The Thirty Years War

[McMonkey]

I think there are some articles about the Knight/Musketeers slots at Cradle of Civilization and links to articles on the S-League home page.

I thought the K/M thing only affected the AI but I may be wrong!

[battosai]

It seems that I have a later version of Civ2, so the "Danger Slots" don't affect the unit system in that radical way anymore, only under very special circumstances.

I thinkthat the Leonardo's Workshop anti-upgrade concept can still work and doesn't affect the normal outdating chain in the tech tree if I create additional obsoleting techs for specific units that appear to a player if he discovers a new unit or if he's Wallenstein and gets murdered by the Habsburgs (one event for each case).

[McMonkey]

Did you sort out this problem Batto boy? I would have offered some kind of solution but I am afraid I could not get my tiny mind in gear

How long now before we can start this game?

BTW did you need any more badly converted units?

[battosai]

Things are rolling, chap! I just had to split my events file at turn 100 to keep enough space. Aside from some essential changes to the French (such as switching the government from Mon to Rep) the gameplay has been worked out. I am enthusiastic I can do the last polishes until the end of the week. Anyways, it's not too early to find the final gfx (icons!) and creating new labels and text messages, where I'll need some help for the translation of book quotes and so on.

Pleace Look into your mailbox.

(If you playtest, regard three houserules: Fortresses may only be build where another one has been destroyed (and only of the same type), a battery or a fortress have max. three cannon shots per turn and city bribing with french emissaries is not permitted).

Oh, your question. Yeah, I've found a (long) way to achieve my most wanted event effect in this game. Play long enough and yuo'll find out (or try to decifer the events).

[McMonkey]

Got it! Really looking forward to playing now. I will gladly help convert any text you need as well as doing some playtesting.

I watched a good documentary about Martin Luther last night so I am filled with a healthy anti-Papal hatred (even though I am an atheist) and am ready to take on the forces of Satan (In character already!)

[battosai]

Enough work for today! I will send the latest version that only lacks of texts, icons and some problems only mapcopy can fix. There will be time for it later this week.

For the meantime just a quick homework: Some unit slots need a new graphik.

The musketeer, the knight slot, which are empty and the River Barbks are now "Crown Loyals", deserters from Wallenstein's army. They could get a graphic with soldiers laying down their arms or swinging the Habsburgian double-head eagle flag.

Merc. Light Line and Bernhard's Light Line are switched!

The Peasant revolt looks good but would be more fríghtening if dublicated and some pikes staring out of the pulk.

The cavalries and other infantries are masterpieces, no need to change anything.

The war ships are rowed in the wrong order. At first the small galleon, then the big galleon and then the galley.

Artillery: Place the 3 pounder graphic onto the Field Artillery. Cannon graphics as shots are a little confusing. Maybe you could shrink the cannons farthermore and place them in the under left of the slot, and in the middle-upperright we could draw two or three flying balls of the respective size. Please take out the red lafette (?) of the chain shot and replace it with the 12 pounder cannon.

The leader graphic in the under left corner actually belongs to the leader unit slot in extra unit 5. It has to be replaced with the General Battery icon (B Gen. Battery).

Extra unit 3 is defined as "Switzermen". Very strong rebels against Habsburg.

Extra unit 4 is defined as "FrenchEmissary". Should look very baroquely.

Extra unit 6 is defined as "Bribe it!" Some symbolic icon like an exclamation mark would be a good solution here.

Extra unit 7 is defines as "Murder Command". A portrait of Wallenstein and a red cross over it or a skull would be funny here.

Extra unit 8 is defined as "No Crossing". Mainly used to block rivers as Barbarian air unit but it also serves other features. A river graphic or just invisible?

[McMonkey]

Will make a start later today.

[battosai]

Oops! For soem silly reason I've put two scn-files into the last zip--folder. Please start with NHFP.scn.

Some time ago you told that you dislike the flat and dull looking of the British islands. If you're still ambitious you are free to model you're country to more beautiness and send me a screenshot.

I'm not sure yet which period I choose for the winter rules. 3,4,5 or 6 turns? In Blitzkrieg the winter goes from October till March, here we do not fight in the Russian coldness but the 17th century was a very cold one in all Europe. So we could also choose the period, I don't mind if you try first to begin winter in November and look how much hunger starving appears, though.

[McMonkey]

Battosai

You need to send me the Rules and Events files in their notepad form. The ones I have are GER File (.GER) files and the game won't read them! I started a game and there were Paratroopers and Cruise missiles everywhere!

I did alter the British terrain for you about a month or so ago. I sent back the .sav file but you must have missed it!

I will do it again but you will need to send me the most up to date save before I do it and wait until I send the file back before doing any more work yourself. I can get the changes done very quickly so we need to co-ordinate a suitable time. Today is fine by me as I have no work and my dinner invitation is cancelled.

BTW, the map and units combined look very impressive

[battosai]

Erm, Werd, is it so hard to open the text files and save them as xxx.txt (I think that i have written this to you)? Okay, I am about to make a german and an english version of my game and load up an alpha version to the webring (szenario design subforum) this evening. I've also written that a screenshot would be enough for me to do the changes myself.

[McMonkey]

Re: Britain
I would suggest scattering a few trees and hills around Britain to break up the monotony of the flat ground. It does not need to be very accurate, just easy on the eye if you glance at Britain!

Re: Text files
My computer does not recognize the program you used for your text files. I just experimented and picked out 'Open with a program from the list' and picked 'Notepad' and that seems to have converted them nicely. You learn something new every day!

And Battosai, my name is McMONKEY!

[battosai]

OMG, where has Werd100 gone?

[McMonkey]

I have not forgotten about the units requested. I have just been a bit busy / lazy. I will get onto them asap this week

[battosai]

Did some online playtests with Karlheinz recently and the game works jolly good. Surely I find some stupid mistakes and many unbalanced details while playing but generally it does make fun and gives a complete new tactical feeling.

Karlheinz pledges for abolishing cannon graphics in shot slots because he really could not point out the artillery concept that way. I'm not sure but I would just decrease the size of the cannons in those slots drastically in direction to the lower left edge and put undmissunderstanable bigger balls in the middle.

[McMonkey]

Sure. Your suggestion about the cannon shot graphics makes sense. It will differentiate them from the conventional cannon but the player won't have to move flying cannonballs between cities, quite wierd looking!

Glad to hear the playtest is coming along nicely. I have done a little testing myself and it would appear to be in the final stages now. I still can't decide who I want to play as though!