Aeterna Civitas

[Cyrion]

I guessed that it wasn't intended!

Sorry I can't help you with that as I didn't experiment very much with naval units!

Maybe Case could provide some useful advice?

[techumseh]

No. Spawn them outside of cities.

[McMonkey]

The reason I made them spawn inside of cities was that when a region falls under the control of the player the amount of piracy in the area would drop off. If I cannot do this then I may change the events file, make fewer pirates and use the events space saved to create some text type events to mark the capture of key cities.

[Cyrion]

I noticed that when the Praetor tech is discovered, the "Golden age of philosophy" message is triggered: maybe you should "update" this message?

Note: I hope you don't mind my posting of things as I discover them! If you prefer, I'll summarize at the end of my game, but I fear I might forget some things...

[McMonkey]

Please, carry on! I will fix them as you bring them up. So long as there are no catastrophic, game breaking ones

[Cyrion]

No worries, I haven't noticed any big problem (apart from the barbarian galleys, which needs to be adressed IMO).

I am having a great time playing it (even if it seems a bit easy, but of course my opponents are not humans so... )!

[McMonkey]

The only way I could make this a truly challenging single player game is to convert it to ToT and make use of the larger and more sophisticated events. At the moment I have another project that I want to work on (The Balkans Wars) as well as finishing off Fortress Europe. I am sure I will get lots of ideas from the PBEM game that I can use if I ever get round to making a proper single player (ie. difficult) version.

Glad you are enjoying building an empire though. Don't suppose you want to be the seventh player in the PBEM do you?

[McMonkey]

An improved version (1.1) is available for download at:

Aeterna Civitas v1.1

As well as some cosmetic changes the events have been changed quite a bit to fix the barbarian galley spawning problem and add some city captured events.

[fairline]

Werd, I've just started a game as Rome and find that I can't build hatstati, despite them being in the build list of a couple of cities at the outset. Is this as you intended, or is it a side-effect of my ToT conversion?

[McMonkey]

That is as I intended. I did put a note at the start of the read me Hastati will be available to build as soon as the tech becomes available. The ones already being produced should be left alone unless there is another important unit or improvement that needs to be built.

I forgot my own advice in the PBEM we just begun at Civ Webring which was a bit embarrassing!

The reason I did this was to allow the player to have a few good units under production from the start while making the development of the relevant technology to produce them universally an incentive for the player.

It also discourages incremental rush building early on to allow newer players a chance to get established before the more experienced players annihilate them

The only down side is if you forget and click the change production button. I think I will amend the game so you can build at least one improvement (Granary) at the start, that way if you click on the change production button by mistake you will be able to chose a building and then cancel out when you are asked to confirm! Thanks for pointing this out

Feel free to change the prerequisite of Granary to nil as I intend to do that for the download version.

[McMonkey]

Or for a less drastic kneejerk solution to the problem of accidentally clicking on change production it has been suggested that the player simply clicks on Auto and then cancel! Sometimes I feel like such a novice

[fairline]

I've played quite a few turns now as Rome - btw I have converted this to ToT and replaced the gfx. Let me know if you want the conversion.

Good stuff:

I love the map. The scale is excellent and you've done a great job of capturing the look of the continent. The choice of civs and units for each of them is very good. I also like the barb villages which yield slaves and money. Overall it's an enjoyable and immersive scenario to play.

Comments / criticisms:

Unit movement needs to be increased. Infantry with move=1 take an eternity to traverse a map of this scale, and cannot move and fight on the same turn. For my playtest I've doubled all movement stats, and it plays well.

City population sizes are way too small at the outset. Pretty much all of the cities I attacked were destroyed on capturing, while barbs had done much the same to my rival's cities farther afield. Again, I'd double city sizes.

I'd give each civ a few more basic techs at the start. It seems incongruous not to be able to build bridges for example in a scenario taking place in the 3rd C BCE.

The pace of growth and conquest is a little slow for a scenario starting in the 280s and on a map of this scale. It was well into the 2nd C. before I came to grips with Carthage. Increasing unit move stats should sort this.

Why are units like elephants, Balearic slingers and Numidian horse available to research by Rome? I know the latter two were used as auxilliaries by Rome, but surely it would be better either to award events-generated units on defeating Carthaginian units or to award the techs to produce them through conquest of given Carthaginian cities for example. BTW, ToT allows you to dictate which civ can build which unit without having to use the 'twice-removed' tech trick to do this.

It takes a long time to research pricipes. I was into the late 2nd C. before they were available, by which time in historical reality Principes, hastati and triarii had been replaced by the common Marian legion. In my view you'd be better keeping the hastati and principes units and their research paths, but renaming them as citizen legion and Marian legion or some-such.

Barb ships generated in the Adriatic disappear on the same turn (general civ bug I think)

I realise you've pitched this as a multiplayer, but it would be nice to have civ-specific events as in BeBro's ImpRom scenario to add spice and help out the AI in SP games.

Hope these points are useful! Despite the comments, it's a fun scenario to play, and with a few changes would be a great one.

[McMonkey]

@Gareth

Thanks for the feedback. Glad you enjoyed it

To be honest I only did about five turns of testing to make sure the game did not crash and there were no glaring errors. As you mentioned this version was pitched as a PBEM. I finished the whole thing pretty quickly so we could start a game at Civ Webring.

My intention was to get feedback through the PBEM and use it as a thorough playtest to work out what needed to be done to make a good single player version. I was not expecting much feedback from people playing single player so I am chuffed you had a go.

Please do send me the ToT conversion. With the extra units, events space and rules I should be able to make it into a challenging scenario. I would plan to make it a Rise of Rome game, unless anyone has a better idea. This way the events can be used to the fullest to make it hard on the player.

Re: Movement
Agreed. I will have a go and see how it works out. I was not happy that skirmishers could move as fast as cavalry anyway! The only disadvantage is losing the x2 vs Horse flag.

Re: City sizes
Agreed. Part of my concept was for the Romans to be fighting tribes with the correct names in the correct regions. When the Romans captured the tribes base the name would be changed to a Roman one (from list provided) which would be located in the correct position geographically. If they are destroyed that undoes my concept!

Re: Techs
Agreed. Bridge Building, Granary and which others?

Re: Auxiliaries
Agreed. Can be done with ToT!

Re: Principes
Agreed. I intend to alter the places units and improvements appear on the tech tree.

Re: Bugs
I am sure a few more may emerge. I will try and Iron these out.

Thanks for your comments. I intend to spend most of my spare time on the Balkans scenario at the moment but I may start having a tinker with the ToT version when I need a break.

I have PM'd you my e-mail address

[battosai]

Re: Movement
The anti horse flag is useless anyways if the firepower/hitpoints values of the attacker are not excactly one. I guess there was such a limitation for the defender, too. Sad but true.

Re: City Sizes
Note that you've setted a pretty high riot factor in the latest version. As I play the Celts I get unrest problems in size 4 cities, even if they got temple, amphitheatre and three police units. By the way, why does Paris have no amphitheatre like the other celtic towns ?

[fairline]

I agree with Battisai about the riot threshold - it's too low. As for the pikeman bonus, all scenario designers in the last 5 or so years have taken the view that increased movement stats outweigh it's advantages. This is particulary true on a big map like this.

Werd, I think you should review your tech tree. preqs for some units seem a bit illogical. The naming of hydro power to shipyards is very confusing; you should go with wind or watermill as inland cities can build 'em. I would have oil rigs used for shipyards.

EDIT: I don't think bath houses are having the desired effect either...