American War of Independence - Creation Thread

[our_man]

I've just downloaded this - I don't know how it plays yet but it looks fantastic. I'm holding off starting it at the moment as I just want to confirm the difficulty level - is it really meant to be played on the easiest difficulty level? It seems to be designed for it as starting on Deity puts a lot of your cities in civil disorder.

[civ2units]

@McMonkey and Our_man:
Great to hear, I´m sure you will have fun with this scenario. Please play with Cornwallis and Co. and let me know how the things works. I played yesterday until 1780 and conquered complete Southern colonies and some part of NewYork and New Jersey.

I always played on difficult Colonel or higher. I´ve to change it in the text file. Please don´t play on easiest level. I don´t think that it is really funny.

[Catfish]

Hm, I didn´t know that I only have 31 flags for all civs. I always thought that each civ had 31 flags. I think I have to make a new event file with the correct flags for all civs.

Each civ has 32 flags, but you've got to be mindful of the state of the Continuous modifier. Problems generally arise when you start turning flags off, less frequently when you turn them on.

You wrote that I´ve to look to the order of the events.

Triggers that are checked at the beginning of each turn are checked in the following order:

1. Turn
2. TurnInterval
3. RandomTurn
4. ReceivedTechnology
5. CheckFlag

They are also checked in the order they are listed in the events file (obviously), ie, the game will first check all of the Turn triggers in the order they're listed, then all of the TurnInterval triggers, etc. Therefore, order becomes important when you're dealing with triggers of the same type.

In the following simple example, the text will be displayed on turn 1, but if I switch the order of the last 2 events, the text will be displayed on turn 2 because the state of flag 1 is checked before it's turned on.

@IF
Turn
turn=1
@THEN
Flag
continuous
who=Americans
state=on
flag=0
@ENDIF

@IF
CheckFlag
who=Americans
flag=0
state=on
@THEN
Flag
continuous
who=Americans
state=on
flag=1
@ENDIF

@IF
CheckFlag
who=Americans
flag=1
state=on
@THEN
Text
American Flag 1 is on.
EndText
@ENDIF

Have you tried Mercator's events checking utility?

Mercator created an events-checking utility?

[EZRhino]

Stellar art as always Gareth

Mercator created an events-checking utility?

Not that I know of. Mercator did make a usefull little tool to check for loops or misspellings of technologies in the rules.txt, which incidentally is where I'd bet the problem here is.

[fairline]

Stellar art as always Gareth

Thanks

Not that I know of. Mercator did make a usefull little tool to check for loops or misspellings of technologies in the rules.txt, which incidentally is where I'd bet the problem here is.

Er, that's what I meant...

[civ2units]

It wasn´t anything wrong with the rules, when I disabled the events, everything worked fine. I think the event file was too big (about 87 kb). Also I doubled the Southern Campaign within the events.

One time the report.txt showed me the following message at the end:

@IF found - creating new event structure
WARNING - SCENEVNT HEAP GET FAILURE
Failed to create new event structure

I don´t really know what this mean.

During my own playtest I noticed that some events at the end of the scenario doesn´t work. Or I deleted them before. Anyway I will post new ones next weekend. If you find anything curious or have any suggestions please let me know. I will include it in the new version.

[our_man]

@McMonkey and Our_man:
Great to hear, I´m sure you will have fun with this scenario. Please play with Cornwallis and Co. and let me know how the things works. I played yesterday until 1780 and conquered complete Southern colonies and some part of NewYork and New Jersey.

I always played on difficult Colonel or higher. I´ve to change it in the text file. Please don´t play on easiest level. I don´t think that it is really funny.

I've just played it until about 1780 myself now and I'm enjoying it a lot. Short of another batch of elite British unit reinforcements, I don't think I will have sufficient strength to take Philadelphia - Washington is holed up in there. Ditto Salisbury, which is defended by Continental Lines. The Americans have no presence left south of the Annapolis-Winchester line and nothing north of Valley Forge - with the exception of their forces still attacking Saratoga. Their losses here have phenomenal. I think it's a bit unrealistic for the Saratoga attack to be continuing considering their nearest base is Valley Forge - perhaps there is some way to stop this attack once New England has been secured by the Redcoats?

Also, even playing on Colonel the city of London starts off in civil disorder.

[civ2units]

I've just played it until about 1780 myself now and I'm enjoying it a lot. Short of another batch of elite British unit reinforcements, I don't think I will have sufficient strength to take Philadelphia - Washington is holed up in there. Ditto Salisbury, which is defended by Continental Lines. The Americans have no presence left south of the Annapolis-Winchester line and nothing north of Valley Forge - with the exception of their forces still attacking Saratoga. Their losses here have phenomenal. I think it's a bit unrealistic for the Saratoga attack to be continuing considering their nearest base is Valley Forge - perhaps there is some way to stop this attack once New England has been secured by the Redcoats?

Do you think the number British reinforcements are good or should I decrease them? I´m right that your first attack on Charleston was successfully? Because you wrote that the Americans didn´t control any city south of Annapolis and Winchester.
With the Saratoga Campaign I will fix it, Americans will only get some turns reinforcements. Otherwise they will continue the attack until you've conquered every city.
If you conquered Valley Forge until Nov 1777 and hold it about one year the Americans won´t get their Continental Army tech which allows them to build Continental Line and Dragoons, the most powerfull units for the Americans.
Do you have any siege mortars, maybe they can help you bombing away Washington and his Army out of Philadelphia.

Also, even playing on Colonel the city of London starts off in civil disorder.

Will be also fixed in my next version.
I´m completing the missing events for the Southern Campaign, to make life for the Brits more difficultly.

[our_man]

My first attack on Charleston was successful. I should also point out that I managed to hold onto Boston (just) through a combination of 80% luck and 20% skill at the beginning of the scenario. It's hard to gauge the effect of reducing British reinforcements in the South - your British regular army units are the key to advancing and taking away too many of these may leave the player unable to progress beyond certain cities. For example, I've reached a deadlock in the central theatre at Philadelphia because my remaing soldiers are just not good enough to launch an offensive with.

One other suggestion I have is to make the statistics of every unit visible in the civilopedia, even the unbuildable ones. I don't think I need to explain how - from what I gather is a first scenario you already know the ins and outs of Civ 2 very well!

As for Siege Mortars, I'm afraid these have never made an appearance in my game. How do they arise?

Currently in August 1780 - Alexandria and Annapolis have been captures, although American patriots have now started to conduct sabotage operations in the Southern colonies to undermine my war effort...

[civ2units]

My first attack on Charleston was successful. I should also point out that I managed to hold onto Boston (just) through a combination of 80% luck and 20% skill at the beginning of the scenario. It's hard to gauge the effect of reducing British reinforcements in the South - your British regular army units are the key to advancing and taking away too many of these may leave the player unable to progress beyond certain cities. For example, I've reached a deadlock in the central theatre at Philadelphia because my remaing soldiers are just not good enough to launch an offensive with.

You really had luck with the Boston event. In my games I never could successfully defend the city.
If your first attack on Charleston failure, you will get a second chance in 1780. I´m afraid that the game could be too easy if I give the player more reinforcements. I think that the value of units is balanced. You need the Southern army to protect the cities. Maybe I would build the British Legion (after you successfully conquered New York ) in the occupied cities and then leave my regular units to support the army. For attacking the cities use first Artillery, then Grenadiers if possible. Don´t use Dragoons, I loosed them all by attacking American cities. For Philadelphia you should get additional units, should I give them also one Artillery unit?

One other suggestion I have is to make the statistics of every unit visible in the civilopedia, even the unbuildable ones. I don't think I need to explain how - from what I gather is a first scenario you already know the ins and outs of Civ 2 very well!

I will post a small pdf with all stats for the British and American units in my next update. I think it could be helpfully for the player. BTW, I´ve changed them a little bit, I will test it the next days and hopefully see how it works.

As for Siege Mortars, I'm afraid these have never made an appearance in my game. How do they arise?

Normaly they should arise with the beginning of the New York Campaign. I think they are not in the events, I will fix it too.

Currently in August 1780 - Alexandria and Annapolis have been captures, although American patriots have now started to conduct sabotage operations in the Southern colonies to undermine my war effort...

Please let me know if they makes you serious trouble or if I have to change their stats too.

[GhostOfDisco]

Played as the Brits on King level and, boy, is it hard. Initially was successful in defending Boston but eventually got kicked out. Also made a good amount of progress in the South, but having problems while heading north through N. Carolina and Virginia. It should also be noted that it seems impossible to take Philadelphia from New York - the four spaces between Trenton and Philly mean that they Continentals will take your artillery once you try and move it into position facing the city...

Have t go - but I do look forward to the American events!

[Catfish]

Mercator did make a usefull little tool to check for loops or misspellings of technologies in the rules.txt, which incidentally is where I'd bet the problem here is.

That'd be Civ2Tech.

One time the report.txt showed me the following message at the end:

@IF found - creating new event structure
WARNING - SCENEVNT HEAP GET FAILURE
Failed to create new event structure

I don´t really know what this mean.

That means you've run out of events memory. The earlier crash occurred because you'd overshot your events memory by a long way. Keep pruning events until the last line in the report file displays the remaining heap space. Then you're going to need more space for all of those Delayed events. Each Delayed event requires 284 bytes spare. If you don't have it, they won't work. You've got large blocks of text in there. They take up space. You've also got a lot of double-trigger (@AND) events. They count as two events in memory. Combine double-triggers with big blocks of text and that's a lot of space taken up by strings. You could restructure many of those using flags. Much more economical.

[civ2units]

Played as the Brits on King level and, boy, is it hard. Initially was successful in defending Boston but eventually got kicked out. Also made a good amount of progress in the South, but having problems while heading north through N. Carolina and Virginia. It should also be noted that it seems impossible to take Philadelphia from New York - the four spaces between Trenton and Philly mean that they Continentals will take your artillery once you try and move it into position facing the city...

Have t go - but I do look forward to the American events!

I also noticed during my own games that I never could attack Philadelphia with enough troops. The Continental Lines are too strong. I´m testing it in the next few days with the new unit stats and hope that there is a realistic chance to conquer that rebel capital. I won´t give the Brits more units.
Maybe I will put on every square between Philadelphia and Trenton a fortress.

[civ2units]

That'd be Civ2Tech.


That means you've run out of events memory. The earlier crash occurred because you'd overshot your events memory by a long way. Keep pruning events until the last line in the report file displays the remaining heap space. Then you're going to need more space for all of those Delayed events. Each Delayed event requires 284 bytes spare. If you don't have it, they won't work. You've got large blocks of text in there. They take up space. You've also got a lot of double-trigger (@AND) events. They count as two events in memory. Combine double-triggers with big blocks of text and that's a lot of space taken up by strings. You could restructure many of those using flags. Much more economical.

Thanks very much I think I will reduce the text, it sometimes too much. Also I should play more with the flags, over 10 slots are free for using.

[Catfish]

You've got more than that. You've just got to be careful when using the same flag number with multiple tribe values. In my WotR scenario I used 93 (out of 7 x 32 = 224) flags.

I hadn't looked at your events file since last year, so my last post was based on what I'd read in the thread plus my memory of the older version. Looking at the latest version I see you've got plenty of events space (24339 bytes) left, so you don't need to go about deleting text. You've got 22 Delayed events, each of which can occur only once. Assuming that all 22 could potentially run simultaneously, that would mean you need 22 x 284 = 6248 bytes spare. If you start running out of room, you could probably replace a bunch of those with Delayed Flag action events. For example, 4 Delayed events are triggered when Fort Ticonderoga is destroyed. Instead of using 4 Delays, you could use a single Delayed event that turns on a flag 5 turns later. When the flag is switched on, the American units are created. You'd then have 1 Delayed event + 4 others instead of 4 Delayed events.