US Civil War 2012 - Scenario Idea/Discussion

[GhostOfDisco]

Never saw that. What civ are you playing as? I guess I'll have to test and see...

Did some playtesting of version 7 with all playable civs (Union, Commonwealth, Canada, Mexico). Did a lot of opening goody huts. Every result from new techs to mercs to cities and barbarians. No shutting down.

Did you perhaps recieve a certain tech from the village before everything shut down? That's the only thing I can think of that could lock the game or something. Well, that and the possibility that spawning a certain type of unit (either barbarian or friendly merc) could shut the game down, but I've seen both barbarians and mercs spawned without problem (also, when I play, it seems the mercs are always, always Foreign Legion paratroops or generic infantry- is that the same for you?)

[GhostOfDisco]

Oh, and here's a pic for the "BB task force" unit I might use...

[Boco]

Originally posted by Harry Tuttle
Hmmmm, one quick critique. I opened up a goodie hut and the program closed down. Some wires might be crossed.

Corrupt entry in Game.txt?

[Harry Tuttle]

Originally posted by GhostOfDisco
Never saw that. What civ are you playing as? I guess I'll have to test and see...

Did some playtesting of version 7 with all playable civs (Union, Commonwealth, Canada, Mexico). Did a lot of opening goody huts. Every result from new techs to mercs to cities and barbarians. No shutting down.

Did you perhaps recieve a certain tech from the village before everything shut down? That's the only thing I can think of that could lock the game or something. Well, that and the possibility that spawning a certain type of unit (either barbarian or friendly merc) could shut the game down, but I've seen both barbarians and mercs spawned without problem (also, when I play, it seems the mercs are always, always Foreign Legion paratroops or generic infantry- is that the same for you?)

I was playing as the Union. It was probably only 10 turns into game. I did not get to see what was uncovered before it shut down. I'll let you know if I see it again.

Playtesting is going well. The units seem balanced enough. I did however have some trouble eliminating a trooper with an Abrams. I don't remember if the city had walls, but I would expect the trooper to lose more readily.

I agree with those supporting a reduction in naval units. The map is mostly land based and the ships don't play much of a role beyond the Eastern seaboard.

All and all it's a good scenario. Ever think of adding some humorous content, like red-neck pickups or PETA mobs?

[Harry Tuttle]

Some points:

-Brownsville and Wichita are building the Great Wall, but I don't think they should be able to according to the build menu.

-What's with all the cities building Capitalization?

-San Antonio is building Darwin's Voyage.

-I would make the improvements cost more. I can make most of my population centers pretty efficient city in a few turns which just seems too easy to me.

-Kansas city is building a Wonder when it should not be able to.

-2nd time it bombed out. I got the goodie hut by Nassau with a Marine landing craft.

[Harry Tuttle]

I should probably explain the goodie hut returns I received before the program crashed.

I've received:

-units (one time a French unit while playing as the Union)
-tech
-gold

[GhostOfDisco]

The Capitalization frenzy is a leftover from when I used to save the scenarios as *.scns. You see, some experience (I forget the pertinent details) made me think that .sav files in MGE and/or ToT wouldn't recognize adjustments in the rules and such after the .sav was made (i.e. play a game, save it, adjust the rules, go back to saved game, saved game doesn't recognize adjusted rules). However, when you save things as a .scn, things get compounded, and all of a sudden there's a ton of new units built that you never intended. So, I give all the cities Capitalization so they won't go on unintended building sprees.

As for humor, I think I've done a bit of that already. If you take London, Onotario, some of your citizens will mistake it for London, England, the Chinese use the UN World Heritage program to airlift tanks into national parks (a homage to the US2010 scenario found in FW, which utilized similar events), and, depending on which side you play, you'll have to deal with rebellious Hillsdale College students or armed Mormon polygamists.

However, I have been thinking about having a "Cuban invasion of Florida" event for the US events file, and I might have something in there about them landing on the peninsula in order to "protect" the "independence" of the Conch Republic or something.

I think I'll have to look at the Wonders thing.

Also, attached below is a kitbash of the K1A1 tank and the Black Eagle to make what I might use for the custom CNA tank. It's the best looking of my attempts at such a vehicle so far, but it's still recognizably a Black Eagle turret. I dunno, but it might be used...

[GhostOfDisco]

Question: Should I keep the engineers? I know they really don't seem to be used much in my scenario, but they could come in handy with building roads and/or refounding cities (I've seen the AI build roads with engineers over the site of a razed city.)

I'm looking at unit stuff right now (if only Photoshop Elements would stop quitting on me), so I'm curious as to what you think...

[R.W.I.R.]

Canadian Forces

First off I love your scenario and what you've done so far!

One suggestion however, should not the Canadian Forces APC be the LAV III (LIGHT ARMOURED VEHICLE)?

Quote - "Canada's LAV III is a state-of-the-art combat vehicle that really packs a punch! The purpose of this fighting machine is to transport infantry on the battlefield while providing defensive protection and offensive firepower."

http://www.army.forces.gc.ca/

[R.W.I.R.]

One more thing, the Canadian Forces have just purchased some Leopard C2s

[GhostOfDisco]

Re: Canadian Forces

Originally posted by R.W.I.R.
First off I love your scenario and what you've done so far!

One suggestion however, should not the Canadian Forces APC be the LAV III (LIGHT ARMOURED VEHICLE)?

Quote - "Canada's LAV III is a state-of-the-art combat vehicle that really packs a punch! The purpose of this fighting machine is to transport infantry on the battlefield while providing defensive protection and offensive firepower."
http://www.army.forces.gc.ca/

Yeah, I've heard that, but I'm already using LAV/Strykers with the CNA forces, so I decided to give the Canadian mech infantry a different vehicle.

[GhostOfDisco]

Just a little something I've been wondering about...

It seems that the general consensus is that the naval stuff should be scaled down, as this is primarily a land-based scenario. In the latest alpha I have, that has been done - all naval units save the transport and BB ships have been eliminated.

There is, of course, an option involving water that has been mentioned here - rivers.

I've given some though to rivers, and to the vessels that should travel them. It seems to me that a "gunboat" unit with a good movement rate, adequate shore bombardment and naval combat abilities and a limited carrying capacity (1 land unit per gunboat [unit]) might add a new dimension or so to the game.

However, there is the issue of land cities, water cities, and all that. To avoid the Battleship task forces chugging up the Mississippi River, I'd make sure the navigable rivers are disconnected from the ocean, and to prevent Minneapolis from making it's own Iowas, the river cities should be made, via CivCity, to be "land."

(Or maybe, since units in the ocean won't be able to go into the rivers anyway, I can just claim the river cities are building their own original brown-water battleships or something. I dunno...)

This option, on the other hand, presents its own problem - namely, that river cities can't build gunboats, as gunboats are naval units and thus can only be built by coastal cities. To which I have a possible solution: for the player, once he discovers the gunboat advance, can research "advances" such as "Mississippi Gunboat Squadron #", "Ohio River Squadron #" and so on, while in the SP game (i.e. when using the USA or CNA event files) enemy gunboats are spawned via events.

As I said, I'm not sure if I'll be using rivers at all, but they are a definite possibility. Attached below is a picture of what might be the graphic for the "Gunboat" (or "Gunboat Flotilla") unit. I found the ship graphic in one of McMonkey's compilations (this one of naval units), "modernized" it (changed the deck from wood to metal), and did such compilations. I'm not sure if I should use two gunboats, or one; maybe I'll use three, but I'm not so sure about that. Anyway, here it is:

[GhostOfDisco]

Did a bit of playtesting tonight, and I am pleased to report that the transport units works just as appropriately without the submarine flag as they do with!

(In case you didn't know, I was using the "transport submarine" trick - that is, make the transports "attack" sea units, give them an attack value of 1, and give them the submarine flag. I heard that it made the AI use them as vessels to transport land units across the sea in an attempt to land said units elsewhere.)

So, it looks like the "Amphibious Assault Group/Invasion Fleet" unit is a go!

[GhostOfDisco]

Attached below is how I think I'm going to modify some of the units and such.

Notice that I've moved some units around. The CNA Stryker is no longer in the Knight's slot, which mean s the AI won't feel compelled to build it and nothing else. The unbuildable Foreign Legion paratrooper is now in said slot, and his former slot is taken by the Generic Infantry, which will be called simply "Infantry" for the time being.

Having taken out some ships, I've got room for the Canadians and Mexicans to place their own fighter jets, tanks (or armored recon), and mechanized infantry. They might have their own unique foot soldier units, but I'm not sure - I'm also considering inserting a Cuban T-72 unit for certain events that might happen, but I'm not sure.

One thing I am wondering about is whether or not I should keep the Engineers. On one hand, they take up a unit slot; on the other hand, they might be useful in building (or rebuilding) infrastructure to move the army along. What do you think?

(Also note the new Venezuelan Su-37. Colored and converted from fairline's newest modern gfx.

[GhostOfDisco]

Question: What name should I give the CNA tank? (The turret may be from the Black Eagle (at least graphically, but in-game the design's original. ) I'd follow the American (or rather, British-inherited (sorta)) tradition of naming tanks after generals, but I really can't think of a general, present or past, whose cause might be championed by the left. I've thought of people like Kerry or Murtha, but they're still living politicians and it might not be well to name tanks after 'em. I dunno. Any suggestions?