US Civil War 2012 - Scenario Idea/Discussion

[Boco]

Might want to plug the entrance to the Missippi, unless you want BB's in Minneapolis.

[GhostOfDisco]

Well, I have been considering "no BBs (or other big, ocean-only-in-RL ships) chugging up the rivers" as a house rule...

[techumseh]

Unless you intend all civs to be human controlled, that won't work. You can use CivCity to edit the inland river cities so they can't build ships (or port-type improvements such as harbors and coastal batteries). Or you can allow all coastal cities to build riverine/coastal units, and allocate ocean-going ships by events.

[GhostOfDisco]

Hmm... that does present a quandary, I was thinking of maybe giving the river boats the trireme flag, but then again I might just not have navigable rivers at all (split on that question)...

And since I do plan on having some of the civs computer controlled (well, you can play it as MP, but I do have SP event files), well...

[techumseh]

Closing off the river at it's mouth and not allowing cities on the river to build any ships is fairly easy. This is how I did it in Warlords of China. I think it looks OK.

[GhostOfDisco]

Yeah. I might do that.

[GhostOfDisco]

Not sure about rivers. I wouldn't like to see the AI building Iowas on rivers, but I want the ability to build battleships to be a reason for researching the tech tree (there has to be something at the end of that small tree)

Still not sure about what to do with oceans in the game - I'm loathe to eliminate the BBs entirely, since Curt did a great revampy on Nemo's Iowa graphic for them, and I'm wondering about events files and stuff. I dunno.

Well, looking at El Aurens, it looks like the hp of a unit can go up to at least 10h (i.e. 100 points), so I think some of my things for adding more "flavor" to the units" might works. Anyone know if MGE has limitations on these?

[GhostOfDisco]

Alpha 7 is out!

All the vehicles have been given their proper names (well, the ones that were named, anyway), the "Conscript Jet" has been replaced by the UCAV, and I did a bit of modifying unit stats a bit (see original stats in units_original.txt)

There's still that navy, no navigable rivers, and "Generic" units, but still ... I'm wondering what you all think (were the changes worth it?) before I progress onward (or something like that.)

Download now!

[GhostOfDisco]

And here's a possibility of how I might update the game:
Attached to this post is an idea of a possible modification of my scenario - the units file. As you can see, the Gurkha has been replaced by a Canadian infantry (I gave the "treat all terrain as roads" to regular Mercenary unit and filled the Gurhkas' positions with them.) Likewise, the Generic Mech Inf and Generic Tank have been replaced with the Canadian M113 and Leopard (Sorry, the Generic Infantry stays there - I need a "universal" unit for the Rifleman slot, otherwise one civ can get "mercenaries" that belong to another nation!)

The naval slots have been reduced to three - the destroyer slot (which might be used for a riverboat/gunboat type of vehicle), the Iowa (Battleship Task Force), and the transport (Amphibious Assault Group/Invasion Fleet). The rest have been filled with ground units - mainly infantry, both foot and mechanized, due to the fact that in those slots, when used for a ground unit, use the swordfgt sound.) Namely, Cuban Infantry (for a possible random turn event in the Union SP game where Cuba decides to help the CNA and invade Florida), Mexican Infantry, and moving the Commonwealth LAV-25 up, so that another unit can take its "extra" slot (and thus the "extra" sound).

Furthermore, there are several new additions (so to speak) - a Mexican Helicopter, a Humvee representing the Mexican mech infantry (or motor infantry), and a placeholder graphic for that wheeled French recon vehicle that it seems the Mexicans use for their armored units (though I could be wrong on that.) The general gist of the Mexican forces, I decided when I entertained the possibility of unique Canuck and Mexican units in the game, is that they're cheap and mobile, but not that great strength wise. (Much like that French recon vehicle.) Given that most of the USA/CNA-Mexico border is pretty much undefended, perhaps the Mexican player could regain some of what said lost in its 1846-48 war before the Yanks can effectively respond.

Though I have been wondering about the rivers and such. As someone commented, you don't exactly want Iowas in Minneapolis. I've thought of that, and it seems that the best option would be to make sure some type of craft are generated by player production, while others are made by events. I'm not exactly sure how to do such a thing, but, having played Warlords of China, I thought of "technologies," creating ships i.e. "Mississippi Gunboat Deployment" creates several gunboats in Mississippi River port cities, and so on (or maybe "Battleship construction" builds BBs on selected ports.) I dunno. It'd requiring some looking at the techs in the scenario, and tech trees have never been my things, either.

And I'm still wondering what to do with the CNA's custom tank. I currently have it as the Black Eagle, but I'd love to have a well-done original tank.

Meh, that's all for now.

[EZRhino]

Originally posted by GhostOfDisco
Sorry, the Generic Infantry stays there - I need a "universal" unit for the Rifleman slot, otherwise one civ can get "mercenaries" that belong to another nation!

Just call them 'Mercenaries' or 'Security Contractors'. Generic infantry just sounds silly

Originally posted by GhostOfDisco Though I have been wondering about the rivers and such. As someone commented, you don't exactly want Iowas in Minneapolis. I've thought of that, and it seems that the best option would be to make sure some type of craft are generated by player production, while others are made by events. I'm not exactly sure how to do such a thing, but, having played Warlords of China, I thought of "technologies," creating ships i.e. "Mississippi Gunboat Deployment" creates several gunboats in Mississippi River port cities, and so on (or maybe "Battleship construction" builds BBs on selected ports.) I dunno. It'd requiring some looking at the techs in the scenario, and tech trees have never been my things, either.

You can use civcity to make cities on the Mississippi (i.e. coastal cities) think that they are inland by checking off "can build ships" in the city tags box. At least that way you won't have to worry about Minneapolis super battleships

[GhostOfDisco]

Originally posted by EZRhino
Just call them 'Mercenaries' or 'Security Contractors'. Generic infantry just sounds silly

You have a point - if I give the Canadians and Mexicans unique infantry, than all the Generic Inf unit is needed for is a general unit to be spawned by the whole "friendly mercenaries" thing, in which case I can put the "mercenary" unit in it's slot.

You can use civcity to make cities on the Mississippi (i.e. coastal cities) think that they are inland by checking off "can build ships" in the city tags box.

Yeah, I've been thinking about doing that. The question is, should the "ports that can't build ships" be the river ones (so that seacraft can be built), or the coastal ones (to facilitate the building of rivercraft).

Of course, I might just conclude not to do rivers at all (for one thing, they can mess up highways that follow rivers and stuff.)

So - does anyone else think I have too many naval units and/or think the types of naval units should be reduced? I upped the ships' attack and defense qualities so that they might be useful in bombarding coastal cities.

Also, anyone know where to find/be willing to make a modern river gunship graphic? (Or some unit pics that could be used to compile such a pic that is up to the scenario's graphic's quality?)

[GhostOfDisco]

Is Anybody There? Does Anybody Care?

Well, I just did some river revising, and here's the river-navigable map with the St. Lawerence and the Erie Canal. I stopped the navigable St. Lawerence at Toronto so that you can't steam from Quebec's seaport into the Great Lakes.

Some things I've been wondering about:

• Is there a consensus that I should get rid of most of the naval stuff? I know EZRhino thinks I should, and Smiley said earlier that the naval units (in an earlier alpha) were basically useless, though I thought I remedied that with giving the ships increased attack and defense values. What do you think?
• Should I go with rivers or not? I'm still somewhat divided on this.
• If I do go with rivers, should I add the Columbia and Colorado rivers as navigable waterways? Maybe something to spice up the western theater.
• When I play the game with the CNA events file, the Union's event-spawned units result in massive tank armies. Is this a problem for anyone?

Well, that's all for now (I think...)

[curtsibling]

In a land based scenario like this, there is not as much use for tons of naval units...

I would consider dropping a few and perhaps limiting options to a couple of sea types.



PS
Downloaded this one, I'll dust off MGE and give it a try!

Red-states Republicanism will triumph!

[Harry Tuttle]

Downloading I'll give it a whirl.

[Harry Tuttle]

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