Scenario: What If...? (SP)

[Avenoct]

This scenario examines the question: What if artillery was vastly more powerful? It also examines what might happen if some units had different move abilities. It's a fairly straightforward scenario in which you can play any one of 4 factions: Morganites, University, Hive, or Spartans. Your objective is to claim at least one of the enemy Headquarters. This is a Single Player Only game as the modifications to Artillery break MP. Here's the readme, included with the scenario:


Arty: A 'stand-alone' scenario by Smack at Apolyton (alde_baron@yahoo.com)

Welcome to Arty. This is scenario one of a developing series of stand-alone scenarios. To play, simply choose 'Play Scenario' from your game interface and then select 'Arty.SC' from this folder. That's it!

WARNING: Not for MP play! Artillery has improved range, which breaks MP. See the upcoming MP variation on the 'What-If' theme.


Stand-alone:

A stand-alone scenario (SAS) can be played without any extra installation whatsoever.
This is due to the fact that the SMAC or SMAX interface will examine all files in a scenario folder and use them to supercede any corresponding files in the main game folder. In this case, 'Arty' is generally set in the Aldebaran universe, and uses the Aldeb game engine. The nice thing is that you don't need to perform any installation at all to play the game in this context.


Scenario Framework: Arty

This is 'What-If' scenario. What if Artillery was vastly more powerful? What if units had different attributes? Would it change your strategies? Four faction choices: University, Morganites, The Hive, The Spartans. Probably shouldn't play the Believers as they have a noticeable advantage. A total victory would be at Transcend Level, but it can be played on any level you feel comfortable with.


Background and Objectives: Arty

Its an all out war to capture at least one enemy HQ. The game engine is standard SMAC.

Any questions you might have may be directed to alde_baron@yahoo.com

Good Luck!

-Smack

[Vultur]

The idea was good, but there are some remarks:
I've played Zack at Trancendence and I achieved the scenario victory, with Yang as friend, in MY2256:
too simple!
AIs don't use lots of arty, and longer fire is not know to them.
Putting prototipes as Rescue Chopper at the beginning of game make arty useless for me.
I've played this conquest scenario with a building attitude. (generaly 2 units per base, with few forces supported). I've had no problems.
No water has made the game less interesting. (I've not build one ship!)
Road attack bonus work against bases!

Here there is my saved game.

[Avenoct]

Thanks for the feedback Vultur,

I totally agree that it could be improved. It's really just an examination of the mechanism, not meant to be a balanced and complete game in itself. Nonetheless, the transporting rescue chopper does make too much of an impact. Another scenario I've been thinking about would be a vast desert with enemy bases at either end..kind of a Smac 'Stratego'. It would be a good scenario to test various unit modifications.

Again, thanks for the feedback, and feel free to beef things up to make a game with wider scope and balance.

-Smack