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**fairline** · March 2, 2009, 05:57

Good stuff, I'll DL this evening

**AGRICOLA** · March 2, 2009, 10:29

I’ve taken a fairly thorough look at AWI prior to playing. It’s a very nice piece of work: excellent graphics, good choice of units, events look fine. It is an excellent idea to have cities surrounded by stackable squares.

As I see it, the major problem is the large size of the map and unrealistically slow unit movements.

For example, the distance between Boston and Charleston is approximately 1600 km yet it takes transports 19 months to sail the distance. Similarly, it requires 5 months to sail from New York to Boston. These times are completely unrealistic for 1775 when fleets were crossing the Atlantic in a month. Unless ships are meant not to be used, their speed needs to be increased by a factor of 3 or 4.

The same argument applies to ground units. It takes infantry 7 months to march from Boston to New York; a distance of not more than 500 km, even along crooked colonial roads and tracks. That works out to a mere 2.5 km per day. Take a look at the map below showing the routes, distances and times of the American attack on Quebec. It is impossible to carry out any such operations in the scen. A movement rate of 3 for infantry and a road multiplier of 3 might be appropriate.

Minor Problems

Within the map area, by 1775 there were only Iroquois villages in upstate New York and Canada. The names used in the scen are very definitely not Iroquois. If you want some historical names, please check out:

http://www.tolatsga.org/iro.html

Philadelphia was and is a seaport. It was a very major one in 1775.

The Hudson River was navigable by seagoing ships at least as far as Kingston.

In the units section of RULES it should be ‘Ship of the Line’ and ‘Iroquois Scout’.

There is space in the units section to add a bateau, a cheap, simple boat that was often built on the spot and which played a major role in AWI campaigns. A good description can be found at:

Home :: New York State Military Museum and Veterans Research Center

http://www.dmna.state.ny.us/historic/articles/bateau.htm

The New York State Military Museum and Veterans Research Center tells the story of New York State’s rich military history and the service and sacrifice of its citizens through interpretive exhibitions, public programs, and the collection and preservation of artifacts and archival material related to the state’s military forces and its veterans.

If you do add this unit then there has to be a house rule that they cannot be used in the Atlantic. Also, you might leave a fair number of American ones scattered along rivers without cities where they could be built. Also, in order to provide the Americans with historically accurate access to Lake Ontario, there should also be a navigable route from the confluence of the Mohawk and Hudson Rivers (Albany) westward to Wood Creek and thence via Lake Oneida and the Oswego River to Lake Ontario.

Attached Files

**civ2units** · March 3, 2009, 14:00

The movement rate is one think I never thought about while making this scenario. And as I see, it´s an important thing. You are absolutely right, because of the great map scale the units needs a higher movement rate.

A movement rate of 3 for infantry, 4 for dragoons should be a good idea. The road multiplier should be only used on militia units (Minutemen, Butlers Rangers, etc...). Thats my idea. Also ships have to get much more movement. I´m working on my ACW scenario, this map is more bigger then the AWI one, so I definitelly have to think about the unit movements.

Thanks for the unit idea. I will think about it, maybe I should change the map a little bit, what shouldn´t be a problem.

Also thanks for the real village names of the Iroquois. I didn´t find anything good on the internet, so I decided to use the civ ones.

I will change the units names in the rules file.

**fairline** · March 3, 2009, 18:39

Careful about adjusting the movement rates c2u; while Agri has an excellent point about distance travlled per month, giving units high movement points also has the undesirable side-effect of allowing high-ATT strength units to attack multiple times per turn. Surely it would be a better idea to increase the movement rate of roads? I'd take game-play over historical accuracy in this instance..

I agree with Agri about increasin ship movement rates though

**AGRICOLA** · March 3, 2009, 21:03

@fairline
I think that you are right.

Before starting to play I:

Multiplied naval movements x3.
Multiplied all ground movements x3 but kept the x3 road multiplier.
Gave all Indian units all-terrain ability and took it away from all others. If the Americans had a Frontiersman unit (buckskin outfit, coonskin hat and very long rifle with NO bayonet

) it would also have all-terrain performance.

I’ll continue to use these numbers until something undesireable happens.

@c2u
The first turn money bug is alive and thriving. Capturing Concord during the first turn nets the Americans the entire Brit treasury . . . . 890 pounds (please do change ‘Pound’ to ‘Pounds’ in LABELS).

If you want the bug removed, please attach your current .scn file to a post and I'll have the fixed version of the file back to you soon after I download it.

For what it’s worth, here’s how I’m approaching the scen.

The Americans will have to fight a war with no defined fronts. The British obviously are not going to build their units so events will make hostile forces appear anywhere. Naval supremacy sure is nice.

The highest priority must be given to trade. The American economy is weak and capable of generating less than 1000 pounds/turn. Charleston to London, Paris or Lisbon appear to be the best potential trade routes. Privateers will be chained to minimize risk of losing Merchant units at sea.

Barracks will be built in all cities. These are absolutely vital when it comes to defending a city. Assuming that the British will concentrate on attacking large cities, that is where defensive forces will be initially concentrated.

The Americans can build very few useful units. The key American units for fighting the war will be Minutemen for attacking cities, Mounted Militia for defence and Light Artillery for attacking enemy units in the open. Because the best buildable defensive units are fast moving Mounted Militia, it should be possible to use some form of mobile defence against the British.

GIVE ME LIBERTY OR DEATH!

**AGRICOLA** · March 4, 2009, 20:52

@civ2units

The game has reached November, 1775

After trying various combinations of movement and road multiplier, I settled on the following:

Infantry - Mv=2
Indians - Mv=3 + all terrain
Cavalry - Mv=4
Road multiplier - x4

I was reluctant to give all-terrain ability to any non-Indians except American frontiersmen.

Also, I added a food resource to forest terrain. Year-round hunting was a far cheaper way to put meat on the table than raising fowl or livestock.

This is an events driven scen and, consequently, suffers from the usual problem that parts of it don't occur if players do something unexpected. The siege of Boston never happened because the Americans captured the city during the second turn. Boston obviously needs more than 1 defender at the start of the scen. Also, I would have expected that the units returning to Boston from the Ticonderoga campaign would have vet status.

The next problem is that American freights started arriving in London in September and October. Because 6 of the 8 freights delivered during the two months were demanded items, the American treasury gained 20,000+ pounds and American tax income increased from ~900 pounds to 1200+ pounds. This windfall allowed the immediate IRB of 35 Mounted Militia and should produce ~35 more Mounted Militia by Feb 1776. This lucrative trade can be continued indefinitely because even non-demanded commodities from Charleston or New York produce bonuses in excess of 1000 pounds.

I would suggest that the sizes of London, Paris and Lisbon be severely reduced as the only way around this problem. You might also want to create a new 'Garrison' unit with D=50 and station one in any city that the Americans should not be able to capture. A preliminary test of mine showed that <10 vet Frigates can easily eliminate the garrison in any European capital.

Please include a DESCRIBE file with your scen files. Without it in the scen folder, PEDIA/MILITARY UNITS does not display all units. Most TOT scens include the file. I copied mine from curtsibling's EURASIAN WARS.

My industrious Americans have been extremely busy and have almost completed the clearing defensive fields of fire around their cities to deprive attackers of all protective cover. George Washington believes that it is better to kill a pile of the oppressing b******s at once rather than one at a time. A house rule may be in order.

**civ2units** · March 5, 2009, 12:53

Thanks for your first detailed playtest, Agricola.

Pound will be corrected in the labels.txt

The veteran status for the returning units to Boston makes sense, I will change that. Also I will give the Brits one more Line Infantry in Boston to simulate a siege of the city.

I never had a detailed look at the trade in my scenario. I added the Merchant unit for the ability of trade but didn´t know that these could be very important (especially for the Americans) in a war scenario. Good to know this for my ACW scenario, where you also can build trade units. Reducing the population of the European cities will be done.

I will also add a generic garrison unit in all European cities to avoid American conquests in this region.

Until the Valley Forge event the best defence unit of the Americans is indeed the Mounted Militia. Mostly I made playtests with the Brits, so their unit stats should be good. I would be very happy if you could tell me how the American stats works when playing with the US. I think they are good.

I´ve an updated describe.txt in my main TOT folder, so I didn´t notice the missing units in the civilopedia. For my next scenarios I will include the describe.txt.

Here´s the latest scenario file. If you could fix that bug I would be very happy.

Attached Files

AWI.zip (14.9 KB, 117 views)

**AGRICOLA** · March 5, 2009, 15:26

I have always believed that, except for a few unusual scens, CIV II is based on economics . . . . . give me enough money and I'll beat the stuffing out of anybody.

Here's the fixed .scn file. Please doublecheck that it is correct.

Attached Files

AWI.zip (15.7 KB, 116 views)

**EZRhino** · March 5, 2009, 19:11

I played this for a little while last night. Great upgrade from the last version!

As a little historical aside, while it certainly looks nice in game, cotton wasn't a very important crop anywhere in the south until the early/mid-19th century, well after the revolutionary war was over. In that sense all the cotton on the map would be more appropriate during a civil war period scenario. Additionally, Florida had been ruled by the British since the seven years war in 1767 when the Spanish traded it for Cuba. The Spanish retook Florida from Britain during the revolutionary war.

**McMonkey** · March 6, 2009, 12:27

You can prevent players from pillaging specific items by altering the GAME.txt file:

@PILLAGEWHAT
@width=320
@title=Defense Minister
What should we destroy?

@PILLAGEMENU
Farmland
Irrigation
Mining
Airbase
Fortress
Railroad
Road

Just remove the item you want to prevent them from ripping up, remembering to leave the space there. For example if you wanted to avoid them destroying stackable terrain you delete the word Fortress:

@PILLAGEWHAT
@width=320
@title=Defense Minister
What should we destroy?

@PILLAGEMENU
Farmland
Irrigation
Mining
Airbase

Railroad
Road

There are a lot of other interesting changes you can make to the game by making slight alterations to the GAME .txt file

**curtsibling** · March 6, 2009, 14:52

@civ2units:

I am just finishing off my fantasy cities, then it will be onto your AWI set!

**civ2units** · March 6, 2009, 17:48

@Agricola:
Thanks for the patched AWI scenario file.

I will make an update with the sound files hopefully in the next few weeks.

@EZRhino:
That´s an interesting point with Florida. Maybe I should give it to the Brits and during the game (depends on how succesfull the Americans are) the Spanish will get troops for reconquering the Southern state. I should reduce the cotton fields a little bit.

@McMonkey:
I should definitely play more with the game.txt file. I think there are much more things possible. Thanks for the tip with deleting the fortress from the pillaging list.

@Curt:
Thanks Curt. I´m looking forward to your updated ACW cities.

**McMonkey** · March 7, 2009, 13:29

I have been playing AWI this morning and I am really impressed. I had to play an older version as it happened to be on the USB key I had with me, but I am really keen to play the most up to date version now. Can I download the up to date version from the S-League page?

Here are some of my observations (bear in mind I played an old version and you may well have dealt with some of the issues!):

- The map is great

But seriously I do think the scale is good for the scenario as long as you get the movement rates right. I am not too clued up on the AWI but the action seemed to centre around New York, Valley Forge, Pennsylvania and Saratoga and I ended up having some intense battles.

- The unit choices and graphics give the scenario a real edge. It has certainly made me want to pick up a book on the War and find out more!

- I played as the English and had a lot of fun although I always felt in control. I think you can turn up the difficulty (IE Number of enemy reinforcements) quite a bit to make the whole thing more of a nail biting challenge. I don't mind losing the first few times I play a scenario, in fact it makes victory taste that much sweeter when I get there!

- I would definitely look at making all normal terrain stackable. Its frustrating to see your newly arrived event units destroyed en mass before you get to control them and it seems wrong that it is possible to dispatch a stack of 9 rebels with one Black Watch regiment!

- Next time I will play as the Colonists. I guess it would be best to have two separate event files depending on which side you choose to play.

- I expect you have already resolved the invisible rebellions and the floating barbarian English near Paris!?

- I found one minor spelling mistake in the fall of New York event. As far as I remember it should have been "taking" instead of "taken".

- I know very little about the AWI but the West and South seem very quiet. If it is at all historically accurate you could stir up more rebellion in these areas.

- I think random rebellions behind the English lines would cause me more panic than the Continentals showing up at Saratoga where I already have a large army. Again I am not sure how much Guerrilla warfare behind the lines went on during the war.

- It may be a good idea to cut trade out entirely as Tecumseh did (apart from captured caravans!) in Frederick the Great. The AI does not trade at all and this gives the human player an unfair advantage.

So to summarize, excellent scenario in the making. You just need to make it harder and I think you are onto a winner. Keep up the good work Civ2units

**McMonkey** · March 7, 2009, 13:48

Originally posted by AGRICOLA View Post

I have always believed that, except for a few unusual scens, CIV II is based on economics . . . . . give me enough money and I'll beat the stuffing out of anybody.

I wholeheartedly agree with Agri here. Before I got into multiplayer games I rarely bothered with trade and just concentrated on building units and improvements. I have learned from bitter experience the vital important of trading like crazy. It not only helps you whiz through the technologies but gives you the massive revenues needed to rush build large amounts of troops. In most PBEM's I begin by setting every city to produce three traders and Superhighways before I do anything else. This is vital to survive in multiplayer games but if you use these intensive trading tactics in a single player player games it can give a human player a massive advantage over the AI. Unless the economic conditions are made very harsh for the player and they need to trade to keep their heads above water I would suggest cutting it out altogether. You can cut the amount of revenue from trading by giving certain techs (Flight, Invention, Navigation and Railroad all reduce the output of traders by 50%) and not allowing the Superhighway improvement to be built.

**civ2units** · March 7, 2009, 15:18