Jan III Sobieski scenario

[techumseh]

The evil twin has been sent into exile and the good twin has been put in charge. Rumor has it that the evil one is plotting to return if Goody-Goody-Two-Shoes slips up whatsoever.





Gentlemen do not spy on their friends.





And how would you have good ol' peace lovin' Johnny 'The Good' Sobieski spend the 1,300 gold donated by his neighbourhood pals if not for the good of his pipple? Riotous, debauched living?

Shame on you!





Good things happen to good leaders. Goodness pays!

That's it! Someone's hacked his computer!

[AGRICOLA]

That's it! Someone's hacked his computer!

I hope that you are wrong. I don't see how it would be worthwhile to hack my PC which is located at the end of a somewhat undependable phone line and an abysmally slow dial-up connection. There is no way that Oddjob II could serve either as a node or anything else useful to a serious hacker. But, thank you for your concern.


Tech, you are being much too modest about your contribution to what has happened. Your incisive, insightful thread on 'Frustrating AGRICOLA' produced a truly profound epiphany in me. I was idescribably shamed by the multitude of problems I've been causing the dedicated designers of the SL Designers Guild. Apologies to one and all.

I had the feeling that the Guild would take a long time to forgive, forget and revert to its easy-going ways. However, operating on the optimistic assumption that there is usually more than one way to skin a cat, I looked around for someone who would immediately accept my changed CIV2 philosophy.

After examining some chicken entrails and using a bit of regression analysis, I concluded that the AI is the only entity that will reward my peaceful philosophy without asking awkward questions or demanding my spare copies of CIV2 as hostages to guarantee good behaviour. Consequently, Agri the Awful was exiled and replaced by St. Agri the Peaceful .

Who says that even a low-down skunk can't change its stripes?



@Ghost

I checked the save and, yes, the Ottomans were under Despotism when Jassy was in disorder.

[Turno71]

Who says that even a low-down skunk can't change its stripes?

"The man that is born round-shaped can't die square-shaped". - M.r De Lapallisse

[AGRICOLA]

The &$!?@ Da Vinci's Workshop sucks!

@ GhostOfDisco

Please get rid of the Polish Sejm (Da Vinci's Workshop) wonder. Give it to the Muscovites or Ottomans . . . . the Poles certainly don't want it and have no use for it.

For the Poles, it actually downgrades units rather than upgrading them. The scen starts with 9 non-vet Pikemen (A/D/Cost=4/5/30) in the Polish OOB. By turn 51, the Poles have 93 Pikemen, at least 84 of them vets (A/D=6/7/30) because John Sobieski never builds non-vet ground units.

Then comes the discovery of the Infantry Tactics tech which makes Pikemen obsolete and "upgrades" them to non-vet Infantry (A/D/Cost = 5/5/40). No matter how I look at the unit parameters, I see a more expensive downgrade rather than an upgrade.

In the game file I changed the status of DaVinci to not yet built. Hopefully the Ottomans will build it and royally upgefuch themselves.


EDIT: I would suggest that, to be fair to players, the non-vet numbers for any upgrade should be at least equal to the vet numbers for the unit being replaced.

[GhostOfDisco]

@ GhostOfDisco
For the Poles, it actually downgrades units rather than upgrading them. The scen starts with 9 non-vet Pikemen (A/D/Cost=4/5/30) in the Polish OOB. By turn 51, the Poles have 93 Pikemen, at least 84 of them vets (A/D=6/7/30) because John Sobieski never builds non-vet ground units.

Well, in my current version of the game, I've made sure that the Infantry unit is the same cost as its Musketeer and Pikeman predecessors, though I'm not sure about the whole veteran/non-veteran issue with that Wonder.

Also, the Polish Sejm does upgrade the non-monarchial John Sobieski unit to the John III Sobieski unit, and since the latter has diplomatic implications, I'd like to keep that.

Besides, I really don't think that the Muscovites or Ottomans can upgrade their units.

On another note, I did some playtesting the other day, and the Garrison is quite the formidable defense unit. When I tried to attack a Garrison-equipped city (Jassy or Moscow) with a Cannon unit, it did not destroy the Garrison even when the Cannon was Veteran. It seems that you'd need a lot of cannons to take cities such as the aforementioned two.

I'm now more seriously considering introducing some siege artillery (slower than infantry, but more powerful than regular Cannon) which you can build via obtainable techs, but I'm not sure.

On another note, my recent playtests have revealed that the goody huts, when unleashing barbarians, have the distinct oddity of spawning Crown Hetmans. Now, I know some of the Republic's Hetmans could be a bit rebellious at times, but this is just too extreme. I might have to rearrange some unit slots...

[AGRICOLA]

Also, the Polish Sejm does upgrade the non-monarchial John Sobieski unit to the John III Sobieski unit, and since the latter has diplomatic implications, I'd like to keep that.

Besides, I really don't think that the Muscovites or Ottomans can upgrade their units.

In that case, maybe just remove Infantry Tactics as the obsolescence tech for Pikemen and Musketeers. I'll restore DaVinci as a Warsaw landmark and remove the obsolescence tech from the two units.

On another note, I did some playtesting the other day, and the Garrison is quite the formidable defense unit. When I tried to attack a Garrison-equipped city (Jassy or Moscow) with a Cannon unit, it did not destroy the Garrison even when the Cannon was Veteran. It seems that you'd need a lot of cannons to take cities such as the aforementioned two.

I'm now more seriously considering introducing some siege artillery (slower than infantry, but more powerful than regular Cannon) which you can build via obtainable techs, but I'm not sure.

Don't worry about it. Garrisons are no problem with appropriate tactics. The Moscow massacre I got myself into during the first playtest was sheer stupidity, hopefully never to be repeated. The city can be taken for a fraction of the cost that I paid.

The game map is awfully big for slow-moving Siege Arty.

On another note, my recent playtests have revealed that the goody huts, when unleashing barbarians, have the distinct oddity of spawning Crown Hetmans. Now, I know some of the Republic's Hetmans could be a bit rebellious at times, but this is just too extreme. I might have to rearrange some unit slots...

Don't know because didn't unleash any barbs.

[GhostOfDisco]

I've been wondering about some things things regarding government... namely changing Poland-Lithuania's initial government from Republic to Despotism or Monarchy. The reason I'm thinking about this is that both governments have a higher amount of corruption than Republic, and I think by tweaking the rules.txt I could have Monarchy have the same "1 shield per unit" penalty Republic has. Also, Republic gives you a trade bonus and such, and I think maybe the unreformed government shouldn't have such assets. On the other hand, Despotism and Monarchy mean no intereference from the Senate/Sejm, which I'd like to portray somehow. (Maybe give one of the other civs -which you tend to face off against - the UN or something. I dunno.) I dunno. I would like some imput on the whole government thing. The internal reform isn't meant to create an absolutist government, just a more efficient and governable Rzeczpospolita...

[AGRICOLA]

I don't think it matters much what form of government the Poles start off with: Despotism, Monarchy or Republic. The scen is so long and the map so large that it is playable only under Communism. The first priority for players is to get the Communism tech, figure out the Oedo years and have a revolution. Nothing else will do.

If you read the descriptions of Despotism

Because of Despotism's high rate of corruption, it is almost always an inferior form of government. Try to switch to a Monarchy as soon as possible.

and Monarchy

Monarchy is an excellent form of government for a young civilization.

they are meant for young civs that cover a small area and have few cities. They are not meant for large, sprawling empires with many cities. In techumseh's WARLORDS OF CHINA, where the highest form of government is Monarchy, there are increasing problems with RANDOM unhappiness as more cities are conquered. Every turn at least one more city becomes unhappy for no reason whatsoever. Similarly, under Despotism, it becomes impossible to keep cities happy as well as productive as their number increases.


The less said about Republic as a government form in a war scen, the better. It is a bastardized government form that might be playable if all terrain is stackable. Otherwise, hordes of fortress-building workers are needed. As its description states

Republics make it difficult and expensive to keep a sizable army in the field, but building certain Improvements and Wonders can help to alleviate this problem.

JOHN SOBIESKI is an excellent shoot-em-up scen. Please keep it that way. I seriously doubt that Sobieski and the nobles at the top of the food chain spent much time worrying about keeping the peasants happy except deciding when it was time to call out the Cossacks to nip incipient problems in the bud.



I'll post the results of my current playtest in a couple of days. I'm on turn 67 (Feb '73) and, from the look of things, a bit ahead of the pace of the last playtest. Apparently, nice guys do not necessarily finish last.

[AGRICOLA]

PAX POLONIANUM

I pretty well finished the scen on Turn 79 (Feb 1673) when Constantinople was razed. Because this didn't destroy the Ottoman civ there must be at least one Ottoman city and/or settler somewhere in Anatolia. The Polish army was so overwhelmingly strong by this time that I saw little point in playing another ~10 turns to completely eliminate the Ottomans.


Turns 31-79 of the scen can be divided into two distinct segments:

A. Turns 31 - 72 were a period of constant wars and diplomatic activity aimed at eliminating all but the Ottoman civ.

The AI really does not know what to do with a human civ that has a spotless reputation. It bestows all kinds of monetary favors on it when it demands tribute. During this period, Poland received ~6500 gold from its opponents. That ain't chump change in this scen.

Furthermore, by following a somewhat intricate sequence of steps in the diplomatic minuet, it was not difficult to get specific civs to attack, sue for peace or pay reparations to best serve Poland's needs.

Here are the key events in this period:
Turn 47___ Imperial civ destroyed
Turn 57___ Brandenburg civ kaputt
Turn 64___ Swedes surrender
Turn 69___ Muscovite civ disappears
Turn 72___ Crimean Tartars vanish from the steppes


Turn 72 was the last time the Foreign Minister's popup was operational. Poland's reputation was still spotless. It proved impossible to establish diplomatic contact with the Ottomans.



B. Turns 73 - 79 brought about a change in tactics in that it became more cost effective to subvert Ottoman cities than to attack them.

This was a short and sweet period where 100+ Winged Hussars were sent out to hunt down Ottoman units in the open and clear the way for Diplos to subvert Bucharest, Targoviste, Sofia, Skopje and Edirne in quick succession. The razing of Constantinople finished the fun and games.

To facilitate the movement of Polish units, Varna was founded to connect the Danube to the Black Sea; Ruse was founded to guard the Danube crossing south of Bucharest; Plovdiv was founded at the intersection of roads to Bucharest, Sofia and Constantinople; and Midye was founded on a hill just west of Constantinople as an assembly point for the forces gathering to attack Constantinople.





GARRISONS

In order not to post spoiler info, I'm posting only the shield value of the units lost in capturing cities with Garrison units defending them.

Berlin . . . 400
Moscow . . . 850
Backscharay . . . 300
Constantinople . . . 550
Other cities . . . Subverted in order to gain useful Garrison units

I did not consider these costs to be exorbitant compared to the total monthly shield production of the Polish Empire.




PROBLEMS

Unfortunately, the scen has the following major flaws;

1. The Ottoman civ switches from Fundamentalism to Despotism during its first turn. I have no idea why. As a consequence, Constantinople starves down to size 6 because of a combination of lack of food and unhappiness.

You might try giving Shakespeare's Theater to Constantinople and the Imperialism tech to the Ottomans at the start of the scen; changing the government to Communism; adding immobile units to the city garrisons to decrease unhappiness and modifying the terrain around some cities to provide adequate food. When I tried this, it seemed to work.

Increasing the Ai value in RULES @CIVILIZE for Sultanate (Fundamentalism) did not work.


2. I don't see how any player who is not a novice or complete incompetent can misplay the Polish civ to the point where it has not conquered everything in fewer than the 190 turns needed to bring major historical events into play. Chances are that the Ottoman civ will be gone well before the event-driven climactic battle for Vienna. I think that Vienna should happen before turn 100.




@DESIGNERS:

Q: WHAT DOES IMPASSABLE TERRAIN HAVE TO DO WITH SHIPS ?

A: APPARENTLY A GREAT DEAL !


I encountered a problem when I founded a new city, Varga, in order to move a flotilla of troop-carrying sloops from the Danube into the Black Sea. Because of hordes of Ottoman troops along the west coast of the Black Sea, it was advantageous to found Varga on impassable marsh terrain protected by a band of marshy squares. There was no problem with the founding of the city. However, I immediately found out that a ship could not enter the city from either the Danube side or the Black Sea. Ratz!

After some experimenting, it became clear that ships cannot enter cities situated on impassable terrain . . . either mountains or marsh in this scen. The only solution was to give all naval units the 'Impassable Terrain Override' in @UNITS_ADVANCED.


I would suggest to all scen designers that, if they have impassable terrain, all ships get this override just in case players should found coastal cities on such terrain. From what I can tell, adding the override to a unit does not affect its other parameters.

[GhostOfDisco]

Well, I definitely will do the "ship can pass impassible" thing, as well as give Constantinople the Bard's theater (renamed the Hagia Sophia, of course! )

As for systems of government, I don't think the Polish nobles would take the imposition of an absolute monarchy very well. Frequently in this period of Polish-Lithuanian history, royal attempts at governmental reform were struck down as being the first steps on the slippery steps to absolutism. In fact, it was these fears of absolutism (as well as the plotting by Jan Casimir's queen to stage a coup d'etat among the royal officials) that led to Lubormirski's disastrous 1667 rebellion.

I also must disagree with you, AGRICOLA, on the subject of Republic as a government in a war scenario. Your mention of "fortressing" leads me to indicate that your primary problem is with unit unhappiness. You should note, however, that Krakow has the Women's Suffrage wonder (Wawel Hill) so as long as you keep that city, Polish wives and mothers won't be weeping when their sons march off to war.

2. I don't see how any player who is not a novice or complete incompetent can misplay the Polish civ to the point where it has not conquered everything in fewer than the 190 turns needed to bring major historical events into play. Chances are that the Ottoman civ will be gone well before the event-driven climactic battle for Vienna. I think that Vienna should happen before turn 100.

How would you suggest that I make it harder for the player to "conquer everything."
As for the start date, I chose August of 1667 because it was when Doroshenko crossed the Dneiper with his Cossack-Tartar forces, thus thrusting the player into the middle of a conflict.

I thought about beginning it with the advent of Sobieski's reign as king, but that would have left out some of the most pivotal points of Sobieski's military career (the Polish-Cossack/Tartar conflicts of 1667-1671, the Turkish capture of Kamieniec-Podolski, and (perhaps most importantly) the 1673 Battle of Chocim.) How could I ignore such martial activity?

I might up the start date a month or two (the battle of Podhajce, in which Sobieski defeated Doroshenko and got the Tartars to sign an armisitice, took place in October of 1667.)

On another note, the latest Report.txt reveals that I officially have 4216 bytes left of "heap space." Is that a lot, or do I need to start trimming text and such?

To conclude this post, here's some eye candy: a janissary themed lagimci (miner) who might be used for the Turkish sapper. Also posted is the reference pic I got it from - said pic claims to have both lagimci and humaraci (bombadier(s)), but I'm not sure who is what, so...

[AGRICOLA]

I also must disagree with you, AGRICOLA, on the subject of Republic as a government in a war scenario. Your mention of "fortressing" leads me to indicate that your primary problem is with unit unhappiness. You should note, however, that Krakow has the Women's Suffrage wonder (Wawel Hill) so as long as you keep that city, Polish wives and mothers won't be weeping when their sons march off to war.

On another note, the latest Report.txt reveals that I officially have 4216 bytes left of "heap space." Is that a lot, or do I need to start trimming text and such?

Unfortunately, in the interest of brevity, I omitted specifically mentioning the overall poor performance of a Republic in a war scen. Compared to Communism (or Fundamentalism) it performs very poorly.

To illustrate, I took my last save (Turn 79 / Feb 1674) after the razing of Constantinople and did a few numbers on it. Then I changed the government to Republic, made any changes needed to maintain city happiness and provide unit support and redid the numbers. I did not change anything that was not absolutely necessary. A Luxury rate of 30% is needed to maintain happiness and food production. A ZIP of the two versions of the file are attached.

Here are the comparison numbers. My conclusion is that, in round numbers, Communism outperforms the Republic by ~50%.


COMMUNISM

TOTAL SHIELDS AVAILABLE FOR PRODUCTION OR CAPITALIZATION = 1,001

FOR MAX INCOME . . . . Lux=10% . . . . Tax=80% . . . . Sci=10%
. . . . . . . . . . . .Tax-Cost = 1263 gold . . . . . .Tech/14 Turns

FOR MAX SCIENCE . . . . Lux=10% . . . . Tax=10% . . . . Sci=80%
. . . . . . . . . . . . Tech/2 Turns . . . . . . . . . .Tax-Cost = 467 gold


REPUBLIC

TOTAL SHIELDS AVAILABLE FOR PRODUCTION OR CAPITALIZATION = 588

FOR MAX INCOME . . . . Lux=30% . . . . Tax=70% . . . . Sci=0%
. . . . . . . . . . . .Tax-Cost = 747 gold . . . . . . Tech/1344 Turns

FOR MAX SCIENCE . . . .Lux=30% . . . . Tax=0% . . . . Sci=70%
. . . . . . . . . . . .Tech/3 Turns . . . . . . . . . .Tax-Cost = 427 gold



The corruption in a republic; the need to to support every unit with a shield; the absence of happiness from garrison units which must be compensated for by a high luxury rate; and the interference by the senate when other civs offer unwanted cease fires all contribute to make republic a second-rate form of war government.


Re: Heap size.
IIRC, you have about 5% of the space still available. From here on, I think that it is a matter of some trial and error. Add another @IF to EVENTS and see what happens to the heap space remaining. That should give you some idea of how much a space an event requires and how many events you can add.

[curtsibling]

Events have been a real pest for me lately too - I had some next text material typed up,
and then found out I had overshot the event size by a large margin. I had to ditch tons
of text and it also forced me to take a more sensible track and avoid event repitition...

Text is the key - Keep events messages to a minimum and it saves a lot of fuss...

[GhostOfDisco]

I do agree with you, AGRICOLA, that Communism and Fundamentalism are better wartime governments than Republic is; however, I don't think Sobieski could have successfully imposed an absolute monarchy on Poland, and thus I don't think I allow the player to have said governments. Could a reformed, more efficient government have come about during Sobieski's reign? Maybe. Could he have imposed absolutum dominum on the Republic? In a letter to Louis XIV, he said he planned to (if Louis would give him the moolah), but I don't think it could happen.

Besides, isn't preventing/making it harder for you from taking over the entire map a good thing?

Also, Curt, have you playtested my scenario yet?

[AGRICOLA]

How would you suggest that I make it harder for the player to "conquer everything."
As for the start date, I chose August of 1667 because it was when Doroshenko crossed the Dneiper with his Cossack-Tartar forces, thus thrusting the player into the middle of a conflict.

I thought about beginning it with the advent of Sobieski's reign as king, but that would have left out some of the most pivotal points of Sobieski's military career (the Polish-Cossack/Tartar conflicts of 1667-1671, the Turkish capture of Kamieniec-Podolski, and (perhaps most importantly) the 1673 Battle of Chocim.) How could I ignore such martial activity?

I might up the start date a month or two (the battle of Podhajce, in which Sobieski defeated Doroshenko and got the Tartars to sign an armisitice, took place in October of 1667.)

We had an almost perfect X-post of your edit and my last post.


The simplest approach would be to double the turn increment to 2 months (CHEAT/SCEN PARAMETERS/TURN YEAR INCREMENT).

This would not require either reworking unit stats or extensive testing to ensure that they are balanced. Turn-based events would have to halve the values for the turn on which they occur. Also, there might be some adjustment to the strength of AI forces spawned by events to compensate for the Poles having weaker forces when the event takes place. Interval-based events would require no adjustment. Skipping every second month will introduce minor historical inaccuracies but I suspect that only you would be aware of them. Also, the scen could be lengthened after Vienna to make some allowance for players who experience difficulties.

This would reduce John Sobieski from a very long scen to a reasonably short one . . . . a big plus for those of us with attention deficit disorders.

[AGRICOLA]

I give up.

Another X-post.