Designer seeking compatible playtesters.

[Palaiologos]

should i post the playtest results here or e-mail you?

Anyway i just finished my first playtest. Managed to loose Berlin to the Russkies in July 1758. Fredy died leading a last counterattack to recapture the ctiy.
I had captured Hamburg,Schwerin, Rostock, Stralsund, Konigsgradts and Olmutz before running out of steam.
I admit i reloaded 4-5 times trying to save Fredy or another character from dying when assaulting a city.

I was rushbuilding grenadiers like no tommorow since they are the most effective defensive unit.


1. The musketeer unit has a 50-50 chance to win when attacking artillery in plains(in Deity at least). Was it intended?
2. This scenario is hard. Damn hard. I wasted a lot of men campaigning in Silesia and northern Germany not realizing i would need them to defend the capital. Problem is that the fortress of Berlin fell to an early attack around turn 8-10 and i had to continiusly draw men from the "offensive armies" just to keep it properly garrisoned. I remember i had to reload back to july 1757, when i got reinforcements, and instead of using them to go for Leipzig and Torgau(as i had done the first time) i split them, sending the artillery to take part in an offensive at Silesia and had the infantry garisson Magdeburg and Berlin. Mistake. I should have captured Leipzig and Torgau as buffers to Berlin.
3.I really liked that "fortress as a Mv0 air settler" idea. The Austrians almost achieved a breakthrough when the fortress of Neisse surrended due to starvation(you should change that message pop up btw).
4.Send me the sounds!

Anyway the next time i'll play this scenario(and thats tonight) i will do much better now knowing how to use the units and such. It requires carefull planning before launching an attack in enemy territory.

[Palaiologos]

As for the engineer unit: I can certanly find uses for it. i would pillage all the roads for Berlin to Koenigsburg, Berlin to Vienna, Berlin to Nuremburg, anything to keep the AI away from the capitol, if i could rebuild them that is. For counteroffensives and such.

Adding some text when an important city falls would make a nice touch.

[techumseh]

Originally posted by Palaiologos
should i post the playtest results here or e-mail you?

Anyway i just finished my first playtest. Managed to loose Berlin to the Russkies in July 1758. Fredy died leading a last counterattack to recapture the ctiy.
I had captured Hamburg,Schwerin, Rostock, Stralsund, Konigsgradts and Olmutz before running out of steam.
I admit i reloaded 4-5 times trying to save Fredy or another character from dying when assaulting a city.

I was rushbuilding grenadiers like no tommorow since they are the most effective defensive unit.

Sure, post them here. That was far more conquest than I've ever managed. After a few tries, I've got over the temptation to use Fred or another leader to try to finish off a fortress that was only damaged by a seige gun. It usually turns out badly. I wait until I can build another seige gun.

1. The musketeer unit has a 50-50 chance to win when attacking artillery in plains(in Deity at least). Was it intended?

Artillery is undervalued as a defensive weapon in Civ2. Grapeshot can be nasty!

2. This scenario is hard. Damn hard. I wasted a lot of men campaigning in Silesia and northern Germany not realizing i would need them to defend the capital. Problem is that the fortress of Berlin fell to an early attack around turn 8-10 and i had to continiusly draw men from the "offensive armies" just to keep it properly garrisoned. I remember i had to reload back to july 1757, when i got reinforcements, and instead of using them to go for Leipzig and Torgau(as i had done the first time) i split them, sending the artillery to take part in an offensive at Silesia and had the infantry garisson Magdeburg and Berlin. Mistake. I should have captured Leipzig and Torgau as buffers to Berlin.

Glad it's hard for you. Me as well. Let's see what AGRICOLA has to say.

3.I really liked that "fortress as a Mv0 air settler" idea. The Austrians almost achieved a breakthrough when the fortress of Neisse surrended due to starvation(you should change that message pop up btw).

What pop up is that?

4.Send me the sounds!

I'll send them tomorrow. They're great, if I do say so myself!

Anyway the next time i'll play this scenario(and thats tonight) i will do much better now knowing how to use the units and such. It requires carefull planning before launching an attack in enemy territory.

It's very much a defender's game. Freddy fought off the combined armies of France, Austria and Russia for 7 years. I've tried to make these civs fairly relentless, so it's not for the faint of heart.

As for the engineer unit: I can certanly find uses for it. i would pillage all the roads for Berlin to Koenigsburg, Berlin to Vienna, Berlin to Nuremburg, anything to keep the AI away from the capitol, if i could rebuild them that is. For counteroffensives and such.

I'll consider it, but I kind of like it as is.

Adding some text when an important city falls would make a nice touch.

I'm down to 81 bytes of heap space.

Here's a new events file. There are major changes:

1. The endgame is considerably changed. When the talkermask allowed France and Russia to talk to Prussia in 1762, they made peace, but wouldn't always trade the Treaty techs you need to end the game. Now the techs go directly to Prussia.

The other problem is that when they made peace with Prussia, once they could talk to their allies, they attacked them. Ignoring the warning in the manual, I mixed the talker and the talkermask events, and it seems to work. Now I can talk to France from early 1762 on, but it can't talk to Austria or Russia, so those alliances are hopefully stable.

2. I added masks to toggle between two sets of moveunit commands, so that when a Coalition civ makes peace, it's units (hopefully) withdraw.

3. The reinforcements of British, Hanoverian and Hessian units under Prussian control are reduced, making the defense of Hanover against the French more challenging.

4. A house rule: No British or Hanoverian unit under Prussian control may move east of line 29 (Brunswick), and no Hesse-Kassel unit or the Ferdinand unit may move east of line 33 (Magdeburg). Actual Prussian units you build in NW German cities may move farther east to reinforce Frederick.

I haven't played a game right through with these changes, so feedback is valuable.

Here's the new event file. Thanks for your comments. Play on!

[curtsibling]

Just as a little note -
Your sounds are indeed great, techumseh!

I will be playing FtG tonight.

[Palaiologos]

Originally posted by techumseh
After a few tries, I've got over the temptation to use Fred or another leader to try to finish off a fortress that was only damaged by a seige gun. It usually turns out badly. I wait until I can build another seige gun.

Fred (when attacking at 100% that is) is 90% of the time victorious against a fortress. Freddy alone knocked the Swedes out of the war early on.

What pop up is that?

When a city starves and settler units get disbanded. I think its in the game.txt

The other problem is that when they made peace with Prussia, once they could talk to their allies, they attacked them. Ignoring the warning in the manual, I mixed the talker and the talkermask events, and it seems to work. Now I can talk to France from early 1762 on, but it can't talk to Austria or Russia, so those alliances are hopefully stable.

Meaning to ask you about that.
Was scouring your events file and noted all those "mask" and "flag check" triggers. In El aurens' events as well. What do they do?. And no i can't be arsed to read the manual.

[AGRICOLA]

Originally posted by Palaiologos
Fred (when attacking at 100% that is) is 90% of the time victorious against a fortress. Freddy alone knocked the Swedes out of the war early on.

True, but only if he attacks a fortress in a city with no D bonus.

If Freddy is nuts enough to attack a fortress in a city on a river, he's got better than a 75% chance of wearing a halo rather than a crown after the battle.

[techumseh]

Originally posted by Palaiologos

Meaning to ask you about that.
Was scouring your events file and noted all those "mask" and "flag check" triggers. In El aurens' events as well. What do they do?. And no i can't be arsed to read the manual.

It is a bit complicated, but not hard really. Let's use the victory conditions as an example. A victory for Prussia in the 7 Year's war really meant just to survive, including Frederick himself.

So I wanted to give one point for each of six cities under Prussian or British control at the end of the game, and three points if Freddy was still alive. If Prussia has 5 or more points when the game ends, you win. Otherwise, you lose.

So, I set up a flag for each of the 6 VP cities. I'd already used the first 4 Prussian flags (each civ has up to 31), so I started with flag 4:

@IF
CityTaken
city=Berlin
attacker=Anybody
defender=Prussians
@THEN
FLAG
continuous
flag=4
Who=Prussians
state=on
@ENDIF

@IF
CityTaken
city=Berlin
attacker=Prussians
defender=Anybody
@THEN
FLAG
continuous
flag=4
Who=Prussians
state=off
@ENDIF

So if Berlin is captured from the Prussians, flag 4 is turned on. If it's recaptured, flag 4 is turned off. So on for the other 5 VP cities, up to flag 9.

I wanted Freddy to be worth 3 cities. So instead of using 3 events to turn on 3 flags, I used a mask to turn them all on at once:

@IF
UNITKILLED
Unit=Frederick II
Attacker=Anybody
Defender=Prussians
@THEN
TEXT
Frederick, King of Prussia, is dead.
ENDTEXT
PlayWaveFile
Funeral.wav
FLAG
continuous
who=Prussians
state=On
Mask=0b00000000000000000001110000000000
@ENDIF

This turns on flags 10, 11, and 12. You count from the right, starting at zero.

The game automatically ends when Prussia gets the "das Ende" technology. To check the flags to determine victory at the end of the game, I used another mask:

@IF
ReceivedTechnology
receiver=Prussians
technology=74
@AND
Checkflag
Who=Prussians
Mask=0b00000000000000000001111111110000
Threshold=5
State=Off
@THEN
JUSTONCE
PlayWaveFile
Victory.wav
TEXT
Prussia has survived. Everafter, you will be
known as Frederick THE GREAT! Congratulations,
you have won the game.
ENDTEXT
EndGame
endscreens=Off
@ENDIF

This mask counts all the flags from 4 to 13, and if 5 or more are off, the event tells you you've won. A similar mask counts the ON flags, and if there are 5 or more, it tells you you lose. Since both can't be true, you will hopefully only get one message or the other.

[fairline]

Not had a chance to play yet, but I have a whinge you may wish to consider.

Loading up the scenario from cold causes the default sprites to appear rather than the scenario units for me. The most effective way to prevent this is as follows:

- Do not lock unit animation off. This doesn't actually do what it says it does and just complicates fixing the problem (menu - cheat - Edit special rules - unit animation lockout - set to 0 to enable animation). Then tick animated units in the graphic options menu.

- Edit units_advanced in rules for each unit to set the first flag in G (override sprite file) to 1 to disable sprites.

Voila! No more animated units!

I'd also include a dummy terrain sprite available at Wobblefish's site otherwise you invariably end up with the oil graphic from the default terrain rather than the graphic in the oil slot in your new terrain 1 file if you disable animated terrain.

I'm looking forward to giving the scenario a spin and I'll report back before the weekend.

[Palaiologos]

Ok just finished the second playtest with the new events file this time.

First of all i won! At the end game i had all 6 objective cities plus Fred alive!.

1. Trade commodities need changing. Oil and coal were not used at the time.

2. At about the end of 1761 the AI civs got the peace techs. One turn later the Russians had the "czarina dies" event and one turn later they contacted me demanding the "British subsides" tech. When they got it they offered peace. Next turn they went at war with the austrians despite being allied(that was event driven?).

3.The Russians wouldn't even consider changing techs with me-on the contrary they also demanded the Treaty of St.Petersburg under the threat of redeclaring war. I couldn't contact with anybody else and so i couldn't trade techs for that "Das end" tech.

4. The French obliterated the Brits, but no reiforcements came. Maybe they conquered them too fast (about 2 turns from the time the second city fell). No event about the treaty of Klosterseven or whatever.


The strategy i followed this time was better: I seized the city of Torgau immediately-that city was the key for the whole defence of Prussia. It effectively blocks the way the AI austrian and imperial hordes use to get to Berlin.

I pushed all the way to the outskirts of Prague but under enemy pressure had to withdraw eventually back to Dresden. Konigsgrantz was also seized. That was the high mark of the Prussian offensive. For the rest 4,5 years of the war i was on the defensive. The Austrians made a slow and bloody progress untill they were halted at Tograu in the west and Breslau in the east. Koenigsburg held its own against the Russian tide. The Russians and Austrians were effectively neutralized. The French on the other hand, after overcoming Wessel and Emden, they fell upon the Brits with blitzkrieg speed. They tried to link up with the besieged Imperial capitol of Hamburg but a resolute defence by King Fredereick held them at bay. After a series of attacks and counterattacks the frontier was stabilized at Magdeburg.
Slowly the enemy's strength withered and the Prussian army was able to launch a series of counteroffensives with the aim of liberating Hannover and Breslau (the frontier had been meanwhile pushed back to Glogau). After many bloody battles, heroisms and blunders and only 2 months before political developments ended the war the two cities came into prussian hands.

Difficulty; Deity

[Palaiologos]

I realy enjoyed this scenario, even if it was even more stressfull than Red Front. Am looking forward to give it another go once i have the sounds.

Interesting stuff these about the masks and flags. There is a lot of untapped potential in this ToT engine.

[Palaiologos]

Originally posted by fairline
- Do not lock unit animation off. This doesn't actually do what it says it does and just complicates fixing the problem (menu - cheat - Edit special rules - unit animation lockout - set to 0 to enable animation). Then tick animated units in the graphic options menu.

- Edit units_advanced in rules for each unit to set the first flag in G (override sprite file) to 1 to disable sprites.

I just moved the static.spr file out of the "Original" subfolder of ToT...

[techumseh]

Yes, though it sounds like many of the events didn't work as planned. I'll have a look at it tonight.

[Palaiologos]

The end event worked fine.

[techumseh]

Historically, after Tsarina Elisabeth's death, Russia switched sides and fought briefly alongside Prussia against Austria, until Tsar Paul was deposed by his wife, Catherine the Great. Then Russia became neutral. So the event worked within historical perameters.

[fairline]

Originally posted by Palaiologos



I just moved the static.spr file out of the "Original" subfolder of ToT...

That won't do it 100% of the time. The only way to be sure is to enable unit animation (ie unlock unit animation) and set the advanced_units field to 'don't use sprites'.