A Divided Nation - Creation Thread

[techumseh]

I had a lot of problems with the discovery of the Conscription tech.

Should US Light Artillery, Dragoons and Militia become obsolete when the Union discovers Conscription? On turn 3, July 1861, 37 cities were building Lt Arty as placeholders until the techs for Field and Heavy Arty could be discovered. In July, when Conscription was discovered, 5 cities built completely unwanted US Inf and the rest of the cities changed to producing the unwanted unit. I had to backtrack to the June save and change Light Arty production to Field Arty.

This can be solved simply, if you change the role of the units. Right now all the units have the '0' role (attack). If you change the role of the infantry units to '1' (defend) and the cavalry to '3' (air superiority) then the inf will upgrade to inf, cav to cav, and artillery to artillery, all with the same pre-req.

Incidentally, air superiority is a good role for units like cavalry and leaders, since they will only tend to attack when they can win, as opposed to units with a '0' role, which make suicide attacks regularly. I used it for leader units in "Warlords of China", and AI controlled leaders often survive till late in the game.

[techumseh]

I've been playing around with higher movements, and I have to say that it really favors the human (Union) player, even without the extra reinforcements. Sigh.

I was surprised to learn that the Southern cities on the mainland belong to the 'Rebel' civ, but Southern reinforcements are from the allied 'Confederate' civ. What's your thinking on that?

[civ2units]

Let me know what you want visually, plus any names, etc. that you want to see on the Title page. Here's an example - do you want a style along that line, or something completely different?

I thought about something like the title graphic from La Belle Epoque below. Unfortunatelly I´m not so familar with PSP (only changing pictures a little bit and copy and paste) and I also don´t know how many work you need to make it.
But your graphic looks very good, I would like to use it. Thanks very much.

http://sleague.apolyton.net/index.ph...elle-title.gif

[civ2units]

This can be solved simply, if you change the role of the units. Right now all the units have the '0' role (attack). If you change the role of the infantry units to '1' (defend) and the cavalry to '3' (air superiority) then the inf will upgrade to inf, cav to cav, and artillery to artillery, all with the same pre-req.

Incidentally, air superiority is a good role for units like cavalry and leaders, since they will only tend to attack when they can win, as opposed to units with a '0' role, which make suicide attacks regularly. I used it for leader units in "Warlords of China", and AI controlled leaders often survive till late in the game.

@AGRICOLA:
Yes, the Conscription tech should update the Militias, Dragoons and Light Artillery to Infantry, Cavalry and Field Artillery. Maybe I should use the Leonardo Wonder to make sure that they will be updated automatically.

@Techumseh:
I didn´t know that about the air superiority role. Now I can use the rebel generals in the Union campaign without having be afraid that the AI makes kamikaze attacks.

[civ2units]

I've been playing around with higher movements, and I have to say that it really favors the human (Union) player, even without the extra reinforcements. Sigh.

I was surprised to learn that the Southern cities on the mainland belong to the 'Rebel' civ, but Southern reinforcements are from the allied 'Confederate' civ. What's your thinking on that?

I think the movements are ok, even when I increase the movement on the roads and also allow more moving on grasland terrain.

I don´t really understand that with the Confederates, because all reinforcements should be from the Rebel civ. Only some ships are from the CS Navy, their allies.

[civ2units]

I´ve replaced the Airport improvement with the Train Station in the scenario. If you build Train Stations in your cities, you can make "airlifts" to avoid the long time transporting units from one point to another one. This should simulate the RR-system a little bit. I´m currently changing the words in the Game.txt to fit it for the scenario.

[techumseh]

May I suggest you add a house rule to prevent unrealistic situations, like reinforcing a city under siege. How about something like this? "Railway stations may only be built in cities on a railway, and units may only be transferred between cities that are connected by rail, with no enemy units blocking the route."

[civ2units]

May I suggest you add a house rule to prevent unrealistic situations, like reinforcing a city under siege. How about something like this? "Railway stations may only be built in cities on a railway, and units may only be transferred between cities that are connected by rail, with no enemy units blocking the route."

House rule means that I say the player doesn´t reinforce cities under siege but I can´t really forbid it in the game. So the player could still do this. I´m right with this?

I´ve now reduced the amount of tch you can research during the game. Most of them aren´t really necessary for the game, it´s much better and will be more historically to give things via events.

Also the role of the units are changed, Generals, Officers and Cavalry now have the "air superiority". I´ve now included the Leonardo wonder. When researching the Conscription tech, Leonardo upgrades the Militias, Dragoons and Light Artillery and also upgrades now the corresponding units production in the city. I try to complete both campaigns, the Union and the Rebel.

[techumseh]

House rule means that I say the player doesn´t reinforce cities under siege but I can´t really forbid it in the game. So the player could still do this. I´m right with this?

Yes, but that would be cheating, and you'd only be cheating yourself!

I'm concerned about the addition of St. Leo's to the Union side. This will only speed up the Union superiority, which is already overwhelming by mid-game. I was going to suggest adding additional techs that must be researched before Conscription, and requiring an additional tech (with conscription as the pre-req) for the new cavalry and artillery units. Historically, it took the Union 3 years to produce an army equal to the Confederates.

You should consider making the Confederates MUCH stronger in order to provide enough of a challenge. My rule of thumb is that the AI has to be three times stronger than a human player in order to be roughly equal. The Atlanta event works very well - if you can reproduce it multiple times with different cities as triggers, it would add to the challenge and fun. Right now, there's not enough to properly defend Richmond, and nothing at all to stop the Union after Richmond's capture.

You should also consider adding moveunit commands, so the large confederate reinforcements all move together, in the direction which challeges the Union player the most. Read Captain Nemo's tip on moveunit events, emphasising repeating triggers or check out the events from Frederick the Great.


Some other suggestions for making the campaign more challenging:

Make the Confederate infantry and cavalry units stronger than their Union counterparts.

Give the Siege Mortar unit the 'missile flag' so it can only be used once.

Add Confederate generals, and make them powerful. Replace them once with an event when they'e killed (only wounded).

Give Confederate (and southern states) infantry a defensive role, this will not only cause the AI to build more units, but use more of them to defend cities. Right now, with all units having the attack role, the AI only leaves one unit in each city, making them very easy to capture. With the defensive role, the AI leaves 3 units in most cities, and more in capitals and very large cities.

The Confederate AI now builds mostly improvements, and few units. I did a check midway through my 2nd playtest and found it was building units in 6 cities, trade units in 2, and improvements in 25. Consider making most improvements unbuildable, especially for the AI-controlled civ.

Remember, a good designer is merciless with his playtesters! They will whine and complain that it's too hard and they need more and better units. Ignore them. They are weak! But they will thank you in the end. A hard scenario is a good scenario.

[Cyrion]

May I suggest you add a house rule to prevent unrealistic situations, like reinforcing a city under siege. How about something like this? "Railway stations may only be built in cities on a railway, and units may only be transferred between cities that are connected by rail, with no enemy units blocking the route."

There is a way to achieve that without relying on house rules (but of course it has some consequences...).

As you only use 1 air unit (US balloon), why not give the "can attack air units" flag to artillery units?
- problem: they could then of course destroy an adjacent balloon (unless its range is 1?), but that should not happen really often if the player is cautious with his balloon (and it is not fully unrealistic: consider the balloon was flying too low...)
- and if you have artillery units in your siege, then there is a good chance (how high?? ) that the airlifted units will be destroyed (and you can then modify the text to say that reinforcements trying to get through have been bombed into oblivion )

[McMonkey]

Remember, a good designer is merciless with his playtesters! They will whine and complain that it's too hard and they need more and better units. Ignore them. They are weak! But they will thank you in the end. A hard scenario is a good scenario.

I agree. I much prefer scenarios where I lose on the first few attempts. Once I finally beat the AI I feel like I have achieved something!

The 3/1 strength ratio (or something along those lines) is essential for the AI to put up a good fight, as is the idea of giving the AI better stats. If the game is designed to be played only as the Union then there is no need for the unit stats to by symmetrical for both sides.

The basic scenario is good, now you just need to keep on tweaking it (stats, events etc...) until the Confederates fight like tigers. There is no fun to be had if the game becomes a walkover after the front line is broken. Why not event create Confederate Reinforcements with a repeating trigger and have them spawn in the front line cities then give them co-ordinates that keep them spawning in cities behind the lines . This way the Confederates will have units appearing where they are most needed to fight the Yankees.

[GhostOfDisco]

There is a way to achieve that without relying on house rules (but of course it has some consequences...).

As you only use 1 air unit (US balloon), why not give the "can attack air units" flag to artillery units?
- problem: they could then of course destroy an adjacent balloon (unless its range is 1?), but that should not happen really often if the player is cautious with his balloon (and it is not fully unrealistic: consider the balloon was flying too low...)

Well, at the playtest version I have the balloon does have a range of 1, so this isn't a problem...

[civ2units]

Thanks very much for the great playtests and suggestions.

Things I´ve now changed:

- I´ve reduced the amount of researchable techs. Now they only concentrate on a few important techs which will allow you to build additional units.

- All campaigns will now generated by event on their historical correct time.

- city improvements are only for the player buildable, and only important ones which you will need for the city (i.e. Fortifications, Church, Marketplace...)
I´ve disabled the Hospital and Sewer System, because most of the cities from this time weren´t so big. I´ve noticed during my playtests, that some cities growth very fast. So I also decided to decrease the food amount on city terrains.

- Union or Rebel troops are stronger (depending on which side you are playing ) than your own troops. It´s more funny to see that the AI now is available to conquer more cities than only 2 or 3 ones.
The role of some units are also changed.

There are some more things I´ve changed but these I will explain you when the final version is ready.

[civ2units]

You should also consider adding moveunit commands, so the large confederate reinforcements all move together, in the direction which challeges the Union player the most. Read Captain Nemo's tip on moveunit events, emphasising repeating triggers or check out the events from Frederick the Great.

Where can I find Captain Nemos explanation about the moveunit event?

[GhostOfDisco]

Nemo's explanation of the MOVEUNIT command

And, to help keep the Union player on his toes, several events (pardon the pun) come to mind:

• Joe Johnston's invasion of Tennessee as a means of disrupting Sherman's march across Georgia. Just have events create Joe Johnston's army and a MOVEUNIT event toward Nashville with the capture of Atlanta. (Also, I have no qualms with having an invasion force generated with the Atlanta Campaign tech. How else will the player get Sherman in the area?
• Bragg's 1862 invasion of Kentucky Historically, it forced Union troops out of northern Alabama, which they would not revisit for another year or so. It seems like their goal was Louisville - sounds like a MOVEUNIT event to me!
• Mosby's Raiders, which could be represented by randomly generated Confederate raiders/cavalry in the area from June 1863 onward.

Hope this helps.