POMARJ scenario released!

[Cyrion]

And now for a long (and necessary ) answer...

Originally posted by Harry Tuttle
The scenario is decent, and very keen to detail. I really enjoyed the descriptions!

Thanks! I would have added more ingame descriptions, but the file was full...

However, like Agricola said, the units were really expensive and I'd love to have some more pioneers.

Yes, I agree on that! And as only one side can be played, a house rule preventing city funding by Pioneers would do!

The gameplay got a bit boring in the middle with the constant smash and kill of weak units and the near constant recce for heavy hitters. I don't know how the story of Pomarj goes, but some variation might be nice.

Yes, from the half of it it gets boring, I am really disappointed by that part of my work!

I did like the units, but some seemed to be more or less copies of each other, as far as strength goes. Maybe less is more?

You might be right: I probably tried to stay too close to the original RPG scenario, which might be funny for me, but for me only! I'll probably have to modify the "cast" for the next version...

The two big events I found in the game are nice. I like the dam idea as well as the twisted forest. That change terrain event is fun.

Thanks! I must admit I quite like it too!

I did have to turn the sound off after awhile. The mounted hero unit has this really loud attack that might need to be turned down a bit. I almost hesitated to use him because my girlfriend was asleep in the other room.

Agree once again: I tried to tune it down, and as I found no easy way to do it (shame on me), I left it like that...

Overall I enjoyed the game. There are some aspects that need polishing, but I liked playing it.

Thanks!

Originally posted by AGRICOLA
I have mixed feelings about this scen.

So do I: I'm really happy with the first half of the game, and really disappointed by the rest of it! I'll have to make a new (ToT) version...

Technically, Pomarj is very innovative. It has a number of very ingenious and original features (no spoiler info from me, try it yourself) and has been very carefully designed.

Thanks!

The idea of a scen based on a D&D game should work but, IMHO, does not entirely in this case.

...

Drastic changes were in order if there was much point in continuing playing.

I share all your views on that!

To try to breathe some life and interest into the scen, I made the following units buildable:

Ranger @ 200 shields
Legion @ 300
Knights @ 400
Copper Dragon @ 600
Ent @ 700

I might change the buildable units, but I like your idea!

The enabling tech for all is Wenta Clerics. My marvelously self-serving rationale was that the clerics would attract lawful types like rangers and knights, legions and dragons would work for whoever has enough gold and the ents would believe the clerics’ promises that, unlike eastern Pomarj where most forests have been cut to make room for farms, the vast forests of western Pomarj won’t get chopped down. How’s that for typical DM BS rationalization?

As a DM myself, I bow to your mastery of BS!

And I'll probably use something along those lines...

I agree with Harry's opinion that the first half of the scen is both interesting and fun to play but some changes would be welcome in the second half.

Thanks to both of you for taking the time to play it and to make such a detailed reporting!

In short:
- I fully agree with your views
- I'll make a 2nd version (not now, though ), taking into account all your comments and suggestions! (thanks for those! )
- the 2nd version will be for ToT, as this will allow me to write more descriptions, add new "interesting" events, and give a more AD&D flavour by using other maps (and for instance have some quests for the heroes!)

[Harry Tuttle]

quote:

I did have to turn the sound off after awhile. The mounted hero unit has this really loud attack that might need to be turned down a bit. I almost hesitated to use him because my girlfriend was asleep in the other room.

Agree once again: I tried to tune it down, and as I found no easy way to do it (shame on me), I left it like that...

Well I bought a music editor for Gold Gulch, $35 Blaze Audio, and it works well enough. I split the sound file into stereo and toned down the amplification a bit.

[Cyrion]

Thanks Harry!

[AGRICOLA]

I finally finished off the kobolds and other monsters on turn 252. Pomarj is a very long scen.

The scen was played with the following changes:

Turn 102 The Sheriff (courthouse; 120 shlds) city improvement became buildable.
Turn 145 Pioneers (300 shlds) became buildable. 19 were built.
Turn 201 To overcome an apparent stalemate, the following units became buildable:
Ent ( 800 shlds ) - 10 built
Copper Dragon ( 700 shlds ) - 12 built
Knights ( 400 shlds ) – 1 built
Legion ( 300 shlds ) – 9 built
Ranger ( 200 shlds ) – 4 built


The following was also done:
- Ships were chained.
- Merchants were rehomed, either to Blue or to cities that did not have trade routes with Elredd. All trade was with Elredd (excepting demanded items, the value of a delivered freights tops out at 440 gold). By the end of the scen, net cash flow from taxes was ~1050 gold/turn.
- The only way to prevent Elredd from switching to Martial Law is to prohibit government changes. I did this by using the cheat menu halfway through the scen. If you want to keep Elredd with a Free City government, then the Free civ should have both the Barony tech and Barony government at the start of the scen and government switching must be disabled.

Comments:
- I am now 99.9 % certain that the scen cannot be completed in 300 turns without modifications. The available Free forces are simply inadequate for the task.
- The ability to build Pioneers is a must because a comprehensive road network is definitely needed. X-country movement is too slow to allow adequate unit movement. The 3 Pioneers and 6 Settlers that the scen provides are not enough to build roads and do necessary land improvements.
- Non-replaceable units force players to adopt a very defensive style of play. This can work well in a short scen such as Techumseh’s Market Garden. However, in Pomarj, I found that it led to a near stalemate once the Free civ had taken Highport, Evil Eye, Celbit and Salforia and had to defend all of them against attacks.
- The events are extremely interesting, especially the “All Hell breaks loose” event.
- I made two errors in selecting the units that can be built and their costs. The cost of Copper Dragons should be 990 rather than 700 shields because they turned out to be more valuable than 800 shield Ents. The Knights unit should not be buildable because it makes it possible to IRB units up to 400 shields, thereby considerably speeding up the building of Ents and Copper Dragons.
- It might be more interesting if Stoneheim were located farther west so that capturing it would be the final challenge of the scen.
- Perhaps there should be more than 2 spawning locations for Humanoid Red Dragons.
- Overall, a bit long, but otherwise both interesting and very challenging. A very fine scen indeed.

[Cyrion]

First of all, thanks for your very thorough report!

I'll make an update following your suggestions as soon as I come back from my vacations (I leave for 2 weeks climbing Mount Kilimandjaro! ).

Or rather as soon as I recover from the amount of work that'll undoubtly accumulate on my desl...

Originally posted by AGRICOLA
The scen was played with the following changes:

Turn 102 The Sheriff (courthouse; 120 shlds) city improvement became buildable.
Turn 145 Pioneers (300 shlds) became buildable. 19 were built.
Turn 201 To overcome an apparent stalemate, the following units became buildable:
Ent ( 800 shlds ) - 10 built
Copper Dragon ( 700 shlds ) - 12 built
Knights ( 400 shlds ) – 1 built
Legion ( 300 shlds ) – 9 built
Ranger ( 200 shlds ) – 4 built

I'll make changes along those lines, maybe not with exactly the same units or the same cost, but as you already "playtested" it, it won't be far!

- The only way to prevent Elredd from switching to Martial Law is to prohibit government changes. I did this by using the cheat menu halfway through the scen. If you want to keep Elredd with a Free City government, then the Free civ should have both the Barony tech and Barony government at the start of the scen and government switching must be disabled.

As I really want the Baronny tech and government to be acquired in game (as it makes sense story-wise), I'll have to find something else!

You wrote in an earlier post "The solution is to start the scen with adequate Impassable units in Elredd and have the city produce Foreign Support (Capitalization). This is what I finally did and it works fine.
" about this problem: are you sure it doesn't work? This is something I could implement VERY easily, it just needs changing the pre-req of Impassable to "no" in the rules files (and making sure the Wild Coast can "capitalize" and changing what Elredd is building from the start ).

If it's not working, then I might have to give Baronny from the start (and forbid gov switching).

Comments:
- I am now 99.9 % certain that the scen cannot be completed in 300 turns without modifications. The available Free forces are simply inadequate for the task.
- The ability to build Pioneers is a must because a comprehensive road network is definitely needed. X-country movement is too slow to allow adequate unit movement. The 3 Pioneers and 6 Settlers that the scen provides are not enough to build roads and do necessary land improvements.
- Non-replaceable units force players to adopt a very defensive style of play. This can work well in a short scen such as Techumseh’s Market Garden. However, in Pomarj, I found that it led to a near stalemate once the Free civ had taken Highport, Evil Eye, Celbit and Salforia and had to defend all of them against attacks.

Fully agree on that, so I'll follow your suggestions!

- The events are extremely interesting, especially the “All Hell breaks loose” event.

Thanks! As you probably noticed, I'm quite fond of events!

BTW: how did the "Hellish" event affect your game? did the Humanoids counter-attack??

- I made two errors in selecting the units that can be built and their costs. The cost of Copper Dragons should be 990 rather than 700 shields because they turned out to be more valuable than 800 shield Ents. The Knights unit should not be buildable because it makes it possible to IRB units up to 400 shields, thereby considerably speeding up the building of Ents and Copper Dragons.

I'll find something that makes sense both for playability and for the original AD&D scenarii!

- It might be more interesting if Stoneheim were located farther west so that capturing it would be the final challenge of the scen.

True! Now again I need a compromise between my old RPG scenario and an enjoyable Civ scenario! I might well follow your advice!

- Perhaps there should be more than 2 spawning locations for Humanoid Red Dragons.

Easy to implement!

- Overall, a bit long, but otherwise both interesting and very challenging. A very fine scen indeed.

Thank you thank you thank you!

And with your help I'll provide an improved version!

[Broken Hawk]

I'll make an update following your suggestions as soon as I come back from my vacations (I leave for 2 weeks climbing Mount Kilimanjaro! ).

Have fun on your trip. I look forward to the update. With AGRICOLA's suggestions and your own tweaks, maybe I can get through the scenario.

[AGRICOLA]

Originally posted by Cyrion
You wrote in an earlier post "The solution is to start the scen with adequate Impassable units in Elredd and have the city produce Foreign Support (Capitalization). This is what I finally did and it works fine.
" about this problem: are you sure it doesn't work? This is something I could implement VERY easily, it just needs changing the pre-req of Impassable to "no" in the rules files (and making sure the Wild Coast can "capitalize" and changing what Elredd is building from the start ).

If it's not working, then I might have to give Baronny from the start (and forbid gov switching).

I did eliminate most of the Impassable units in Elredd and switched the city to produce Capitalization. This worked for a while but then the city reverted to Martial Law. Perhaps there is something in the algorithm that governs choice of city production which seeks to maximize shield production, even if that means changing government.

Maybe having all the Impassable units in Elredd homed to NONE could make the thing work. I'll give it a quick test.

Have a good climb, Bwana Cyrion.

[techumseh]

AGRICOLA - how about a review for the SL site?

[AGRICOLA]

Thanks, but not quite yet. I don't know if the scen is really finished. Cyrion mentions that he will be making some changes when he returns from Kilimanjaro. Whichever suggestions he chooses to implement, they should not take much time. I'll be glad to write up a review once I get a look at the final product.

[Cyrion]

Back from the (great! ) Kili trip!

I'll update the scen according to Agricola's suggestions, and then, if he is still willing, a review would be more than welcome!

I think I'll do that next week, if all (ie RL) goes as intended!

[Cyrion]

Scenario Edited!

The links at the top of the thread now point to the edited files, on time!

So here is what changed, following AGRICOLA's suggestions (many many thanks, mate! ):

1) Sherriff (Courthouse) is now buildable once the tech has been discovered

2) Pioneer, Ranger, Legion, Copper Dragons and Ents are now buidable, but really expensive!

All these units have their specific pre-req tech, rather at the end of the tree, which will give you more research to do...

3) The Red Dragons have 3 more spawning points

4) The problem with Elredd and the Impassable units should be solved

And the sound file now include the not-so-loud Finvil sound!

Enjoy!

So if you still volunteer for the review, I would be really grateful...

[AGRICOLA]

You've done a very nice fixup of the problem areas.

The cost of Copper Dragons and Ents seems fair if players work hard on trading with Elredd. My estimate is that these units will become buildable around Week 90, around 30 turns before they are really needed.

I hope the Wild Coast remains as a Free City rather than coming under Martial Law, but only actual play will tell.

A minor edit is needed is in the Readme

From Readme
5.2 "Settlers"
There are 2 settler types:
- the Refugees (settlers): families coming to settle in Pomarj
- the Pioneers (engineers): military engineers from Urnst, with an appropriate defence

Both can be used to build cities, but they are a rare (unbuildable) commodity, and the Pioneers might be rather saved for "engineering" purposes...

The pioneers now seem to be buildable if Urnst Instructors is researched. Also, pioneers cannot be used to found cities.

BTW, I screwed up. The correct spelling is Sheriff.

Sorry. I'll be happy to do a review.

[Cyrion]

Originally posted by AGRICOLA
You've done a very nice fixup of the problem areas.

Thanks

A minor edit is needed is in the Readme

Done

BTW, I screwed up. The correct spelling is Sheriff.

Corrected!

Sorry. I'll be happy to do a review.

Excellent!

[Broken Hawk]

I cannot download the files from the updated link. I get a message that the file does not exist. Am I doing something wrong?

[Cyrion]

I suppose you are!

My first thought when seeing your post was that I had made something wrong, but I just retried both links and I can download without any problem...

Retry and let me know!

If you still can't do it, PM me you're email and I can send you the files (the Sounds one is quite big though: 1.66M)