My "not so" secret project.....

[ravagon]

Originally posted by Case


I can relate to that. I think that I'll have to quit university if I'm to finish 'The Cruel Sea 2.0' before Civ 3 comes out

I'm glad to see that you've got your priorities in order

[Kull]

As promised, a few thoughts & comments:

It looks like you're planning to start the war normally (ie. German invasion through Belgium, etc), but your map already contains the trenches in their historical locations. The segue from "War of Movement" to "Trench Warfare" is exactly where I planned to end Guns of August, but it looks like you'll have both. The transition brought with it a wholesale change in everything from uniforms to weaponry, so you'll probably want to use events and a batch file to make that switch at some point.

I won't say that "pre-existing trenches" is a bad idea - only gameplay can answer that question - but it would be nice if you had a mechanism for building trenches during the game. There's a couple ways to do this. The easiest would be a new rules.txt file that gives the human player's infantry units an engineer capability - and thus the ability to transform certain types of terrain into trenches (preferably in one turn). Thus wherever the front winds up on "Day X", that's where the trenches get built. It also gives the human player the option of omitting trench warfare altogether (or localizing it), which has pluses and minuses of it's own. The biggest problem here is that engineers need food, so where your infantry is homed is critical ("None" is the best option). Plus you'd need "house rules" prohibiting the building of roads and cities. And there's undoubtedly plenty of other issues.

A more complicated option, is one that I toyed with for GoA. Event-built trenches based on city ownership. The idea would be to predetermine the location of perhaps 4 or 5 trench systems, based on your civ's ownership of certain key cities. On "Day X", an event would prompt you to save the game, and calculate a number (using a formula that tranlates "cities owned" into numeric values). You'd run the batch file, and select the "Trench Option" dictated by the result of your calculation. This would load a special event file, and the whole thing would consist of "changeterrain" events that build a unique trench system (again, one of 4 or 5 known configurations). You'd immediately save the game again, and load another set of files that would include fresh events (perhaps even different ones for each trench system) and new rules and unit graphics files. This has the potential to be VERY complicated (and now you understand one of the reasons why GoA is still on the drawing board), but it's one solution to the "historical trench locations" problem.

The biggest issue of all, IMHO, is "playability". GoA had reached a point where it could work (more or less), but the darn thing was HUGE! I love Red Front and Second Front, but lets face it - turns take FOREVER. So think real hard about creating a scenario that requires your player to move hundreds of units every turn. Some people like that, even me, but I've never yet been able to finish a scenario that begins big.

[BeBMan]

Some other thoughts...

I don´t know if it is useful for anyone, but has anyone thought of making a WWI scn not about the entire war, but perhaps about the last German offenseive and the Allied counterstrike (Black August) that triggered the end of the war?

First when I heared the title of Kull´s scn, I thought this was its topic.

However, the idea to start with the scn shortly before the end of wwI has IMO some advantages: you can start with "Trench Warfare", THEN change to "War of Movement". This would be probably much easier than to the other way around, because you can preplace the frontline as "Move 0" units which have to be destroyed to create a major breaktruogh.

Also, by the end of the war, most interesting weapons are all available. And you can easily make both sides playable - Germans should make a successful offensive to win, Allies should repulse and strike back. So you can create a line of objective cities behind both sides of the front.

The disadvantages are IMO also much units from the beginning on, and that there cannot be so much development in the scn, it would mainly be a wargame.

[Scott F]

It is very difficult to go from a war of movement to a war of trenches and stalemate in civ2.

The best way to do this would be to have a series of event files, depending on German progress. If the Germans capture cities X, Y, and Z, then you will run file #23 and that will create the trenches along the fronts in those cities (the changeterrain can be triggered by technologies given when the cities are captured). If the Germans capture U, X, and Y, then file such and such is run. The problem with that is that it requires huge numbers of files, one for every possible combination of cities along the front. If there are forty cities on the map, there will be literally hundreds of those files. It would be too time consuming to make and execute to make it a viable solution to any such problem.

Also, I am not that knowledgeable about hex editing, but I know that fortress/trench and terrain tags are controlled in the save game file and can be hex edited with enough effort. It might be possible to edit the terrains this way, through some sort of exe program with a nice graphical interface. Again though, this would take a tremendous amount of effort. I'll never try it, since I don't know enough about hex editing.

The problem with having trenches, of course, is that the AI is too stupid to create them. The AI also has no means of replicating trench warfare. Indeed, there is little incentive for a human player to defend trenches. It is far easier to put large stacks of units in cities or a few select fortresses.

If breakthroughs are acheived, the front normally reforms a few miles back with a new line of trenches. This is not possible in Civ2. At the very least it is more time consuming than what I mentioned above. There is not a single WW1 scenario out there that I have seen that prevents breakthroughs from happening or, if they do occur, causes the front lines to reform to the rear of the breakthrough. In Second Reich, it is easy to break through, occupy all of France, and still have to face units being created by the event files hundreds of miles behind the front lines.

I've been doing a bit of theorizing about trench warfare for the Harry Turtledove Great War scenario that I did. I could never get it to work, so I abandoned the idea of special no-man's land terrains and trench terrains in favor of something else. I gave the units very high hit point values, making them very hard to kill if they are fortified. Even then, breakthroughs are possible. Cities can be taken and once you are past the trenches you are well on your way to an easy victory. In order to make breakthroughs harder, I crammed the cities on the map close together, preventing sweeping breakthroughs. I have even been considering placing trenches in every square in AI controlled nations in the versions for various nations, thus making a breakthrough literally impossible. It is my feeling that such things will realistically increase the difficulty for a human player.

At the same time though, I have found that it is next to impossible to get the AI to capture any cities (even in Russia where they are not cramped together) as the unit hit point values stand. Hence for the various player modules the human players won't have the hit point advantage that the AI has. MUWAHAHAHAHA. Ahem.

Yes, well, as I said, it's very difficult to do. Depending on the size of your map, cramming cities together may or may not be a realistic option for your scenario. It is also hard to find names for all of those various small Belgian and French towns. At the very least, experience tells me that I should recommend you try altering the hit points to maintain some sort of trench warfare even if there are no "trenches" appearing on the map.

I don´t know if it is useful for anyone, but has anyone thought of making a WWI scn not about the entire war, but perhaps about the last German offenseive and the Allied counterstrike (Black August) that triggered the end of the war?

Quiet you (well I haven't thought of something just like that, but close).

[our_man]

Hobbes, you should try out Michael Jeszenka's Second Reich scenario. It's without a doubt the best WW1 scenario I've ever played and does a pretty good job of creating trench warfare despite the limits of the Civ2 engine. It might give you some ideas. It can be found on the CSC.

[Hobbes]

thanks guys, that really helps. our_man, you da man, that scenario is the one that got me inspired to do this one.

here are some planes (left to right: Gotha bomber, Albatros D.II, Fokker Dr.I, Fokker E.I):

[Case]

wow

I'm really looking forward to this scenario

[Soundwave]

When IS this scenario coming!!!!!!


I WANT IT!!

I love World War ONE!!!

[Hobbes]

Soundwave, thanks for the interest, but not for a while, unfortuately. It will be quite big. I'm working on finishing off the art work, add a few more units at time, building up cities, etc.
However, I will release all the artwork in a bit, just in case anyone wants to use it.

[Cavalcadeus]

How about some more screen shots? Your scenario looks great.

[ravagon]

Originally posted by Hobbes
However, I will release all the artwork in a bit, just in case anyone wants to use it.

On behalf of all of the artistically challenged persons around here (ie: pretty much just me from the looks of most of the posted graphics ) I thank you.

[Soundwave]

When will it be out??, i will help , i have nothing to do for a few weeks, as finished study, may i help?

Also whats ya e-mail, i wanted to do a WWi Scenario too, never got the chance though

Thanks

[giz.moe]

*bump*

When is this scenario coming? I hope you're still workin on it!

[Journeyman]

Wow, this thing looks great
I didn't realise it was going on, thanx for pointing it out Hobbes, I'm working on a suprisingly similiar project (much smaller though) and I eagerly await you finishing it.

[MagyarCrusader]

How come just about everybody can make graphics so much better than me?

Hobbes you better finish this. It looks too good.