Texas Revolution--need some advice

[Bullwinkle]

Hello--

For the last year or so, I've been doing historical, map-making, and unit-sketching groundwork for a Texas Revolution scenario. I have in mind something that would be similar to the wonderful historical scenarios that are highly even-driven--like Second Front and Herbstnebel. More turns (say maybe 150 2-day turns), but with fewer units to make more turns manageable. Like those scenarios, it would be designed only for play from the viewpoint of the Texan rebels. It would be a supply- and reinforcement-driven scenario, somewhat similar to Herbstnebel and Second Front, since the capture of guns and ammunition, the arrival of American volunteers, the return of many fighters to their farms for spring planting and the so-called "runaway scrape" were all a large part of the dynamics of the force structure of the Texian/Tejano army.

I would appreciate some help with a few details of this. I'm trying to figure out just what I can accomplish, and would appreciate answers to my questions but also any inspired suggestions.

1. I want to create a special unit that needs to be somehow carried overland from one location to another (e.g., a missile with a movement rate of one and just one turn in the air, so that it cannot itself fly from city to city), and another unit that can do the overland carrying--like a ship would hold units or a sub would hold missiles, except that it is a land unit that moves, of course. The purpose here is to model the decision that one commander in the Texan army had to make, as to whether to relieve the seige at the Alamo, or go down to the coast and meet a ship carrying guns and ammo. There would be a corresponding event such that, if the special unit needing carrying arrives in the correct city, then a tech would be given (Texans will have Leonardo's workshop, and upgrades of units due to the arrival or capture of guns and ammo will be accomplished by giving techs along the upgrade progression for Leonardo's--or at least that's my current plan, but alternative suggestions are welcome). Can anyone tell me how to make some or all of this happen?

2. I want to make artillery hard to move for the Texan rebels (this was in fact true--what carriages they had were improvised and unreliable). I thought I'd give them fractional movement below 1, but I'd also like artillery to occasionally break down on the roads. Can I make it so that there's a chance they won't even move along a road? Can I make the road multiplier 2 and give the artillery 1/3 of a movement point--will that do it?

3. I would also like to give the Mexicans artillery that can hit from two squares off at a certain point in the Alamo siege. If there's a way of making a land unit that carries missiles with a range of two, that would do it. Or, I guess I could have one event file in the sequence simply create gun emplacements with those missiles in them (gun emplacements like in Second Front--and how is this done?--are they cities?)

I will probably have more questions some other time, but these are some things I'm currently thinking about. I've never tried to do this before so I'm sure there will be more questions.

Thanks to any for your help or suggestions.

[Boco]

You have a number of ideas that would be difficult to implement in Civ2 as you describe it, but I'm sure there are other ways to simulate those supply problems.

1. AFAIK, land- and air-domain carriers/subs can act as bases for air units, but they will not carry them. That can get tedious for the player. Perhaps you could depict the supplies as vulnerable freight units. If they're left unescorted, the AI will wipe them out. If they get to their destination, they can help build a WoW that the player cannot otherwise build (Leo?). Leo is a versatile upgrading mechanism. At the risk of being obvious, I'll mention that you'll lose any vet status with each upgrade.

2. Units can always move one square. Fractional movement only works with odd road bonuses. Units with a mf<1 will always invoke @FATIGUE from Game.txt when they attack. If you want a unit that falls apart, maybe you can use a 1mf helicopter. Just keep it away from the ocean.

3. Gun emplacements can be cities or simply a friendly square in which events create the shell. To get the AI to use them, the shell:target unit cost ratio needs to be very low. It could also help to make the Alamo city 'founded by' Mexicans but owned by Texans (by using Gothmog's CivCity).

This is a good subject! I hope you have fun with it.

[Bullwinkle]

Thanks!

As far as the vulnerable freight unit idea goes, how do I set things up so that the AI looks at this as an extremely valuable unit to hit--so that, if it is left unprotected, the AI will spare no expense to hit it?

As regards making the Alamo originally Mexican: That is already part of the plan. The scenario would begin in September 1835, at which point San Antonio (where the Alamo is) is Mexican--as it originally was. Taking it rapidly should be a high priority for the Texan player, since in fact they captured many guns and ammo by doing so...so that will be a major unit upgrade objective for the Texan player.

[Boco]

Set the df=1, hp=1, fp=1, cost=20 or so. Then set things up so that the AI can spot it. You can use cost to steer the AI's missiles toward particular units.

Since I was digging up old Excel files for another thread, here's one on fractional movement.

Fractional Movement Calculator

The worksheet is protected, but there is no password. If you want to use the dropdowns on the right, simply click Tools then Protection then Unprotect.

Put in a road bonus, and it gives you two pieces of info: the maximum movement factor (it's limited by the road bonus), and the integer to put in @UNITS to get a fractional mf.

[Patine]

Couldn't you just use airbases, renamed on the Labels.txt, as the remote artillery and build missiles there with the Events.txt (that way the Mexicans could stockpile ammo for big barrages).

[Bullwinkle]

Thanks, Patine, that's a perfect suggestion for the gun emplacements.

It's important for me to figure out a way to make artillery movement unreliable for the Texian/Tejano army. To restate the problem for all of you who might happen to read this, the Texian/Tejano army had only improvised carriages for canon, and these were constantly breaking down. I'd like to make it happen that all Texian/Tejano artillery won't be able to move sometimes, and that this will be inherently unpredictable.

One idea I have is to give most units the ignores zoc bit, but don't do this for Texian/Tejano artillery. Then, one might create a large number of barbarian (comanches in this scenario) air or missile units called "bad terrain" or "bad luck" or somesuch, that cast a zoc and wander around the map--sort of like the thunderstorm unit in some scenarios but with no attack or defense to speak of (whatever the minimum is to give the unit a zoc). Such a unit should be invisible to most units, and become invisible again once they have moved on.

Anyone with an obvious problem with making that work--or a much better idea--please let me know.

[Bullwinkle]

Oh, and thank you, too, Boco, for more helpful pointers. I'd read the helpful file on fractional movement, but didn't know about that calculator.