Red October v.2.0 playtest

[techumseh]

@Cyrion - You don't have the patch I posted. Japanese reinforcement locations are not randomized in the 1st version.

@EZRhino - most units are already unbribable - the problem is that even unbribable units can be bribed inside a city. I think the minimum bribe cost is also invalid when inside a city.

As far as AI behaviour of democracies is concerned, peaceniks might be an improvement, as all important offensives are triggered by events. Stopping unauthorized wars would be a good thing. I am concerned about the amount of gold capturing a democratic city would net, however.

@Cyrion - If city bribes are netting more gold than the bribe itself, we do have a problem. Perhaps making some civs democracies and increasing the costs of commissars (which I prefer to random generation) will work in combination. If that fails, I'll have to delete the city bribe option.

@AGRICOLA - Don't encourage him!

[AGRICOLA]

@AGRICOLA - Don't encourage him!

I wasn't.

I was expressing my admiration for the cleverness of his play. In particular, his use of Commisars pointed out my shortcomings in omitting to test the abilities and the potential of the unit. Sloppy work on my part, great thinking on his.

I have a strong feeling that by the time you and all the playtesters have finished testing, no stone will have been left unturned in this scen, all loopholes will have been closed and it will rank among the most thoroughly tested scens. IMHO, it will also rank very high among the best scens of all time because it has the one feature that is shared by all the great ones: relentless pressure on players due to either time constraints and/or superior enemy strength.

[EZRhino]

@techumseh
Re: peaceniks I meant that in the sense that their units will just aimless wander around in lieu of attacking, rather than in the sense of the ruthless backstabbing of the unwitting commies... besides isn't the diplomacy dynamic kind of fun?

Perhaps a combination of white russian counter-revolutionaries(spies), making all russian city's 'previous owner' set to non-bolshevik, courthouses, allowing only diplomats(as opposed to spies) for the commies, monarchy or republic instead of 'communism' for the reds?

[techumseh]

Originally posted by Cyrion
Many thanks: you just gave historical justification to my behaviour!

Here's a link to a NY Times story from June, 1919. http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive...DE&oref=slogin

[techumseh]

I've made some changes to the scenario files. First, I gave the Entente, Polish and Nationalist civs the Democracy tech, and given them the govt of the same name. So no unit or city of those civs can now be bribed.

Second, I gave the White, Central Powers and Japanese civs 6 extra techs. This should make their cities more expensive to bribe.

Third, I doubled the shield cost to build commissar units.

I hope that the combined effect will seriously limit, but not entirely eliminate, the Cyrion Subversion Strategy (CSS).

I also added 2 changes to the events. First, I added a MakeAggression event to the British landing at Murmansk. Hopefully, this will make them attack immediately.

Second, I added new spawning locations for the Central Powers offensive in Ukraine, which are not adjacent to the cities. I added some extra German units as well.

This may sound like the wrong thing to do to a scenario that's too hard already, but once you have the German/Austro-Hungarian offensive figured out, it is easy to defeat.

In reality, the Bolsheviks had no chance to stop it until the Germans got what they wanted (food, mainly) and were ready to negotiate.

I'd like to see how these changes work for experienced players, before adding additional Bolshevik reinforcements. Would anyone like to try the new files?

[techumseh]

Gareth, any chance of that Steam Crane unit in the next day or two?

[fairline]

Sorry Brian, my 'flu has turned into bronchitis (cough!)

give me a couple of days to recover, realistically the weekend, and I'll give it a whirl.

[curtsibling]

Sounds like the same affliction as I had - The cough is a real bugger...

I can vouch for the fact that this illness takes you out of action.

I was unable to draw or do anything for over a week!

A nightmare!

[Arthedain]

Sorry for OT here, but I got bronchitis from my work this summer. Had to quit the job because I couldn't get better while working there. Fortuneatly it was only a work I had in between studying.

[MacGalleo]

Another scenario that will become a classic...

[Arthedain]

Sure looks like it.

[Cyrion]

The Spartakist revolution event works really well, especially with the Komintern Wonder!

My revolutionnaries have been eating huge slices of Germany!

[techumseh]

Originally posted by fairline
Sorry Brian, my 'flu has turned into bronchitis (cough!)

give me a couple of days to recover, realistically the weekend, and I'll give it a whirl.

I hopr you feel better soon.

[civ2units]

I´ve played a new game, on difficult peasant. Conquering of most of Russia in the first turn was no problem. The counter-attacks from the nationals only takes a few cities.
After the German attack, I lost two cities, but I didn´t make a cease-fire with them. Nearly my whole army went into west, I forgot the eastern front.
That´s why the Whites conquered many cities behind the Ural. With my new army of armoured trains, I reconquered all the cities.

Japan and the Entente weren´t a difficult enemy. I also noticed, that the Entente didn´t attack Murmansk, they wait until the second reinforcements arrived near Archangelsk. I used the commisar for bribing cities, the last city I bribed for over 1500 rubles.
The spartaniks revolution in Germany was successfull, I controled six cities. Unfortunately the armoured trains don´t rail in Europe.
During the playtest, the game didn´t crash, the events worked fine (I didn´t noticed anything unuasal). All in one a great scenario.

I know, I played on the easiest difficult level, but I think it´s the best way to find out if a scenario is too easy or difficult.

I hope this helps you a little bit...

[Boco]

Originally posted by curtsibling
Sounds like the same affliction as I had - The cough is a real bugger...

I can vouch for the fact that this illness takes you out of action.

I was unable to draw or do anything for over a week!

A nightmare!

Wow! This one's been rampant in the northeast US as well. Completely decked me for a while, and I'm still not 100%.

Keep up the playtesting! It's an inspirational read!