SCENARIO: Air Force/Naval War

[NeoStar]

I've always wanted to use forces mainly naval and air based but in Civ3 that is not the winning formula.

This is my first post patch attempt at this and from what I've tested it works fine. Not entirely sure though...

I've made the following scenario:

Large Map
(3) Small continnents
No barbarians
Start-mid industrial age

Modifications have been made for Ind. aircraft making them more potent and lethal. Same for naval vessels who also have 1 added range.

Land units have been taken out to a large degree. You can only make infantry(no resource needed). Nothing else but workers and settlers are available.

All civs (6):

Zululand
China
America
Japan
India
England

They each begin with a highly evolved size 15 city, 2 infantry, 3 settlers, 6 workers and 2 destroyers. Cities grow slightly faster so town(12) city(18) - dont build a hospital!. Note that some have been set to exculsively build air and sea units.

Bombers wreak havoc and a battleship can kill an infantry with one shot so they are important. Every civ has oil on their land mass. Only infantry, fighter and destroyer/AEGIS don't need resource.

Marines are better but must be researched. Mech Infantry (scaled down) can be gotten by Radio. To get to the modern age is very difficult due to tech cost (max 100 turns)

You begin as England. Other two useful civs are Japan and America - if you want to be one of these simply change the human player settings with editor.

Special units:

England - AEGIS takes over normal destroyer. Has better defence.

Japan-Cruise missile with fighter bombard. Sort of a kamikaze thing.

America-Nuclear Sub. No missile carrying ability, just a stronger sub.

Hold off killing people for a while (to set up) and then declare war. Only conquest/domination can work.

This is a concept, okay - a total air and naval war with powerful units. A sort of WW2 Pacific attempt except not so developed. I hope it works out. Feel free to change anything.

[Kramerman]

This sounds cool, when I get some more time I'll take a look at, unfortunately right now Im looking at Trip's Civil war scenario. From the beginning with my experience with civ iii, I've felt the air and sea units were way to weak. I made them much more powerful, and almost as importantly, made them much more expensive. If you look in the world today, not just any country has both the money and knowlege to build and maintain an advanced airforce/navy. When the last patch allowed lethal bombardment - i was so thrilled I nearly **** my pants. I don't have the time to make a wwii scenario (my last and grandest aspiration for the generally upsetting civ iii game), but was gonna wait for someone to do all the hard work for me and then I'd modify it to my desires. This sounds like a first step in the right direction for me.

Kman

[NeoStar]

Here's the scenario file:

[NeoStar]

Originally posted by Kramerman
I don't have the time to make a wwii scenario (my last and grandest aspiration for the generally upsetting civ iii game),

Yeah, I'd like that too but don't have the time.

The editor is better but its still unwieldy. It takes ages to do anything really, maybe because the thing is graphic heavy.

But like you said, someone will eventually do it

[adaMada]

Sounds cool . I've downloaded it, and I'll give it a try tomorrow -- I've always liked air/naval war, so it sounds like I might really enjoy it.

One question, though (as I haven't had time to try any scenerios since the new patch came out) -- are we supposed to treat it as a saved game to load, or should we load it as a scenerio?

Thanks! I can't wait to try it out...

-- adaMada

[NeoStar]

Originally posted by adaMada
Sounds cool . I've downloaded it, and I'll give it a try tomorrow -- I've always liked air/naval war, so it sounds like I might really enjoy it.

One question, though (as I haven't had time to try any scenerios since the new patch came out) -- are we supposed to treat it as a saved game to load, or should we load it as a scenerio?

Thanks! I can't wait to try it out...

-- adaMada

Yeah, alot of us want more naval/air fighting. I hope others will start making bigger better ones soon - the combat here is sort of warped because land units are weaker and Japan/America prioritise ships and aircraft.

Load it as a scenario and if you want to play another side change the 'human player' with the editor. Give us a shout if something goes wrong - make that when something goes wrong...

PS - India, Zululand, China are meant to be 'fodder' civs.

[Kramerman]

You load it as a scenario

[adaMada]

Thanks re: the scenario -- that's what I guessed, so I tried it first, and it worked .

I like the scenario itself a lot, but I think it could be a bit more balanced... Here's what I'd do if you're planning on a version two:

• If you can make it so that you can play on other levels besides deity and so you can choose from the human playable civs without editing hte file, that'd be nice. If it's a lot of work, though, it really doesn't matter...
• The battleship is a totally dominant unit right now. In my game, London can pump out one every two turns, and no other unit can compete... I'd like to see it balanced a bit, so other units become more important... for instance, you could give the sub unit more attack and less defense, so it oculd score a kill on a battleship. If you did that, then people would have to bring ages crusers along to protect against subs, and it would make the fleet more balanced..
• I don't know how much is possible without making major changes, but it'd be nice if researching the tech tree could provide better ships or planes or anthing like that. Though maybe I haven't played far enough ahead, it seems like there aren't any worthwhile naval units after battleship, no worthwhile air units after bomber, and no worthwhile ground units after mech inf. Though I may well go back to playing it and find out that there is something around the corner, I've probably played at least 200 turns so far, and it'd be nice if there was something in between.

In short, the game itself very weak when it comes to naval units. I love what you've done with it, but I think it'd be much stronger if you'd play with some stats... either way, though, I do really like what you've done, and wanted to thank you for a really good scenerio.

-- adaMada

[NeoStar]

Thanks for the feedback - you've made some good points.

The battleship does need seroius remodeling for this kind of game - especially in cost. I'm looking at how to better deal with subs too.

I didn't put other units as it really was too small. New units with tech is vital-I suppose Ill need graphics for that...

First trial run complete though-I want to use this to eventually create a true full scale Pacific War scenario.

Again, thanks for the testing!

[adaMada]

Happy to help however I can .

Balancing the battleship unit would be very complex, and I find it hard to imagine how much thought would have to go into it, but I've had one observation about balance in general for all the naval units so far: they are all stronger on offense than defense. Though I can see why they each might be that way, it gives a huge advantage to whoever's ships can attack first, even if the ships were right next to each other all along.

Balancing the Sub unit, however, is something I have an idea for: you could make the sub very easy to kill, with a defense of three or five or so, but make it very powerful on attack, with an attack of 18-24 (or something that high). Maybe even giving the sub a lower than normal number of hit points from the start (I think you can do that, though I'm really out of my depth when it coems to making scenerios). That would make the subs an important strategic element when it comes to sneak attacks, while still modeling real life to some degree: subs are easy to sink once found, hard to find, and once they've fired their missles at a surface ship, the ship will be seriously damaged. This'd work even better if another ship, such as AEGIS crusers, were able to have increased defense against subs (if that's possible) -- that way, you'd have to properly defend any convoy not only with destroyers, but also with anti-submarine ships, and perhaps with anti-aircraft ships (again, if that's possible).

Just a few more ideas... I really love the idea of a scenerio that was naval/aircraft based war, and hope you keep updating it, even if you can also branch it off into a Pacific War scenerio.

Thanks...

-- adaMada