New Age of Sail scenario in development

[Miroslav]

Hi, Case, I'm glad that you like the idea.

As a question, why is the scenario stopping at 1780?

This is a good question, and I have given much thought about it myself.
First let me say that if the timescale is one year per turn then this scenario will be overstretched as it is: at least 288 turns, which is very long for a scenario and potentially boring.
Then there is the total number of available unit slots as an another limiting factor. For instance, if extending into Napoleonic wars, and possibly later, there should be new types of ships and land units (at least 1 sort of steamship, early rifle infantry and horse artillery).
Also some ship types that I currently plan to use throughout the scenario (well, at least mid-to-late), such as Fluyte should expire during French revolutionary wars.
Next, what may be a bit problematic is the choice of players: during French Revolutionary wars and Napoleonic wars a great deal of battles had been fought on mainland Europe involving amongst others Italian and German states, Austrian Empire, Prussia, Sweden and even revived Poland. The question is how to simulate all these countries ,warfare and political dynamics of that age reliably with barbarians only.
On the other hand, what was the importance of Netherlands and Portugal especially during Napoleonic wars, and what in terms of assigning players should be done with the United States, a new county?
There are more ways to solve any of these problems and each has implications on current design.

Finally I would like to say that Napoleonic age, as a standalone theme is commonly exploited, typically, as a wargame. And, because of the complexity of both early-to-mid age of sail (including colonialization) and napoleonic age, the best thing to do in my opinion is to keep them separated.


PS. Why did you stop making your scenario? What speciffic aspect of naval strategy does perform bad in particular (apart from the obvious, AI players attacking cities with ships)?
If it is the overseas colonization, there might be a way to workaround it. If you're not familiar with St. Leo's scenarios Fictional Americas and Imperial Ambition, check them out. Both are available at CivFanatics. They use events generated "on-the-fly" to aid the AI (randomly creating units for AI players in areas suitable for colonization)

[techumseh]

One scenario you night want to look at is Carl Fritz's "Pitt's War at Sea" set in the Caribbean during the Seven Year's War. http://users.stargate.net/~harden/index.html

Sweden was a significant naval power during the latter part of your scenario's time frame, as was Denmark. Turkey was a Mediterranian (only) naval power in the 15 and 16th centuries, much in decline after that.

[Miroslav]

Turkey was a Mediterranian (only) naval power in the 15 and 16th centuries, much in decline after that.

Ah yes, but I need to prevent European expansion in wrong direction, and also Ottoman empire makes an ideal "bad guy" holding Europe in its grip during much of the scenario and presenting latent threat.
Before finally deciding on Netherlands and Portugal I was toying with the idea of Catholics and Protestants but gave up.

[Miroslav]

OK, so the base map is more or less complete, and soon I shall post initial savegame and rules.txt and city.txt.
(by soon I mean 3-5 days)

About that weird water line cutting through continents, and several merged Polynesian islands:
I first learned about this technique while reading on some forum (probably CivFanatics) about Rome280BC scenario from Rick Westera.
It goes something like this:
First you separate one land mass into 2 by adding ocean with civ2 map editor.
Then when you start the game and turn on the cheat mode, fill in the land back. Civ2 sav/scn file keeps them as separate land masses.
As a result, now you have what seems like one "continent", but with 2 "regions".
The good side of this is the trade bonus when trading with this new land mass.
In my scenario this will be useful for Europeans and Ottomans when trading with China and Africa. Euroasian-African land mass is divided into Europe, Sub-saharan Africa, Middle-East and Remaining Asia, and America is divided into South and North.
The only 2 downsides of this are more work of course, and a small inconvenience:
64 land masses is the limit per map, and in order to create 4 free land massed 4 have to be removed.
So I merged several islands together or with continents (in cheat-mode I can separate them, but they keep same land-mass numbers).
Same l.m. numbers may have an impact on AI, but these islands are so remote and small, and they won't play any role in the game, at least not likely for AI players.

This idea can be expanded even further, creating "national borders", but even as it is requires some additonal work (except for the obvious, also restoring rivers), so I'm not willing to expand it.

[Henrik]

Note about sinking ships: The way it works is that all ships on a tile sink if one does, regardless of if the other ships have allready survived their movement. So you might want to tell the player not to group his ships.

Or atleast so I seem to recall Has been a while

EDIT:

Also you might want to consider using goody huts if your units.gif setup allows it, makes exploring fun and is an easy way of inserting some randomness into the game.

[Case]

Originally posted by Miroslav
PS. Why did you stop making your scenario?

It would have been about 5 years ago, so I can't remember the exact details. However, I think that the main reason was a combination of shortage of suitable unit graphics ...and finishing university.

What speciffic aspect of naval strategy does perform bad in particular (apart from the obvious, AI players attacking cities with ships)?

The AI tends to send ships out singularly and attack random targets.

At the risk of appearing immodest, my scenario about the Battle of the Atlantic 'The Cruel Sea' might be worth a look - I think that it's one of the more successful naval scenarios. Pitt's War at Sea is excellent, and John Ellis' Colonies scenarios handle naval warfare well.

[Miroslav]

Originally posted by Henrik:The way it works is that all ships on a tile sink if one does, regardless of if the other ships have allready survived their movement.

Man, that s*cks. I was hoping that the players would sometimes stack ships on a tile for group defence (for example 2 early-to-mid game Galleons could survive attacks by multiple smaller ships and/or a Galleon). At least this would still work near the coast.

Originally posted by Henrik:you might want to consider using goody huts

I am considering, but barbarian units produced by huts are not completely the same as those produced as horde and pirate barbs. Also, is there a way to disable nomads and free cities? Basically, what I want from huts is money, mercenaries (in form of generic natives [late in the game possibly with firearms]), and barbarians. I think that Invention stops techs from huts.

Originally posted by Case:the main reason was a combination of shortage of suitable unit graphics ...and finishing university

Ah yes, Civ2 vs. real life. Similar story here.
Colonies series I have played (except Col4 MP), about Pitt's war and Cruel sea I know of, but never have played. Guess I should check them out more closely.

[Eivind IV]

You concept sounds very similar to my own Colonialism scenario. Feel free to use anything from it.

That Euroasian divided into two land masses are actually very smart. Why didn't I think of that?

I don't quite understand why you want to add 50% def to ocean terrain (is that even possible?). Why not just give the ships more defensive value? And you know you can use civstack to make the ocean stackable? But if transporters are sunk, you will have the problem with 'floating' land units.

Another thing. I regret that I didn't merge Portugal and Spain to a united Iberian civ. This would free up another crucial civ, such as for instance Holy Roman Empire, Russia or even China. Or Aztecs? Many alternatives which could add another dimension to the scenario that mine lacks. Might be something worth to consider.

[kobayashi]

Originally posted by Miroslav
@MacGalleo
Yes, I was familiar with TRON. It's really unique, but the trade mechanism is so complex, and I don't think I'll implement something like that. It is a nice idea, but those resource "units" waste spaces for real units.
However, maybe I can implement something similar to slavery such as in Colonies4 by John Ellis.

I only had 2 'resource' units. IIRC Indians with one crate and Indians with 2 crates.

It did waste a lot of event space though.

[Miroslav]

@kobayashi
Sorry, I meant resource units such as: Cloves, Tea, Tobacco, Cofee and Silk.

@Eivind IV
Thanks for letting me use stuff from your scen. Maybe I could steal, ... uhh I mean borrow idea of trade center terrains.
Modifying def for oceans: yes it is possible, but now that you have mentioned it, I suppose I could just increase defence for ships.
Stackable terrains: umm, no. Because I want regular fortresses.
Other civs:
Hmm, originally I wanted Catholics instead of Portugese which would include Portugal, Venezia, Poland and Denmark*, and Protestants instead of Dutch including Dutch, Swedish, Dubrovnik(Ragusa)* and Genoa*.
*(I know, they did not belong were I would put them, this is just for game mechanics, for example: Sweden vs Denmark, Genoa vs Venice).

Alternatively, I guess I could make Iberians and Austrian Habsburgs. AH could be used as a balance for French and Russians. But wouldn't an Iberian civ be too powerfull, and AH too weak practically without any colonies?
Civs other than european? Since most of the units slots(special natives excluding) will be filled with euro units, this won't be practical(aztec grenadiers?).

[Eivind IV]

Just make up for it with less Spanish starting cities and units for the Iberians and more to the others. Judging by the screenshot you can scrap Palma (maybe even Palermo, asuming you have Naples), and add another city to England (and Holland, given that you remove Palermo).

Since it all starts in 1492 anyway, you wouldn't have to give them many colonial cities either. Not to mention the Spanish-Portuguese personal union is historic. I think a peripheral 'rise of Russia' civ would be fun to play. It would only emerge as a threat later in the game, as upon start it would only be an enclave. Give them the Great Library wonder (for what they lack in ability to overseas trade), some non buildable 'Ivan the Terrible' exansive units at start and some good late game Romanov units. If I ever update Colonialism, I think I'm going to implement these things. Makes Europe more strategical.

Will the Spanish Netherlands be 'Dutch' at the start of the scenario in 1492?

Won't all those swamps in and around the low countries make an already weak civ hard to grow?

And I say, go for 2-4 years per turn. Something I regret not having done for Colonialism. Not that it really matters, but it's a bit weird with napoleonic units in the late 16th century.

[Miroslav]

@Eivind IV:
Honestly, I pre-decided which civs I would put in. However if I ever decide to make version 2, then it would start about 100 and something years later, extend into Napoleonic wars, and include Austrians and Iberians.

Judging by the screenshot you can scrap Palma

Aready did, in fact I changed the base map a bit. Will post changes.

and add another city to England

I've got something special in store for England:
While Dutch position in the begining looks bad, English will look desperate. Starting only with 3 cities England will be small, isolated and backward nation. France and Habsburgs present great danger for English existance (France being more dangerous). Fortunately, the French and Habsburgs won't often be on friendly terms. The English will have to appease continental powers until they will have conquered entire British isles, and aggresively colonized americas. They are in the good position to do so, being the closest civ to north america. They will also have to trade extensively both with continental europe and the colonies (being on separate land mass, theirs trade bonuses are higher when trading with continentals). Basically, their position will improve only if they plant enough colonies.
So essentialy, small number of cities for the English is for game's balance (because of their relative isolation) and also an "incentive" for the players to go out and colonize.

I think a peripheral 'rise of Russia' civ would be fun to play

Yes, Russians are in the game definitely. Their position and style of play will be similar to that of the Englih, with less emphasis on naval aspects.

Will the Spanish Netherlands be 'Dutch' at the start of the scenario in 1492?

Yes, I'm bending and stretching history here a bit (kind of like I did to world shape and size while making the map).

Won't all those swamps in and around the low countries make an already weak civ hard to grow?

That was only a preliminary shot. If the swamps hamper Dutch development, they will go away.

And I say, go for 2-4 years per turn.

Since I myself am not a fan of very long games, I think 2 years/turn will do.

[Miroslav]

OK, time to post updates. First slightly updated map (this is the last change, from "outside" of the civ2 cheat mode).

[Miroslav]

Following by a basegame.sav and misc files. Map in it is corrected, and civ all other things such as graphics, rules and city names can be corrected on the fly, so what is in there is not definite.

[Eivind IV]

Originally posted by Miroslav
@Eivind IV:
Honestly, I pre-decided which civs I would put in. However if I ever decide to make version 2, then it would start about 100 and something years later, extend into Napoleonic wars, and include Austrians and Iberians.

Originally posted by Miroslav Yes, Russians are in the game definitely. Their position and style of play will be similar to that of the Englih, with less emphasis on naval aspects.

I understand. But these two contradicted each other a bit, as I understood it. Are you going with the pre-decided civs, i.e. Portugal, or are you including Russia as a seperate civ?