Anyone want to playtest my scenario?

[Varwnos]

Currently i have replaced all of the gfx. The rest remains the same, and i am looking for suggestions for changes

You are advised to play as the despotate of Epiros, which became the empire of Thessalonike. Bulgaria and Nicaea are also playable. The latin empire of Constantinople is probably boring, and Serbia, Venice and southern latin kingdoms were not meant for play either.

You are meant to play at the hardest level.

File is here

[Patine]

I'll give it a shot! Is it MGE or ToT?

[Varwnos]

MGE

[curtsibling]

I would like to try it out...A CIV2 scenario from varwnos is a big occasion!

[Varwnos]

Please note that conquest is very difficult in this scenario. Infact it is mostly possible by event-given units. For the despotate of Epiros (Empire of Thessalonike) the first such unit is granted at turn 18, and it is despot Theodoros. He has very high attack, but almost no defense, so you will have to guard him. If you lose him early on it will be rather impossible to conquer Thessalonike, which in turn will make the latin empire of Constantinople very strong.
Likewise there are weaker units which are granted from time to time, and help conquest, but note that if you are playing as the Empire of Thessalonike (which historically collapsed in the early 1230's) you will find it very hard to expand anyway, due to wars on virtually all frontiers. The best strategy is to keep at least one powerful defender in all bordering cities, so as to disable any easy AI conquest against you.
Even after taking Thessalonike things remain difficult, but at least then you are given some some more units stationed inside it, so you can hope to stabilise the western frontier.
More powerfull catapults which can be built after the first 20 something turns, will help you, but the latin empire of Constantinople gets them earlier, and also fort units are available to the latins before you can research their tech, so again you will have to march large armies to each city if you are to take it.

[EmuGod]

This is a great scenario, varwnos! I found it best to crush barbarian states and sign cease-fires with everyone except for Constantinople and the Minor Latin Kingdoms. With enough rush buying of defensive units, it's possible to hold out against Constantinople's early attacks and then build enough catapults to counterattack.

[Varwnos]

Ty Emu

Any suggestions for changes? I am mostly interested in making Bulgaria a bit stronger. Did it conquer enough cities in the south?
I wanted to avoid making peace impossible, but at the same time keep things difficult.

[EmuGod]

I've only really just encountered them in terms of cities at around the year 1300. They captured the first city east of Thessalonike along the coast (there's a closer one inland which I captured, which I believe was called Serrai or something similar to that). The Serbians haven't really made many aggresive actions. I've focused on maintaining peace on my northern border, so my cavalry and theirs tend to skirmish north of Skopje, which I captured, and south of a Serbian city, before we sign a peace treaty.

[McMonkey]

I will have a go as soon as I get a spare bit of time and let you know what I think. The screenshots look great. I remember seing the original on CFC but I don't think I played it properly.

[Varwnos]

Any other feedback?
In my own game the biggest problem has been the limited bulgarian expansion. I gave them a more powerful horseman, but they still seem to expand with great difficulty, although the main bulk of the latin Constantionople armies are at them (i would probably have found it very hard to survive in that case). So perhaps giving them some more event units could help.

[Varwnos]

Also i thought of disabling the serb mercenery unit for Epiros, and taking out some other of their units as well.
Moreover perhaps it would be a good idea to have periodic events producing a collapse in Thessalonike-Serbian relations.

[McMonkey]

I have not played it properly yet so I cannot comment on how the game plays. Just by looking at the game quickly in cheat mode I noticed a few things that I liked and others that put me off.

Pros:
Good map scale. Nice terrain (mostly)
Nice city styles. Good special resources.
Really like the castles and fortifications.
Good number of cities.

Cons:
Grassland appears to be tundra!
Some of the plains seem to be deserts!?!

A few of the units don't seem to fit this era (i.e. Latin Knights, Stratiotai, Psil. Swordsman and Templar).

The Greek names are a bit confusing for me personally. Some I recognize but others are hard to get into my head. Also I am put off by some of the spelling (know that sounds a bit anal but its true! ). Also the units with lowercase names looks bad (eg. serb knight should be Serb Knight) also some of the abreviations look odd.

Hope this constructive critisism helps. If you would like me to help with going through the text files then I would be happy to do so! Also I have collected loads of graphics over the years and I think I could help improve the units if you are willing!

If these points were resolved then I would be ready to give it a playtest.

Oh, one other thing. Could the place marker/blinker be put back to the traditional square as I hate all alternatives. Can't explain why, just makes me angry! One of the things I dislike about ToT is the fact that the units do not flash to show they are ready to move.

[Varwnos]

I can fix the terrain; it is two images afterall.
However i will leave the rest as they are; You should remember that i did not create this scenario now, it is more than three years old. I just changed the gfx files for it, and included sounds. The rest remained entirely the same
Reworking it would simply take too much time.

[McMonkey]

I would have thought it would be fairly quick to change the names in the rules file and then check through the events to make sure they match. If you like I could have a go. Would need to agree on some Anglo-Saxon friendly names that you would find acceptable!

I would really like to play this scenario but at the moment these things are really offputing!

[Varwnos]

If you want to you can edit the txt file & events, and post them here. I will most probably just accept them