Alamo Testing Thread

[Velociryx]

This thread is for testing and bug reporting for the Alamo scenario (MT V). If you're wanting to hold out till we get it properly balanced and thoroughly tested, this is NOT the thread for you! This is the thread for those brave souls who don't mind slogging through the same first turn over and over again to make sure the AI puts up a good fight!

Will be posting the bic in its current form when I get home tonight, but here's some information those who have volunteered can ponder till then, and some instructions regarding the first turn:

1) All forms of government save for Rep and Dem have been moved to a tech called "Gov Tech" which the AI civs have at game start. This is a no era tech assigned as a bonus, which keeps the human player from selecting anything but Demo or Rep.

2) All AI civs have been set to begin in Monarchy, have Monarchy as their preferred government, and Monarchy itself has been modified to allow the AI 12 free (no support) units per city, regardless of size.

3) All AI Civs have been set to maximum aggressiveness, and further, set to "build often" offensive land, naval, and air units.

****
Scenario Instructions for turn one

In order to keep true to the game's stated objectives (and make things painfully hard for the American player), use the following script for turn one of the game. This will be what I'll be doing when we get the scenario fully tweaked and perfected, save at the end of the first turn, and post the file for downloading:

1) Download the bic and place in your civ3 scenarios folder. Fire up Civ3, click "load scenario" and choose the Alamo.bic.

2) Go get a drink and some munchies, and make yourself comfortable....the file takes a LONG time to initialize (so many units, I'm thinking).

3) Go through and set production in all cities to something besides warriors. Doesn't matter what, just make sure it's modern. The players will want to do their own production anyways, what we don't want is to hand them a fistful of warriors off the cuff!

4) You will note that each civ has a galley sitting near some of your units. Contact the civs via these galleys, in this order, and with these trades:
a) Russia - Trade gems for their world map.
b) Germany - Trade contact with Russia for their world map
c) Japan - Trade contact with Russia and Germany for their world map
d) China - Trade contact with Russia, Germany, and Japan for their world map.

In this way, all our enemies wind up knowing about each other, and can communicate/trade freely.

4) Plant spies. I have found best success by planting spies in the following order, but it may not matter:
Russia, Japan, China, Germany.

5) Declaration of war: You will note that each nation has a galley sitting in range of some of your subs. Attack each nation's galley with subs to start the war. Note that these four subs are the ONLY naval units you may use on the first turn, and ONLY to attack enemy galleys. Leave them where they sit, after the battles.

6) Place all F-15's on air superiority missions. No other planes may take any action on turn one.

All other forces stand down (space bar).

Depending on the random number seed, you may or may not lose one of the forts on the Russian front, but you will certainly lose one on the German front. After that first turn, the game can be played out any way you like....that first turn is more of a "game setup" turn to get us in the war, and make sure that the baddies get to draw first blood.

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

Alamo - V0.1 (Alpha)

For those who are interested in playtesting and balancing, here she is. Just follow the instructions above for turn one to get America situated and start the war, and then play any way you like from there.

I'm VERY curious to hear about your AI experiences!

Also....I've noted that setting those F-15's to air superiority makes for a pretty intense "first turn" (when the actual scenario is ready, I'll do the things listed in the "first turn script" above, then hit save at the end of the turn and post the file like that. About the only thing that the American player will have to do on turn one will be to allocate production and hit the space bar. After that....let the fireworks begin!). This all but guarantees an American golden age on the first AI turn, and the screamin' F-15's down ungodly numbers of enemy aircraft.

Enjoy!

-=Vel=-

[DeepO]

Vel, I'll look into this tomorrow, I'm going to bed now. But what should we look for specifically? Is it just a testing to make sure that with different seeds the game plays right? Do you want us to keep all different turn-2's as to pick the best one? Do you want us to play out a few turns to see whether the numbers are right, are should be adjusted?

DeepO

[Velociryx]

Nahh, don't worry much about saving various starts....just play it out and get a feel for the scenario. Is it too easy to build the ship? Impossible? If it's too easy, then we can push the various other space ship parts back to further points along the tech tree (which might be a good idea in any case). If it's too hard, then we'll maybe give the Americans more money at game start to bolster efforts at sabotaging production and such.

Likewise, keep an eye on what the AI does. The hope is that they'll be aggressive and keep pushing hard against you. So hard, in fact, that eventually, you'll be forced to give ground. Of course, it might *also* be the case that we wind up with a situation where you can actually beat them, despite the overwhelming numbers.....

-=Vel=-

[FrustratedPoet]

Well ... I played a few turns and can confirm that this is indeed a very difficult situation.

I'm not exactly the best player around, and maybe the more accomplished amongst us will find it too easy.

The AI was very aggressive against me, on the first turn they tried to bombard the railroad links to the chokepoints. Didn't do them much good, though. They were attacking me hard and consistently for the 5 or 6 turns I played, despite me destroying a couple of uber-stack and armies with ICBM's.

Russia and Germany are a threat, certainly, but not very scary. The ones that really have me worried are Japan and China.
I think the western USA is in deep deep trouble. After a few turns, just when I had beaten back a huge Russian offensive, both the Japanese and Chinese landed several transport full of MA's next to New York. My defensive forces at the chokepoint were too weak from the Russian attack to defeat them and I lost the city. The game would only have gone downhill from here, so I stopped.

I'll try again with a slightly different strat to see how I can change things, but at the moment I'm leaning towards thinking that this scenario is a bit too hard. We'll see, though, as long as you can research all the techs needed for the SS (will Theory of Evolution help here?) and build the Iron Works then you might be able to sneak out a win ... you might be down to only 1 or 2 cities when you do it, though, but I suppose that is the whole point.

[Aeson]

Just in case someone doesn't want to sit through the loading of the senario, here is a save from after the starting wars and trades have been done.

Why are all the wonders available to build Vel? ToE is a must build, and Hoover probably as well, just to keep the AI's production from going through the roof.

[FrustratedPoet]

I think a few of the wonders should be disabled, do you want the human player to have access to things like Hoover, ToE, the Iron Works and Sistine (another must-have, to counter war weariness)?

These are important, but many of the others don't seem to be - do we need the Great Wall, Colossus and Great Library for this scenario - in fact, wouldn't the Great Library give the human access to the GovTech technology that we aren't supposed to have?

Thanks for that savegame Aeson - i wasn't looking forward to setting the game up again.

[Arrian]

Vel,

Don't you think War Weariness will just kill the human player? Forced to be a republic, w/o universal suffrage, sistine, bach... they're screwed, no? In order to reach space, one must have functioning cities.

-Arrian

[Velociryx]

Good points all 'round, guys! The Great Library probably needs to be pre-built by one of the AI civs, simply to remove it from bein' pickable by the human player.

Odd thing tho....I already gave the human player Sistine and Universal Sufferage....they shouldn't be showing up on the picklist at all.... I'll admit that I didn't look for that, but that they're showing up when they've already been flagged as having been built is....a bad thing.

All cities (AI included) already have solar plants equipped in them, so that wonder (and a good many of the other ones) were put in for the "cocaine effect.:" As the human player, you're pressed for time. The longer those bigger economies have to grind you to dust, the more likely that they will do just that. Some of the wonders are attractive, but....can you afford the time to build?

-=Vel=-

[Aeson]

I played about 10 turns so far, and it seems like the human can hold the AI off just about indefinitely without Nukes. The key is sinking transports, which is sorta a guessing game. Split up your navy and they get sunk, keep them together and you might miss the landing party... exciting really.

I found the Radar Artillery to be most useful. Make sure there are no roads leading up to your blockades. That gives you a free turn to bombard their troops, which they withdraw if still alive. Really helpful when they send up the Armies. So far I only nuked 1 time, got about 10 destroyers, 3 transports, 2 MA armies (damaging another), and 10-15 loose MA's and MI's. Quite fun!

The problem with artillery is the AI has no idea what it's doing with them. I think building up pure MA and RA (mostly RA), with enough MI's thrown in to hold the chokepoints, and Battleships to sink transports... the player could very well have a shot at conquering the world (insanely long game though). I mean, you have the full 540 turns...

Is there anyway to bump the year up to 1950AD+?

[Velociryx]

The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that pre-building ToE for one of the AI's is a very good idea. Too few techs left to research, makes it too powerful.

Aeson, that's pretty much how I've been playing it too. Use my subs as spotter units and feelers and try to keep the big guns behind them if/when I find something to shoot at.

The nukes....prolly overkill, but occassionally handy when either Germany or Russia get their dander up and decide to come in with a hundred or so units. Consider it like having a stockpile of five "get out of jail free" cards....gets you out of a jam in a big hurry....

I like the tension in the game, but I wonder if there's more we can do in that regard....'specially the naval tension....IMO, the American Navy is prolly THE most crucial thing in their game. Well, that and MI/RA on choke points...lol

[Velociryx]

Ahhh, I think we can use Gramphos' Multi-tool (save game editor) to bump the date up. Meant to do that and forgot to last night....

-=Vel=-

[Aeson]

I just launched, only took until 2510BC.. The AI never started building their Spaceships. Quite a large score (25k+), but fixing the date will fix that

The AI's probably need some super cities of their own to have any sort of space race atmosphere. Also, they spend too much time building the wonders. Assign them all from the start and it should help.

I was thinking it might make it more interesting to put the closest Uranium in AI territory (New Kyoto? The closest Japanese island city). It would be pretty hairy trying to get enough troops up there to take the city.

The AI also need more Transports I think. I sunk about 20 of them, and that was basically it, no more threat from the AI. ToE makes the techs too quick as well. Maybe up the tech cost for all of the spaceship ones, and the build costs for the components as well.

I do take back my observation that conquest might be possible though. I didn't realize that we had to stay in Democracy or Republic. War weariness was getting pretty bad near the end.

Finally, the chokepoints are too easily held. If one or the other were two tiles wide at the narrowest it might give the AI a chance to bust through. All I had to do was put an army of Mech Infantry on each isthmus, and the AI stopped trying to get through after that. Also, bombarding the AI's roads makes it impossible for them to get through in the face of bombardment. I took out 6 armies without any losses, not counting the ones I nuked (lots of fun!). Maybe if there were hills up to the chokepoints (which stay mountains) the AI could move up and attack with their MA armies, even without roads.

[Velociryx]

'k....tonight's changes then:

1) assign away all the wonders to keep the AI from wasting time building them. That's kinna what I was hoping they'd do, but apparently they're taking a bit tooooo much time with all the distractions.

2) downgrade the chokepoints. Hills instead of mountains, and make them wider by at least one tile.

3) Remove the starting armies for the Americans. You can build 'em anyways, but having them at game start is prolly too powerful of an advantage.

4) dramatically increase (double/triple) the number of trannies at game start, and increase escorts FOR them accordingly. This should allow china and Japan to more firmly enter the game.

I'm thinking that'd prolly be several steps closer....

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

Mmmm....and I LOVE the idea of having to make at least one offensive action against one of the AI's in order to secure the Uranium! Excellent idea! I will strip out the Uranium from the American subcontinent....groovy!

-=Vel=-