a very byzantine change of plans

[Heresson]

Hi

I assure You the genoan galley thing was as annoying for me as well Just I'd rather a scn to be too hard than too easy. Perhaps I've overdone it. I'll make an update someday. When it comes to the Turks, it wasn't completely impossible. If You take Konya, there's a chance great Turkish progress will never start. If You research proper techs giving You industrial boost and fortify heavily in western Anatoly, it is possible to survive there as well.
And finally, You can try to defend in Europe - conquest of Balkans is possible.

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

I assure You I will! I'd like to see a good scenario. Keep workingover it until You'll be sure there is something in it may make You proud of it. I'll be pleased to take a look at it in the playtest time.

Oh, I don't mind your scn not being 100% historical. Every historical scenario is historical fiction after all.

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!

Hm. You could base your people.gif. on You and your family.

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

wa-l-hamdu li-l-lahi.

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

I'm sure I've made some mistakes, though.

[Varwnos]

Hm, still not sure how much time till beta release! although by now most of the city-terrain touches are finished. i think that the catalan company wont be barbarian, but "minor latin kingdoms" controlled. the minor latin kingdoms atm are: the dutchy of athens, the kingdom of korinth, some islands here and there, the city of Bar in the upper Hadriatic, some serbian cities.

here is Morea

[Varwnos]

the latins now have new feet! well i think that they sucked before, now they are just the same as the rest of my units, more or less

[Elok]

Er, my apologies if you said something about this and I missed it, but you ARE including Greek Fire, right? That's the coolest thing about the Byzantine Navy.

[Varwnos]

hm, i am not, but i am not sure that greek fire was used after 1204 (the fourth crusade). And this starts at 1205. Also there were some byz soldiers that held a kind of miniature cannon/ flame-thrower. But i dont have them either :| their model was very hard to work with due to the colours. They appear in DAROE i think though. The byzantine empire was quite a weird place, if you think that up to 1071 (battle of Matzikert) it generally was another planet by its own, no comparisson with the (very lower) tech & cultural level of the rest of europe etc.

[Elok]

Well, speaking for myself, I won't complain if you stretch history.

[Varwnos]

Well the thing is that i suck at creating tech trees, so i tend to just have special units for each nation (which in the end becomes boring though, since some units mostly have a different shield and thats all) and give them all from the start, then give some new units through events, or give a new tech through an event etc. so i am not sure if my scen will be interesting as far as the use of units not available from the start is conserned..
the shileds add a bit to the atmosphere, but they make it impossible to have new units replacing the old, because there just isnt the space for some many units.

[Elok]

Well, I'm poor at those myself. It'd be really useful if there were a more user-friendly tech tree editor based on point-and-click. Hint, hint, programming geniuses!

[curtsibling]

I'd second that!

A tech tree maker that even just creates a @CIVILIZE 0-99 list would be a brilliant tool!

Anyone want to start a thead?

[Hendrik the Great]

If you have many units whose only difference is their shield then drop the shield. You can have one unit for all civs then. Giving you more unit slots to use.

Make a linear tech tree only. One that goes

Tech A->Tech B->Tech C and so on...

It's better than nothing. Or, copy your scenario and use the copy only for playing around with the tech tree and things that are difficult. I did that for Daroae, saved me a lot of problems and setbacks. Once the tech tree works all you need to do is copy the text file into the actual scenario.

About Greek Fire. The use in naval warfare had declined in the 13th century though it was still used on occasion to great desaster for the enemy. However, the appearence of Gun Powder and more advanced catapults put greek fire more and more out of range. I saw no use in creating a special greek fire unit in my scenario. If it was used it was used by the different troops and not by special units that could be represented. The only outstanding one was the blow-pipe unit depicted in my scenario. Though, they were not really using greek fire but a substance derived from it. Cloth or wood was painted with it or entirely attached to it, it was not really liquid anymore more like a strong sirup. On impact it would expand and set anyone hit on fire.

Considering the size of the map a greek fire unit makes no real sense to me.

Edit: I played my own Scn today and rediscovered I used Greek Fire not as a unit but as a technology to give certain units.

[Arthedain]

Originally posted by Elok
Well, I'm poor at those myself. It'd be really useful if there were a more user-friendly tech tree editor based on point-and-click. Hint, hint, programming geniuses!

That would be great! Especially for players like me who doesn't dare to create scenarios with thech-trees.

[Varwnos]

well i decided to drop the shields so as to make room for techs. some new byz units created. however the serbs & bulgarians probably wont get any new unit :| there is just some "torcher" unit for them. now there are slots for another 7 units or something, but it is boring! i am making the tech tree, it will be linear. btw how can i set bonuses for different buildings?

or i could enable the serbs & bulgarians to gain one of byz archer units (atm they dont have an archer unit). torcher" is a unit that ignores city walls. another question is whether the empire of thessalonike and the empire of nicaea should start with the same soldiers. there are three main groups of byz soldiers that i made, and 2 special units (archer & imperial guard) and also there is always the possibility of giving them mercenery slav units (in daroe style)

the main byz units follow in the next post..

sadly the fact that my units dont look at all like other people's prevents me from using so many nice byz units found here and there!

[Varwnos]

the psilos pikeman is my current favourite

[Elok]

Looks very nice. But what do you mean by "set bonuses for different buildings"? You can alter the effectiveness of happiness improvements by giving techs to different civs, but AFAIK improvements otherwise have very set functions.

[Hendrik the Great]

Did you play Daroae as the Nicaeans once? I am playing my own scn atm afte rnot bothering about it for about 2 years and its very hard to kill those damn Ottomans I must say, though maybe thats because I am also fighting the Latins and the Venetians the same time on 3 different fronts. Just took Constantinople in 1333, very late but I am alive and advancing slowly! By 1453 I'll likely have taken most of greece and the island. Already own Crete, Lemnos, Chios, Lesbos, destroyed that city south of Histiaia, now attacking Histiaia and securing the Theo Landwall, Dorylaeum and Sinope are holding the ottoman advance (there must be hills of bones infront of their city walls )

Hmm. You got me inspired. Maybe, after I come home again from my vacations in early April I might make Version 2 of Daroae. I found some small mistakes when playing. Nothing that would hinder gameplay though.

Maybe you mean upkeep cost and build cost by abilities of the buildings? They can be changed in the rules.txt. There you can also change the prereqs for them.