Fritz comes marching!

[McMonkey]

I just re-read the ReadMe and realised I can still win, even though Frederick is dead, if I retake Hanover. The war continues!

[Turno]

So far i haven't followed any plan. I've played freely following the real Seven years war strategies, and i must say i've been totally stunned on how well you managed to balance this scen - apart of those guns, of course.

By helding the strategic triangle Kolberg-Breslau-Hamburg, and continuously buffing with extra reinforcements the hannoverian war theater- in order to keep those pesky French away from my back - , i was able to keep Russians at bay and to take Saxony's, Thuringians' and many of the Bohemian cities Prague included, ending the game with my armies at Haugsburg's capital's gates.

Great job Tecumseh.

[techumseh]

Thanks, guys. It was fun to make.

@Biru Biru: You have the basic design correct. After 1757, there are no further event driven reinforcements for the Prussians. However, as I have been rationalizing my very disorganized events file, I've found room for a couple of new events. One is a 50% chance of creating a new Prussian general each spring. (More on version 1.2 soon)

Sell off your magazines and aqueducts right off the bat, and raise your science rate as high as possible to research 'British Subsidy', which turns on the 'Hanoverian Succession' wonder (Adam Smith). Once you've done this, you can raise your tax rate to the max and sell off your libriaries and universities.

When you capture enemy supply convoys, home them to a city before moving them to a distant city; it increases the payoff.

Since the Imperials have capitalization, their gold increases steadily during the game. Capturing an Imperial city later in the game is usually profitable, if you can spare the forces.

@Werd100 and Turno: it sounds like you are adopting similar strategies to FtG. These West Pont maps show the progressive deterioration in the Prussian military position andthe changes in FtG's strategy to cope with it: http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgur...3Doff%26sa%3DG

[McMonkey]

West

I finally finished the game. It was a pleasure to play from start to finish and just a little bit exciting!!!

I lost : ( as Frederick died and I read the ReadMe wrong and thought recapturing Hanover would give me enough points. Did not really matter as I thought I was going to do it and had a lot of fun!

In the west I launched a counterattack and from Magdeburg I retook Brunswick, Hanover and Minden as a buffer. At this point the French and Imperials both sued for peace. Just as well as the Austrians were kicking my ass in Silesia.

Britain and Prussia fell out but stayed at peace.

[McMonkey]

East

In the east the Russians had quietened down but the Austrians were going all out to finish me off. I had lost Brieg after a very long siege. Breslau then fell rapidly. After the peace deal with France and the Imperials I diverted all my Prussian forces to Silesia and stockpiled them at Glogau for an offensive to retake Breslau.

The Austrians offensive was extremely vicious and I was feeding Grenadiers into a meat-grinder of a battle. Eventually an Imperial caravan blocked their advance and I got a few rush built Grenadiers into Glogau to escort the already assembled siege train.

At this point things got very tense. The five turns left prompt appeared and I was still defending against the Austrians while my path was blocked to Breslau by an Imperial trade convoy that did not want to shift.

With two turns left the caravan moved and I launched my last ditch attack and managed to drive a corridor through the Austrian army, bombard my way into Breslau and slip in all my available Grenadiers.

[McMonkey]

Breslau

Breslau managed to hold quite comfortably for the last turn and I gave myself a nice pat on the back only to realise that with Frederick dead I would also need Konigsburg to win...doh!

Not to worry, I had achieved all my personal objectives and managed to survive the onslaught with no generals left alive!

Congratulations Techumseh, you have created a masterpiece. Can't wait for your next project! Also congratulations are due to Gareth for his inspiring units who's quality match the quality of the gameplay and to Curt for his fabulous cities, well done!

[techumseh]

Thanks!

I'm finishing testing v1.2, and it should be available in a day or two. The first version suffered from unreliable events, and I've taken pains to make sure they all work as advertised. Using masks (multiple flags) as a repeating trigger seems to create problems, so I've substituted old fashioned, but reliable, technologies as repeating triggers. Reinforcements, moveunit commands and the end game all work reliably now.

The changes since the first version include: a longer time is needed to research 'British Subsidy', city improvements are cheaper, and I added 'flight' to the tech tree to reduce caravan payoffs. I added an extra fortress at Stralsund to represent the ability of the Swedish navy to interfere with a siege.

I rationalized the events, freeing up space for annual Bavarian and Saxon reinforcements, and new French reinforcements if the Prussians invade the Rhine area.

On the Prussian side, there is now a 50% chance of a new General unit appearing each spring, and the road network in Saxony and Silesia has been reworked to provide much better lateral movement. You no longer need to go almost up to Berlin to move between Torgau and Glogau.

And finally, if Freddy gets killed, you get one free replacement for him. You only lose the three victory points if he gets killed a second time.

The last change alone should make up for all the new coalition reinforcements. The changes will provide a greater challenge, but also a greater opportunity for a good player to meet it. On balance the changes should reward the skillful player. So I hope its an even better game.

[McMonkey]

That all sounds grand. Will hang on for the new version before I play again.

I agree Sweden should be a bit tougher as it is easy to knock them out on turn 2/3 using Frederick alone. Good for me but I guess the game would be more interesting with a few Swedish troops causing chaos before they are eliminated.

I like the idea of giving Frederick a second chance. The first time is like a close call and he would have to try and stay out of harms way a bit more afterwards. Takes away the annoying possibility of losing the whole hard fought campaign because of one Siege gun attack!

I have been doing a bit of experimentation with the engineer unit. I would really like to see him become available for the following reasons:

- I pillage the roads into Prussia and Silesia early on to slow down my enemies siege trains. It would be nice to be able to reconstruct them for counter attacks and to reconnect recaptured cities.

- As every square is an airbase the only way or building a fortress is to pillage first. I would find it useful to build a few fortresses to delay my enemies, protect my rear areas against roving Hussars and Cossacks and create rest stations for troops on the march.

- You could make a house rule that no new cities could be founded and only destroyed ones re-raised or blank out the Build city option.

I am not sure of the implications of all this on the overall gameplay but I personally like a bit of an engineering project to go along with the warfare.

Just an idea to ponder.

[biru biru]

@Turno: Cheers!

@Techumseh: The first time I looked up a civ reference was, I kid you not, to see who Techumseh was...

Back to the game though...

[techumseh]

Version 1.2 is done, and ready to download: http://www.tecumseh.150m.com/FtG/Fre...the_Great.html

You only need to download zip#1, the others are unchanged. The changes from the first version are mentioned above.

In addition, I eliminated the British reinforcements in 1757, which speeds up the French advance, leading to the earlier capture of Hanover, which in turn, speeds up the Prussian reinforcements. The net effect doesn't affect playbalance, it just gets the human player in control of the Hanoverian army sooner.

I also replaced the Russian flag, moving from a black eagle on light green to a white eagle on dark green.

And that's a wrap, it's done. Thanks to everyone for their help and comments.

[McMonkey]

Hooray!
I held of replaying the last version again so this new one would be fresh. Glad I held back as I am ready for another bash, and hopefully this time I will win / survive!

[AGRICOLA]

Great news for those of us who were less than enchanted with our performance in the beta version. I'm certainly looking forward to a chance to correct some of my worst errors of omission and commision in the beta.

Not to mention the fun and challenge of riding forth with FTG once more to carve out a Prussian empire from the decadent states of 18th century Europe and their feckless, imbecilic rulers.

Nice work, tech. Thanks for a short, tight, action packed and historically accurate scen.