a very byzantine change of plans

[Hendrik the Great]

I'd love to help but the last time I did anything with Civ2 or Scenarios is at least 2 years ago. I am awfully out of practise. And dont worry. I think from the first sketches to the final scn it was half a year or more that I spent on it because I am terribly lazy and at several stages had no clue on how to continue and solve some of the problems I had. I started with drawing the map btw.

I know Fading Lights. I did some helping to its creator. Not much though.

Anyways, if you need some help feel free to ask but I dont check into Apolyton daily, just 1 or 2 a week mostly.

[Varwnos]

hm, well the main problem is the events. and mostly that i dont know how to create units by an event, someone said that the x,y parameters have to form a diamond or something of the kind, i dont know what he meant exactly though. Moreover another problem is that since this is 1401-1462 (or 63, fall of Trebizond, also it would suck to have urban's cannon show up in the very last turn heh) there really isnt much space for dramatic changes, so it looks like it will be a scenario about trying to survive in morea and not much more, it would be useless to try to make another 1204 or 1260 scenario, and my original plan -to make a detailed scenario about how the despotate of epiros became the empire of thessalonike and almost made it to become a second byzantine empire- was ultimately dropped.

however i suck at creating tech trees (tried and failed miserably in my first scen) so no tech interest here either (possibly just one political tech etc) so the only end is to create a nearly impossible to survive scen where only the byzantine empire is meant for play.

anyway, the scen is far from finished.

[Arthedain]

the diamond thingy is when you move unit, when you create units it's like this:
(example from 2194 days of war)


@IF
RECEIVEDTECHNOLOGY
technology=83
receiver=Americans
@THEN
CREATEUNIT
unit=Commandos
owner=British
veteran=yes
homecity=None
locations
76,30
75,31
74,32
73,33
endlocations
@ENDIF

recievedtechnology, can be replaced with many things like:
TURN
turn=22

hope this is what you meant

[Varwnos]

ty Arthedain

Hm, i dont know how this scen can be anything but fantasy, since if i try to make it historical it will be dead boring. even fading lights (where at least you start with tens of cities) the byzantine player was dead bored (or just me) due to the impossible situation. although i plan to make ottoman units dirt cheap (as in fading lights) i dont see much point in having all of the byz handicaps depicted in the scen. probably the tamerlane invasion and the hungarian crusade (battle of varva) and also the french-hungarian crusade (battle of nikopolis) will be presented, and possibly even the hexamilium (if the player conquers Korinthos) but generally things look like they will either be fantasy or boring...

[Varwnos]

Being unussually employed with the scen i managed to create some more units.
-byz castle
-byz border (movable, costs 30 shields though)
-byz settler (only the byzantines will have settlers probably)
-latin castle
-improved latin borders etc

you can see the byz castle, the byz settler (bottom) and the byz border (it is the four miniature byzantines) in the pic

still everything is very far from finished..

now byz units are:
-byz phoideratoi (strong cavalry)
-byz stratiotai (medium infantry)
-imperial guard (strong infantry)
-byz archers (archers!)
-byz small galley (weak naval unit)
-byz Spatharios (strong naval unit, very expensive though, the Spatharios was the byz rank for admiral)
-byz castle (very expensive)
-byz border (unrealistically expensive!)
-byz siege
-byz settler (expensive)

and through research (epirotan armies) they can also produce:
-epirotan (weak infantry, but dirt cheap)
-epirotan cavalry (weak cavalry, dirt cheap)

so i guess that is enough as far as the byz units are conserned, since most of the other nations only have 5 units.

[Cyrion]

Originally posted by varwnos

-byz border (movable, costs 30 shields though)

the byz border (it is the four miniature byzantines) in the pic

Now that is a novel concept!!

How do you intend to use this unit? and why?

And the unit looks good, BTW (which is a surprise for me, as the 4 miniatures are really small!)

[Varwnos]

well it is a unit with defence factor of 9, whereas the next most powerful def unit is the castle, with 6, so it is the only super defence unit in the game. I dont really see why you find the idea of a movable border strange, borders are moved as a result of conquest The idea is that you have 3 or 4 border units and can move them too strategic locations to avoid the ottoman onslaught etc. Creating more is very unrealistic since they cost 30 shields, like i said, and the byzantines only have 3 serius shield producing cities, so it would mean that you would have to sacrifice any other production in one or more of those cities for a lot of turns, and trust me: the ottomans have units that cost 1 shield and arent that weaker than the main byz units, so failing to produce oceans of units will put you in a very hard position vs the ottomans

[Arthedain]

Show us the castle-unit!
Screenie looks nice btw

[Arthedain]

Oh, and I must say that you should be very pleased with drawing units, escpecially in YOUR OWN STYLE.. I wish I could draw units like that and make my own scen with them ..*jealous*

[Varwnos]

thank you

the castle unit (at least the byz castle one) is in the morea pic, it is the thing (heh) between Mistras and the empty fortress. you can see two miniatures there if you look closely. Hm, well you can also see it next to Thessalonike.

i made two naval borders (venetian and "veneto aid" which is basically a naval border unit in the coast of Thessalonike. two of them are byz and the other is venetian, this prevents you from declaring war at venice (the byz empire was closely allied with venice in the end) since if you do you can forget any possibility of ever moving ships out of Thessalonike since the veneto aid unit owned by venice is a veteran (defence of 9, so the byz empire cannot realistically ever destroy it unless it produces 4 spatharios units, and that is a very tall order...)

Thessalonike was given over to Venice in 1430, with the hope that it would be able to defend it more than the byz empire. Venice promissed that it would make it "a second Venice" etc. In reality the city was soon conquered by the ottomans. i am thinking of an event where if the city is conquered there are some venetian units created next to it, since it doesnt make sense in any other way, no one would just give away one of his most important cities in a strategy game

also there is a pic of the special venetian naval border, in crete.

no naval border units can ever be moved, they are there mostly to reresent venetian supremacy in the seas (venetian cities cannot be attacked from the sea due to the borders).

i also edited the turk unit, but it still sucks i think ;| It looks a bit chinese, but i dont have models etc, so it will have to be like that. The bad thing is that it is everywhere in the map (almost).

oh, i also made the units:
-bulgarian (pretty cool)
-hungarian (not as cool, but ok)
they will be shown in some other pic i guess.

i need a list of events from the period though, can anyone help? we are talking about 1401-1463
anyway

[Varwnos]

(edited)

[Varwnos]

Created some new units. The principality of Butrinto will serve as the main western power in the region, thus enabling me to use frankish knights for it (other units will have the angevin-papal states shield). new shields: french and habsburg (they will play a part in the game). also you can see the principality of Achaia border (tuscan shield) and the urban's cannon (i just added the miniature turks). also the latin castle. There isnt much room for many more units (ps the wallachian unit has to change, i know it looks bad)

[Hendrik the Great]

Don't stick to historical accuracy too much. You already said this is a hypothetical scenario. I am not very familiar with what happened after Constantinople was taken by the Ottomans but I am sure there must be some small side-stories about the conquest of Morea. There were a lot of foreign powers in the regions. Use some hypothetical diplomacy, like Venice supplying a sizeable fleet, the Knights of St. John attacking the Ottomans unexpectedly, and so on...

Incorporate the Fall of Trebizond. Assume the siege of the city went very badly for the Ottomans because there was a thunderstorm destroying much equipment. If the city falls have refugees appaear in Morea eager to help fight the Ottomans.

or maybe some of the Crusade can move vs. the Ottomans, have them score a victory somewhere. Or advance the Battle of Lepanto to an earlier age killing of the major part of the Ottoman fleet.

Another idea: use a miracle. Let's say there is a mircale that happens in Morae prompting many pilgrims to go there. Soon the papacy might be forced to protect them, and so on...Use your fantasy!

This all requires a lot of events space btw...

Daroe was my 2rd scenario and the first with a complex new tech tree. I advise drawing your entire tech tree out on some paper using lines to connect the techs and abreviations.

Make sure it is very organised so you do not lose orientation.

[Varwnos]

Thank you for the ideas Hm i will begin with the last thing you said, the tech tree. My attempt to make a complex individualised tech tree in my (horribly boring) first scen failed miserably. That is the main reason, but moreoverI dont think that i will even try to have a tech tree here, since the scenario a) will be mostly event driven, b) only the byzantine empire is meant for play, c) the byzantine empire starts with 9 units and gain another two through tech "epirotan armies", d) another tech is given to them if they conquer Korinthos (the Hexamilium). The individual nations already have all special techs. Butrinto can produce units from 4 different nations, and through events gains control also of wallachs and habsburgs. The byzantine empire gains control also of some wallachs in the same way. However the problem here is the number of the events. i already have 23 events and i am not past the 16th turn! (however most of them involve city taking and units killed, so they can take more time before appearing). Atm i am working at the first major set of events involving byzantine help granded to serbia in Kossovo etc.
A major problem is the role of Venice in the game. I cant ally them to the byz empire because then they would be in war with all of the latin nations. I cant ally them with the latins so that the opposite wont take place. I thought of preventing negotiations between venice and byz empire but that would just lead to war i guess (can that happen even if byz-venetian relations are 0 attitude? and communication isnt possible?)
Venetian towns are virtually non-conquerable (well unless a pretty large fleet starts destroying their naval borders) so they arent vulnerable anywhere else apart from their small possesions in Morea, and Corfu.
the latin kingdoms-dutchies-principalities are all set to 0 attitude towards each other, and moreover Butrinto is allied to Achaia. Also Athens is allied to Achaia. Butrinto and Athens however atm dont have any contact.
Serbia is isolated, and ofcourse the ottomans are the hated enemies of everyone else.
To further neutralise Venice i made their land units cost a lot more than the other western powers units.
Stefan, you used the no negotiations option in DAROE, so you probably can answer my question about it

(here are two new units, the latin castle -the other one is used only inside some major latin controlled towns- and the improved version of the wallachian)

[Varwnos]

most of my units