Jan III Sobieski scenario

[Jerec]

Originally posted by GhostOfDisco
I then did some playtesting, and, well thing's didn't go as expected - the Tartars asked for peace on the very first turn! Of course, I have the Great Wall wonder (Fortress of Kamieniec - I thought it was the best way to represent the fortress' strategic importance in the region), so that may have been a factor.

Just wondering, have you tried setting the relations between Sobieski and the Tartars to horrible? I.E. make them start out hating you, using the 'Edit King' part of the cheat menu. This would hopefully make them not want to talk to you at all, avoiding their forced offer of a peace treaty until later.

[GhostOfDisco]

Originally posted by Jerec
Just wondering, have you tried setting the relations between Sobieski and the Tartars to horrible? I.E. make them start out hating you, using the 'Edit King' part of the cheat menu. This would hopefully make them not want to talk to you at all, avoiding their forced offer of a peace treaty until later.

Tried that, even gave the Tartars a Vendetta against the Poles. Still, on the first turn, even when on the hardest level, they offer to talk as soon as they reach one of my cities

[EZRhino]

Use the 'set last contact' under edit king to the game start turn. The a.i. shouldn't try to negotiate on the very first turn then at least...

If I were you, I would ditch the great wall wonder, for the poles at least. It can totally ruin the game balance for a war focused scenario.

Since you're making the scenario with ToT in mind I would just use an event to forbid all negotiation between the tartars and the poles until either you've reached a particular turn, activated some other triggers, or a combination of the above. For example:

@IF
Negotiation
talkertype=HumanOrComputer
listenertype=HumanOrComputer
talkermask=0x40
listenermask=0xa
@AND
FLAG
flag=31
who=Tartars
state=off
@THEN
@ENDIF

Once something turns flag 31 'on' the event should stop firing and the poles and tartars can talk and reconcile...

Cool mask for the cossack btw

[GhostOfDisco]

Well, yeah, I've been thinking the Great Wall might be why they ask for peace...

I might just get rid of it. But I'd still like a Wonder in that city to represent that fort/city's strategic importance in the region. Sun Tzu's Academy perhaps?

[Elensar]

That might work, though it means you get far more veteran units than you may want the player to have.

If wonders count for points, I'd say Darwin's Voyage wouldn't be bad. Its valuable to hold on to, but it (the wonder) in and of itself doesn't provide anything while just sitting there.

[curtsibling]

This is looking more and more excellent - I'll get those cities to you soon too!

[GhostOfDisco]

Been doing some road construction, based somewhat on the Bonaparte 2 scenario (not McMonkey's Bonaparte III!) Hopefully, the road maps are somewhat historically correct, and I've tried to connect other cities "logically" (i.e. how might they plausibly be connected?)

As for the whole Tartar-Cossack thing, right now I've got the Tartars holding the sometime Cossack capital of Chyhyryn (called Chigirin in the scenario because the transliterated Ukrainian just has too many "y"s ) and unable to negotiate with the Poles until they lose said city. I gave them this city to represent their alliance with Dorshenko's Cossacks, who were not only against the Poles, but also pro-Muscovy Cossacks as well ... things in the Ukraine at this time can get very confusing.

What do you think of this idea (and oh, if only I could find some "battle" maps of Doroshenko's campaign...

[GhostOfDisco]

Posted below is something of my idea for a tech tree for this scenario. One thing I need to do is give Poland enough techs so it doesn't go through that whole "get several techs on the first few turns) stuff. I'm also thinking about a series of techs that will enable you to implement the whole "Republic of Three Countries" idea (the Cossack territory as the "Duchy of Ruthenia") if you manage to control enough of the Ukraine. Plus, I've heard Sobieski tried some internal reforms, but they were blocked by the Sejm. I'm wondering what those could be (abolition of the libretum veto? Royal elections vivante rege? I know Sobieski had some plans to establish a dynasty, but how?) I've thought about trying to implement this, maybe as the Apollo Program, but how?

Added a turfekci unit to the unit list yesterday, as well as a Moldavian infantry placeholder.

[GhostOfDisco]

A preview of three units in the scen:

• An Ottoman Turfekci. Modified from an earlier-era version of the unit (I think) by fairline.
• A Swedish reiter/curiasser. Previously I just went with his TYW equivalent, but then I saw some reference pics to Deluge-era Swedish cavalry on this wargamer's blog, and modified the Swede unit accordingly. Now, the blogger's units on whom I based my modding had green sleeves, but that was probably because it's regiment's banner was green, implying that sleeve color was determined on a regimental basis, so I decided to keep my guy's arms purplish blue.
• Muscovite Vybrannye infantry. Elite soldiers charged with the defense of the city of Moscow itself. I've got no reference pics of the units, but from what I read the musketeers wore blue while the pikemen wore green (until 1680-90 or so (forgot exactly when), when they both wore red), so I've done that here, and exchanged their Western-style helmets for Russian hats (which, according to at least some pics I've seen, Russian soldiers wore interchangeably.)

I've been tinkering with sounds and such for a little bit. One question: do they have to be mono? I was pleasantly surprised to find out that at least one of the Russian tracks Curt used for Dictator 6 was in stereo (albeit 8-bit and 22.050 Hz like all Civ II sounds seem to need to be) Can unit sounds be stereo as well? I know the rules says they should be mono, but I'm not sure if that's correct...

[GhostOfDisco]

Originally posted by EZRhino
Use the 'set last contact' under edit king to the game start turn. The a.i. shouldn't try to negotiate on the very first turn then at least...

If I were you, I would ditch the great wall wonder, for the poles at least. It can totally ruin the game balance for a war focused scenario.

Since you're making the scenario with ToT in mind I would just use an event to forbid all negotiation between the tartars and the poles until either you've reached a particular turn, activated some other triggers, or a combination of the above. For example:

@IF
Negotiation
talkertype=HumanOrComputer
listenertype=HumanOrComputer
talkermask=0x40
listenermask=0xa
@AND
FLAG
flag=31
who=Tartars
state=off
@THEN
@ENDIF

So ... it has to check both civs' flags for the negotiation?

[Catfish]

Originally posted by EZRhino

@IF
Negotiation
talkertype=HumanOrComputer
listenertype=HumanOrComputer
talkermask=0x40
listenermask=0xa
@AND
FLAG
flag=31
who=Tartars
state=off
@THEN
@ENDIF

That event is messed up for a number of reasons:

1. You can't use the @AND modifier with the Negotiation trigger (see macro.txt).
2. With Negotiation, it's either talker/listener-type or masks, not both.
3. Using the Negotiation trigger will automatically sever diplomacy - a type of embedded action. Therefore, it wouldn't work even if it were possible to couple the trigger with CheckFlag.
4. The second trigger should be CheckFlag, not Flag.

Short of swapping events files part way through the scenario, I can't think of a solution for disabling and then enabling diplomacy.

[EZRhino]

Originally posted by Catfish


That event is messed up for a number of reasons:

1. You can't use the @AND modifier with the Negotiation trigger (see macro.txt).
2. With Negotiation, it's either talker/listener-type or masks, not both.
3. Using the Negotiation trigger will automatically sever diplomacy - a type of embedded action. Therefore, it wouldn't work even if it were possible to couple the trigger with CheckFlag.
4. The second trigger should be CheckFlag, not Flag.

Short of swapping events files part way through the scenario, I can't think of a solution for disabling and then enabling diplomacy.

You're right, I didn't realize that you couldn't use @AND with a negotiation event. FLAG was a silly mistake. However, the event should still be possible, for example...

@IF
Negotiation
talkertype=HumanOrComputer
listenertype=HumanOrComputer
talkermask=0x40
listenermask=0xa
@THEN
@ENDIF

@IF
CheckFlag
who=Tartars
flag=31
State=On
@THEN
Negotiator
who=Poles
type=Talker
state=Clear
@ENDIF

Strangely enough the event including both talker and listener masks works just fine in the sea kings

[GhostOfDisco]

Well, I looked, and it seems tecumseh was able to give and take diplomacy in Frederick the Great (for example, after Catherine dies you are able to negotiate with the Russians).

Anyway, I tried a "compromise;" the Tartars can still negotiate with the Poles, but the Great Wall wonder is made "obsolete" by the tech "Doroshenko's Aggression," which is taken from the Tartars upon the fall of Chigirin. I did some playtesting on "Deus" level (the scenario's equivalent of Deity), and man, did the Tartar run amuck across my country! They had no problem taking Zhitomer, signing peace with Moscow and then rampaging westward, even striking at Warsaw and Vitebsk! They appeared to strike down Militia and other infantry with impunity, even though a regular Pikeman within City Walls (15 defense) should be able to defeat even a veteran Raider or Cossack (10 attack, 11 at most). Maybe I'll have to make some of them non-Veterans, as the Cossack/Tartar force is, at the present moment, all Veterans. Oh, woe to me, for I had lost 18 units in one blow...

(Though, in the final scenario, the Tartars will also be at war with Moscow, and Ivan will have more units than just one reitar and one musketeer in the region. So Doroshenko will have some more enemies to deal with...)

I've also done some minor city placement rearrangement - I've given Frankfurt (on the Oder; the other Frankfurt is too far west ) to Brandenberg, as seems accurate (Frankfurt's in the Brandenberg region, ergo...) and I think I added a city in the west to the Imperials. (I'll look again). I've been wondering about whether or not to add fort units, make fortresses forts or airbases or simply represent them as cities. I'm leaning toward "cities," as I've made several important border fortifications (such as Kamieniec and Dyneburg) cities, so...

[Catfish]

I completely forgot about the Negotiator action (and not for the first time, it seems ). I use it in my own WotR scenario. Well, it has been a while. I'm getting far too rusty at this game to be attempting tech support at 2:30 am.

Originally posted by EZRhino
Strangely enough the event including both talker and listener masks works just fine in the sea kings

The talkertype and listenertype parameters are ignored when you use masks. That's why it says one or the other in macro.txt. When you use masks, it's automatically HumanOrComputer. Try changing the parameters to "Human" or "Computer" and see what happens.

[GhostOfDisco]

A preview of some of the units I (might have) in the scenario:
The first three are the Danish Army: Infantry, Dragoons, and Cavalry.
I know my previous Dane was light blue with yellow facings; I changed the coat color because red seemed to have a plurality among the different regiments' coat colors; same with yellow on the facings. Also, it seemed to "mesh" better with the cavalry units' colors than the previous one. A similar thing might be said about the horse-mounted Danes; grey coat and red facings/linings seemed to be the most prevalent among both cavalry and dragoon regiments. (Nitpick: I'm not sure if the "National Cavalry" (which encompassed all the non-dragoon mounted units) wore curiasses or not, as the source I'm using doesn't mention them. But, I needed a way to differentiate it from the dragoon unit (that was better than simply removing the musket, I might add) and, if nothing else, it might make a good placeholder. (He should talk to the time-traveling 1700s Russian dragoon! )