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**Michael Daumen** · February 7, 2007, 16:42

Except for the fact that adding movement points allows units to attack more than once a turn, which affects combat. And your analysis ignores the effect of roads and rivers. I suspect it's best not to place too much emphasis on the dating parameters of a scenario.

Frankly, if you want CivII to be an accurate simulation you have the cards stacked against you from the outset.

**McMonkey** · February 7, 2007, 16:45

I would like to offer my first scenario WWII Europe as an example. I acnowledge it is not perfect but I think the scale of the map would be interesting to debate.

The map used is a giga map of Europe. Most of the movement will be along the roads (no RR except in Britain and US to make allied organization less of a headache). Therefore I set the road movement multiplier to 6 for the summer and 3 for the winter months. If you consider that most infantry move 1 and Armour moves 3 then an armoured unit can shift it during good weather.

Agricola has playtested the game and commented that the relative distances between cities seems to work well to quote him: "For me, the mega map is super because, for just about the first time, I have a strong feeling of realism in the distances between cities. From Alexandria to Casablanca is 3600 km in real life but seems even farther in the scen. Also, it would take the Germans just as long to Blitzkrieg Poland in the scen as it actually took them in 1939."

I did not work this out mathamatically, just used trial and error!

Obviously if you used the same map for an ancient scenario everything would have to be recalculated.

Not trying to blow my own trumpet, just thought it was an interesting example!

**Exile** · February 7, 2007, 18:47

No problem, Werd, that's what the thread is about. Use your own scens as examples.

Michael, I agree about the stacked deck. No argument there. Too many things were hard-wired into the game and made invariable.

Obviously, a negotiation must occur between playability, making the game fun, and accuracy, making it believable.
What I'd like to see in this thread are the thoughts of the scen designers. So accuracy is an uphill struggle with Civ2. Granted.

So then, . . .

How does one deal with the same problems in design that we all face? For example . . .

You used 4 month turns in 30 Years War. Why and how did you come to that decision?

**battosai** · February 7, 2007, 19:48

In my 30 Years War scen im going to use one month per turn and give the infantry 4 movepoints, which makes approximately 30 miles a month on the map, while the cavalry comes along with 6-8 (generals who are the sole ZOC ignorers may mave 10 or more). The railroadmodificator is one (which allows more speed differences between unit types) and terrain movement costs can be between one and eight. I think this may be a fair compromise of total realism and civ standards.

An importance in this question lies in the distance between cities. Are they close together some fast and strong units wil overrun a half country within one turn, whereas battles become much more tactical then if cities have a distance of three squares or more but then the ressources of a country can't be fully exploited an many squares will have just tactical relevance, no real strategic or economic. It's a dance with the devil.

PS: Would be anyone up to convert historical scens from Civ2 to SMAC?

PS2: I just listened to the Beatsteaks in Viva La Bam. Man, are they such famous in the US? I'm curious cos they come from near my home.

**Exile** · February 9, 2007, 17:48

How's your memory?

Want to do something, but don't know if it'll work.

If I event-spawn a naval unit of a civ, that IS a transport, in a specific square (where I can also be certain there will be no other naval units), with a movement of 0 . . .

And then, next turn, event-spawn a GROUND unit in that same square . . .

Will it work?

Will the ground unit STAY on board the ship? Will the ship stay there from turn to turn?

Anyone ever tried this?

**Cyrion** · February 9, 2007, 18:46

Re: How's your memory?

Originally posted by Exile
If I event-spawn a naval unit of a civ, that IS a transport, in a specific square (where I can also be certain there will be no other naval units), with a movement of 0 . . .

And then, next turn, event-spawn a GROUND unit in that same square . . .

Will it work?

I'm afraid it won't work!

I haven't tried to create a ground unit on board of a naval unit on the next turn, but I did on the same turn BUT making sure I created the naval before the ground, and it didn't work.

So my guess is that you can't create a ground unit on ocean, no water what else is on the square!

EXCEPT if somewhere in the hardcoding it is written that the naval units are created first, and then the ground, even if the events are listed in the reverse order! But I doubt it

Not sure I was of much help...

**Von Bert** · February 10, 2007, 06:05

Exile

Your point is clear.. and logic..
Just found out that in my Teutonic scenario (basically 1 turn = 1 year, 1 sq = 25 km ) .. soldiers ll be moving maybe from 50 to 200 Km year... a little slow yep..

But playability is a factor to consider, and maybe actually in our games/scenario.. there are different timeline runnig..
i think this happen in many of board/wargames anyway..
when u dont look for precise simulation but just to give the "flavour" of what happening in a certain amount of time.

Then in ancient times is also true that armies were not moving all year around.. they were moving by yearly campaignes that need to be prepared and planned .. this.. just to try give an "explanation".. :P
Anyway.. i dont think the CIV engine can use well units moving very fast (i.e 6-7-8 move points x turn .. )..
Finishing this.. anyway is a PLUS ot be able to fix movements with time in good proportion..

**Exile** · February 13, 2007, 19:55

ARTILLERY

I've seen two scenarios-in-the-making lately that are wrestling with the artillery idea in Civ2.

There have been several solutions to the problem that I've seen. In Chir, I placed immobile units representing divisional artillery and then used an event to create a "bombardment" unit on the square each turn. The bombardment units were air units, destroyed after attacking. For a short scenario, or one in which the artillery doesn't/can't move, and is on a relatively small scale map, this is fine. The drawbacks of such a trick are obvious, however.

So how do you deal w/the bombardment issue and modern, artillery era sieges in general?

**Case** · February 14, 2007, 05:00

Originally posted by Exile
Obviously, a negotiation must occur between playability, making the game fun, and accuracy, making it believable.

I found that strict realism was a good starting point for the playtesting and tweaking which was necessary to generate a realistic scenario. The issue of the speed with which a unit moves versus the maximum number of attacks you want it to be able to make per turn is a serious one which can only be solved through trial and error IMO, with the end state being for the unit to do whatever it is you want it to do.

In his excellent Bonaparte scenario John Ellis broke the mould somewhat by setting the stats of all units units in relation to each other, rather than against the standard abstract notions, and this approach is well worth close examination by everyone who is interested in creating a scenario. If I remember correctly, it took John a lot of time to get everything right, but the end results were spectacular.

As an aside, as aircraft with the bomber flag can only attack once per turn its very easy to accurately model strategic bombers - you just find out how far they could fly with a meaningful bombload and adjust the stats accordingly.

**battosai** · February 14, 2007, 12:57

Originally posted by Case
In his excellent Bonaparte scenario John Ellis broke the mould somewhat by setting the stats of all units units in relation to each other, rather than against the standard abstract notions, and this approach is well worth close examination by everyone who is interested in creating a scenario. If I remember correctly, it took John a lot of time to get everything right, but the end results were spectacular.

Excellent pointing-out here!

Yeah, that's kind of revolution, Johnnyboy developped here (at least 1998!!!). He went back from the boring concept unit differed only from a better defender or a better attacker. Instead of this you can make out "tactical unit classes" that really are worth that name. Infantry is still an allrounder but not a cheap garrison anymore. In much cases it has much better offense abililities than the cavalry (which is a little weak in boney referring to its downfall since the 16th century), in others the cavalry is more effective, especially on plains and meadows. Kill and withdraw is a powerful tactic that can only work with enough movement points! In my philosophy, otherwise the cavalry loses all of its character, which doesn't mean, she should be a king unit. No, in Boney I often had to make smart choices if my cavalry will make it back after a raid , or otherwise will be clearly killed next turn. The engine makes such risky but funny raids very difficult, cause there is no retreat possibility as in SMAC or Civ3. Boney was also the first scen that made clever use of the relation between offense/defense and hitpoints/defense stats. Calculating the result of a battle was mostly a hard job, just as hard, as a general would have it to risk the lives of his best men. I always had the feeling in Boney that an aggressive, fast forward pushing is not better or worse than a cautious strategy, you need both to succeed here. Well, I went off.

What I wanted to say the engine makes it very hard to make a clear difference between infantry and cavalry characters not only by movement points and John was the first who had success with it (none of them is better than the other one but they can be fundamentally overwhelming in special situations). And so do all the units for Boney. Nothing overwhelms and almost everyone can beat everyone. Anything that is kind of "elite" cannot be build or costs twice or more than a slightly worse unit. Light and smart stat differences make the game much more fun and challenging than an evident hierachy, the effect of 1 HP more or 10% more offense has a stronger effect than one would guess!

Edit: Was a bit too emotional by me and my english abilities and thus too confusin but the hell,it's Nappi!

@Exile:`I`m not afraid to try my concept on a high scale map, too. It just shouldn't be possible to have a "bombardement-duel" between two cities.

**EZRhino** · February 14, 2007, 13:15

Re: ARTILLERY

Originally posted by Exile
I've seen two scenarios-in-the-making lately that are wrestling with the artillery idea in Civ2.

There have been several solutions to the problem that I've seen. In Chir, I placed immobile units representing divisional artillery and then used an event to create a "bombardment" unit on the square each turn. The bombardment units were air units, destroyed after attacking. For a short scenario, or one in which the artillery doesn't/can't move, and is on a relatively small scale map, this is fine. The drawbacks of such a trick are obvious, however.

So how do you deal w/the bombardment issue and modern, artillery era sieges in general?

I forget, does the carrier flag work with land units?

**Mercator** · February 14, 2007, 13:48

Yes, to some extent.

Harlan used it in his LOTR scenario (for Frodo carrying the Ring).

Air units that end their turn on the same square as a land unit with carrier ability won't crash. But the land unit won't actually carry the air unit along if it moves, like a ship would.

**Von Bert** · February 15, 2007, 04:50

Originally posted by Mercator
But the land unit won't actually carry the air unit along if it moves, like a ship would.

well that's good.. !
so realistically.. ammo-carriage will have to "follow" the guns ...

(but sure if ammo are many...it can be slow/annoying to move them all one by one.. )

**McMonkey** · February 15, 2007, 06:27

Don't know if this helps the discussion but I found that you can airlift in artillery ammo (missiles) using an airlift helicopter (or Hercules etc...) which is a sea carrier with the parachute flag. The drawback is that if you want to reuse the unit you need to parachute it into a city or airbase. If you made this unit cheap enough you could parachute it onto normal terrain but it would become a static unit, could be somewhat useful!?

This method is probably better used in modern scenarios to represent helicopters and transports.

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