Vinland Map

[Hans99]

On the Vikings and Greenland,

I think you might find the following very interesting

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/10/26/on-the-vikings-and-greenland/#more-12147

[Cyclotron]

Thanks, Hans. Reading it now.

At any rate, I've just come back from a vacation and I'll be resuming work on this project. So far, I have the tech tree done (or at least, the first version of it) and probably a bit more than half of the unit graphics. A great deal more remains to be accomplished, of course.

While I was on vacation (in Wisconsin), I stumbled upon an immense used books store, and within a few minutes of browsing came face to face with a translation of the two Vinland Sagas! This, of course, would be interpreted as an excellent omen by any of our bearded protagonists (and the non-bearded ones too), so I put down $5 and now have my own copy. Back to work...

[Arthedain]

bump

[Cyclotron]

"Bump" indeed. Goodness, it sure has been a while since my last period of activity on this scenario! I assure you, however, that it hasn’t been abandoned. I worked on it a bit on and off last month, and though progress has been modest it has been progress.

GRAPHICS

The Norse, Beothuk, and Nehiraw (Cree) units are done, as are all naval units. I still need archers and warriors for the Wabanaki, Anishinabek (Ojibwe/Algonkin), and Haudenosaunee (that name may change, since as discussed the Iroquois don’t quite fit in this time frame). I’m also considering other possible “nature” units like the storm for the Nature faction to use. There will be some Dorset settlements to raid, and maybe some wild animals as well.

Thanks to Curtsibling’s work, I have some good Norse and Skraeling city graphics. I could potentially expand the graphic set so that each of the skraeling factions has a unique look, but since I’m rather rubbish at city graphics this isn’t a high priority.

The mountains turned out a little weird because I swapped jungle and mountains to get more varied boreal forests, but I’m pretty satisfied with my terrain apart from that. Resources, however, still need to be done.

Tech icons are done, but I’m still gathering icons for buildings. Many are pretty generic medieval stuff I can get from other scenarios, but some I’m going to need to make myself. I haven’t given it too close of a look yet.

ADVANCES

I have my entire tech tree written up in rules.txt, but Civilize2/Leaders2 are just killing me. My plan was to put everything in five tech groups:

Group 0: Anyone can research
Group 1: Norse can research or acquire
Group 2: Norse can’t research, but can acquire (from Skraelings)
Group 3: Skraelings can acquire from Norse, but can’t research
Group 4: Nobody can research or acquire (events only)

I thought I’d set it up just fine, but it doesn’t seem to actually work; the Norse end up being able to trade things they shouldn’t be able to trade, and nobody seems to be able to acquire the techs they’re supposed to acquire (groups 2 and 3). Additionally, even when I can get techs to be tradable (though never the ones I want), the civs don’t want to trade even when I set their relations to the very best.

If anyone is interested in telling me what in the world is going on, I can gladly post my rules.txt.

MAP

The map is done. I’m not going to start placing settlements and such until the tech tree is worked out, but I have a general idea of what regions are occupied by which civs. As for names, I’m going to use some fairly common nouns from the respective native languages. After all, we have no information on place names in 11th century Canada, and in any case I’m guessing nobody who would play this scenario would know these languages anyway.

Norse names will require a little bit more work to be believable. The initial settlements are easy – Eystribygð and Vestribygð in Greenland, and Leifsbuðir (better known as L’Anse aux Meadows) – but I’ll need some generic settlement names too. I’m thinking basic geographic and descriptive stuff (e.g. broad hill, long beach, deer cove, and so on) but my grasp of Old Norse is not great. I’ll probably have to spend some time with Norse word lists online.

Oddly, my city name lists don’t seem to work – I put stuff into City.txt but new city naming prompts are always blank anyway. Why is that?

EVENTS

I have a general idea of the events I want but haven’t really started writing them up yet.

I’m not sure if one key event will work – I want the Norse to get a Colonists (settler) unit every time they discover Future Technology. I have to use JustOnce for this to prevent the Norse from getting Colonists every turn thereafter, but if I do that will the event fire every time the Norse get Future Tech or just when they get Future Tech 1?

SOUNDS
Haven’t even touched it. This is finishing touch kind of stuff. Fortuantely, ToT seems to let you override the normal Civ2 unit sound settings, so I’m not as limited as I would be with MGE. I am very happy about this.

[Cyclotron]

Well, I just don't understand this at all.

Most Norse techs branch off from the Viking Age tech (Inv). I don't want the natives to be able to acquire this tech, so I put it in Group 4 in Civilize2, which contains techs that are off-limits to all civs (so technically it's off-limits to the Norse too, but they start with it). In Leaders2, I make sure the fifth slot (for Group 4) has a value of 2 (can't research or acquire) for all existing factions.

I do all this, I start a whole new game from scratch (not just open a scenario), and yet I can play as a native faction, generate a spy, and steal the Viking Age tech.

What gives? I thought I was following the SL tip website exactly.

[Catfish]

The Leaders2 restrictions are buggy. If you've got diplomats or spies running around in your scenario and you don't want tech stealing, forget it - unless you also disallow city building. See this guide.

Oddly, my city name lists don’t seem to work – I put stuff into City.txt but new city naming prompts are always blank anyway. Why is that?

See here.

[duke o' york]

Have you thought of making Paganism Monarchy and Christianity Democracy, or another later gov tech?

This way paganism would be very attractive at the beginning of the game, but the appeal of Christianity would grow as the settlement grew more advanced. You needn't choose these two government types necessarily, but I think it'd be an interesting way to incorporate religion into the game.

[Cyclotron]

The Leaders2 restrictions are buggy. If you've got diplomats or spies running around in your scenario and you don't want tech stealing, forget it - unless you also disallow city building. See this guide.

Thanks Catfish. I was hoping to preserve the tech-stealing capability of Missionaries (diplomats) to learn skraeling techs, but I think I'll restrict them to just investigation and embassy-making. Since only the Norse can build them and the Norse are the designated human civ, there shouldn't be any problem with that.

Have you thought of making Paganism Monarchy and Christianity Democracy, or another later gov tech?

This way paganism would be very attractive at the beginning of the game, but the appeal of Christianity would grow as the settlement grew more advanced. You needn't choose these two government types necessarily, but I think it'd be an interesting way to incorporate religion into the game.

That is an interesting idea. Currently I have the Norse starting in Despotism (renamed "Goðorð," a term for an Icelandic chiefdom of the time), with the option of branching out later into Monarchy or a Republic (renamed Alþing- I know an Alþing doesn't preclude a monarch or chieftain, but it's meant to represent a government with a strong communal tradition that puts effective limits on the king's power). Communism is used only by the Skraelings, and Fundamentalism and Democracy aren't used.

I guess my problem with the idea is that it's hard for me to justify why a Pagan government would be different from a Christian government, especially in faraway Vinland where the powerful Christian states of Europe are a non-issue. I mean, a Christian state in the New World might be even more inclined to militarism (since it's surrounded by skraeling heathens).

Maybe I should use Fundamentalism for that - a more aggressively evangelistic Christian state.

[curtsibling]

Good to see this is still going - It is truly a fresh idea for a scenario!

[King Mir]

As an idea: instead of having governments come from technologies, make them come from events (possibly triggered on technologies). Start with monarchy. Then have an event that makes the government change to despotism, representing a period of time where pagan and christian differences create problems. Then finally have another event that changes the government to One of the better late game governments.