Challenges

[KingTitus]

Ok, this forum string is for challenging pro creators to make a scenario. My first challenge for all you pros is to create a scenario where instead of working towards high tech, you work away from it. So you start with Fusion Power and work to Alphabet.
Using the same tech tree and same units, just reversing the times the come into play.

If you want this challenge or want to make a challenge for a pro, leave a post.

[Fast_Eddie]

All of the "pros" are kinda busy doing stuff right now so don't expect us to do anything right away. How about just listing ideas here that might be incoperated into a scenario ratehr than just making a whole new one focusing on a particular aspect which doesn't have a viable storyline going with it.

I see where you're going with that, butin all practicality, I would just keep all my best units and put my research to nothing. Just wouldn't work right.

[KingTitus]

Okay, maybe my challenge sucks, but still.

Also pros dont have to accept, this is just for ideas

[Paul Hanson]

It`s funny that, I`d had the idea for that sort of scenario before; sort of like a world where time flows backwards, as in Red Dwarf (I know that most people on this forum are American, but some of you may know it. I don`t know how popular it is across there). But like Fast Eddie says, it would work on a human player, unless you could find some way of making the player do research. It`s tricky, but it could just work...

[valmont]

Would this work?:
Give the human player Leo's Workshop and Great Library and make them never expire. Then all his units will be downgraded automatically. To prevent the human player from just starting a war with the AI and then sacrificing the city that has the wonders, put an unbuildable 0-movement unit in the city with unbeatable defense.
[This message has been edited by valmont (edited September 13, 1999).]

[valmont]

Oops, I guess the human could just starve the city and disband it. Well, you could make it size 120 or so

[Stefan Härtel]

I'm doing this kinda stuff in my next scenario (sorry, no info , I'm only telling info by eMail to prevent that other people steal the stuff and make a scenario outta this before mine is already published. Selected info is put on a preview at Mr. Temba's, for the other stuff you'll have to wait until I send it out for playtesting).

[Fast_Eddie]

Leo's wouldn't work! It's only upgrades units. The Great Library is a good idea, but I would disband the city, the twenty points aren't THAT important.

BTW, if terrain setting haven't been changed, either 40 or 41 is the most population points it can have.

[shamrock]

Fast Eddie-

At the risk of being argumentative, I think 46 may be the legitimate max for city size, I once achieved this by engineering the hell out of a city square to produce all grassland as well as 2 oasis and 2 wheat.

[valmont]

I thought Leo's replaced existing obsolete units with units of the same type that are available to build. I guess I'll have to test this.

Fast Eddie, yes, one would have to create a special terrain for the city square to support a city that size, and it would be a city with 20 workers and 100 specialists. But even a size 41 city would take a long time to starve and disband. And I don't see why you would want to. Why go to the trouble of playing a scenario whose premise you have no intention of upholding?

[Wulf]

Now if you lessened the tech cost and made say roadbuilding the last tech. Also add an "win"-event for this tech whenever a human player reaches it, a la Midgard.
Then make sure obsoletes are the reverse of the current ie Riflemen becomes obsolete with discovery of gunpowder etc.
But, how handle city improvements?
There should also be quite a number of paradoxes, ie on Deity the computer players should "drop" in tech faster than you and Leo's workshop will automatically downgrade units.
Will it work? Only one way to find out...

[valmont]

*chuckle* I'm starting to like this idea! It's silly, but there should be a way to make it work. How does the "win" event work? Is it just text that tells the player they've won?

The ideal handling of city improvements would be that they are automatically sold off when their obsolescence tech is discovered. I don't know whether this could be done by editing the game.txt. Also, it seems to me that the modern improvements like factories and power plants would have to be made very weak.

Riflemen would become obsolete with conscription. It's musketeers who would become obsolete with gunpowder. Does the AI disband its obsolete units? If not this could be a problem.

Also, even if Leo's can be used to "downgrade" (I still need to find out), then there is still a problem with the air units. Theoretically a stealth fighter should downgrade to a fighter, but then what? You'd have to create new air units so there will be something for those fighters to downgrade to.

City growth would be strange. You start with refrigeration and the capability to make farmland. Then when refrigeration is "discovered", that farmland needs to go -- can a changeterrain event accomplish this?

Some aspects of the game might need to be abandoned altogether -- for instance, the completion of the apollo wonder reveals the entire map. How to work this in reverse? Similar problem with nukes and Manhattan project wonder. And it doesn't make much sense for the pyramids, whose purpose is rapid growth, to be built at the end of the game. Hm, this would need some subtle planning. Maybe pyramids could be available with the refrigeration advance.

[This message has been edited by valmont (edited September 17, 1999).]

[Wulf]

"Everybody:
Leo's cannot downgrade!!!!!"

There you go, thinking linear again. You fail the challenge! :-)

No really, Leo's CAN "downgrade". When a unit becomes obsolete Leo's automatically replaces it with the new unit that becomes available.
The computer doesn't check to see if the new unit is "better". For instance the ships that can transport get converted to transports, despite that they loose attack factors. Actually I hate that.

Try the following.
Exchange the relevant lines in rules.txt with these:
Musketeers, Cst, 0, 1.,0, 3a,3d, 2h,1f, 3,0, 1,Alp, 000000000000000
Phalanx, Csc, 0, 1.,0, 1a,2d, 1h,1f, 2,0, 1, Cst, 000000000000000
Riflemen, Alp, 0, 1.,0, 5a,4d, 2h,1f, 4,0, 1, Bro, 000000000000000
Leonardo's Workshop, 1, 0, Bro,

Build some Riflemen or Musketeers. Build Leo's. Discover Alphabet and then Construction. Watch your army be "upgraded" to Musketeers and then Phalanxes. (Ok, I tried this and got Alphabet from start, but my Musketeers got upgraded to Phalanxes)

:-)

[Fast_Eddie]

Been awile hasn't it?

Okay, answer time:

Valmont:

But even a size 41 city would take a long time to starve and disband.

Sorry, but it doesn't take that long to just hit shift+d.

Shamrock:

I think 46 may be the legitimate max for city size

Good for you! I've never thought about using those special terrain resources for city size. 41 is the limit for a city surrounded by grasslands.
BTW, being argumentitive is the only way to have any fun around here.

Everybody:
Leo's cannot downgrade!!!!!

[Wulf]

Addenda to the above. Backup your rules.txt, do I need to say that.

To Valmont:
>How does the "win" event work? Is it just text that tells the player they've won?

Yes, boring. But if there is no other incentive to do tech research....