Jan III Sobieski scenario

[GhostOfDisco]

I give up.

I'm wondering what you're giving up on ... I'm guessing it's my apparent stubbornness in not wanting Aggie to switch to Communism early on. :P

Anyway, your comment about the length of the scenario ... well, in my playtests, with the player having only a few units to move, the years seemed to go by pretty quickly (unlike, say, Red Front, where you had to spend so much time getting all those units from beyond the Urals to the front lines... ) As for the historical dates and the two-month option, I think I could simply renamed the months into two month periods, so instead of "January" it would read "January-February" or something. Though the stickler for historical accuracy in me says, "but if you switch from 1 to 2 months per turn, won't you have to double all the unit's movement rates?" Nevertheless, I am definitely giving it serious consideration (2 months per turn, not necessarily the doubling of movement).

Also, (not just AGRICOLA but everyone who's playtesting), do you think I should get rid of the intro text? (The text at the very first turn.) I'm trying to trim down a lot of text (stupid event file size limits.. I like writing long event texts), but the intro text seems to give a lot of good background...

[AGRICOLA]

I'm wondering what you're giving up on ... I'm guessing it's my apparent stubbornness in not wanting Aggie to switch to Communism early on. :P

Nope, I was just commenting on the cross posting we were doing.

Anyway, your comment about the length of the scenario ... well, in my playtests, with the player having only a few units to move, the years seemed to go by pretty quickly (unlike, say, Red Front, where you had to spend so much time getting all those units from beyond the Urals to the front lines... )

I shall refrain from commenting on the length of time it took to move the units that had completed the Muscovite campaign to the Danube and the Ottomans. There is not a single road from Moscow to Kiev, the bottleneck that all units had to pass through.

As for the historical dates and the two-month option, I think I could simply renamed the months into two month periods, so instead of "January" it would read "January-February" or something. Though the stickler for historical accuracy in me says, "but if you switch from 1 to 2 months per turn, won't you have to double all the unit's movement rates?" Nevertheless, I am definitely giving it serious consideration (2 months per turn, not necessarily the doubling of movement).

I don't think that movement should be doubled.

Also, (not just AGRICOLA but everyone who's playtesting), do you think I should get rid of the intro text? (The text at the very first turn.) I'm trying to trim down a lot of text (stupid event file size limits.. I like writing long event texts), but the intro text seems to give a lot of good background...

Take a look at techumseh's MARKET GARDEN scen, where he uses the DECSCRIBE file to introduce the scen and present player options.

From what I can tell, because this is completely independent of EVENTS, the length of the introductory text is immaterial. You can make it as detailed as you see fit.

[McMonkey]

I do appreciate being fully briefed when I begin a scenario but I don't think it is necessary to do this with events text on the first time. If there was unlimited events space then a thorough intro would be great but I think the space could be better employed improving gameplay.

Why not put the briefing and historical background in the intro text that comes up with the title. I notice you don't have one with this version of Sobieski or in A Union Divided. All you need to do is create a text file with the same name as the scenario file (IE sobieski.scn would mean calling the file sobieski.txt).

Allard Höfelt wrote a guide to making the most of this file by adding a bot with text you can scroll up and down. This would allow you to put as much background info as you like. I have attached his guide below. Have a look at Aeterna Civitas II for an example of how I have used his method.

Hope that's helpful

[GhostOfDisco]

Good news, bad news:
Good News: Since I trimmed the events file of a lot of text, the heap space has gone up from 4216 bytes to 12,795! I'm wondering if I could trim it up a bit more (plus there's some more events I plan to put in), but still, that's a good amount of space.
Bad News: Having finally gotten the Report.txt to look at the latest text, it still seems to recognize original Turn 1 texts that I have since removed from the game. What gives?

(Sorry I had to remove the semicolon from the EBUG; I needed to for the Report to look at the new text.)

[AGRICOLA]

Good news, bad news:
Bad News: Having finally gotten the Report.txt to look at the latest text, it still seems to recognize original Turn 1 texts that I have since removed from the game. What gives?

(Sorry I had to remove the semicolon from the EBUG; I needed to for the Report to look at the new text.)

Good & Bad News: I was able to duplicate your problem when I:

1. Downloaded the new Events.
2. Opened the Sobieski game folder (it, like all my game folders, resides on Desktop and contains only the files that come with the scen) and renamed the existing Events as EventsORI.
3. Pasted the new Events into the folder.
4. Couldn't find DEBUG so compromised by putting ";" in front of @DEBUG.
5. Started the scen and immediately saved the game.
6. Used hex editor to look at the Events text section at the end of the save.
7. Yes, the phrase "small village of Andrusovo" was there. CIV2 had used EventsORI rather than the new Events.
8. Was puzzled.
9. Was very delighted that the designer has not lost his marbles.
10. Messed around for a while to sort out problem.


Interestingly, when I renamed the old Events as ORIEvents rather than EvenetsORI, CIV2 read the correct file. Go figure.

Final solution was to completely remove the old Events file from the game folder

Anyway, as you provide minimal details of exactly what you did, I have no idea whether this is of any help.

[GhostOfDisco]

A quandary...

In some of my playtests I've noticed that while the Ottomans and Tartars are supposed to be perpetual allies, they sometimes cancel their alliance and even go to war with each other. I think the reason for this is that I've turned the ability for either civ off and on on various intervals, but I need that "off/on at intervals" thing for the game. How do I solve this problem? (I've put their NEGOTIAITON events at the very end of the events file (before the ENDEVENTS, of course. :P ) Will that work.

On another note, according to the latest Report.txt, my remaining heap space has gone up to 14,422 bytes. I hope that's enough...

[AGRICOLA]

Re: Ottomans and Tartars

Boys will be boys. Let 'em fight. Makes things easier for us decent folk.


J. Sobieski, Rex

[GhostOfDisco]

Well, I've done some work after almost a month of inactivity on the project- I've finally decided to do the 2-months per turn route as suggested by Agri, as well as created some events that, well, help ensure the Battle of Vienna takes places (and gives you a motivation for wanting to help the Austrians! )

One thing I've been wondering about:
Sobieski's succession as Apollo/Alpha Centauri program (Jan wanted his son Jakub to succeed him as king of Poland, the Apollo Program wonder would be the establishment of vivente rege elections, the "spaceship" would be the effort to get Jakub elected, and the scenario would be won if that came about.) Good idea?

[Elensar]

I like the sound of it, though I'm not sure how to implement the "spaceship".

Still, its a neat way to reward the player for that goal.

[GhostOfDisco]

The next playtest has been released!
Main files
Sounds
The scenario's not complete - I still have some placeholder graphics, the readme's not up, nor are the pedia entries and so forth, but a good amount has changed since the last upload. Check it out!

[GhostOfDisco]

A much-belated ^bump^

So... has anybody played the last playtest? If so, what do you think of it? Is it fun and challenging? Is it too hard, or too easy?

I know in one of his playtests AGRICOLA said that he had advanced warning before the Kamieniec attack. What was that and can it be fixed? Is the Garrison unit now too hard?

Yes, I do still plan to work on this scenario.

[McMonkey]

I will play a proper game of Jan III, I promise. Time is not on my side at the moment but I will start taking some holidays soon and I should be able to catch up on some single player gaming them.

[Hans99]

I'll try next week...

[AGRICOLA]

I know in one of his playtests AGRICOLA said that he had advanced warning before the Kamieniec attack. What was that and can it be fixed?

I would be reluctant to call it "advanced warning".


Please see the Aug '72 entry in Post 399 on this thread. The reason the immobile Turkish forces were spotted as soon as they were spawned, is that they spawned right on the main Polish road to the front. Spawn them somewhere else, possibly on a new, short stub road that leads to nowhere and is unlikely to be in constant use by Polish forces.

[GhostOfDisco]

A few days ago, I realized what caused the "early warning" - the Turkish units that are supposed to be spawned for the Battle of Chocim were, in fact, spawned at the turn where the Turks attack Kamieniec.

I've since corrected the error, and will try to test it out (and, if it works, post the events file) when I have the chance.