a very byzantine change of plans

[Varwnos]

new unit "lombard" (also new shield for it ). The power struggle between the lombards and the other latins for control of the "latin empire of constantinople" was a real issue in the first two decades post 1204, and i am trying to make it evident in the game via events. historically emperor henry conquered most of the other latin kingdoms in Greece, taking Corinth, Athens, Thebae and in the north Dyrrachion. However i am not sure if it will work if i have the empire of constantinople in war with the minor latin kingdoms. after henry's death the other kingdoms became largely independent again, and didnt do much to help the by now collapsing latin posessions in macedonia & thrace.

i decided that the scen will begin in 1205 and end in 1350 something i think (date of the death of andronikos III palaiologos). the reasons are many:
in 1205 Phillipoupolis is conquered by the latins. this leads to open war with the bulgarians, but soon afterwards the bulgarian emperor dies and civil war takes place. this is helpful because i didnt want to have bulgaria strong from the start.

Andronikos III palaiologos came to power by going to war against his uncle, Andronikos II. civil war destroyed the empire and for the first time it was obvious that the ottomans would become the dominent force in the european parts as well (byzantine campaigns now were very dependent on ottoman troops, due to other events of the period, like dushan's conquests in macedonia). also this makes the problem that there are no ottomans in the game as a nation look a bit less significant. moreover this scen is mostly about the empire of Thessalonike

in theory this scenario should reach its peak in turn 30 or so, when the crucial battle with the bulgarians takes place (events see to it that they wont be easy at all...)

ps: can one make barbarian units appear by events? what is the significance of the "trigger attacker/trigger defender" commands in the create unit menu?

[Arthedain]

I guess that if you rename the Barbarians to for example Independents, you have to write Independents.
If you don't rename them I guess it's just Barbarians

(You rename them in Labels.txt)

[Varwnos]

hm, i am using the fw editor and i am not sure that it has an option for creating barbarian units via events. do you know what the trigger defender-trigger attacker options are?

[Varwnos]

The scen has reached the most boring stage of scen creating: time to place the bulk of the roads, irrigations, fortresses and barbarians... anyway, here is a nice pic of Constantinople there are naval borders (venetian fleets) and land borders in asia minor (frankish and angevin shields) basically the latins are meant to take Chalkedon and Nikomedeia (they did historically) before their possesions in asia minor just collapse (post henry's death). i am trying to make most nations fun to play.

i would really like to have some cool naval units of the period though, any ideas? (i am always left to do everything on my own) :P

[Arthedain]

Just a tip, it's better that you edit things manually as some of the editor may destroy files etc. I know when I changed some unit stats, it sc***ed up my rules file
Anyways, I'm not sure if there's something wrong with the events edtior.
I think you should write the barbarian event manually..

[Hendrik the Great]

You are welcome to use the ships I used in Daroae. Apart from the big ship, the Galease I think all can be used starting 1205. Not entirely correct but maybe a bit more interesting.

BTW, I am still not sure of the use of the naval border unit in your Scn. The other AI might just keep attacking it if they are at war with the venetians or whoever owns these "units".

TRigger attacker, defender:
You can set specific actions for these

i.e. (from my Vikings scn)

@IF
UNITKILLED
unit=Rendier
attacker=Norwegians
defender=Barbarians
@THEN
TEXT
NEWS: Hunters track a herd of Rendier!
ENDTEXT
CHANGEMONEY
receiver=triggerattacker
amount=50
@ENDIF

or...

@IF
UNITKILLED
unit=Monk
attacker=ANYBODY
defender=ANYBODY
@THEN
TEXT
NEWS: Monks robbed by thiefs!
ENDTEXT
CHANGEMONEY
receiver=triggerattacker
amount=50
@ENDIF

ANYBODY aint working properly I think but it was ok for my scn,...

Hope this helps.

[Varwnos]

ty

can you write an example of an event where barbarian units are created? (since the fw editor doesnt have this option for barbarian units, i will have to write those events manually)

as for the naval borders you were right in assuming that they arent venetian-controlled, although i might make one of them venetian controlled. atm all of the units around Constantinople are controlled by the latin empire of Constantinople. The reason that the naval borders are there is because i want to avoid anyone else moving units in the Bosporus, unless they conquer Constantinople ofcourse. Well the naval borders wont be impossible to destroy (they arent air units, they are naval) but it will take 2 or 3 attacks in the same round i guess, if they are veteran. Those units will also be (in smaller numbers) in two cities in Crete, and other than that probably nowhere else. Unless i have one in Methone as well, which was an important conquest of the venetians in Morea.
i made a few more units: bulgarian horseman, wallachian, hungarian, and also edited the main serb strong unit a bit. however i am very slow with finishing things

the good news is that i decided that the latin empire of constantinoplke wont be allied with the minor latin kingdoms, since the war was real between them during the reign of Henry, besides after that the epirotans are supposed to pretty much be between the two latin powers anyway (although i dont know if a computer controlled epirotans -empire of thessalonike- will do that, but the empire of thessalonike is the nation you are supposed to play. However the bulgarians, and the two latin powers, will be fun to play as well. The hungarians and the wallachians are there to trigger invasions if attacked, so that serbia and bulgaria dont have safe borders (when ai controlled). probably killing those units will give you a cash bonus though, but there wont be any hungarian or wallachian city to conquer (i dont see the point in that).

i dont know if i will use your ships from daroe, although they are very cool, but i think that i shall use some of the fading lights ships due to the venetian unit there which i like i am using your siege engine and the trebuchet however

here is a pic of the serbs and the bulgarians. btw wasnt serbia a kingdom at the time? (probably, since dushan called himself king i think, and not emperor) bulgaria was an empire, i know

ps: Mathias, can i use all of your icons from DAROE? it goes without saying ofcourse that it will be mentioned in the text file

[Hendrik the Great]

@IF
RANDOMTURN
denominator=10
@THEN
CREATEUNIT
unit=Avar Horsemen
owner=Barbarians
veteran=yes
homecity=none
locations
183,71
endlocations
@ENDIF

And event example above.

I did not create the Trebuchet or Siege Engine myself. Only took them from some other scn. You are free to use any grafics from my scn. Take a look in the readme, I think I noted who made what grafics.

btw wasnt serbia a kingdom at the time?
cant remember

[Varwnos]

ty Mathias btw my name is Kyriakos (it is from Kyrie, it means belonging to the lord, although i am not christian anymore)

i am still placing roads and irrigtions these days, and it is very boring... making nice little graphics is more fun! here is a pic of roughly what the empire of thessalonike consisted of, from dyrrachion to the black sea coast etc. theroretically the player should have reached this stage in 1230, cause after that the bulgarians become a considerable power

[Heresson]

The map looks nice

[Varwnos]

the map isnt the only thing that looks nice (so do the units, and me!) heh

well the map was made by you, and certainly it is great. i just made it 150% bigger, and changed the Chalkidike peninsula, Morea, and bits of the islands here and there.


i made 5 new units:
-catalan company
-siege
-(new version) nicaean footsoldier
-(new version) nicaean archer
-new special byz (empire of thessalonike at least) unit: defence of Thessalonike

[Heresson]

Oh, now I see the units. But I still don't see You.

[Heresson]

double post

[Heresson]

I've found some references to Fading Lights in the thread. I'm flattered. I also see You used, at least at some stage, my Balkan cities and my cannon. Both are old, but while the cities were based or something, the cannon is a pure fantasy, and I'm ashamed of it a bit. You can use it if You want, but You'd better find something else.
Oh, good luck. I'd rather see non-fictional scenario, but it's still byzantiner one after all...

[Varwnos]

Hey Heresson, i am not sure exactly where you were getting at, but:

a) your scenario "fading lights" ofcourse is very impressive, and very interesting for your serius attempt to depict the historical situation of the period it is about. however this made it impossible and frustrating, and at least i never could play it to the end, the genoan galley event was unbelievably annoying (for me at least). Moreover creating an impossible situation in anatolia meant that the player was just stuck trying to take the turkish cities, and that was about all of the gameplay value. Still the map you made is amazing, and th scenario has enough good points to be regarded as a civ2 classic, which i am sure it is!

b)as for my scen i am not sure what you would like to see, i am not even sure if you will dl it anyway but i decided not to make it fictional because i had already made historical units and nations etc. this is from 1205- Andronikos III (late 1300s i think, i'll have to check again though). My main model is DAROE, since it had a very high fun value, which ofcourse emant that playing as the Nicaeans you could just destroy the ottomans in a few turns, which made things non-historical, but fun. In my scen there are no ottomans as a nation, so i didnt have to deal with that issue, but still the Nicaeans arent really meant for play in my scen.
I decided not to have a map of the entire anatolia due to the lack of ottomans etc.

c) well as for my pic, i had once posted it (heh) but anyway this thread isnt about showing pics of oneself, so you will just have to take my word for it!

d) i am not using your cannon unit anymore, since this scen doesnt go as far as 1453

e) your balcan cities are nice, but the andalusian cities i found look better imo. i tried to make cities myself, but failed miserably, and appreciate everyone's better attempts to do so

f) the city placement was just coppied from your scen (fading lights), i only added some cities in Epiros, and in the islands. This was done since i gather that you went to a lot of work to find the main cities of the period etc, so i could benefit from that effort