The Road to Empire: Preview

[Spanky]

Map completed

Finally finished revamping the world map. Australia and Africa needed more work than I had expected, especially in terms of hills and mountain ranges. I also removed most of the grassland on both continents, replacing it with plains (the original is way too generous in that respect). The added hills more than compensate for the subsequent loss in variety, though (IMHO).

Windhoek (capital of modern-day Namibia) was a hard nut to crack in terms of research, by the way. Turns out it wasn't founded by the Germans when they set up a colony there, as earlier historians insist, but by a native Dutch-speaking African whose name I've sadly forgotten, who had already erected several stone buildings and a church there before the Germans came along...

A point that may arouse controversy is that Ethiopia won't be represented by a city - I simply ran out... That said, though, the player will find himself thwarted by a heavily defended fortress if trying to invade the area. Including a secret weapon.

Next, I will have to devote some time to sorting out a mess I have long seen coming... namely, reorganizing my units to cater for CivII's ideosyncrasies in the 'Sound' and 'Obsoletion' departments. Thank god for Design Tips!

[JPetroski]

*BUMP*

Was wondering how this scenario is coming along... I'm very interested in it.

[Henrik]

*BUMP*

When is this scenario going to be finnished?

[Goingonit]

Re: *BUMP*

I'm always ready for another Imperialism scenario!

[Spanky]

Back from the dead!

My apologies to everyone anxious to get their hands on this scenario. Without getting into details, I had to shelve it for a while, mainly due to my studies... but now I'm willing to give it another shot!

Anyway, here's how it's going:

The units.gif has been rearranged to my satisfaction, although the AI's building behavior still seems to be flawed. Might have something to do with the fact that the "Knight" space is still occupied, but I'll look into that. Also, of course, the units and build orders on the map have been adjusted accordingly.

Aaargh! One of the central innovations I had in mind, namely revolutionary discoveries like combustion being introduced historically through events (see early post), turns out to be impossible!!! At least that's what it looks like:

The idea was based on having a tech with both prereqs set to 'no' as a prerequisite for military applications, which in turn would be researchable by the player. The thing is, if such a tech is set as a prerequisite in the in-game events editor, this editor replaces it with "no" once the file is saved(!).

Unless anybody knows of a way to get around this (text-editing?), here's my backup plan:

Since I probably would have had to split up the events file anyway, the game will prompt the player to run a batch file to replace, say, rules.txt and events.txt approximately twice during the scenario. 1875-1920 being the time period covered, it seems like the ideal times would be around 1890 and 1905. Firstly, this would split up the game nicely into 15-year intervals.
Second, and most importantly, the 1890s were an innovative period, seeing the appearance of combustion, the rigid airship and khaki uniforms. Also, the steam turbine will be introduced, marking larger and more powerful ships, including the Dreadnought class. 1905 was when the Wright Brothers perfected the first aeroplane, and motorized vehicles will have matured enough by then to make research into tanks look feasible.

So much for now. As always, I'll be happy to hear any feedback!

[Henrik]

Re: Back from the dead!

Originally posted by Spanky
Aaargh! One of the central innovations I had in mind, namely revolutionary discoveries like combustion being introduced historically through events (see early post), turns out to be impossible!!! At least that's what it looks like:

The idea was based on having a tech with both prereqs set to 'no' as a prerequisite for military applications, which in turn would be researchable by the player. The thing is, if such a tech is set as a prerequisite in the in-game events editor, this editor replaces it with "no" once the file is saved(!).

Unless anybody knows of a way to get around this (text-editing?), here's my backup plan:

As you say yourself, just do it in the txt file manualy, many people do their entire tech threes that way.

If you are going to make future tech available from techs only aquirable via events the game will crash though, make sure that all the players allways have a path to Future tech that's not relying on events (this put some obstacles in the way of the scenario I'm working on myself)


Great to have this project back

[Spanky]

Tech tree troubles

Pleased to hear that, Henrik!

Alas, I tried text editing, but it still doesn't work.

Let me quote an example:

"Air Combat" (formerly Advanced Flight, AFl in the Rules.txt), is supposed to have "Winged Flight" (CoL) as a prereq, which in turn has "no" as a prereq twice, since it is supposed to be distributed to all players through the Events file at the appropriate time in the game.

When specifying these prereqs through the in-game Advances Editor, the Rules.txt row for Air Combat contains "no" twice instead of "CoL" and "nil", when looked at through Notepad. It is possible to type these in manually and save, and the Rules.txt then remains unchanged when running the game (without saving in the Advances Editor). But:

In a test run, Air Combat does not become available for research, even when an appropriate event takes place, after which the player has received Winged Flight. The Civilopedia still states "no" under "Prerequisite", and in the Advances Editor, even though this time, "nil" is still stated in one slot, the slot that should contain "Winged Flight" now once again says "no"! All this, even though the "CoL" entry in Rules.txt hasn't been touched, as I made sure by looking at it once again through Notepad.

Which leads me to conclude that the program won't accept a tech tree branch that it perceives as coming out of nowhere, regardless of what Rules.txt says.

If anybody out there knows better, be sure to let me know!

[Dr. Nick]

Is it actually possible in some way to make certain units (sepoys for instance) available in certain cities?

[Spanky]

Actually, yes!

Firstly, the program CivCity, available at Carl's Scenarios for Civilization II (http://users.stargate.net/~harden/) lets you specify any unit to be in the build slot of individual cities. Where British Sepoys in India are concerned, though, this isn't entirely satisfactory, since you would have to leave that build order untouched throughout the game, since you can't go back to that order if your Civ doesn't have the appropriate tech.

Actually, "Colonials" are a better example for the main method I will be using. As a counterpart to the Sepoys of the Indian subcontinent, these will be auxiliary troops raised mainly in Africa, to be made available after certain cities are conquered. I am hoping to provide a specific event for the conquest of each of the Cities in question, i.e., "If Douala conquered by Anybody, then create Colonials of the attacker's nationality at Douala's coordinates. (Just once)" This will take up a lot of space, but I hope I'll manage by splitting up the events file (see above).

In order to simulate a relatively steady flow of troops, I will probably add a simpler events routine for Africa and India respectively, to the effect of: "If a Sepoys unit is killed, then create a Sepoys unit of the same nationality in either the coordinates of Calcutta, Bombay or Delhi." The reasoning being that recruitment for a lost regiment would take place in either of the most important cities, which you would have to be in control of (the program won't create a unit in a city of differing nationality). In Africa especially, this might mean having to ship a unit from Cape Town way up to Accra at times, but I think that would still be reasonably believable.

[Henrik]

Re: Tech tree troubles

Ah, if you type Nil, no (or no, nil) it wont be researchable, but still work (the tech will be tradable/stealable though).
The only case when no, no works is for unit prereqs.

[Spanky]

Thanks again, Henrik!

I knew I had read something about that somewhere. "Nil" needs to be in the first prereq slot. Problem solved!

[Case]

A good trick is to use two unreachable techs* as preqs for unique techs. This means that the unique tech is still unreachable, but it, and units who require it, now show up in the civlopedia

I'm not sure if this allows the techs to be swapped though

* (ie techs with nil, no preqs)

[HisMajestyBOB]

If the tech has an AI value of 0 it cannot be swapped even if you try (IIRC that is)

[Spanky]

My world map

Winterfritz, you've read this before. Just thought I'd put it up, since this thread has been taking on the role of a designer's diary, anyway.

So, here's some notes on my world map and terrain:

The arctic regions are now only represented by one terrain type, "Frost", using the tundra graphic. The former glacier terrain slot has been used for a second grassland-type terrain I call "Rich Soil". This was necessary because I found that real population sizes vary so greatly that the larger cities can't be supported without terrain that generates extra-large amounts of food (this, even though I'm representing the world's population in 1875 on a reduced scale, 1:10). The loss in arctic variety isn't a big problem, though, since the game doesn't concentrate on that region. I also found that I could eliminate the terrain tiles in the extreme North and South representing the two poles, which was mainly glacier terrain. Effectively, all this does is move the polar borders further up and down, which is actually more accurate, while suspending potential disbelief caused by the tundra graphics.

I chose to eliminate the arctic ressources as well, since I was e.g. getting polar bears in the south. The description I use in my rules.txt is 'Barren'. (Though I'm not the first to get that idea, I think). Similarly, I removed the Oil ressource and replaced it with 'Arid' and no graphic, since I'm hoping to simulate oil wealth with trade items. Lastly, I found that I wasn't getting Gold where I wanted it anyway, so that both that and Iron are now called 'Ore'. Also, 'Silk' is now 'Timber'.

The map, by the way, still needs a few final touches, mainly in the Afghanistan area (that is actually a coincidence!). But I'm thinking of maybe putting it up for public use. Any suggestions which sites I should mail it to? Definitely Mercator's, I think, if it's still running.

[winterfritz]

Re: My world map

Originally posted by Spanky
Winterfritz, you've read this before. Just thought I'd put it up, since this thread has been taking on the role of a designer's diary, anyway.

Thats one of the things I like best about it Its great reading about how other people approach the problems of scenario design.

And of course, I love hearing about your scenario. I'm having a hard time waiting for it!