Wwii Scenarios & Wonders

[Willhelm II]

I believe wonders should be given a much higher priority in WW2 scenarios with regards to their affects on gameplay. For example I have seen many scenarios which simply use wonders for 'decoration', removing all thier abilities and simply having them in the game for historical reasons.

I believe that given some solid consideration Wonders could have a much more important role in ANY scenario. For example, a WW2 Scenario could see the Soviets pocess the wonder 'Baku Oil Fields' in the City Baku, south of the Caucus Mountain. The Baku Oil Field Wonder would in actual fact be Hoover Dam, but for the sake of the scenario Hoover Dam would be removed from gameplay allowing the Soviets to take use of 'Hydro' Power over the other players. If the Soviets were to lose Baku it would have a devestating effect on the whole Soviet War Machine, just like IRL - but more importantly it would be historical AND playable. Other examples could involve turning the Great Pyramids into the Ukraine Wheat Fields, Cathedrals re-named State Newspapers with Goebbel's Propoganda Minsitry replacing Michaelangalo's Chapel.

I've always wondered how one should use Darwin's Voyage in a WW2 scenario - I believe it should be some sort of 'Technological Breakthrough' Wonder that all civilizations would want to build. When it comes to the United Nations wonder I am sometimes torn between two ideas, the first one being to simply remove it from the game. I then had the idea about making it an Axis Specific Wonder, which one of the Axis powers would recieve if they captured a certain city. For example, if the Japanese Push far enough into China or manage to acquire a certain city in Australia they would recieve a tech by event that would allow them the option of building this wonder, and thus claiming their 'dominance' in world affairs and forcing the Democracies to admit defeat. The same could be said of the Germans, for example if they capture a certain Russian City far in the East. It would be a nice way of simulating a 'conclusion' to the war with regards to the mechanics of the Civ2 diplomacy model, plus it would make for an interesting game.

With a little imagination a scenario designer could use wonders to really enhance the gameplay of scenario design.

[Patine]

In my 'Rise of the Third Reich' and 'Empire of the Rising Sun' scens, I've tried to use Wonders strategically myself (I did already have a 'Breadbasket of Europe' {Ukraine} for the Pyramids in RotTR, but I think I was inspired on that by Nemo). I also have 'British Royal Navy' for Magellan, 'NKVD Vigil' for Michaelangelo, 'State Finance Control' for Adam Smith, and 'German Rearmament' for Leonardo (the last to auto-upgrade certain German units to allow unit slots to be cleared for other units after a file swap). These are just some examples I've used. Your ideas are pretty good too. But I fully agree with useful over decorative or strictly historical Wonders in a scen.

[Willhelm II]

For me Adam Smith becomes 'Privatization' since in theory the government is not paying for those 1 gp improvements anymore, but someone has to - the logical conclusion would be private companies within the country, who would take over such things as Industry (which may seem radical to some, but in my opinion it reflects the enormous amounts of wealth that Capitalist nations make via privatization).

[Heresson]

My comment on ww2 scns is that there are too many of them already, people should make more medieval scenarios

Te choice of cities is often wrong, especially when it comes to neglecting the grand importance of my dear region Upper Silesia, the second biggest industrial region in the grand Reich, completely neglected because it lacks one grand city - instead there are a dozen of medium ones - and on the maps people are using probably only one is shown.
Large maps should be used, I hate scenarios on world maps.

[Willhelm II]

I think the community should pool it's resources together and work on a community project, which would involve the creation of a set of standard tech trees which would use ALL the available tech slots. These tech trees could be used on their own to play at standard Civ2, but they would best be employed for scenario design.

There could be a tech tree made for each important period - Ancient Tech tree, Medieval Tech Tree, Industrial Tech tree, WW2 Tech Tree, etc. Each tech tree would use all the technology and unit slots, using generic units to represent all the nations (and thus allow for more units).

Naturally there will be times when a nation should have an 'individual' unit, and so a series of units should be left 'blank' for a scenario designer to add what he sees fit (such as a 'Legion' for the Romans to replace the generic 'Advanced Foot Soldier').

[Henrik]

Apart from the fact that people would need to agree on tech trees and then be compelled to actually use those threes in their scenarios this idea would kill diversity.

The tech tree is the core of a scenario if you take the creation of that away all you have left is city placement and graphics pretty much...
(As well as events obviously but those tie in with the tech tree and units)...

[Patine]

I'm forced to agree with Henrik. Each scenario, regardless of era, should have a custom tech tree and set of units, improvements, Wonders, etc. to fit that particular scen's vision and parameters. For instance, Nemo's 'Red Front' and my own 'Empire of the Rising Sun' would ultimately detriment if both bound to the same core tech tree, units, improvements, Wonders, etc. Also, I believe a standardized set of generic units would sap the historical and visual flavour out of a scen, especially if there were a universal set.

[Willhelm II]

perhaps I'm looking at this with gameplay too much in mind.

[Henrik]

Well if you think about it gameplay might not benefit either from such an idea.
A scenario probably has an overal theme or idea that it wants to convey to it's audience. In order to do this everything must fit with that theme. A standardized rulesett cannot accomodate all variations. Gameplay would suffer as gameplay would be almost identical regardless of setting.

EDIT: And I might add that while I'm all for a rather generic setup myself as far as civ setup goes, I think they all should be able to achieve the same things despite what they did historically (as suggested in the other thread about this) I do believe it should be up to the individual authors to make that decision. In fact it's my belief that even if a generic tech three is made people will be making their own personal ones

Generic approach as a way of giving every civ equal oppertunity within a scenario: Good
Generic approach as in standardized rulesets for all scenarios: Bad

[Willhelm II]

I believe that not to be true, and history will prove me right.

[Henrik]

I doubt it

[Patine]

I think each scenario has to be done and evaluated on its own merits; I'm against 'assembly line' WW2 (or any other era) scens on general principal. I maintain a certain artistic sensibility about my scenarios; I'm sure many others here do, too. It should be more about unique and diverse scens, not some vaunted unifying standard to bind everone.

[Willhelm II]

Poetic words, and heart-felt artistic yearnings...

One could actually make a true WW2 scenario in all it's glory with an entire generic unit set - it would allow more stradegy with regards to tech research, since it would force the player to make certain decisions that previously he wouldn't have bothered with - should infantry research become a priority over armour? Do we need advanced submarines or will basic ones do? etc

[Henrik]

How would this not be possible in an "individualist" tech tree?

I have a scenario like that in a half finnished state somewhere, though it started in the 1920s (the idea was that you should chose priorities/ideologies/doctrines all through the inter war era and then the continent would burst in to war, possibly )

[Patine]

I suppose so, but that should be the choice of the designer, not a mandated formula. If one wants a WW2 scen with generic units, I'd have no issues about it and judge it on its own merits. However, if my scen were thrashed just because it didn't have generic units or someone else's tech tree, I'd be righteously furious.