portals to move between worlds. As a consequence of what you said "...transport a small army...", I searched EVENTS and came up with very little. From what I can see, there is nothing that UNIT itself can do to gain access to the other maps. UNIT does get some pretty useless Riflemen on another map when Timelords capture a specific Dalek city. However, from what I have seen in my game, this event will never happen because there is no way that the Timelords will ever capture anything with their Riflemen and Grenadiers.

UNIT actually did capture Transmat Beamers in TIME CORRIDOR and DALEK ZONE but, after trying a few things, none of which worked, I said the hell with it and sold them. I then played around a bit with Midgard and managed to more or less figure out how portals operate. They might be a much better way to get at the enemy than through EVENTS.

Would it be possible to alter things so that TARDIS, IMPERIAL ZONE and DALEK ZONE on Earth could each protect a portal to the owner's home world? The consequence of this would be that Earth would be the main battleground, no matter which civ a player chose to play. I'm ignoring TIME CORRIDOR because the Time Meddler/Dark Path doesn't seem to have a home world.


UNIT MOVEMENT

The maps are all very large, so more rapid movement would indeed be welcome. For example, when the Dark Path and Skaro Daleks were almost destroyed, a steady stream of units started leaving River Garrison and UNIT Office on Turn 87, heading for Wormwood Drv, deep in Imperial territory. Each turn, 2-3 units left River Garrison and 1-2 departed from UNIT Office. On the game map, the operation looked like the March of the Penguins. Fortunately, the Imperials were also expanding and captured Ashpile Drv on Turn 92 and Junker Rd on Turn 98, just as the UNIT vanguard was arriving in the area. UNIT captured Junker Rd on Turn 100 and Ashpile Drv on Turn 107. The primary objective, Wormwood Drv was not taken until turn 113.

So, it took 20+ turns to reach the objective against pretty minimal opposition. With no opposition, the Long March would still have taken 18 turns to diagonally cross about half the map thanks to the intricate maze that you have created. Yes, more speed would be helpful though not critical.


GENERAL COMMENTS

1. If vet Au-79's attack fortified vet Dalek Troopers in cities, less than 50% of the Au-79's survive an attack on a full strength DT. It generally takes 2 Au-79's to destroy a defending DT. IMHO, this is a very good balance of strengths. Attacking should cost units.

2. I found the terms Dark Path, Time Meddler and Time Master, used at various times to describe one civ, to be somewhat confusing. The same applies to Doctor/Timelords and and Imperials/Davros.

3. As presently constituted, the Timelords appear unplayable. If they are to accomplish anything they must be able to build units other than Rifleman, Grenadier and Defence Turret. From what I can tell, the only units they have built since the start of the scen are 200+ immobile Defence Turrets. Even if they had built vet Riflemen (A/D=6/6) and vet Grenadiers (A/D=7/6), what hope would these units have against vet Dalek Troopers (A/D=9/9), fortified behind City Walls on +200% D terrain. Vet Au-79's (A/D=13/6) who can ignore City Walls and have 3x more firepower than Riflemen/Grenadiers are less than even money to kill DT's under these conditions.

In Daleks, Riflemen and Grenadiers are not fighting units, they are good as "happiness" troops and for keeping refugees from blocking choke points. Before getting the tech for the first high grade unit, the Au-79 Gold Rifle, from the Timelords around Turn 42, the only fighting I did was to stack all available Field Guns and Bazookas next to Eivind Rd and wait for the Dark Path to capture the area. When they finally did, it was not too difficult immediately to kill the single occupation unit and capture the highly strategic place. With the obsolete units available at that stage, UNIT didn't have any hope of waging a serious offensive campaign. Shopper Lane was captured on Turn 50 by using similar tactics. However, by this time, UNIT had the luxury of owning 15 vet Au-79's. The Demat Cannon and the Vortex Launcher became available a few turns later.

The Timelords "acquire" 3 techs that they pass on to UNIT. These are the only things that make UNIT playable. Unless it is absolutely contrary to the essence of the Doctor Who series, why couldn't the Timelords utilize these techs themselves?

4. I don't know if you are aware that any ground unit can shoot down an air unit despite not having the flag for 'can shoot down airplanes in flight'. Is this because the Dalek flying saucers, disks, dinner plates etc. can stay in the air indefinitely?

5. On a lighter note, I don't think much of the obviously middle class Agricola Road in a high class neighbourhood where one finds Covelia Drv, Tuttle St and Nemo Mansion up on Nob Hill. The place needs some atmosphere. How else are you going to attract free spending tourists and movie makers to this otherwise boring part of London?

So, how about Agricola Alley?

That would precisely describe a poorly lit, foggy rabbit warren, perfect for making Sherlock Holmes movies. Also, it is rumoured that one of the the less savoury locals finds it ideal for waylaying unsuspecting scenario designers.

On the same topic, I have searched in vain for Curts Court, Sibling Square or Curtsibling Wharf. Forget your ingrained British preference for modesty and self-effacement and include yourself in this rogues gallery of SF and other CivII notables. Right now, an important rogue is missing from the collection.

[curtsibling]

Great stuff, Agricola!

I will fully digest this when I return to my home terminal!

[Patine]

This scenario's pretty tough, even just in that it's a snale's pace crawl across the Earth map to absorb ALL those frickin' Human cities. I still haven't faced anything outside that faction, and it's mounting up in Turns (fortunately, it's a long scen). But the units and maps are definitely stellar! I look forward to invading Skaro, though, and retaking my 'people's' ancestral homeworld.

[curtsibling]

Good stuff - I plan to make some moves and release an
updated version of the scen/beta this week...Stay tuned!

[curtsibling]

*I plan to double the movement of all the Dalek ground units,
and all the humanoid/timelord units will have +3 moves....

*I plan to make all units cost double too. To stop the useless massive troop buildups.

*I want to make Dalek pepperpot units only buildable on their home map.

*The Doctor will no longer be able to build turrets, but
he can build all the Human units on the Earth map only.

Does this all sound OK?