Jan III Sobieski scenario

[GhostOfDisco]

Did some playtesting the other day of the Turks' attack on Kamieniec Podolski (a major Polish fortress in Podolia which played a strategic role in the area and in Polish/Turkish relations during Sobieski's tenure as hetman and king). Noticed some things - for one, the units don't move on the turn that they are created. That is a problem, as the player could easily defeat the invasion force simply by launching 2-3 successful cavalry attacks at them. One solution I thought of is to simply add an event that occurs at that turn making the Turks move those units on that turn. As the Porte does advance on Kamieniec in the following turns, that should do it.

Nevertheless, I decided to to attack the bunches of forces and retreated my cavalry units (and some infantry) back to Lwow, and waited. When the Tukrs did mobilize, they managed to take the fortrees, seized Zhitomer, and fanned out across the countryside as they began to march, more or less, on Lwow:



I was able to prevent the Turks from taking Lwow, though, by a series of sallies by Sobieski, the other Polish Hetman, and the cavalry on the Ottoman forces threatening the city, eventually I was able to retake Kamieniec and Zhitomer, but at great cost to my own forces, which could probably not stage a major offensive into, say, Moldavia or the Ukraine after that. In that sense, my situation was like that Sobieski faced a lot during his career: he had won a stunning victory over the enemy, but lacked the resources to exploit it!

Anyway, I should that mention that the above pic is somewhat obsolete now, as I have modified the Ottoman cannon unit pic. Doubting that the big 30YW Turkish cannons were still in use in the mid-17th century, I did some research (though not as much as I need to, I think), came to a conclusion about the "most used" Turkish cannon in my time period, resized the cannon, and combined it with the mount from the Sultan's Napoleonic-era cavalry. Inspired by curt's addition of Guerilla Warfare to the tech tree, I also made a Polish irregular fighter, though I think I might revise him a bit...

[GhostOfDisco]

Ran into a problem here... apparently, my event's file won't fire any more (at least most of it.) Here's the minimal files needed (I think) to run the scenario:

[GhostOfDisco]

Quicky note ... what do you think of this Muscovite infantry (I'm thinking of redoing the Infantry [Mus] unit pic, as I don't think the musketeers wore breastplates.) Does it look too much like the Strelets unit?

[GhostOfDisco]

Been doing a lot of work on the scenario, but couldn't tell you yesterday because of Internet problems.

Well, the events seem to be running when I try them. Don't know why they didn't beforehand , but feel free to help yourself to the free (if lacking in custom graphics) playtest.

Still, when Turkish army is created for the seige of Kamieniec, it just sits there, which allows for the player to wipe out the stacks of Ottoman units with a Pacerni or two (the Cossacks on the flanks are another story, but still.) Anyone know how to make units created by event in one turn move in that same turn?

Also, I made the Left-bank Ukraine more populous by adding some cities. Not sure if that was a good choice - it gives the player more incentive to focus on the northern Ukraine rather than on the rebellious southeast (which is where the traditional "Wild Lands" lay), but then again, historically the "Wild Lands" didn't really have any cities (the center for the "Zaprohozian Cossacks" was the Sietch). Still, here it is:

[EZRhino]

MOVEUNIT can be in the same event as CREATEUNIT.
I think its common wisdom that to be effective there has to be many MOVEUNIT commands for the civ ai to respond. Try adding several other events like
@IF
UNITKILLED
Unit=Anyunit
@THEN
MOVEUNIT

@IF
TURN
Turn=every
@THEN
MOVEUNIT

or

@IF
RECEIVEDTECHNOLOGY
@THEN
CREATEUNIT
...
MOVEUNIT
...
and so on, so that the MOVEUNIT command is issued many times every turn
Looking good btw. I cant wait for the finished product

[GhostOfDisco]

Wondering about something ... I'm experimenting somewhat a new Cossack banner (based on some of their historical banners) and was wondering what you all thought should be the Ukranian warriors' "shield" - the new one (on the left), of the shield I've been using?

[duke o' york]

Originally posted by GhostOfDisco
feel free to help yourself to the free (if lacking in custom graphics) playtest.

Where is this masterwork?

[GhostOfDisco]

Just scroll up to post #287 of this thread and you'll see the download.

[GhostOfDisco]

Well, among the work I've done so far on the scenario these past few days include adding some "authentic" city names to the Polish "city" list (true, most of the names are from private magnate suburbs of Warsaw, but said planned towns were founded during or after the scenario's time period, and since strict history ends at turn 1...) adjusting some graphics (you know you're too obsessed with Civ 2 when you spend an inordinate amount of time researching what a particular unit (in my case, the "Conscripted" (Datochnye) musketeers of the mid-late 17th century (pre-Peter the Great) Muscovite army and some other stuff.

And since everyone loves eye candy, here some unit graphics:

• A Brandenburg hussar. Not really sure if this guy belongs here (according to Wikipedia, Prussian hussars came about when Frederick the Great noted the Austro-Hungarian hussars and decided to copy them) since it might be ahistorical and I'm very low on unit slots already, but it was in the OiM mod for Rome: Total War (which includes the scenario's time period and, from its lack of Peter the Great and Polish-Saxon units, does not continue into the 18th century) I might put it in (but what units to get rid of. The Balkan-specific Ottoman garrisons, perhaps, or maybe the engineers...)
• An Ottoman sapper unit. According to what I've read, in a lot of major sieges (such as Vienna) the Porte preferred the mine attack (as in blowing up holes underground, not mines as in land mines) to their rather obsolete artillery when it came to attacking the desired citadel, so I'll add some of these guys to the major seiges (like Kamieniec and definitely Vienna.) Not really sure what they looked like, but from what I've seen in my Osprey book about Vienna they looked like the other Turks, and from a woodcut in said book I have some idea as to what their shovels looked like, so I modified a Janissary pic and voila! I might modify this unit further, or I might not. I dunno...
• Polish light cavalry. Just modifying a few minor things I noticed recently. Still essentially the same unit...
• Cossack hetman/ataman. Intended for the "barbarian leader" slot, though with barbs confined to villages (and events ), he might not show up at all. Still think he looks nice, though (taken, as are a lot of guys, from the aforementioned Rome: Total War mod, though I'm not sure I did him justice...)

[GhostOfDisco]

Ran into a problem this evening ... trying to revise the seige on Kamieniec, but when the turn events begin on turn 60, the game just shuts down!

I've looked in the Report file, but it doesn't seem to report anything (it notes a "MOVEUNIT" among the Kamieniec events where there isn't one; or rather, where I deleted it!)

Can you find the problem?

[GhostOfDisco]

Well, here's the situation I'm in: as I have said in previous posts, the Ottomans get the units they need to besiege Kamieniec in turn 61 (the turn the seige begins, but they don't move them until the next turn. This, of course, leaves them vulnerable to a stack-killing first strike by the player, which then eliminates the threat of the seige altogether. Trying to remedy this (and seeing as somehow multiple MOVEUNIT commands did nothing), I noted that in a recent game of Eurasian Wars, Curt managed to have the Japanese attack the required cities simply by having the units spawned right next to their desired targets. So I thought I'd try that and see if it would work. I got rid of the MOVEUNITs for that siege, gave the units new spawn points and started up the game to see what would happen. Guess what? When turn 61 (the beginning of the siege) comes around, the game just quits (though the music still plays). No error message, nothing. It just quits.

Also, when I try and trigger the Vienna event of destroying Gyor (and thus spawning the Turkish camp), the same thing happens as well. I thought that, for some reason, the game now doesn't like event-spawned units, but I did a bit of playtesting of Eurasian Wars (where US troops are spawned when certain cities are captured), and it seems to do fine. I'm wondering if my tinkering with the tech tree may have something to do with it, though I don't think it should. What do you think? Do these events work fine with the scenario that can be downloaded above? What's going on?

[curtsibling]

GhostOfDisco, the game shutdown will most likely be due to a bug/error in rules!

I suggest using Merc's rules scanner program or backing-up your rules file, and
putting in a vanilla rules, and re-instating the tech tree by 3 lines at a time...

That will highlight the problem.

[GhostOfDisco]

Well, I did realize I forgot the rules file in the rough playtest...

I'll check for myself, but here are the rules (as they currently are) if you want to see for yourself...

[GhostOfDisco]

A question ... where is Merc's rules scanner? I looked on his utilities page and saw nothing like that there, I think...

[GhostOfDisco]

Well, it looks like the problem is with the tech tree - when I replaced the tech with the vanilla tree, the events worked out fine. I still have a problem, however; even when the are created right next to an enemy city, event-spawned units won't move in the turn they are created in. Which means a single cav unit can kill an army of 90+ units (such as the army besieging Kamieniec) with one move. I suspect it may have to do with the fact that I have done the "Set Human Player" thing a few times in order to found some more non-Polish cities, etc. I dunno, has anyone encountered a problem like this before? (And if so, how did you solve it?)

And, for some eye candy, some units:

• A Moldavian cavalry unit. This unit's pic was derived from his likeness in the OiM mod for Rome:TW, and compiled by me manipulating fairline's graphics (as usual), though I'm not entirely happy with the way he turned out. He might appear in the game, he might not; it's entirely in the air right now.
• A Muscovite pikeman. This guy is derived from this depiction of Russian pikemen from the 1650s, which is the closest I can find to a depiction of what the enlisted/conscripted "foreign" infantry (organized along Western lines, just like the Polish "foreign" autorament, but consisting basically entirely of Russians) from the period. I'd use him, but I would prefer a musket-wielding guy to a pikeman for an "infantry" unit, because a)I don't think the AI would differentiate between "offensive" musketeers and "defensive" pikemen, b)it would mean filling up another unit slot and c)I think it would be extremely unlikely that the Muscovite army of this period would create regiments consisting solely of pikemen.
  
  The website to which the aforementioned pic is on does show a infantry kaftan from the same period, but it's red, and I've already got a red Russian musketeer guy in "native" dress: the Streletsi. So I'm afraid the two units (the Infantry [Mus] and Strelets) might look too much alike. Therefore, I'm still up in the air about the Muscovite infantry look...
• A revised Vybranne musketeer. He's blue, as he was in my previous depiction of the unit, and he's got a helmet as both the "Polish Horse Artillery" site I've linked to previously and the OiM mod seem to indicate that the guard of Moscow wore helmets of this type, and that they were streletsi.

I hope you like it!