Jan III Sobieski scenario

[GhostOfDisco]

Originally posted by techumseh
You might want to try an event that recreates Sobieski just once if he's killed, eg. "Jan Sobieski has been wounded." If he dies a second time, then lose the game.

I've thought about that, and though "well, it could be done, with the JUSTONCE command used" but then thought, "wait! If I have the Polish civ 'killed' by Sobieski's death (as I'm planning to do), won't that make the 'Sobieski injured' event irrelevant, even if it is 'correct' by the game's standards?" Thinking about it further, I realized that the problem could be solved by using the flags - Sobieski's injury triggers a flag, and if that flag is set, than the next time his unit is killed, you lose the game.

Speaking of Sobieski, here's some graphics of him, first as Hetman and then as King, plus some intail foreign Polish infantry:

[GhostOfDisco]

And the bmp. ...

[Cyrion]

Very nice units!

[GhostOfDisco]

Originally posted by Cyrion
Very nice units!

Thanks! In fact, here's some revised Sobieski pics, and Polish and Lithuanian hetmans...

[techumseh]

Those are good.

[GhostOfDisco]

Some of the Wonders I'll have in my game:
Wawel Hill: (Women's Suffrage) Consisting of both Wawel Cathedral (the seat of the Primate of Poland) and Wawel Castle (the historical seat of the Polish kings), this represents Krakow's place as the spiritual and cultural heart of Poland. If it is taken by a foreign power, the magnates and others won't look well upon your leadership, as represented by the unhappiness you'll get when placing units out in the field.
Royal Castle: (Leonardo's Workshop) This Warsaw wonder will enable Sobieski to enact his military reforms throughout the whole army, and also to allow "John Sobieski" (the Hetman Sobieski unit) to transform into "John III Sobieski" (John's regal unit).
Jasna Gora: (Bach's Cathedral) Located in Czestachowa, this shrine, home of the Black Madonna and the site where the tide of the Deluge turned in favor of the Poles, occupation of this site will make one (or two? I forget) citizens content.
Salt Mines: (King Richard's Crusade) Representing the salt mines near Krakow (I forgot the name of the place), these will increase Krakow's production, increasing the city's strategic value.
Gdansk Wonder: (Colossus) By increasing trade, this wonder will represent the port city's status as one the richest, if not the richest city in the Republic, Poland's major trading port and only access to the sea, etc.

There's also the religious diversity of the region in mention, which I've decided to represent by the three following improvements:
Catholic Cathedral/Church: (Colosseum) Makes three people happy normally, four with "Catholic Rule" (Electronics)
Protestant Church: (Cathedral) Makes three people happy if the civ has "Protestant Tolerance" (Monotheism), four if the civ has "Protestant Rule" (Theology), two if the civ has "Protestant Tolerance" but also "Counter-Reformation" (what the player has, to represent the fact that while religious toleration was the law in Poland, Polish society didn't really reflect that), and none if the civ doesn't have those techs.
Orthodox Church: (Temple) Makes two people happy, three if the civ has "Orthodox Tolerance (Mysticism - does it really increase the effects of Temples?) four if the civ is in control of Moscow (which holds the scenario's equivalent of the Oracle), as Muscovy is basically the only Orthodox civ in the scenario.
I know it's pretty primitive, but hey, it's the Civ II game engine. I'd love to see something like what I've heard Civ 4's religion stuff is like, and I'd love to incorporate Islam into the religious improvement mix, but it doesn't seem feasible for this scenario.

Also, as of this moment I'm thinking of making Chocim(Khotin) and Lwow the "flag" cities involving the Vienna events; i.e. if you hold these two place by the time the Vienna events are triggered, the Turks will march on Vienna; if not, they'll march on Krakow. Chocim because it's a site of one of Sobieski's major victories over the Turks; Lwow, for that same reason and for the fact that it's one of the most important cities in southern Poland, and thus (both in the scenario and in the game) a stragically important site.

Doing some research, it appears that Sobieski had some territorial ambitions that never reached fruition (the recapture of Riga, the conquest of Ducal Prussia, retaking Smolsenek(sp) and the Ukraine, to name a few), which gives me an ample goals for the player to do.

Though a thought occurred to me; how to give the player an incentive to go to Vienna when it isn't his city to begin with? Some tech or something - I dunno. Any thoughts?

[curtsibling]

Nice use of the wonders there to represent Poland's great history!

[GhostOfDisco]

Originally posted by curtsibling
Nice use of the wonders there to represent Poland's great history!

Thanks! I've thought about what kind of Wonder the Union of Lublin could be, if for nothing else than an opportunity to use Jan Matejko's wonderful painting of the event.

I'm thinking of maybe using the Vienna victory as a Wonder, one which starts "obsolete" and whose "obsoleting" tech is taken away with that victory (you can do that in ToT, right?)

[techumseh]

Yes.

[McMonkey]

Very good units, a very exciting scenario concept and some very good ideas. Really looking forward to this

[GhostOfDisco]

A update of sorts...

Leonardo da Vinci once that said to concieve a work was noble, but to execute it was servile; whether he was being lazy, arrogant, or both when he said it I leave up to you. Anyway, I bring this up because I've actually entered the stage of going from just ideas about the scenarios to actually beginning to make the scenario itself.

Right now, I've got a few techs in place (mainly to affect city style and church happiness), most of the wonders, and have begun city placement. Attached below is a view of the entire map, with the Polish cities in red, Muscovite cities in white, Swedish cities in light blue (admittedly with a little bit of Photoshop adjustment to distinguish them better from the Brandenberg cities), Brandenberg cities in blue, Holy Roman Empire cities in yellow/orange, and Ottoman cities in green. As you can see, there's much, much work to be done. It's just that outside of Poland, I'm not sure just what cities were founded before this period and which ones were founded after (I think we can safely rule out St. Petersburg and Stalingrad as being in this scenario. ) I've got some maps of the time period, but they mostly center on Poland, and don't cover the entirety of the territory I need. (On a similar note, did I get the position of Kaminiec (the Polish city southwest of Kiev) right?

Some thoughts on infantry ... while it is true there were a lot of Poles in the "Foreign Contingent," I've decided, for the sake of gameplay, to have the player have to choose between "Foreign Infantry" and Polish Infantry (the Foreign Infantry cost as much money as it does to rush-build a Polish Infantry unit, but it's home is NONE.) Whether you spend money or shields will be up to you. Also, for that choice, I've decided to make the two types of infantry equal, and, as I've read on the Polish Renaissance Warfare website, inferior to Swedish infantry but equal to German and superior to Turkish and Russian soldiers. Whether or not they will be seperated into "Musket" and "Lance" infantry is undecided (from some things I've heard, the "Foreign" infantry were musket-heavy as well, unlike the pike-and-musket infantry of the West.)

Some questions:

• I'm hoping the scenario will not be entirely about military might, but diplomacy and research as well. I know one of the goals of Sobieski's reign was to strengthen the monarchy. There are three main ways that, it seems to me, this could be done: abolishing the libretum veto, making the monarchy hereditary, and transforming Poland from a constitutional monarchy to an absolute one. But how to simulate this? Gaining absolute monarchy (which I hope will be very, very difficult to do) is easy - just give the player the ability to switch from Republic to Communism (renamed, of course) once the requisite tech is gained. Hereditary monarchy and abolishing the libretum veto- not so sure. (Though maybe a renamed Apollo Program thingy could serve for it.) I dunno. Any advice on this front?
• Movement rates? What should they be? Given that my map and that of Frederick the Great have the same rough distance-to-square ratio (my map's just a bit bigger ), I'm thinking that I'll give infantry a movement rate of 3, cavalry that of 6. (Hey, hussars managed to be both heavy and mobile!) Would that be accurate, or is it a bit too much?
• Is there any way to change a civ's city style in ToT? I know how to do it in FW/MGE, but ToT doesn't have those specific scenario editing options.
• Any help with sound editing? I might come up with a Polish cavalry sound (apparently they liked to sing religious songs before going into battle, among other things) and, well, I dunno. Any (free) programs I can use? (I'll check to see if there's that sound-mod program on my dual-processor iMac that there was on Virtual PC.) Any sounds? What about period-era music?

Well, that's all for now. Here's the map:

[McMonkey]

Very exciting progress

Sounds like you are putting the groundwork that is needed for an immersive scenario.

Re: City Styles
Would Mercator's CivTweak work for ToT as well as MGE? I have a feeling it does. Find it at:
CivTweak '

Remember you need to put the CivTweak file plus vbrun300 in the scenario folder. It took me ages to work that out

Re: Other queries
To be honest I only have a general knowledge of this era / region. I am hoping to use the scenario as a vehicle to gain a deeper understanding. I will try and find what I can on the Internet and pass on any good links.

Keep up with the mundane practicalities as they are well worth it when the game is in working order!

[techumseh]

How is this going?

[GhostOfDisco]

I've been reading up on some of the history (not many books about the period & Poland in general 'round my parts - histories of Poland are my best bet).

Apparently the Swedes destroyed the Royal Castle during the Deluge, so I might have to rename the Leonardo wonder to some other buidling/institution (like the Sejm, perhaps.)

I'm thinking of making the political reform objective the object of the "Apollo Program" (Like Boco did with the deployments to France in his El Aurens scneario) It'll either be a hereditary Sobieski monarchy (something that John III did somewhat try to get) or the abolition of the libretum veto (parliamentary things go faster when you only need a majority, don't they? ) - I'm just wondering what's more plausible. (Though one of the reason Sobieski wanted to take Königsburg was so that he could crown his son Jacob Duke of Prussia, which would help establish a dynasty (or so he thought.)

Wondering about the movement rates. Right now I've planning of giving infantry a movement of 3, and mobile cavalry (such as light cavalry, pacerni and hussars) a movement rate of 6, with roads doubling that, just as in Frederick the Great. Would that be accurate, given my map's size and scale?

Still wondering about the infantry, and how to make that all about. Sobieski was said to reform the army, but different sources (online sutff ) say different things. I've also heard he encouraged a sort of hussar revival, as they suffered a decline during the Deluge. I'll probably incorporate that as a technology that allows you to build hussars.

Also, any information about the Russian, Swedish, Turkish armies etc.? It's always hard for me to determine initial troop numbers - that's why I stuck/stick to a semi-realistic ToE for my US civil war scenario? Not to mention the different troop types...

Another little thing before I go - one source I've read says the dragoons were Sobieski's favorite military branch, while another says it was the hussars; with my different "Hetman Sobieski" and "King Sobieski" units, I've satisfied both points of view.

[GhostOfDisco]

Here's a file for proposed movement, attack, and defense values that I wrote up once. Not that I'll follow through on them (though I might - though I'm toying with the idea of getting rid of mercenaries altogether), but I dunno. What do you think?

Infantry Move: 3
Cavalry move: 6

Dutch/Swedish infantry: 6a, 6d
Reg offense infantry: 5a, 4d
Reg. defensive infantry: 4a, 5d
Russian infantry, offense: 4a, 3d
Russian infantry, defense: 3a, 4d
Polish infantry: 5a, 5d
Turkish infantry, offense: 4a, 3d
Turkish infantry, defense: 3a, 4d
Polish grenadier: 6a, 5d (cost: 1.5x reg. infantry)
Hussar: 11a, 4d
Pacerni: 7a, 3d