There is a biq file for the Micro version.
A biq file for the MP version.

I still can't see one for the 'normal' version.

Guys, need a little help here. I downloaded the huge map, that's 175Mb on a dial-up conection, but one folder came corrupted, and that´s the Iowa unit folder, the "NJ" folder under the "Units" folder. If anyone could send me the content of that folder, it would be of GREAT help, since the only time I can leave the PC on to download such a big file is on the weekends, and I would have to wait one week to try it again.

TIA,

Rodrigo

I think you've done a good job on the game balance, and slowing down the unit production. Couple comments questions.

I noted that it is against house rules to steal techs from friends, but there was one point where I was not sure who was in my alliance. I stole a tech from Indonesia, then another, then I thought twice about it, and went and looked to see that I had a MPP with them. I reloaded from an autosave before I had committed this error. A brief blurb in the civopedia (About this Game) would clear this up. Stole a tech from Arabs instead, and of course :)

Also, I note that, heavy bombers are not to be based on carriers, which I think is quite apt. Should there perhaps also be some rule about decimating AI tiles? The strategy I've followed so far as the US is to build up my own nation and global military presence, and to decimate the tiles of the USSR, China, N Korea and Vietnam, and now India (they declared war on me on a whim it seems). While I may not win a VP, because I have not taken many cities. Though, in the course of the last war that I posted about, I did completely occupy Cuba in April 1955. In this invasion, I used primarily the heavy bombers, F-86s, skyraiders, P-51s, marines, a couple of M-26s, 4 or 5 M-4s, infantry, a few half-tracks, a couple airborne, and a couple rangers. I think I lost about 3 or 4 marines, and 2 or 3 M-4s. MIGHT have lost 1 M-26, not sure.

The Attack:Defense values seem well-balanced to insure that a fairly realistic concentration of offensive force is required at any particular era, and also to allow/require a reasonable level of precautionary defense. Also, the air unit stats I notice are exceptionally well-done, including the ranges, and the A/D values. Good job on the units! :goodjob:

One question I have is the one short range marine jet, think it is the A-4 Skyhawk, with an attack of about 27, and defense of 15? How should I use this unit, given that it does not have bombard command? I suppose sitting it on a carrier with Air Superiority is the best bet?

Also, I think the ranger unit is WAY cool! :) but with its fairly low stats, I'm hesitant to put them in peril by using them against any of these devastating main force units. Is there something I'm missing about how these guys should be deployed? The only real use I can see is to accompany the CIA to keep AI from attacking it? Maybe airdrop behind enemy lines ONLY on top of a mountain behind a river in order to disrupt enemy supply or movement? Maybe this unit could stand a bit of adjusting, it seems a bit weak, and useless, though definitely cool. One thing that might make it stronger is if there is some way to give it the ability to airdrop and fortify in the same turn, and also to give it a very moderate bombardment capacity, and/or to build forts, and/or ZOC? Also, the Special Ops Tech, is there anything that one gains from this? The Civopedia seems to be blank.

Apr 1955 traded furs to Mexico for 73gp +2/turn. Jan 1957 the Pact ended WWIV, having lost Cuba entirely in the span of about 5 turns. I immediately tried to steal a tech from the Arab League but failed, then also managed to steal Airborne Warfare from the Pact, and then on the second attempt the Pact redeclared war, restarting WWIV (WWV??). I continued bombing the commies into the stone age, and building up my military in Europe, primarily more half tracks.

By April 1957 I had about 2 skyraiders, 10 F-100 Super Sabres, 3 B-29s, 7 B-36s, 6 P-51s, 13 half tracks, 10 infantry, 12 marines, a couple M-4s, a couple of M-26s, and a couple of M-48s in Europe, and had filed the corps I got from an Elite half-track victory with M-48s. Not to mention 3 airborne, and 3 rangers, plus about 3 CIA, and a spy. Roughly 4 or 5 skyraiders, 3 or 4 B-29s, 2 or 3 B-36s, and 1 half-track had been lost in combat. I still deemed this not enough to take Odessa, whose environs I was leaving unbombed, but bombing EVERY place else. The Pact sued for Peace with one of my allies, which is understandable because the Russians had only about 5 to 7 tiles or any road or infrastructure left, and only 8 workers (according to my spies)! My U2s have kept a close watch on China as well, and it is going to take literally decades for her to recover from the devastation I wreaked on them in WWIII. The opposition posed by the Communist powers is at this point rather feeble. They do still maintain sufficient numbers of defensive units that I still do not have sufficient armor to take start rolling them, but eventually, I may even have that capacity.

Immediately after the end of this war, I used the 12 north Atlantic based transports to move the bulk of my forces back to N. America, and I was going to annex Mexico, but then realized you cannot attack buddies. At that point, in trying to steal a tech or plant a spy in India, she declared war, Sept 1957. I began to move an invasion force toward her to take out a couple cities to use as base, but then N. Africa yielded a tech, then war, so I'll take N. Africa instead. then progress on through Arab League. A presence in the Middle East will be handy.

In Sept 1957, India declared war on me either because I tried to steal a tech or plant a spy, cannot remember. I had a stack of about 5 carriers, 2 GW with a tactical nuke, 3 nautilus and 3 DDs in the Indian Ocean, loaded up with starfighters, and Super Sabres, and they along with B-52s from Memphis, TN, started carving up Indian landsape.

Then as I moved my invasion forced toward the Mediterranean, N. Africa declared war on me as I tried to steal a tech from her. My other carrier task force, floating near Thessalonika (similar composition) started carving up eastern North Africa in preparation to invade her in about four turns when I last played.

Remember I'm playing on Demi-God level.

Not sure if other folks have had similar boom, boom sucess using strategic air power to decimate communist production capacity or not. I may still lose, I don't know, but I think a Space Race is certainly a distinct possibility at this point. Perhaps it is fine for game balance, and the possibility for the American to decimate the commie production capacity early in the game (I DID have to think, plan, and prepare a bit, it wasn't like I just started bombing!) is fine in that it represents the economic strength of Democracy, even when competing with AI with such a huge production capacity?

If you guys were to think that this is a problem with game balance, one option, would be to provide the AI with an option to build some small wonder or something that has a big cost (like uses up 2 pop per worker or something?) but creates workers. Another would be something like Fascism, which boosts worker productivity?

The fat lady certainly has not sung yet, so I may be counting my chickens before they've hatched :)

Good report Anthropoid and sounds like you are tearing up the Commies well.

The A4 not being able to bomb is a bug. El Justo will have to check on that one.

The smaller "special forces" have several uses, but much like in the real world, they are not really able to hold up to main line combat against fresh enemy units. They do come in handy as you mentioned in escourting spies around, going after enemy workers you don't want to send a tank or mech after and they can also help you with attacks on redlined units and also chasing down enemy spies as spotted by your spies. I also use them to garrison new captures and to reduce resistance. Regular paratroopers are better for attempting to hold off enemy reenforcements.

One of the things about decimating enemy tiles is that after you capture the location, then you have to rebuild it and that takes a long time. As you have learned by the limited force pool, the enemy can be ripe for attacking, but if you don't have the forces to take (and hold) locations, as bad as it may be, they still hold the terrain.

Keep those reports coming!

There is a biq file for the Micro version.
A biq file for the MP version.

I still can't see one for the 'normal' version.
it's the attachment at the very bottom of the post (TCW1.51)

Guys, need a little help here. I downloaded the huge map, that's 175Mb on a dial-up conection, but one folder came corrupted, and that´s the Iowa unit folder, the "NJ" folder under the "Units" folder. If anyone could send me the content of that folder, it would be of GREAT help, since the only time I can leave the PC on to download such a big file is on the weekends, and I would have to wait one week to try it again.

TIA,

Rodrigo
hi Rodrigo.

it seems that it corrupted during the DL. i'm afraid that you may have to DL it again (or try to re-extract it again and see what happens).

to answer Anthropoid's question re the A4:
it does have the bombard flag according to my peak into the editor.

just about all of those air unit stats were provided by Rocoteh way back from the 1st version. of course, the ones we added for the extra decade (50s) were done by me actually and reviewed by our little group. Klyden actually did the sea units and I_Batman did the land units (armour and foot units).

Actually the A4 does have bombard in my version too. Sorry for that confusion.

April 1958, I did a bunch of espionage that resulted in lots of new wars.

I bombarded most all of the Arab oil lines, and with the US at war with every possible adversary except N. Vietnam, it was finally starting to really show up in the citizenry. Without entertainers, I had virtually no happy citizens. Having just learned the tech for policmen (not sure if it is Special Ops, or Nuke Power?) I shifted all my cities to as many entertainers as possible, else as many as it took to make everyone else happy, then the rest to taxmen, then the rest to enough police (1 or 2 in most core cities, but up to 4 or 5 in places like Honolulu, or San Juan) so I have ZERO corruption. Figure I can wage war for quite a while before I start to have any unhappy citizens at this rate, because with the exception of San Juan, couple of the Cuban cities, and Honolulu, almost everyone is happy as a lark.

Next I landed my invasion force in the mountains and hills south of Rabat. It consisted of: two M-4s, 1 M-26 elite, 4 M-113, 4 M-48, 8 infantry, 9 marines, 4 rangers. I took Rabat the next turn, and captured one or two workers. Boy will it be handy to have a naval base in the Mediterranean!

TCW 1.51 USA Sid level, mid 1957

I'm starting to get a better feel for this MOD. I still don't have as many units as I want, or am used to in other MODs or games, but so far so good.

During the numerous world wars, I conquered 2 cuban cities, the 3rd one was grabed by my UK ally, since I was too slow to deploy troops on the island. I'm currently preparing an invasion against the (evil ) Arabs, I'm just waiting for an excuse. After all, they're stealing (or trying to) my tech regurlarly.

I like the balance between units that can be airlifted and those that can't. The later are usually stronger units but they take longer to deploy since you need to move them by transports. I don't use the exploit to transfer units from one transport to another. It gives an unfair advantage to the player, IMO. Another house rule I use: no tech stealing.

The civilopedia is excellent, but it would be a nice add if the next version would mention the country of the unit. There's also a few discrepencies in the tech tree and what you actually get when you research a new technology. For instance, I researched one of the late air tech in the 1950's tech tree, the one that gives access to the Natl airline minor wonder, and I thought I would be able to build a new air unit, the A-28 if I recall correctly (at work now), but that unit is not available in my build order. I thought I could since an air unit icon is shown in the tech tree, indicating that the unit will be buildable with this tech.

I also find confusing the fact that heavy bombers like the B-36 and B-52 are autobuilt by specific city improvement and are shown as buildable unit (later) in the tech tree. Why is that since those bombers are not buildable?

Nice gameplay touch that only sub can see sub, and U2 can do recon mission, it forces us to mix our OOB. The U2 is an awesome unit in your MOD. Probably second to the B52 (gotta love the range). So far at least since I'm still early in my game.

I also like the unit design where some are upgradable and some aren't. Again, a nice touch in order to mix our OOB. Especially true for countries that won't generate as much research (as the US).

The 6 turns cap for research felt a little frustrating at first, but I got used to it. Since the tech tree is divided into 10 years era, it feels right since that's about the amount of required time to research the techs of an era.

Couple of question:

1) Except for ranges, are there different type (ie strength) of nuclear weapons?

2) Is there an easy way to set all (or a selection of) population in a city to a specific type (research,tax,engineer,entertainment)? My right wrist is killing me due to the amount of clicking I have to do in order to manage my city production. Most (US) cities are huge (size 50+) so when I want to build a city improvement, I change my extra population to engineer, when building a unit, either to tax or research. Doing this every 5 turns for 10-15 cities involves a lot of clicking...

December 1963:
China is history. A new war emerged and China was completely anhiliated by the US and South Asians. Now the US have a foothold in Asia. My invasion force for North Africa is nearly ready. I plan to provoke a war and attack with 8 transports: 1 with 4 155 mm, 3 with 12 Leopard 1, 3 with M 113 and modern infantry (6 each) as well as one filled with workers. When I am ready my forces will crush central Africa and hopefully also Arabia.
A last question: Is there only one corps per civ?

Adler

I was wondering what other folks thought of that trick of transferring units from transport to transport. As I recall, it is one of the allowed exploits in the GOTM here at Civ Fanatics, and it wasn't mentioned by El Justo, so I went for it. True, it does give a distinct advantage to the human, but unlike say, unlimited numbers of transfers from a single airport, it does necessitate greater resource allocation and maintenance, i.e., you have to build more transports, more escourt/protection support units, and pay for those units. Thus, it is IMO, not an unbalanced human exploit of AI simple-mindedness :) It only took a month or so to cross the Atlantic in 1750, so I don't think it is unreasonable to be able to do it in 1950. One to four divisions of military crossing all the way round the globe (which would be possible with a long enough string of transports) in the span of one month may be more of a stretch, but even that is conceivable, given that enough boats were set up in relay around the world. Until we have an AI that actually has some semblance of intelligence, and thus has to use brute force, mass numbers, and "sneak-attacks" that take advantage of our oversights, and are derived from knowledge which a human opponent would NOT have available to them, I'm afraid many of the slightly unrealistic "exploits" are here to stay. Boy I hope the Civ 4 AI is as much improved as they are making it out to be.

Okay as for my latest activity in my game:

Sometime in late 1957 early 1958, India made peace with me (the US) and the NATO allies. In March 1958, I tried to steal a tech from India, and she immediately again declared war on me, and soon everyone one else was at war with her again too. March 1958, I stole a tech from the Arabs, Special Ops. The 2nd time I tried to steal a tech from the Arabs, they declared war on me. North Vietnam, tried to steal and they are not past me in any techs. Soviets, tried to steal a tech=war. Chinese tried to steal a tech=war. Central Africa, not past me. Col-Peru, failed to steal anything or gain any conclusive information about their tech status twice in a row.

July 1959, finally global peace. I got peace from India for 181 +29/turn, despite not having bombed or attacked her at all in the most recent war. I now control all of North Africa except Tripoli, have Ecology, and Ground Attack AirCraft, and am Starting on Rocketry. I've captured enough workers that I'm rebuilding the damage I caused in North Africa at a fairly healthy pace.

I notice that, during the past 5 to 10 turns, there have been more and more reports of espionage attempts by the AI. Also, in my most recent turn (circa mid 1959) the Chinese demanded 100 gp, so I gave it to them just to keep peace for now.

One downside of the transport relay tactic, is that I lost about 3 transports to Soviet long-range bombers (the equivalent of the B-52 I assume). I had animate battles turned off, and when I looked, I noticed that two or three of the TTs in my chain across the Pacific had been damaged and a couple were missing. Not sure how they damaged the TTs without also damaging the Fletcher Class DDs that were there with them, but anyway . . .

Actually the A4 does have bombard in my version too. Sorry for that confusion.

April 1958, I did a bunch of espionage that resulted in lots of new wars.

I bombarded most all of the Arab oil lines, and with the US at war with every possible adversary except N. Vietnam, it was finally starting to really show up in the citizenry. Without entertainers, I had virtually no happy citizens. Having just learned the tech for policmen (not sure if it is Special Ops, or Nuke Power?) I shifted all my cities to as many entertainers as possible, else as many as it took to make everyone else happy, then the rest to taxmen, then the rest to enough police (1 or 2 in most core cities, but up to 4 or 5 in places like Honolulu, or San Juan) so I have ZERO corruption. Figure I can wage war for quite a while before I start to have any unhappy citizens at this rate, because with the exception of San Juan, couple of the Cuban cities, and Honolulu, almost everyone is happy as a lark.

Next I landed my invasion force in the mountains and hills south of Rabat. It consisted of: two M-4s, 1 M-26 elite, 4 M-113, 4 M-48, 8 infantry, 9 marines, 4 rangers. I took Rabat the next turn, and captured one or two workers. Boy will it be handy to have a naval base in the Mediterranean!
Anthropoid,

we de-valued the aspect of keeping your peeps happy. by this i mean that we gave a +1 happiness bonus to many, many improvements and wonders and some luxury resources also. i've always hated the 'Civil Disorder' feature of civ3 aside from captured cities. however, city screen management does come in handy w/ science and engineers. with the lack of sea and air trade routes, any unconnected locale/city will have a definitive disadvantage as far as being 'not connected' to the capital.

having that base in the med as the Yanks is very handy indeed!

nice report :goodjob:

Oct 1959. Peace on Earth. Good will to AI. The US is making 2889/turn in gp, have a treasury of 19959, and will discovery Rocketry in 5/turns (isn't it awesome in Civ how you KNOW what you'll be discovering BEFORE you discover it!?). Stole some workers from the Arabs, but then they kicked my transport out of their territory next turn or so . . . might have to get an ROP so I can get my transport back to the north side of the Suez Canal.

Jan 1960, building lots of entertainment complexes and recycling centers.

TCW 1.51 USA Sid level, mid 1957

I'm starting to get a better feel for this MOD. I still don't have as many units as I want, or am used to in other MODs or games, but so far so good.

I like the balance between units that can be airlifted and those that can't. The later are usually stronger units but they take longer to deploy since you need to move them by transports. I don't use the exploit to transfer units from one transport to another. It gives an unfair advantage to the player, IMO. Another house rule I use: no tech stealing.

The civilopedia is excellent, but it would be a nice add if the next version would mention the country of the unit. There's also a few discrepencies in the tech tree and what you actually get when you research a new technology. For instance, I researched one of the late air tech in the 1950's tech tree, the one that gives access to the Natl airline minor wonder, and I thought I would be able to build a new air unit, the A-28 if I recall correctly (at work now), but that unit is not available in my build order. I thought I could since an air unit icon is shown in the tech tree, indicating that the unit will be buildable with this tech.

I also find confusing the fact that heavy bombers like the B-36 and B-52 are autobuilt by specific city improvement and are shown as buildable unit (later) in the tech tree. Why is that since those bombers are not buildable?


Couple of question:

1) Except for ranges, are there different type (ie strength) of nuclear weapons?

2) Is there an easy way to set all (or a selection of) population in a city to a specific type (research,tax,engineer,entertainment)? My right wrist is killing me due to the amount of clicking I have to do in order to manage my city production. Most (US) cities are huge (size 50+) so when I want to build a city improvement, I change my extra population to engineer, when building a unit, either to tax or research. Doing this every 5 turns for 10-15 cities involves a lot of clicking...

Hi:

Re: Quantity of units: A lot of thought went into the quantity of units and controlling the quantity by altering the production levels. Quantities were limited so human players could not overun AI positions quickly, plus the more units, the slower the game runs.

Re: Transports: I personally don't play that way, since I don't think you can really move heavy armour from one ship to another while at sea, plus it is too sophistocated a move for the AI, giving the human a big advantage.

Re: Tech Stealing, we have it as a house rule NOT to steal from your allies because of the mess it can make when they declare war on you, but we have felt it OK when you steal from non-allied countries. When a human plays a powerful civ, it makes sense to not allow any tech stealing by the human, but when a human plays a weak civ, it is pretty much vital he steal tech.

Re: Cyclopedia entries, I am sure it will be cleaned up in later releases.

Re: B-36's, B-52's, they are too powerful for humans to be allowed to build, same issue for the Iowa Class Battleships.

Re: Nukes, should only be 2. El Justo has renamed the tactical nuke, and you still have the ICBM.

Re: City Management: I wish I knew of a way of fixing what you are describing, but I don't have a clue.

we de-valued the aspect of keeping your peeps happy. by this i mean that we gave a +1 happiness bonus to many, many improvements and wonders and some luxury resources also. i've always hated the 'Civil Disorder' feature of civ3 aside from captured cities.

Yeah, Civil Disorder can be a serious, tedious pain. This is a definitely fun, and excellent mod as it is, though if you wanted to make it a tad bit more "realistic," taking steps to reduce all-out war, increase the importance of, and intensity of proxy wars, and reducing the power of bombardment might be good steps to take.

IMHO, as a professional anthropologists (finished my Ph.D. in 2001), the MAIN thing the U.S. (and the West in general) had to fight against in the Cold War, was its own people. Why did the U.S. "lose" Vietnam? It was not for lack of sufficient military power, or even sufficient devotion on the part of the U.S. military to win. It was because of public opinion about the war. Probably the same reason we will eventually "lose" the War on Terror, but I digress from the topic at hand, which is reporting on the epsilon-testing of this mod . . . :crazyeye:

As DarthCycle said, I think many of the basic game mechanics are tremendously well-done. The shear compilation of it all is an astounding feat, especially for a "volunteer!" But from the standpoint of a historical simulation, it is not accurate. Given that in real history, it proved nearly impossible for the US to HOLD South Vietnam (we're not even talking about invading, conquering, occupying, etc., we're talking about filling in as the colonial Big Brother for the French, and combatting an ongoing civil insurrection fomented by the North) the idea that, I in my game should be able to attack, occupy, and hold North Africa does not seem "realistic."

I'm not saying that that is a bad thing, because, I'm certainly enjoying playing it! :goodjob: It is an excellent simulation of "what if the American people were NOT so isolationist during the Cold War!" :eek: I personally agree with Patton that, we should have kept going East when WWII "ended," but anyway . . .

If you wanted to reduce the role of global domination in the game, which is how I'm probably going to win my own game, and make the challenges more like those which were actually faced by the West in the historical Cold War, some possibilities:

1. Make keeping the peeps happy in a protracted war very hard for Democracies. It might be very easy for a couple years, but when the need for solid commitment really begins to make itself clear, then make the War Weariness really kick in.

2. Increase the role of "non-declared war conflicts." Vietnam was never a "war." It was a police action (technically), despite the fact that >56,000 American personnel perished there, and roughly twice that number had their bodies damaged, and who knows how many had their lives severely disturbed. One possibility for this, would be to have more units that can attack without declaration of war like the spy and CIA. Just a thought.

2. Make having a military at all, VERY, VERY expensive for a Democracy.

3. Allow the building of a "New Left" or "Anti-Authority" or "Peace Movement" Small Wonder an option in the early part of the second era. This wonder would generate an "activist" unit (or three?) every turn. These units would be invisible, would have unknown political affiliation, could travel across water, air drop, and have a movement of 2, and would create pollution, and have a defense of about 15! With its predisposition to generally monkey around with everything productive, all the AI would undoubtedly RUSH to build these as quickly as possible! The effect being, activists would be flocking all over the Democratic nations to pollute, disrupt, and protest.

Student's for a Democratic Society, Part of the Counter Culture Movement (http://ma.essortment.com/sdsstudentsfo_rmsx.htm)

Plight of the Forest Hippies (http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/africa/09/06/congo.bonobos.reut/index.html)

4. I really enjoyed decimating the landscapes of Communist USSR, and China, but com'n lets be realistic, this could NEVER have happened in real life. If you wanted to make it more of a historic simulation, you might consider making bombardment against tiles MUCH more difficult, costly or risky. Never ONCE in the history of the two nations, have military forces of the U.S. and USSR faced each other in combat, nonetheless we "won" the Cold War (despite the fact that there is an ultra-corrupt, inhumane, despot STILL in control of Russia, and who STILL controls the world's largest nuclear arsenal :mischief: )

Anyway, the mod is awesome as it is. Just some ideas.

TCW 1.51 USA Sid level, mid 1957

I'm starting to get a better feel for this MOD. I still don't have as many units as I want, or am used to in other MODs or games, but so far so good.

During the numerous world wars, I conquered 2 cuban cities, the 3rd one was grabed by my UK ally, since I was too slow to deploy troops on the island. I'm currently preparing an invasion against the (evil ) Arabs, I'm just waiting for an excuse. After all, they're stealing (or trying to) my tech regurlarly.

I like the balance between units that can be airlifted and those that can't. The later are usually stronger units but they take longer to deploy since you need to move them by transports. I don't use the exploit to transfer units from one transport to another. It gives an unfair advantage to the player, IMO. Another house rule I use: no tech stealing.

The civilopedia is excellent, but it would be a nice add if the next version would mention the country of the unit. There's also a few discrepencies in the tech tree and what you actually get when you research a new technology. For instance, I researched one of the late air tech in the 1950's tech tree, the one that gives access to the Natl airline minor wonder, and I thought I would be able to build a new air unit, the A-28 if I recall correctly (at work now), but that unit is not available in my build order. I thought I could since an air unit icon is shown in the tech tree, indicating that the unit will be buildable with this tech.

I also find confusing the fact that heavy bombers like the B-36 and B-52 are autobuilt by specific city improvement and are shown as buildable unit (later) in the tech tree. Why is that since those bombers are not buildable?

Nice gameplay touch that only sub can see sub, and U2 can do recon mission, it forces us to mix our OOB. The U2 is an awesome unit in your MOD. Probably second to the B52 (gotta love the range). So far at least since I'm still early in my game.

I also like the unit design where some are upgradable and some aren't. Again, a nice touch in order to mix our OOB. Especially true for countries that won't generate as much research (as the US).

The 6 turns cap for research felt a little frustrating at first, but I got used to it. Since the tech tree is divided into 10 years era, it feels right since that's about the amount of required time to research the techs of an era.

Couple of question:

1) Except for ranges, are there different type (ie strength) of nuclear weapons?

2) Is there an easy way to set all (or a selection of) population in a city to a specific type (research,tax,engineer,entertainment)? My right wrist is killing me due to the amount of clicking I have to do in order to manage my city production. Most (US) cities are huge (size 50+) so when I want to build a city improvement, I change my extra population to engineer, when building a unit, either to tax or research. Doing this every 5 turns for 10-15 cities involves a lot of clicking...
hi DarthCycle.

it's important to focus on boosting production levels by way of new city improvements. you will notice that as the game progresses, you will have a few more shields being cranked out per turn.

that is good to see the UK launching a successful amphibious campaign.

we often are asked why mech units can't be airlifted. i've always said that w/out this set-up, there'd be no use for a navy, hence transport/convoy.

i don't often steal techs but to steal it against one's enemy is okay. it's when one is caught trying to steal one from an ally that screwy things happen (declaration of war vs allies!).

unfortunately, there are some discrepencies w/ the Civilopedia. some incorrect bonuses, etc. it would be daunting for me to go back into the Civilopedia.txt file to enter in which countries get which units. i think you're referring to the A26 Invader. iirc, we did not give this to the US position simply b/c of all of the other choices for US bomber/attack aircraft. this is minor though and we've changed things like this in the past.

i think the Civilopedia was showing the US bombers as 'buildable' b/c it think i flagged the unit and its autopro' wonder the same required tech and it appears in-game as a result.

flagging the subs as invisible and the only early-game sea unit that 'sees invisible' was a little non-historicalbut it's produced some desirable game-play results. the recon planes are also a neat 'recon' option. wait until you can build the 'Satellite' unit (early 2nd era iirc). it has unlimited range. there's the EC2 recon plane also w/ a short range but 2 moves. the buffers are just deadly. i always use them very, very cautiously.

we tried to stagger the upgrade paths for the units. i mean, there's a lot of them to consider so we wanted to try and give each one a decent 'shelf life'.

the 6 turn min for science was a byproduct of trying to 'simulate' the unlocking of techs along an historical time line.

i'm afraid that all missiles flagged w/ the nuclear flag have only 1 strength. this is an ingrained civ3 thing.

i understand the constant clicking. is there a way to manage these city specialists through the City Screen/Governor' screen?

I was wondering what other folks thought of that trick of transferring units from transport to transport. As I recall, it is one of the allowed exploits in the GOTM here at Civ Fanatics, and it wasn't mentioned by El Justo, so I went for it. True, it does give a distinct advantage to the human, but unlike say, unlimited numbers of transfers from a single airport, it does necessitate greater resource allocation and maintenance, i.e., you have to build more transports, more escourt/protection support units, and pay for those units. Thus, it is IMO, not an unbalanced human exploit of AI simple-mindedness :) It only took a month or so to cross the Atlantic in 1750, so I don't think it is unreasonable to be able to do it in 1950. One to four divisions of military crossing all the way round the globe (which would be possible with a long enough string of transports) in the span of one month may be more of a stretch, but even that is conceivable, given that enough boats were set up in relay around the world. Until we have an AI that actually has some semblance of intelligence, and thus has to use brute force, mass numbers, and "sneak-attacks" that take advantage of our oversights, and are derived from knowledge which a human opponent would NOT have available to them, I'm afraid many of the slightly unrealistic "exploits" are here to stay. Boy I hope the Civ 4 AI is as much improved as they are making it out to be.

Okay as for my latest activity in my game:

Sometime in late 1957 early 1958, India made peace with me (the US) and the NATO allies. In March 1958, I tried to steal a tech from India, and she immediately again declared war on me, and soon everyone one else was at war with her again too. March 1958, I stole a tech from the Arabs, Special Ops. The 2nd time I tried to steal a tech from the Arabs, they declared war on me. North Vietnam, tried to steal and they are not past me in any techs. Soviets, tried to steal a tech=war. Chinese tried to steal a tech=war. Central Africa, not past me. Col-Peru, failed to steal anything or gain any conclusive information about their tech status twice in a row.

July 1959, finally global peace. I got peace from India for 181 +29/turn, despite not having bombed or attacked her at all in the most recent war. I now control all of North Africa except Tripoli, have Ecology, and Ground Attack AirCraft, and am Starting on Rocketry. I've captured enough workers that I'm rebuilding the damage I caused in North Africa at a fairly healthy pace.

I notice that, during the past 5 to 10 turns, there have been more and more reports of espionage attempts by the AI. Also, in my most recent turn (circa mid 1959) the Chinese demanded 100 gp, so I gave it to them just to keep peace for now.

One downside of the transport relay tactic, is that I lost about 3 transports to Soviet long-range bombers (the equivalent of the B-52 I assume). I had animate battles turned off, and when I looked, I noticed that two or three of the TTs in my chain across the Pacific had been damaged and a couple were missing. Not sure how they damaged the TTs without also damaging the Fletcher Class DDs that were there with them, but anyway . . .
Anthropoid,

:lol: :lol: :lol:

i would love to see that 'transport convoy around the world' screen shot!

you are correct that, in theory, a 1 month time frame is a sufficient amount for an atlantic crossing in 1950. however, for gameplay's sake, we made it cost about 3 turns (months).

i had never considered such an exploit. i guess if one wants to crank out and pay for all of those transports and convoy units then so be it :lol:

the plane you refer to is the Tu-95 Bear. it is a beast. for some reason or another, the AI automatically knows where us human players' transports units are all over the map. it's another one of those hard coded features we love to write about. :crazyeye:

Re: Transports: I personally don't play that way, since I don't think you can really move heavy armour from one ship to another while at sea, plus it is too sophistocated a move for the AI, giving the human a big advantage.

The question ultimately would seem to be a matter of, numbers of ship or planes, and the speed at which they travel, which I don't know the details of for the historical period in question.

I'm not one of those "play to win using any exploit possible" people, but I quit playing Civ strictly as an exploration of historical/geographical simulation long ago, and have gradually shifted to more of a "how HARD can I kick butt" kind of mentality. As such, figuring out little tricks (or reading about them in the GOTM "exploits allowed" page, then USING Tthem! :D ) is one of my more recent "afflictions."

It all depends on what you want the game to do. As I say, as a historical simulation, it is not on the mark as it is, so the idea that transport-relays should be disallowed on the basis of realism seems contradictory to the overall feel of the mod as it is. Frankly, I don't think it made a big difference for my game so far, as lack of units has not really proven to be an issue either in Europe or in the bombardment campaign against China. The invasion force I landed near Rabat was all in one fleet, so that was not really affected at all.

Mostly I had the relays set up as a fail-safe, to allow rapid transport of units if the Soviets proved to have a stack of death, which they never did. As such, it doesn't seem like a particularly unbalancing exploit, nor does it seem to be particularly useful relative to the other balances in the game. So making it against house rules is probably moot.

Oct 1959 Peace on Earth since July of 1959. I had just landed a ranger and a spy in Egypt an dstolen three workers during the previous two turns, when the Arabs kicked out my transport. I then got an ROP so I could get my destroyer and transport back through the straits to Israeli water.

Feb 1960, for no other apparent reason, the Arabs spontaenously declard war on me, result in WWVI or whatever I'm up to now.

I don't see a clear tab or command button to do it, but if somebody helps me figure out how to post a .sav I'll be happy to post it El Justo. You can get a look at my boat relay lay out that way. You guys might want to decide whether or not you want it to be against house rules, because, it can dramatically change the game if the 3 turn crossing times for transports were intended to be an important part of game balance.

July 1964:
My fleet is now en route to Africa. Following units are in this fleet:
CVL Karel Doormann with 1 F 4 Phantom II
CA Prinz Eugen
DG Rommel, Mölders, Lütjens, Canaris, Guderian, Manstein, Galland, (CF Adams)
DD Hamburg, Hessen, Schleswig- Holstein, Bayern, Deutschland, Saarland, Thüringen, Brandenburg (ex Z 1- Z 8, Hamburg class)
SS U 15 (Daphne, I wanted to delete this class for Germany but made a bug here, however the replacement, class 206, comes only later the game, also a bug, I produced 2 units, one of them is now being built)
SS Hai, Hecht, Wilhelm Bauer, U 1, 3- 9
8 Transports with the mentioned troops

DG Dönitz, which was just produced, is in the home waters. A second Daphne, U 16, will follow soon. Also at home there are the 6 DE (Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Hipper, Scheer, Raule, Brommy) and 2 SC (Hans Techel, Friedrich Schürer). This should be enough since there were no huge enemy fleets in that area for over 12 years! Also my fleet building will soon switch to MEKO frigates (approx. 16 month by now).
I suggest to introduce following units:
1. Class 206 as a replacement for Daphne (only Germany)
2. Class 209 as a replacement for Agosto (Germany, Greece, Spain, Central America, Iran, Colombia, Indonesia, Brazil, Argentina, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand), most successful submarine after ww2 (61 units and counting)
3. F 104 for Germany dfeleted, but replaced by a slightly better F 104 G, as the German variant was modified, which is upgradeble to Tornado (Tornado replaced the F 104 G in Luftwaffe and Navy)
4. MEKO frigates like Perry class. However with better stats as they are more capable (list see class 209, delete perhaps Indonesia).
5. Type XXI uboat, only for Germany. Indeed Germany salvaged and refitted some of these boats (1 XXI, 2 XXIII) to serve in the German Navy. Better than the Gato class, as this class was never in German use.

Adler

MaxRiga, thanks for making the small version of Cold War. The Cold War scenario seems really cool, but I generally like smaller maps.

However, I noticed that many of the cities were misspelled in your version -- e.g., San Francisko for Francisco, Phenix for Phoenix, Seul for Seoul, etc. I have fixed as many as I spotted in the attached file. (Note that I also changed the scenario title so that it would not spill out of the selection box if you want to use this.)

Not sure how they damaged the TTs without also damaging the Fletcher Class DDs that were there with them, but anyway . . .

Could it be a sub targeting your TTs :confused:

I think that most are in agreement that many of the scenarios would benefit from a more flexible editor and that mod makers are certainly limited by the game engine. There is no way to include weather, which would be important in any campaign. The mod makers have been really ingenious on how they have worked around certain limitations as it is.

I have done the convoy chain, particularly in the Atlantic. As others have pointed out, you do have to produce the extra ships and transports in order to set this up. I look at it as a convoy pipeline, which is a concept in some board games. The pipeline can be broken at any point and I would question how effective it could be against a human opponent as they know what is going on and would make efforts to break it. Doing it in the Pacific is a bit harder with the distances involved, but I usually run one to Japan, cross over and have a small one on the other side. Takes 2 extra turns to get troops there, but requires far less resources to make it happen.

Could it be a sub targeting your TTs :confused:


It's POSSIBLE, but I don't think so. No way to know for sure, because the turns are now past :confused: After I noticed a couple of them missing and damaged, I turned animate battles and animate enemy moves on, and it was then that I saw the Tu-65 icon bombing the transport-destroyer pair sitting 8 squares west of San Francisco. One explanation that just occurred to me: maybe I had the TT set to fortify, but the DD set to Sentry, so the damage went first to the TT??


The mod makers have been really ingenious on how they have worked around certain limitations as it is

You are absolutely right Klyden. This mod in particular is an amazing feat of creativity, industriousness, and thought.

The game engine is pretty good for ancient world, but when it comes to modern warfare, some of the basic engine parameters, and AI deficiencies make it very challenging to create good mods. You guys are to be commended for an incredibly good job. Apart from possible minor tweaks, I'd say you guys have done the best possible job given the intrinsic limitations of the game engine and the AI.

And again, no mod can be all things to all players. Some folks want a mod that allows them to rewrite history, others want something that is more rigidly a simulation of history.

Personally, I like this one as it is, with most overall parameters set to be in line with actual history, but with the possibility for an insightful human player to COMPLETELY rewrite the book. Its a more fun way to learn about the history, to rewrite it I think :p

And of course the other related issue, is that of PBEM vs. computer-opponent games. A mod that is setup to be perfectly balanced for one may not be equally appropriate for the other. I see that you guys have done a _very_ good job in striking a balance between these two somewhat oppositional demands. :goodjob:

And BTW, is anyone playing this as PBEM? Anyone wanna start one?

It's POSSIBLE, but I don't think so. No way to know for sure, because the turns are now past :confused: After I noticed a couple of them missing and damaged, I turned animate battles and animate enemy moves on, and it was then that I saw the Tu-65 icon bombing the transport-destroyer pair sitting 8 squares west of San Francisco. One explanation that just occurred to me: maybe I had the TT set to fortify, but the DD set to Sentry, so the damage went first to the TT??



You are absolutely right Klyden. This mod in particular is an amazing feat of creativity, industriousness, and thought.

The game engine is pretty good for ancient world, but when it comes to modern warfare, some of the basic engine parameters, and AI deficiencies make it very challenging to create good mods. You guys are to be commended for an incredibly good job. Apart from possible minor tweaks, I'd say you guys have done the best possible job given the intrinsic limitations of the game engine and the AI.

And again, no mod can be all things to all players. Some folks want a mod that allows them to rewrite history, others want something that is more rigidly a simulation of history.

Personally, I like this one as it is, with most overall parameters set to be in line with actual history, but with the possibility for an insightful human player to COMPLETELY rewrite the book. Its a more fun way to learn about the history, to rewrite it I think :p

And of course the other related issue, is that of PBEM vs. computer-opponent games. A mod that is setup to be perfectly balanced for one may not be equally appropriate for the other. I see that you guys have done a _very_ good job in striking a balance between these two somewhat oppositional demands. :goodjob:

And BTW, is anyone playing this as PBEM? Anyone wanna start one?
hi Anthropoid.

yes, there are many things we had to sacrifice for game-play's sake. it often pained me to do so but hey, 'whadya gonna do? :crazyeye:

those Tu-95s that are bombing your convoy lines are the byproduct of the ingrained civ3 feature that allows the AI to know where each and every one of the human player's transport units are on the map. call it unfair or whatever but the bottom line is that the AI will pick it to pieces if there isn't suffucient AA defense of the tile.

it's funny that you ask about the MP version as Klyden is working dilligently on it as you read this!

we could probably start taking players for it soon. i can't recall the exact civi list but it is something like this:

USA
Commonwealth (UK/Canada/S Africa/Australia/NZ)
Latin America (central and s america)
china-india (i think)
warsaw pact
european union
ME (i think)
Africa (i think)

... but unlike say, unlimited numbers of transfers from a single airport...

Just to clarify, you can only airlift only one unit per turn from a given airport. However, there is no limit when moving to a target city/airport

So technically, you are restricted by the number of airports you have in order to conduct massive redeployment.

Of course, you can own a big fleet of transports so you can unload a big SOD in enemy territory, nothing wrong with that. Not using the tranport trick however will slow down any future reinforcement. I feel it limits my options in order to conduct effective offensive operation. In many cases, I had to wait a lot of turns in order to concentrate enough firepower (ie tanks) prior to conduct an offensive, just as in real life. Of course the time scale is off (one month) but from a gameplay perspective, it works: concentrate units, conduct offensive, heal units, wait for reinforcement, repeat.

Just to clarify, you can only airlift only one unit per turn from a given airport. However, there is no limit when moving to a target city/airport

So technically, you are restricted by the number of airports you have in order to conduct massive redeployment.

Of course, you can own a big fleet of transports so you can unload a big SOD in enemy territory, nothing wrong with that. Not using the tranport trick however will slow down any future reinforcement. I feel it limits my options in order to conduct effective offensive operation. In many cases, I had to wait a lot of turns in order to concentrate enough firepower (ie tanks) prior to conduct an offensive, just as in real life. Of course the time scale is off (one month) but from a gameplay perspective, it works: concentrate units, conduct offensive, heal units, wait for reinforcement, repeat.
yes DarthCycle. it's 1/airport that can be transported in and out.

i agree that the time scale is off a smidge but if we had it elapse in weeks, we'd be over 2000 turns! alas, another sacrifice for game play's sake!

October 1964:
I provoked a war with Russia by sending a spy to them.

Ordre de bataille:

Navy:
See above. Only U 16 is now in service additionally. Also forgot to mentions several SS, U 2, 10- 14 in foreign waters on patrol.

Air Force:
2 F 5E
28 F 104

Army:
1 Marine
1 corps with 3 Panther
2 Marder
19 M 113
19 worker
3 mobile SAM
22 infantry
7 spies
46 Leopard 1 (12 in Africa)
9 155 mm
6 national guard
2 French infantry
2 British
3 US
5 Dutch
14 M 4 Calliope

I landed troops near Dakar. An African plane was shot down over the town by my F 4. A transport there was heavily damaged by the gunfire bombardment of CA Prinz Eugen, while DD Bayern finished it.
In Europe Murmansk is attacked.
I have to stop here.

Adler

Feb 1960, as noted above the Arabs declared war on US, and WWVII or so is off and running.

May 1960 US took Cairo (N. Africa is still in existence, with only Tripoli, and providing an ROP to US). Think I lost about 3 M-48s taking Cairo, and maybe one marine.

June 1960 "We Love the President Day" ended in all of my Lower-48 cities. Had to reallocate nearly all my scientists and many tax men to entertainment in order to keep all if not most people happy. Maybe overkill, but I like happy people! This shifted me from Space Travel in 3 turns to 5 turns

Aug 1960 rushed several A-6 intruders and M-48s spending a grand total of about 30K gp to do this. Got Space Travel next turn, and started building Observatory in San Francisco, to be finished in 3 turns. I have Nuke plants, recycle plants, entertainment complexes in every city possible in Lower 48. Also in Alaska for the most part. Caribbean, Atlantic, and N. African cities are building happiness producing, and corruption reducing structures still for the most part.

Sep 1960 deployed forces into position for strike at Aswan (including 1-turn transfer of four M-48s across Atlantic to Cairo :) ).

October 1960, bombarded the 7 or 8 Arabic soldiers in Aswan into the red, killed 2 or 3 of them with B-52s, then used a couple of elite M-48s from Cairo to take the rest. Took Aswan, and started bombing Aden. Lost one F-100 to an interceptor on the Arabian Peninsula. Now have a Delta Dagger interceptor on both of my carrier task forces, and two thunderchiefs per task force to lead the attacks. Upgraded several of the B-29s to Thunderchief this turn.

Cairo is highly polluted (most of it popped up after I occupied it?) and the pop 80 is dying off rapidly. The lines in Europe are exactly where they were at the start of the game, but the Russians have yet to reconnect Dresden, Berlin, or Odessa to their capital, most tiles in Russia are still devastated, and the pollution from my premptive strikes still pollutes Warsaw, etc.

The plan is to progress up the Arabian Peninsula, until the Pact sues for peace. Then take out Central Africa in its entirety. Then proceed to India, if the Pact is not back at war with me by then. Goal is domination win, else Space Race if I get to it first.

hi Anthropoid.

it's funny that you ask about the MP version as Klyden is working dilligently on it as you read this!

we could probably start taking players for it soon. i can't recall the exact civi list but it is something like this:

Well count me in! I'd be willing to play pretty much any one of those civs.

October 1964:
I provoked a war with Russia by sending a spy to them.

Ordre de bataille:

Navy:
See above. Only U 16 is now in service additionally. Also forgot to mentions several SS, U 2, 10- 14 in foreign waters on patrol.

Air Force:
2 F 5E
28 F 104

Army:
1 Marine
1 corps with 3 Panther
2 Marder
19 M 113
19 worker
3 mobile SAM
22 infantry
7 spies
46 Leopard 1 (12 in Africa)
9 155 mm
6 national guard
2 French infantry
2 British
3 US
5 Dutch
14 M 4 Calliope

I landed troops near Dakar. An African plane was shot down over the town by my F 4. A transport there was heavily damaged by the gunfire bombardment of CA Prinz Eugen, while DD Bayern finished it.
In Europe Murmansk is attacked.
I have to stop here.

Adler
Adler,

how have the soviet counter-attacks treated you? (if they've been made 'atall)

Well count me in! I'd be willing to play pretty much any one of those civs.

I am sure there will a PBEM game set up fairly soon.
Oh, the mayhem...oh, the fun.

Personally, when I play in a PBEM game I like to play a "love and let love" philosophy.

But alas, El Justo would not add in the wonders I suggested, namely "Choclolate Factories", "Butterfly Conservatories", and "Clown Schools".

So I guess I will have to deal with using what is in the game, which means using all those those units with nasty pointy things called "guns".

Well count me in! I'd be willing to play pretty much any one of those civs.
well done Anthropoid! nice report!

you're in then! Kly is working on the final touches for the MP game. this much i do know:

- it's not on the Huge map
- there are 8 civis in total
- alliances may vary a bit from the standard TCW game
- victory conditions will be a little different
- A/D values as well as shield costs for many of the 'multi nation' civis' infantry units may be adjusted in order to offer variety in one's OoB

If you need more players for the PBEM I'd sign up. I'm trying to break back into the PBEM scene, and have some experience. If you don't need another, don't worry about it!

edit: that's post 200! :clap: :band: [party] :band: :clap:

I_Batman,

you're silly :p

nivekclough,

sure thing mate! it's a first come-first serve thing. we do ask that you remain active or, at the least, communicate w/ other PBEM members regarding absesnces, etc. another good idea is to provide 'alliance members' w/ your password (assuming you chose one).

we've had nice PBEM games for TCW in the past. I_Batman, Klyden, and i had one were we went pretty far w/ it. i can't recall exactly which yr but we gave up once we started work on v1.5

@ El_Justo: I'll make sure to let my allies have my password incase I have a catastrophic computer failure. (It's happened, and being in college, replacing takes a while)

Also being an expierenced PBEMer (I've played many games with the likes of Loulong, Shinatoo, Hawklord, Daufoi, Greybeard, Kingstuart... (Namedropper I know)) I know I have to stay active.

Just be sure to PM me when you open the thread, I'm liable to miss it! :crazyeye:

@I_batman: I'll be sure to remember that as I command my armies worldwide!

I guess I've played in about half-dozen PBEMs now. My absolute favorite of course (since I WON!!) was the Kamikaze Contest. Me and some guys over at 1 Big Community played it. Its the PBEM mod for the WWII Pacific Scenario. I was Japan, and three other guys ganged up against me :)

Right now, I'm about to go extinct in one PBEM I'm playing as the Indians using the "Imperialism" map. But those guys have been a bit slow with getting turns back to me the past couple days, DESPITE the fact that they ganged up on me in 2000BC in order to wipe me out! I tell ya, some people would complain over a free lunch.

There was another one that was going really good, but the fellow who was running the Vikings and trying to drive me (the Russians) into extinction (after several weeks of subterfuge warrior production, then mass upgrading after getting Leonardos! :mad: ) had to go back to Kazakhstan, so we didn't finish that one.

It only takes one turn a day really to keep a game going, particularly for these modern scenarios with stuff pre-built. The scenarios with plenty of pre-built units are definitely more fun than random Epic game starts. It is so hard to get into it with a random map, not knowing if you are in a completely untenable position, and are committing to MONTHS of drug out torture. There should be some sort of option in the random map generator to allow you to generate "balanced" human player starts, to set distance apart, etc., etc.).

I'm guessing that all of us are going to get a bit distracted for C3C here in a couple months, but I think a Cold War PBEM would be EXACTLY the sort of game that folks would really sink their teeth into, and stay interested in even while they were learning the ropes for the new platform.

"Choclolate Factories", "Butterfly Conservatories", and "Clown Schools".

ROFL! :D What? No "Feral Cat & Bird Sanctuaries?"

A/D values as well as shield costs for many of the 'multi nation' civis' infantry units may be adjusted in order to offer variety in one's OoB

Man. My hat is off to you guys! That is SOOO! MUCH work adjusting shield costs, and stuff like that in the editor. And you guys are GOOD at it too. One day, the art/science of game creation will be recognized for the act of creative genius and devotion that it is, and you guys may become folk legends. But until then, you are truly admirable in your devotion to such an unrewarded and demanding "hobby."

I wanted to make a mod for "The American Revolution." I got into a bit of a American Revolutionary War history mode late last year, and it just seemed like an awesome topic for a mod, that no one had addressed. I had intended to do a new Tech tree, have different units using pre-existing animations. I got the map mostly done, and have a design for the Tech tree, and concept for most of the units, WOWs, etc. I have a vision for the game balance and overall strategic flow. I was even going to endure all the civopedia changing, text file inserting, editor adjusting, etc., etc., but then I found that, I had to have Jasc or some graphic software I didn't have in order to redraw the tech tree arrows, and used that as an excuse to shelf it. I'd be willing to hand over all of that material if anyone wanted it. Course finding out this spring that Civ 4 was coming out didn't help my motivation to keep going on it either.

Depending on how crappy the new combat system is in Civ 4, it might actually be a lot better for the Am Rev mod, and maybe it'll one day get made for that.

we had an 8 man game sputter a little but the 3 man game we did (Kly, I_B, and me) went extremely well. we each seemed to play a turn per day.

we start w/ about the same amount of units in the MP game as is in the regular TCW biq. however, we'd consider adding a few more to the pallette if this was suggested.

knowing the regular game and its nuances certainly help when you're up against some human players; especially the 3 of us since (Kly, I_B, and me), between each of us, we know every single nook and cranny of this hog ;)

the good news about the MP version is the extra human-enhanced aspects like the spy units and the invisible special ops units. alot of damage can be done w/ these little rascals.

we had an 8 man game sputter a little but the 3 man game we did (Kly, I_B, and me) went extremely well. we each seemed to play a turn per day.

we start w/ about the same amount of units in the MP game as is in the regular TCW biq. however, we'd consider adding a few more to the pallette if this was suggested.

knowing the regular game and its nuances certainly help when you're up against some human players; especially the 3 of us since (Kly, I_B, and me), between each of us, we know every single nook and cranny of this hog ;)

the good news about the MP version is the extra human-enhanced aspects like the spy units and the invisible special ops units. alot of damage can be done w/ these little rascals.

Exact same experience with me. I think a PBEM with in excess of four people is sort of doomed to sputter. If you've got six people interested, better to split them in half and have TWO games with three people each. With this mod, it MIGHT be a tad different, but I think four would be a good balance. You'd probably want to have one noob to the mod on each team and one expert like one of you guys on one team, maybe one other expert as a wild card?

I know the WWII Pacific Scenario (or at least DID know it!) like the back of my hand, so even when they did very ingenius stuff toward the end of the game, the early game lead I had established as the Japanese was too large for them to recover.

Comment/Question on the map: Did you guys experiment with having a city "Suez" blocking the strait? I know the downside of this is, raze the city, no more access, but given that it is a canal (which could be razed) that would seem to be appropriate.

One change I might suggest on the PBEM version, is allowing alliance members to build airfields in the territory of their alliances? Not sure if this would unbalance or not. Something to consider.

Comment/Question on the map: Did you guys experiment with having a city "Suez" blocking the strait? I know the downside of this is, raze the city, no more access, but given that it is a canal (which could be razed) that would seem to be appropriate.

One change I might suggest on the PBEM version, is allowing alliance members to build airfields in the territory of their alliances? Not sure if this would unbalance or not. Something to consider.
to be honest, i've always disliked canal or strait cities blocking access to key sea routes. i see that the Arabs could 'nationalize' the canal and restrict access but i think that it would have more of an adverse affect on game-play.

re the air bases: sure. i see no problems w/ that. ;)

Since El Justo sort of let the cat out of the bag, I will give an update on the MP version.

I have been tinkering with two different versions as I did not want to automatically assign every country to the same line up I had last time. One of the major changes is that the UK will be a stand alone position and basically recreate the "Commonwealth" of WW2 fame with UK, Canada, South America and ANZAC all being in this position. As El Justo also mentioned, I have to go through all the orders of battle to ensure that positions have a good selection of units, but not go off the deep end because as El Justo and I Batman will tell you, I am a fan of keeping the build que size down as much as possible. Some of the things I have done is to add corruption reduction to some wonders for the more spread out civs and also have added resource requirements to many infantry to ensure that many of them remain "local" to their area. This is made much easier by the fact that we have trade turned off. You won't see Australian Infantry produced outside of Australia as an example.

I also bumped up the road movement rate to 4 and have made tweaks to the AI build listing (I have been discussing these with El Justo and a later version of TCW might include some of them as I have been pleased with the results I have gotten in limited testing).

Its close to being ready to be put up to let everyone try it out. I need to look at the tech costs a bit more and also check over each position on the version I plan on releasing. The good news is I am making it so all you need is the biq, so no files to down load. The old one played very well as both a MP game and also for those who like to deal with fewer positions. I would be very interested in getting a MP game going, but agree that we probably need to limit to 4 people or so. Nothing wrong with either playing two positions or just picking 4 positions and letting the AI run the rest.

I think that with determined players, a large pbem isn't doomed to failure. I've played in 6-7 person PBEMs of dedicated players that didn't sputter out until the release of civ 3 conquests rendered it obsolete (we started again in conquests).

I also think that 5 players may be neccissary with this version. (If china/india isn't allied with the WP. Then you'd need a player for USA, Britain/Europe, South America/South East Asia, WP/Africa, and China/India at least. China/India is just doomed to die without a human player...)

Please note that was all based on assumptions...

[QUOTE=nivekclough] I think that with determined players, a large pbem isn't doomed to failure.QUOTE]

True nivekclough; the best test for this mod in PBEM would be with the most possible human players, but there needs to be true dedication by every player to do their absolute best to play at least one turn per day, which it sounds like everyone here would do. Assuming truly dedicated players, who assiduously play, and send on their turns, the only other downside of more humans is that, the alliances invariably have to interact by email to plan, coordinate, and execute group strategy, which invariably takes up a bit more time, especially when you add to it, varying schedules, holidays, travel, unexpected interruptions, etc.

I think that (as I stated above) 5 players would probably be ideal for this, if it is structured as I guess. (A player for USA, Britain/Europe, South America/South East Asia, WP/Africa, and China/India). However if this is set up like version 1.4 MP was with alliances, 4 players would probably work, and I'd sit this one out.

While I definately want the game to recieve the best testing possible, lets be blunt. 5 players means that I will most likely get to play, 4 players means I don't. So obviously I'll support 5 if the option is there :p .

PS: fix your quote :crazyeye:

In my current game, a lot of my production is dedicated to air units, fighters especially. I am losing a lot of air units during air combat. It made me wonder about one thing: when you send an air unit with a bombing mission, and it gets intercepted by a defending fighter, what stats (attack or defense) are the bomber and interceptor using ?

For instance, is the defending air unit (the interceptor) using defense stats during the air combat? That would imply that the bomber is then using its attack stats against the interceptor.

Thanks for any info

I did a quick search on this and couldn't find it...

Hmmm. Not positive, but I THINK in this game the Defense stats are what interceptors use, whereas bombers use the attack stat if they are intercepted.

I had a similar question that never really occurred to me before this mod. If you have a choice between having a scientist and a taxman, which is better? Do commercial structures get any kind of perk from taxmen, or do educational structures augment the work of scientists? Or, is it just simply that the scientists produce an extra 3 science points, on top of whatever is already there with structures, bonuses, and overall slider bar allocation?

In this scenario, I think scientists produce 2 science, and taxmen produce 3 taxes. This makes taxmen better, but they are available later only with mass production - scientists can be used early on.

I'm not sure of any other effect though.

Love the scenario. Absolutly wonderful. I'm getting ready for the switch from 1.4 to 1.5

Some questions regarding version 1.5, some where answered by reading back a few pages but just raised more questions.

The happiness bonus for all those structures. I understand the desire to eliminate/reduce the effect of riots, but all of those? Does it make stadiums pointless? Other then culture I don't see the point to build them when a barracks will do the same.

Universities - Is it intended not to have a science bonus for these?

Mass Transit - reduces pollution from buildings, but not population? Army Barracks and Solar Plant removes population pollution?

Chinese Secret Police Headquarters - Is an improvement that can be built in any communist city with a research lab and produces a unit every 10 turns. Should this be somehow limited in which cities it can be built? Possibly to just the Chinese?

5 improvements cause pollution, 15 reduce it (not counting Wonders and Small Wonders) including commercial docks which both causes pollution and reduces it?

Edit: Taxmen, scientists, civil engineers add thier contribution after the city improvements are figured. Libraries, markets, factories do not have an effect on the specialists.

I'd like to get in on the PBEM for this. For nation/region choice - I'll take any of them, they should all be fun.

With a limited worker pool, letting pollution play a big factor in game doesn't really match up. As it is, it does have a minor effect, but it does have an effect. Also, historically, the AI has been weak in safeguarding against pollution, so pollution reducing effects were added to several other structures that the AI seems to have no problem building and traditional pollution reducers had a small amount of culture put with them, which encourages the AI to build them.

Culture is very important on the "front lines" as they surge back and forth. To a point, this is a key part of the cold war in that getting a cultural advantage gives you a territorial position advantage in many cases, especially in central Europe, Korea, and SE Asia.

Need to check Mass Transit. It should be pop pollution reduction. University needs a check as well.

One thing people might be missing as far as the happiness generators is that cities have 3 stages. While most people equate cities to either being in civil disorder or not, don't forget that "we love the leader day" is another stage. Stay at war long enough and you do pay a minor penalty in that your cities will drop out of the "we love the leader day" stage.

I would have to check on the Chinese Secret Police HQ, but think it is Chinese only (restricted by the China resource).

I'd like to get in on the PBEM for this. For nation/region choice - I'll take any of them, they should all be fun.

Is that my same von Clausewitz buddy from One Big Community (who would know me better as "Scipio Africanus")?

Yeah, some of the building stuff may still need a bit of tweaking. Fairly easy I'd think.

In my current game, a lot of my production is dedicated to air units, fighters especially. I am losing a lot of air units during air combat. It made me wonder about one thing: when you send an air unit with a bombing mission, and it gets intercepted by a defending fighter, what stats (attack or defense) are the bomber and interceptor using ?

For instance, is the defending air unit (the interceptor) using defense stats during the air combat? That would imply that the bomber is then using its attack stats against the interceptor.

Thanks for any info

I did a quick search on this and couldn't find it...
hi DarthCycle.

iirc, it's the interceptor's A stat vs the bomber's D stat. i may be wrong. vingrjoe and i have discussed this exact issue in a few other threads int he past.

the key for air units and bombing runs in general in TCW is that one must send in the fighter/bombers first to first engage any air superiorty units that may be hovering around the enemy city. this does a few things: it puts your stronger (A/D-wise) air units at the front of the line and can theoretically engage and likely defeat any enemy interceptors. now, once all of these fighter/bomber runs are made, you can send in the heavies and not fear any enemy interceptors.

i follow this routine religiously when i want to send in my heavies. the last thing you want is to lose a buffer or 2 from not sending in any fighter/bombers to first soften up the enemy.

hope this answers your questions.

Love the scenario. Absolutly wonderful. I'm getting ready for the switch from 1.4 to 1.5

Some questions regarding version 1.5, some where answered by reading back a few pages but just raised more questions.

The happiness bonus for all those structures. I understand the desire to eliminate/reduce the effect of riots, but all of those? Does it make stadiums pointless? Other then culture I don't see the point to build them when a barracks will do the same.

Universities - Is it intended not to have a science bonus for these?

Mass Transit - reduces pollution from buildings, but not population? Army Barracks and Solar Plant removes population pollution?

Chinese Secret Police Headquarters - Is an improvement that can be built in any communist city with a research lab and produces a unit every 10 turns. Should this be somehow limited in which cities it can be built? Possibly to just the Chinese?

5 improvements cause pollution, 15 reduce it (not counting Wonders and Small Wonders) including commercial docks which both causes pollution and reduces it?

Edit: Taxmen, scientists, civil engineers add thier contribution after the city improvements are figured. Libraries, markets, factories do not have an effect on the specialists.

I'd like to get in on the PBEM for this. For nation/region choice - I'll take any of them, they should all be fun.
howdy von Clausewitz.

thanks for the nice remarks. you will find that there are a multitude of differences w/ v1.4 to v1.5

stadiums generate culture also. as Kly had explained, cultural advances are a big part of the game, especially on the 'front lines' of the Cold War.

not sure about the Uni's but my first thought is that they do indeed offer a science bonus. i may be wrong though.

we flagged many improvements and wonders as 'reduces pop and building pollution' simply b/c, imho, the pollution aspect of civ3 is lousy. also, as Kly noted, the AI has a hard time coping w/ cleaining up all of that stuff. this sort of sealed the deal as far as my decision was concerned.

i'd have to look and see what the affects are that those improvements have on the city specialists. iirc, i did not alter the existing/default settings for them outside of culture and pollution flags (for smoother game-play).

we'll have an MP roster soon so stay tuned.

iirc, it's the interceptor's A stat vs the bomber's D stat. i may be wrong. vingrjoe and i have discussed this exact issue in a few other threads int he past.

the key for air units and bombing runs in general in TCW is that one must send in the fighter/bombers first to first engage any air superiorty units that may be hovering around the enemy city. this does a few things: it puts your stronger (A/D-wise) air units at the front of the line and can theoretically engage and likely defeat any enemy interceptors. now, once all of these fighter/bomber runs are made, you can send in the heavies and not fear any enemy interceptors. .

I am already doing that, the thing is: Russia mounts an amazing number of interceptor in its cities, especially in the hot spot areas. I recently sent 8 fighters on a dummy bombing run just to fight against the interceptors. They all got intercepted and I lost 4 of them... Last time I check my intelligence on Russia, they had more than 60 Mig against my 20 something Sabre . Roughly equivalent fighters, but I think the Mig has higher attack factors, hence their very good interception kill ratios.

So it got me thinking, should I send fighters with high defense or with high attack factors to fight interceptors? Base on your reply, I should send fighters with high defense ratio. I will try it and see if it makes a difference.

If your assumption is correct, it will forces us to mount a lot more variety in our air units OOB: high attack for interception, high defense for air combat against enemy interceptor, bomber with high defense for bombing run.

Also, does this mean that a bomber then has no use for its air attack factor? Since it cannot conduct air interception mission, in what situation would the factor be used? This implies that the good fighters/bombers are the one with good defense factors. Your mod has a lot of fighter/bomber that can conduct bombing run, but not air interception. The wise player should prioritize production for this type of unit for those with high defense factors since the attack factor is irrelevant.

Base on your reply, I should send fighters with high defense ratio. I will try it and see if it makes a difference

Is this really true? I thought when a plane was on a bombing mission, that it was "attacking," whereas an interceptor was "defending" so it would be the opposite? This is a sort of important point, would be good to know for certain :)

Wow, sounds like my preemptive strike, followed by carpet bombing of Russia really made a difference. I still say, the AI should have some sort of option to generate a TON of workers, cause the way I'm winning is I have reduced all my adversaries to the stone ages, stolen all their workers, and while I'm building things like oil refineries in 2 turns, I have not seen a proper stack of any substance from ANY bad guys for 4 or 5 years. I think it is good that the human NOT have the option to crank out workers with some alternative government, or small wonder or something, and I think that this is a good part of the overall mod. But unfortunately the consequence of the worker shortage in the game is that the AI is unable to recover when you destroy its landscape.

re: my game as America, Demi-God:

April 1961, the last war I posted about is still ongoing. The game is getting to that tedious "march-up-country" phase, where victory by Domination is pretty much a foregone conclusion (not withstanding any surprises which I have not yet anticipated!). I've got two carrier tasks forces off the Arabian Peninsula full of F-105, F-104, F-100, A-4, A-6, Delta Daggers, a few more F-100s in Aswan, 7 or 8 total U2s, nothing but National Guard in the lower 48, (plus flak, and a couple fighters in a few central cities to deter Soviet long-range bombing), 2 to 3 infantry or M-113s in all my other sateillite cities (Honolulu, Alaskan, Caribbean, Azores, North African). I've got two rangers with spies and CIA deployed to pick off workers in Africa (haven't seen any forever). Then I've still got about 4 or 5 B-36s that have not been shot down, and flaks sprinkled here and there. In Europe it is the two remaining A-1s, one A-6, a U2, 3 or 4 infantry, a corps with 4 M-48s (which has just been sitting there for years) and a couple CIA I think.

My forward offensive in Arabia (in addition to the airpower) comprises one corps of four M-48s, 3 or 4 marines (mostly elite), 2 or 3 M-113s, 4 airborne, and I think 4 M-48s (also mostly elite). More M-48s and M-113s, are trickling their way toward the Middle East. Currently I'm building about 5 infantry, and about 7 M-113s along with lots of buildings in the sateillite cities. I've lost maybe one or two offensive ground units in the last year.

I control all of North Africa, except Tripoli, and have an ROP with N Africa. I took Cairo and Aswan 4 or 5 turns ago. I just took Aden two turns ago, and Riyadh last turn. Muscat will fall next turn, and I project Basra 2 to 3 turns after that, followed by the most northern Arabic city 2 to 3 turns after that. By then, if not before I'll turn my attention to Central Africa; forgot I also have four brand new M-48s sitting in Cairo waiting for additional support to proceed through Ethiopia and into Central Africa.

In short, through proper use of airpower, I am decimating the AI, and will almost certainly get a Domination win well before time out. Apart from the four tactical nukes I used in Europe within the first year of the game to decimate the Soviets, I have not made any use of nukes.

As I say, its got to be a tad bit tedious, but I'll certainly try to finish it out, not only for the sake of reporting the outcome, but also so I can learn the rest of the tech tree. My reports will probably be more dispersed from here on, as I've got past the critical phase where every little thing matters tremendously to the final outcome.

One thing people might be missing as far as the happiness generators is that cities have 3 stages. While most people equate cities to either being in civil disorder or not, don't forget that "we love the leader day" is another stage. Stay at war long enough and you do pay a minor penalty in that your cities will drop out of the "we love the leader day" stage.


Mostly because I'm phasing into a score-milking type of play style, I've adopted a new policy of growing/expanding/conquering as much paced by how happy I can keep my citizens as by how much military might I have. In my game, as of Apr 1961, I had WLTKD in I think ALL of my lower 48 cities, as well as Alaska, and perhaps Honolulu, and Cuban cities. This is in spite of having been in a war with the Pact for well over a year. The sateillte cities were not particularly unhappy places, either, although the Azores never seems to be satisfied. Still haven't really figured out what connects to the trade, and what doesn't.

Comments on air units range:

I'm currently playing as the US, still in the first age tech, so I haven't had a chance to look at all the air units and their stats.

But one thing that has been nagging me is the range of the air units.

IIRC, the range for the following unit is
1) F-86 Sabre, 4 hexes in Civ3, 1200 miles in real life
2) F-100 Super Sabre, 12 hexes in Civ3, 2000 miles in real life
3) F-102 Delta-Dagger, 4 hexes in Civ3, 1000 miles in real life

To me, the big discrepency is the range of the F-100, 12 hexes. That's way too much.

Let's assume one hex is 300 miles for air units. The adjusted range would then be
1) F-86 Sabre, 4 hexes
2) F-100 Super Sabre, 6-7 hexes
3) F-102 Delta-Dagger, 3-4 hexes

The idea here is just to assume a comparison point for the ranges between the different aircraft type.

Currently, the F-100 has 3 times the range of the F-86, where it should be closer to 2 times.

This exercice should probably be done, if not already, for most aircraft units in the scenario. An excellent source of information for US aircrafts http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_aircraft_of_the_United_States

There's a lot of information for the aircrafts of other major countries too.

An interesting point: one the advantage of the US aircraft versus the Russian equivalent is the combat range. US fighters (at least for the early 50-60's jets) have considerable more range than their russian counterpart.

Hello all,

I've been playing this scenario (v1.5) for the past week now and I love it. Truely a masterpiece. The attention to detail is quite impressive.

I have a question though. I've noticed that some of you are talking about a PBEM. I was wondering how do you play a PBEM or any MP type game with more than 8 players? I've tried setting up a hotseat game to play solo and I'm limited to playing with only 8 "human" opponents. Clearly the map looks very bare with only 8 civs in it. Any help is appreciated.

Moff

Comments on air units range:

I'm currently playing as the US, still in the first age tech, so I haven't had a chance to look at all the air units and their stats.

But one thing that has been nagging me is the range of the air units.

IIRC, the range for the following unit is
1) F-86 Sabre, 4 hexes in Civ3, 1200 miles in real life
2) F-100 Super Sabre, 12 hexes in Civ3, 2000 miles in real life
3) F-102 Delta-Dagger, 4 hexes in Civ3, 1000 miles in real life

To me, the big discrepency is the range of the F-100, 12 hexes. That's way too much.

Let's assume one hex is 300 miles for air units. The adjusted range would then be
1) F-86 Sabre, 4 hexes
2) F-100 Super Sabre, 6-7 hexes
3) F-102 Delta-Dagger, 3-4 hexes

The idea here is just to assume a comparison point for the ranges between the different aircraft type.

Currently, the F-100 has 3 times the range of the F-86, where it should be closer to 2 times.

This exercice should probably be done, if not already, for most aircraft units in the scenario. An excellent source of information for US aircrafts http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_aircraft_of_the_United_States

There's a lot of information for the aircrafts of other major countries too.

An interesting point: one the advantage of the US aircraft versus the Russian equivalent is the combat range. US fighters (at least for the early 50-60's jets) have considerable more range than their russian counterpart.
DarthCycle,

i see your points but don't agree w/ them.

i am well aware of operational ranges for every aircraft in the scenario. hell, i looked each and every one them up and drew up the civilo entries.

i'm afraid that for gameplay reasons, we hiked them up a tad. now, this doesn't mean that you can't change this in your personal game. by all means...knock yourself out. however, we aren't changing it for any future versions.

as far as the nato equipment vs the soviet equipment:
the only thing the reds could make better at the beginning of the Cold War was tanks. soviet aircrafts, when compared to the nato ones, were bunk.

thus, the bottom line for TCW is this:
quantity (soviets) versus quality (nato)

Hello all,

I've been playing this scenario (v1.5) for the past week now and I love it. Truely a masterpiece. The attention to detail is quite impressive.

I have a question though. I've noticed that some of you are talking about a PBEM. I was wondering how do you play a PBEM or any MP type game with more than 8 players? I've tried setting up a hotseat game to play solo and I'm limited to playing with only 8 "human" opponents. Clearly the map looks very bare with only 8 civs in it. Any help is appreciated.

Moff
thanks Moff Jerjerrod.

we had a lot of fun putting it together and testing it.

in reference to your question, MP games (hot seat, pbem, etc) can only be launched w/ 8 civis on the map. if there's more than that, they won't appear on the map 'atall.

Klyden is actually putting the finishing touches on the latest MP version of TCW and i believe that we're taking players. not sure on the specifics yet but we will know shortly.

howdy von Clausewitz.

thanks for the nice remarks. you will find that there are a multitude of differences w/ v1.4 to v1.5

stadiums generate culture also. as Kly had explained, cultural advances are a big part of the game, especially on the 'front lines' of the Cold War.

not sure about the Uni's but my first thought is that they do indeed offer a science bonus. i may be wrong though.

we flagged many improvements and wonders as 'reduces pop and building pollution' simply b/c, imho, the pollution aspect of civ3 is lousy. also, as Kly noted, the AI has a hard time coping w/ cleaining up all of that stuff. this sort of sealed the deal as far as my decision was concerned.

i'd have to look and see what the affects are that those improvements have on the city specialists. iirc, i did not alter the existing/default settings for them outside of culture and pollution flags (for smoother game-play).

we'll have an MP roster soon so stay tuned.


Thanks, I was mainly wondering if some of these things were intended or just overlooked. The stadium thing was just a question as they were vital in 1.4 but they seem to be almost worthless in 1.5, even with the benefit of culture I just don't see any value for the cost compared to other structures.

I don't like the pollution either and with the limited amount of workers, it really ties up what you can do as far as improvements.

Looking forward to the download and the PBEM.

Scipio ;) I thought it was you.

DarthCycle,

i see your points but don't agree w/ them.

i am well aware of operational ranges for every aircraft in the scenario. hell, i looked each and every one them up and drew up the civilo entries.

i'm afraid that for gameplay reasons, we hiked them up a tad. now, this doesn't mean that you can't change this in your personal game. by all means...knock yourself out. however, we aren't changing it for any future versions.



I was just wondering what was the thinking behind such an impressive range for the F-100 Super Sabre. As it is, it can intercept at range 6 and bomb at range 12 (higher than the B29 :eek: )

In your scenario, one of the greatest benefit of the F-100 compared to the other fighters available in the same age is the fact that you can upgrade it, and most of the other fighters can't.

That makes the super sabre a tad unbalanced: good overall stats, amazing range and ability to be upgraded. Why bother at all to build the other fighters then?

Please consider all of the above creative criticism. Your mod is amazing, I'm completely hooked :goodjob:

I was just wondering what was the thinking behind such an impressive range for the F-100 Super Sabre. As it is, it can intercept at range 6 and bomb at range 12 (higher than the B29 :eek: )

In your scenario, one of the greatest benefit of the F-100 compared to the other fighters available in the same age is the fact that you can upgrade it, and most of the other fighters can't.

That makes the super sabre a tad unbalanced: good overall stats, amazing range and ability to be upgraded. Why bother at all to build the other fighters then?

Please consider all of the above creative criticism. Your mod is amazing, I'm completely hooked :goodjob:
hi DarthCycle

sorry if i seemed brusque :blush:

i understand and i'll put it on the short list to look at for any subsequent version. thanks.

Yeah, sounds like we need to check on the F100.

A few notes on aircraft. As far as ranges go, that is really tough to figure out, especially for multi role aircraft because it varies so much. The resources I used list a ton of different ranges and it all depends on what the aircraft is doing. Is it doing air superiority or doing nape of the earth bomb mission or a regular strike mission? All these things have an effect on the range of the plane along with the amount of ordinance they carry. Obviously, the more you carry, the higher your bomb rating would be, but the shorter the range. You can carry more fuel for longer range, but then your bomb range won't be as good. You have to pick a happy medium.

While many people have pointed to Soviet built aircraft as being very good, this simply has not held up in most cases in the arena of combat in conflicts around the world. Part of this is also training as well. In general, the European/US designed aircraft have come out on top of whatever conflict they have been involved in regardless of who is flying them and you have to respect that. Early Soviet aircraft were rather simplistic in that they were designed with 1 or 2 types of missions in mind and that was it. Western aircraft have a tendancy to be a jack of all trades and can do a ton of different missions, so this is why Soviet fighters have a tendancy to not be very good in the bombing role while other fighters are.

thanks Moff Jerjerrod.

we had a lot of fun putting it together and testing it.

in reference to your question, MP games (hot seat, pbem, etc) can only be launched w/ 8 civis on the map. if there's more than that, they won't appear on the map 'atall.

Klyden is actually putting the finishing touches on the latest MP version of TCW and i believe that we're taking players. not sure on the specifics yet but we will know shortly.

You're welcome and thanks for the response to my question. If you guys ever need another PBEM player please consider me! :D

Based on another thread I started, there seems to be a concensus on the following:

When an air unit conducting a bombing mission gets intercepted by a defending interceptor, the bombing unit will use its defense factor and the interceptor will use its offense factor.

The main argument being that in vanilla Civ3, bombers have no attack factor hence only the defense factor is used when they are intercepted.

This is not without impact (on how we use the air units):

1) All fighter/bomber units with no air interception capabilities, like the A-4, have irrelevant attack factor.

Since this unit cannot conduct air interception, it will never uses its offense factor. The fact that it's currently at 20 wouldn't change a thing if it was at 0 instead, like a vanilla bomber. This could be misleading. It was to me.

2) All fighter units with no bombing capabilities, like the F-102, have irrelevant defense factor. From a gameplay perspective, these units are pure interceptor since this is the only mission they can conduct in the scenario.

Now let's take a look at the OOB of the US for the late tech of the first age. [Since I am still very new in the scenario, this is the only part I'm familar enough with]

F-100 23(12).20 range 12 - can bomb (ROF 2) + intercept , upgrade to F-4
F-102 27.19 range 4 - can intercept
A-4 20(12).18 range 4 - can bomb (ROF 3), upgrade to A-10
F-104 25(10).27 range 5 - can bomb (ROF 2) + intercept

Multi-role fighters: F-100 vs F-104. An interesting duo. The F-100 has greater range and can upgrade. The F-104 fare better in both air combat (as an interceptor and being intercepted). So it's a choice between greater short-term combat capabilities with the F-104 or go with the F-100 than can be upgraded so a better investment long term. This is a great design since both option are valid. It all depends on the situation and the preference of the player. Nicely done.

Interceptor fighter: F102. The best aircraft to use as an interceptor since it has the best attack factor. Love it. Again this unit creates interesting gameplay options. A player that is hard pressed by enemy bomber and fighter/bomber would probably benefit in investing in such an effective interceptor.

Fighter/Bomber: F-100 vs A-4 vs F-104. Again an interesting duo between the F-100 and F-104 for the same reason explained earlier. However, the A-4 is not that great. The only thing it has for it would a better rate of fire (3).

Personnaly, the A-4 probably needs revision. It should offer the best bombing capabilities since it can only conduct that mission. I'm not sure that the increase in ROF reflects that.

Also, it makes no sense to invest in the (current) A-4 if you need a fighter/bomber, even if it can upgrade to the A-10. The F-100 has greater range and better defense so it will have a higher survival ratio when intercepted. The F-104 also has greater range and much better defense. Since it's certain that any player will have invested in at least one of those design, it's a better investment to continue investing in those unit compared to the A-4 since they will have greater operational flexibility (they can intercept).

Hope this small analysis was helpful. I will be back with more as my game progresses. Again, great scenario.

Since I was involved in the work with the unit stats one year ago
I want to add concerning ranges for air units:

My estimates were based on many sources.
If you check 5 sources for ranges on Post-WW2 jets you will often
get 5 different answers.
Thus the correct operational range is more open and harder to define than
if you compare with WW2 planes.

Rocoteh

One thing to consider as far as defensive abilities of pure fighter units. When units are bombed, I believe their defensive abilities come into play.

Based on another thread I started, there seems to be a concensus on the following:

When an air unit conducting a bombing mission gets intercepted by a defending interceptor, the bombing unit will use its defense factor and the interceptor will use its offense factor.

The main argument being that in vanilla Civ3, bombers have no attack factor hence only the defense factor is used when they are intercepted.

This is not without impact (on how we use the air units):

1) All fighter/bomber units with no air interception capabilities, like the A-4, have irrelevant attack factor.

Since this unit cannot conduct air interception, it will never uses its offense factor. The fact that it's currently at 20 wouldn't change a thing if it was at 0 instead, like a vanilla bomber. This could be misleading. It was to me.

2) All fighter units with no bombing capabilities, like the F-102, have irrelevant defense factor. From a gameplay perspective, these units are pure interceptor since this is the only mission they can conduct in the scenario.

Now let's take a look at the OOB of the US for the late tech of the first age. [Since I am still very new in the scenario, this is the only part I'm familar enough with]

F-100 23(12).20 range 12 - can bomb (ROF 2) + intercept , upgrade to F-4
F-102 27.19 range 4 - can intercept
A-4 20(12).18 range 4 - can bomb (ROF 3), upgrade to A-10
F-104 25(10).27 range 5 - can bomb (ROF 2) + intercept

Multi-role fighters: F-100 vs F-104. An interesting duo. The F-100 has greater range and can upgrade. The F-104 fare better in both air combat (as an interceptor and being intercepted). So it's a choice between greater short-term combat capabilities with the F-104 or go with the F-100 than can be upgraded so a better investment long term. This is a great design since both option are valid. It all depends on the situation and the preference of the player. Nicely done.

Interceptor fighter: F102. The best aircraft to use as an interceptor since it has the best attack factor. Love it. Again this unit creates interesting gameplay options. A player that is hard pressed by enemy bomber and fighter/bomber would probably benefit in investing in such an effective interceptor.

Fighter/Bomber: F-100 vs A-4 vs F-104. Again an interesting duo between the F-100 and F-104 for the same reason explained earlier. However, the A-4 is not that great. The only thing it has for it would a better rate of fire (3).

Personnaly, the A-4 probably needs revision. It should offer the best bombing capabilities since it can only conduct that mission. I'm not sure that the increase in ROF reflects that.

Also, it makes no sense to invest in the (current) A-4 if you need a fighter/bomber, even if it can upgrade to the A-10. The F-100 has greater range and better defense so it will have a higher survival ratio when intercepted. The F-104 also has greater range and much better defense. Since it's certain that any player will have invested in at least one of those design, it's a better investment to continue investing in those unit compared to the A-4 since they will have greater operational flexibility (they can intercept).

Hope this small analysis was helpful. I will be back with more as my game progresses. Again, great scenario.
greetings DarthCycle.

that's what i had thought also (D stat for the bombers).

that's an interesting point you raise. i had never thought about the irrellevence of an air unit's A stat when all it can do is bomb and not intercept. i guess it doesn't really affect gameplay much (or 'atall) but it is misleading to a certain degree. same goes for the interceptor air craft and their A no's.

the 'f100 vs f104' was done to do exactly what you wrote of...to give the civer an option. i'm not sure how the AI would handle this as far as its build que is concerend but yeah, it does allow for the human player to have options. the dagger also offers the human options in that its only mission and use is to intercept.

we tried to make the attack air craft more effective by boosting their ROF. i've also noticed that these planes are much more effective in open terrain as opposed to running sorties over a city. i s'pose we could take a look at the bombardment no on the a4 and see whether it needs an adjustment (upwards). however, do not discount the a10. it is a beast as you will find out once you begin to unlock the mid to late game heavies.

thanks for the thoughtful insight :goodjob:

Since I was involved in the work with the unit stats one year ago
I want to add concerning ranges for air units:

My estimates were based on many sources.
If you check 5 sources for ranges on Post-WW2 jets you will often
get 5 different answers.
Thus the correct operational range is more open and harder to define than
if you compare with WW2 planes.

Rocoteh
Rocoteh,

yes, this is something we have also found out. i think that the thing is, we needed to sort of pick a 'median' number.

i guess we'll have to look at the the super sabre again. no biggie...

One thing to consider as far as defensive abilities of pure fighter units. When units are bombed, I believe their defensive abilities come into play.
Klyden,

i was also thinking of that. i am thinking that the RNG generator for bombing runs is determined by this stat.

First I would like to congrat EL Justo for his great work (I am really amazed by the quantity of work needed to create this scenario).

I have a few comments based on the feelings I got after playing a few nations.

1-The first is the fact that some units should be reviewed like the Centurion Mk3 (too strong compared to its counterparts), the F14 (great plane at its time but on its decline at the end of the scenario and in no case equivalent to the F15 like it is stat wise at the moment) and the AMX 32 (I think its 38 defense factor is a mistake as it should be 28 or 30 to be balanced with the other modern armors). I think the Super Sabre range should be brought back to 6.

2-I think the "upgrading" path should be simplified to avoid having multiples units (like 2 P51, 2 F86, 2 M48 or 2 Supermarine Spitfire). For example, if you see the US made armors paths, you have 2 main ones:
- M4 => M48 NATO => Leopard 1 => Leopard 2
- M26 => M48 => M60 => M1 => M1A1
when Israel can not upgrade its armors past the M48 NATO and must create new Merkava 1 units that can be upgraded to Merkava 2 (and the same problems occurs for other nations).

IMHO, the easiest way to do it is to do it this way: M4 => M26 => M48 => M60 => M1 => Leopard 1 => Merkava 1 => M1A2 => Leopard 2 => Merkava 2 as you will get the expected result through the allowed nations filters (the upgrade cost is only linked to the difference in shield costs, not the number of "stages"). It is the way the developpers included the "unique" Civ units in the upgrade paths for example.

The same thing should be applied to guns for example, Field gun => 105mm => 122 mm=> 155 mm => 152 mm self propelled => 155 mm self propelled (the 203 mm can be put in instead of the 152 mm self propelled but the 2 can not fit together in such a tree).

This scheme can be used for all units to simplify the upgrade path (and avoid getting old units like Israeli M48 fighting T80) for the AI. The player is clever enough to choose the units that can be upgraded, not the AI.

3-I think that only two strategic resources should be needed in the game: oil and uranium put in their respective places for oil (the arabian league, north africa, US, Russia, Indonesia, Central Africa and Venezuela, Scandinavia and UK should get one under a Northern Sea harbor to simulate the offshore platforms and for uranium) and uranium (South Africa, Iran, Australia, US and Soviet Union). All the other strategic resources should be IMHO either removed or transformed into bonuses in their real places.

4-It is not IMHO a good idea to give very high cultures values to a few cities (like central africa for example) as the diplomatic relations with the nations that get these cities are very difficult (the relative military, scientific and cultural strengths impact the way negociations are handled).

5-I think that to simulate the vietnamese and korean conflicts, it should be a good idea to define a "communist alliance" with north vietnam/korea and a "democratic alliance" with south vietnam/korea with two agressive AI disliking each other governments and put in each main alliance (I would rather use fascism instead of democracy for the "democratic alliance") with a few units creating wonders (Korea Chineese Intervention, Korea UN Intervention, Vietnam Uprising, Vietnam American intervention) to build to simulate these events (as the AI can not behave correctly there). The goal to create two civilization is to give them equivalent forces and economical capacities (with 5-6 cities each).

6-I read the discussion about planes, from my playtesting, planes are handled in a simple way in Civ3:
- interceptor use only their attack and so should be A/0,
- bombers use only their defence and so should be 0/D,
- fighter/bombers are the only planes using both values but the defence should always be lower that their attack as their attack is their combat value with a fighter setup when their defence is their combat value with a bomber setup.

Finally, I noticed a few mispelling or mistake with the French units/cities:
- the first Dassault plane was named Ouragan (the "u" is missing in the game),
- in the Dassault Mirage F1, Dassault is mispelled (Dassualt instead of Dassault),
- the eastern city should be named Strasbourg instead of Strousboug (with the map setup, I think the correct city name should be Lyon),
- Nantes is not a sea harbor and, from the map setup, I would have named this city Bordeaux),
- the French army used two generations of APC (both used in large quantities) since the war, the first was the AMX 13 VCI (based on the AMX 13 chassis) replace by the AMX 10 P in the 70s (based on the AMX 10 C chassis). The last one looks like the Marder,
- the AMX 32 was never purchased by the French army that skipped it to directly upgrade to the Leclerc (starting in 1993)... but had the French army the money to afford a new MBT, the AMX 32 would have replaced the AMX30.

That is all (sorry for the length of the message), in any case, keep the good work on !

First I would like to congrat EL Justo for his great work (I am really amazed by the quantity of work needed to create this scenario).

I have a few comments based on the feelings I got after playing a few nations.

1-The first is the fact that some units should be reviewed like the Centurion Mk3 (too strong compared to its counterparts), the F14 (great plane at its time but on its decline at the end of the scenario and in no case equivalent to the F15 like it is stat wise at the moment) and the AMX 32 (I think its 38 defense factor is a mistake as it should be 28 or 30 to be balanced with the other modern armors). I think the Super Sabre range should be brought back to 6.

2-I think the "upgrading" path should be simplified to avoid having multiples units (like 2 P51, 2 F86, 2 M48 or 2 Supermarine Spitfire). For example, if you see the US made armors paths, you have 2 main ones:
- M4 => M48 NATO => Leopard 1 => Leopard 2
- M26 => M48 => M60 => M1 => M1A1
when Israel can not upgrade its armors past the M48 NATO and must create new Merkava 1 units that can be upgraded to Merkava 2 (and the same problems occurs for other nations).

IMHO, the easiest way to do it is to do it this way: M4 => M26 => M48 => M60 => M1 => Leopard 1 => Merkava 1 => M1A2 => Leopard 2 => Merkava 2 as you will get the expected result through the allowed nations filters (the upgrade cost is only linked to the difference in shield costs, not the number of "stages"). It is the way the developpers included the "unique" Civ units in the upgrade paths for example.

The same thing should be applied to guns for example, Field gun => 105mm => 122 mm=> 155 mm => 152 mm self propelled => 155 mm self propelled (the 203 mm can be put in instead of the 152 mm self propelled but the 2 can not fit together in such a tree).

This scheme can be used for all units to simplify the upgrade path (and avoid getting old units like Israeli M48 fighting T80) for the AI. The player is clever enough to choose the units that can be upgraded, not the AI.

3-I think that only two strategic resources should be needed in the game: oil and uranium put in their respective places for oil (the arabian league, north africa, US, Russia, Indonesia, Central Africa and Venezuela, Scandinavia and UK should get one under a Northern Sea harbor to simulate the offshore platforms and for uranium) and uranium (South Africa, Iran, Australia, US and Soviet Union). All the other strategic resources should be IMHO either removed or transformed into bonuses in their real places.

4-It is not IMHO a good idea to give very high cultures values to a few cities (like central africa for example) as the diplomatic relations with the nations that get these cities are very difficult (the relative military, scientific and cultural strengths impact the way negociations are handled).

5-I think that to simulate the vietnamese and korean conflicts, it should be a good idea to define a "communist alliance" with north vietnam/korea and a "democratic alliance" with south vietnam/korea with two agressive AI disliking each other governments and put in each main alliance (I would rather use fascism instead of democracy for the "democratic alliance") with a few units creating wonders (Korea Chineese Intervention, Korea UN Intervention, Vietnam Uprising, Vietnam American intervention) to build to simulate these events (as the AI can not behave correctly there). The goal to create two civilization is to give them equivalent forces and economical capacities (with 5-6 cities each).

6-I read the discussion about planes, from my playtesting, planes are handled in a simple way in Civ3:
- interceptor use only their attack and so should be A/0,
- bombers use only their defence and so should be 0/D,
- fighter/bombers are the only planes using both values but the defence should always be lower that their attack as their attack is their combat value with a fighter setup when their defence is their combat value with a bomber setup.

Finally, I noticed a few mispelling or mistake with the French units/cities:
- the first Dassault plane was named Ouragan (the "u" is missing in the game),
- in the Dassault Mirage F1, Dassault is mispelled (Dassualt instead of Dassault),
- the eastern city should be named Strasbourg instead of Strousboug (with the map setup, I think the correct city name should be Lyon),
- Nantes is not a sea harbor and, from the map setup, I would have recommending naming this city Bordeaux),
- the French army used two generations of APC (both used in large quantities) since the war, the first was the AMX 13 VCI (based on the AMX 13 chassis) replace by the AMX 10 P in the 70s (based on the AMX 10 C chassis). The last one looks like the Marder,
- the AMX 32 was never purchased by the French army that skipped it to directly upgrade to the Leclerc (starting in 1993)... but had the French army the money to afford a new MBT, the AMX 32 would have replaced the AMX30.

That is all (sorry for the length of the message), in any case, keep the good work on !
hello leclerc!

welcome to the boards.

i agree that the centurion stats, especially the D no's, could be revised to match the other mbt's of that era. however, my sources say that this model was head and shoulders above the rest of the world's mbt's so we'd want to keep it where it was still the 'top dog' but at the same time, we'd want to keep balance. notes taken on the amx32. thanks.

the problem w/ the upgrade paths you mention is that each of the 'multiple' units like the m48, sabre, etc all need to upgrade to a euro flavored unit rather than an american one. of course, Israel screws the pooch b/c they can't build the leo (for example). i may add in another m48 version just for the Israelis. what we don't want is 'dead end' units or ones that are clearly obsolete and still active.

what about rubber and aluminum as strategic resources? granted, i've never been too hip on a 'game of strategic resources' but i think that these 2 should be in. as it now stands, there's 4 big resources: oil, rubber, uranium, and aluminum. each of the 4 are placed at least once in every civi's borders (usually under cities). lose one of the cities that houses one of these resources and you're in for a big surprise when you open up your build que.

high culture values are given out across the board to a.) stop AI razing (it slows it down actually) and to b.) cover land tiles in order to not have unoccupied land tiles on the map.

re the commie alliances in east asia:
korea is lumped in w/ the chinese simply by default (& the korean war support). north vietnam is left out of any alliance so that they can engage in war vs the nato-like civis and not drag 'ole Uncle Joe (or mao) into the conflict. our experiences w/ Uncle Ho show that he is, as Kly likes to say, "one tough nut to crack" ;)

i'd prefer to leave all of the so-called "irrellevant" A/D no's of the air units alone simply b/c it won't affect gameplay too much. however, knowing that the A values aren't applicable for an air unit that can only run bombing missions is quite helpful.

i apologize for my French misspellings. i often make thatmistake w/ Frech names and the like. notes have been taken. thanks.

as for the french apc's...iirc, they have the panhard as their 1st gen of mech inf. i'd have to look into the others you wrote of but i can't see it being a problem to add the one w/ the marder gfx.

no problems on the message length. thee's no such this as it being 'too long' :p

mid 1962, I did some espionage against Soviets, Arabs, N Viet, China. Found out China and NV not past me yet, managed to get Air Cavalry, and the one for Field Medevac from the Soviets. Also stole their military plans, and the reason for the turn times slowing down here lately to about 6 or 7 minutes became obvious. They had at least 10 to 13 units in all of their cities west of the Urals. Mostly infantry, but a few armored personnel carriers and tanks mixed in. Very few airplanes of any kind. Seems my carpet bombing has resulted in them desperately building tons of cheap defenders to try to hold on to their cities.

Then tried to (re)plant a spy in Central Africa (I must have had a spy in every enemy AI civ at least twice by now, and still have them in most of my allies). This precipitated a new World War. I shifted all of my nukes to the Hannover air base, moved about 14 M-48s across the straits of Gibraltar, rushed a bunch of F-111s, and rebased as many aircraft to the Hannover air base as possible (BTW, what is the actual name of this base?). In the following turns I focused air power on Berlin, and the Spanish took it. Then I focused on Dresden and now occupy it myself. Last turns I played (late 1962) I had moved my F104s and other short-range craft into Dresden to be able to strike at or support an attack on Odessa. My plan is to take the Caspian and Black Sea area, not getting any closer than 7 tiles from Moscow (where the Soviets still have all their nukes, last time I checked, big surprise), then once I have Moscow surrounded, take one closer city in one fell swoop, and nuke Moscow, breaking the back of the Pact, and sealing my eventual victory. Most likely the Pact will sue for peace before this, but that will be fine, I'll just resume my buildup until war breaks out again.

I'm no longer bombing tiles, because at this point, I feel I have a large enough force to hold on to what I take, and I'm focusing bombing runs only on mischievous Central African saboteurs, and of course on cities. I believe my stack of attackers in Europe comprises something like: 10 F-111s, 15 F-104s, 2 A-1s, 9 A-6, 4 F-104, 15 F-100s, something like that.

mid 1962, I did some espionage against Soviets, Arabs, N Viet, China. Found out China and NV not past me yet, managed to get Air Cavalry, and the one for Field Medevac from the Soviets. Also stole their military plans, and the reason for the turn times slowing down here lately to about 6 or 7 minutes became obvious. They had at least 10 to 13 units in all of their cities west of the Urals. Mostly infantry, but a few armored personnel carriers and tanks mixed in. Very few airplanes of any kind. Seems my carpet bombing has resulted in them desperately building tons of cheap defenders to try to hold on to their cities.

Then tried to (re)plant a spy in Central Africa (I must have had a spy in every enemy AI civ at least twice by now, and still have them in most of my allies). This precipitated a new World War. I shifted all of my nukes to the Hannover air base, moved about 14 M-48s across the straits of Gibraltar, rushed a bunch of F-111s, and rebased as many aircraft to the Hannover air base as possible (BTW, what is the actual name of this base?). In the following turns I focused air power on Berlin, and the Spanish took it. Then I focused on Dresden and now occupy it myself. Last turns I played (late 1962) I had moved my F104s and other short-range craft into Dresden to be able to strike at or support an attack on Odessa. My plan is to take the Caspian and Black Sea area, not getting any closer than 7 tiles from Moscow (where the Soviets still have all their nukes, last time I checked, big surprise), then once I have Moscow surrounded, take one closer city in one fell swoop, and nuke Moscow, breaking the back of the Pact, and sealing my eventual victory. Most likely the Pact will sue for peace before this, but that will be fine, I'll just resume my buildup until war breaks out again.

I'm no longer bombing tiles, because at this point, I feel I have a large enough force to hold on to what I take, and I'm focusing bombing runs only on mischievous Central African saboteurs, and of course on cities. I believe my stack of attackers in Europe comprises something like: 10 F-111s, 15 F-104s, 2 A-1s, 9 A-6, 4 F-104, 15 F-100s, something like that.
Anthropoid,

that's an interesting report and i'm curious to see how your nuclear war turns out :nuke:

iirc, the most famous american/nato air base in germany is the one at Ramstein. the Landstuhl base also comes to mind but i think it was consolidated into Ramstein some time in the 50s. there's the bases at Zweibruecken and Sembach, too.

obviously, it'd be real hard to put all of those bases into German territory so this is why there's only 1 base there.

Welcome leclerc.

Just a note on the upgrades, there are a couple of points in play. First is that due to the limitation of the game engine, you can only designate 1 unit that a current unit can upgrade to. As El Justo laid out, a way around that is to have the same unit, but change the name and put in the appropriate upgrade. He has a fair amount of this already.

We have intentionally put in upgrade paths of every other generation of units. Thus T55 upgrades to T72 and T62 upgrades to T80. For most civs, this means that they have a combination of the latest and greatest and also some older, yet still useful equipment. This is a consistent theme (especially for ground units and aircraft) throughout the 20th century when armies became much more material oriented and thus it is represented in game. The other reason is to close a player loop hole that they would otherwise take advantage of. In early games (especially as the WP), I could budget to keep a large stockpile of cash on hand (the AI generally does not do this, prefering to spend it on espionage/rush building). I get the latest generation of tanks and all of a sudden the entire WP fleet of 50 tanks is now the latest and greatest on the face of the planet and oh by the way, we want to show our new hardware to NATO up close.

Rocoteh, trade flags were removed to make it faster. However an interesting idea: What about giving the Palaces the air trade flag? And several national war industry resources. I mean for ww2 you need German Luftwaffe 1 tech to build as foreigner Me 109 fighters and British Sea 3 to build KGV class. However to prevent Germany is building huindreds of KGV (which is silly if you can build H class BB) you can set a unit buildable to the allies only. This works the same for TCW. I mean the nations should still be able to build only the weapons they had, genereally. But what about Japanese F 111 or French Leopard or German AMX 13? With the certain tech and resource it would be possible. Another discussion would be what about captured resource squares, but that should be discussed later.

Adler

This I posted in WW2 Global but is here also valid.

Adler

Here is the MP version. No need to download any other files as long as you have the 1.51 version.

The 8 positions are as follows:

Warsaw Pact (includes Yugoslavia and Cuba)
United Kingdom (Includes the UK, Canada, South Africa and ANZAC)
Seato (includes Japan, SE Asia, Indonesia)
China-India (includes China, India, and Vietnam)
Latin America (includes all of South America and Central America)
Africa-ME (includes all of Africa except South Africa and the old Iran-Afganistan-Pakistan)
Nato (includes Western Europe, Greece, Turkey, and Israel)
United States

Alliance 1 is Nato, UK, US, and Seato

While the WP and China-India are on friendly terms with each other, they are not in a locked alliance.

Some changes from the basic version:

1. AA values have been doubled on all units.
2. Road movement is now 4
3. Some VP locations have been added here and there and a few taken away.
4. F100 range reduced to 6
5. Some roads added here and there. A couple of African cities now have access to the sea. (And yes, I know Cairo is not a port, but there are plenty of naval bases around it and we simply don't have room to add a port city on the map as it is).
6. Couple of additions to the starting WP order of battle.
7. Many infantry are tied to a particular resource in order to keep them "local"
8. Several wonders have had corruption reducing effects added to them.
9. Infantry cost and value tweaked to fit each position.
10. The AI build priorities have been tweaked compared to the regular game.

For "house" rules, I would say no war on the first turn in order to allow everyone to get one turn in.

Enjoy!

*EDIT* Removed V1.0 and put V1.1 up to avoid a crash bug with a unit later in the game.

*EDIT* Removed V1.1 and put 1.2 up. There are several changes in this version from the old one.

excellent work Kly!

it most definitely will be a certain hit!

we should begin to take a formal signup i guess.

Just got the MP version... If I didn't have to go to work I'd fire it up now :(

It's been some time I don't post here. Anyway, things are going like this (US, Demigod):

-In 1957 I waged a short war against the Soviets and managed to capture Berlin and Dresden. Now I have a more permanent base in Europe. I just have to prepare myself for the final war against the Soviets. But for now I'm biding my time.

-In 1959 the British declared war on the Chinese, the SE Asians declared war on the Soviets, and the Soviets were already at war against the Chinese, so now I can say I'm really going through World War III. Although this war wasn't part of my plans, things are actually going better than I expected. I took this war as an opportunity to remove the Soviet missiles from Cuba. Just carpet bombed their base and sent the Rangers there (if I'm going to capture a base, I must do it with style). Unfortunately, the Brazilians were faster and captured the base before me. After that, just made the Rangers join the main invason force of 8 M48s and 8 M113s. The following turn I carpet bombed Cienfuegos and captured it without suffering any loss.

Now I'll just finish what I started in Cuba and wait for peace. The Soviets aren't really attacking Europe, so I'll just hold things as they are over there. This isn't the time for the real war against the Soviets.

This I posted in WW2 Global but is here also valid.

Adler
i'll take a look Adler. thanks ;)

It's been some time I don't post here. Anyway, things are going like this (US, Demigod):

-In 1957 I waged a short war against the Soviets and managed to capture Berlin and Dresden. Now I have a more permanent base in Europe. I just have to prepare myself for the final war against the Soviets. But for now I'm biding my time.

-In 1959 the British declared war on the Chinese, the SE Asians declared war on the Soviets, and the Soviets were already at war against the Chinese, so now I can say I'm really going through World War III. Although this war wasn't part of my plans, things are actually going better than I expected. I took this war as an opportunity to remove the Soviet missiles from Cuba. Just carpet bombed their base and sent the Rangers there (if I'm going to capture a base, I must do it with style). Unfortunately, the Brazilians were faster and captured the base before me. After that, just made the Rangers join the main invason force of 8 M48s and 8 M113s. The following turn I carpet bombed Cienfuegos and captured it without suffering any loss.

Now I'll just finish what I started in Cuba and wait for peace. The Soviets aren't really attacking Europe, so I'll just hold things as they are over there. This isn't the time for the real war against the Soviets.
hi Band. welcome back.

i've had a devil of a time capturing Berlin, etc. did you sustain heavy losses?

did you notice soviet activity in cuba before you captured their air base? ie did they at least put up a fight?

we're hoping the special ops units ar emore valuable now for v1.51 and beyond.

keep the reprots coming! :goodjob:

I'm still quite keen on the PBEM. I'm traveling and not at my laptop with the game on it at present, but can be tonight or tomorrow, and will download the game at first opportunity (though sadly by dialup instead of dsl).

My turns have got to be 5 to 10 minutes so I'm slowing down in my progress. The last turn I played was not quite 1964 I believe. WWX or something alnog those lines was well underway, and I was cranking out F-14s. research labs, and working on the Lunar Landing, and Overseas Research Center. I had taken Odessa, Sevastopol (and I THINK one other city in that vicinity), and rush built Natl TV Stations, Cinemas, and entertainment complexes in all my European cities, as well as barracks and airport in Dresden. When I last played, the war had been on for about 4 or 5 turns, and no troop actions by any of the opposition, so I was just waiting, building up a nice force of scores of M-60s, F-111s, F-14s, etc. Will post a more substantial report later.

10 September update

i'm definitely going to release a v1.6

there's a few fixes, additions, and tweaks that we have in mind.

all units in bold are new additions.

added in:
F-104 [export] same stats, techs, etc - upgrades to F-104G [export]
F-104 (US) same stats, techs, etc - upgrades to F104G (US)
F-104G [export] +5A/+1D, same op range, +10 (20) bmb, +1 rof (3), requires "Adv Jet Ftrs" tech (about 5 techs after F104) - upgrades to Tornado GR1 (the old "Tornado" unit - see below)
F-104G (US) +5A/+1D, same op range, +10 (20) bmb, +1 rof (3), requires "Adv Jet Ftrs" tech (about 5 techs after F104) - upgrades to F-16 Falcon (US)
F-16 Falcon [export] existing stats
F-16 Falcon (US) existing stats
Tornado GR1 - was the "Tornado" unit, same stats (G/A aircraft~no interception)
Tornado F3 - was the "Tornado - RAF" unit, same stats (interceptor/lt bomber)

now, the f104 is already in-game. however, Adler raised a good point about the f104G variant and how it upgrades to a Tornado. as such, the "export" Starfighter now is upgraded to the G variant and then the Tornado GR1 which was fka as the "Tornado". the unit fka "Tornado - RAF" is now the "Tornado F3" which is a high-end interceptor and lt bomber. all civi assignments to these units remain unchanged; ie whoever could build the old Starfigher and Tornados can also upgrade to and from the G variant.

the f16 falcon (US) is also in b/c the G variant Starfighters (US) upgrade to it. hence no dead end unit line for any civi.

Knox class & Meko 200 class frigates: the FF ---> FFG line
the knox is now available at the middle of the 1st era. the meko is unlocked mid-way through the 3rd era. it's important to note that the frigates in TCW are the 1st sea vessels outside of the subs (the knox class that is) to 'see invisible'. iow, this is the frigate's only real redeeming quality but an option it is. top end DDs/DDGs also have this ability but are unlocked later in the game.

civis who can build the Meko 200 FFG: Greece, Turkey, WG/LL, Australia/NZ, Spain/Port

also added:
- to WG/LL: 3 "Veteran" Panther mbts; removed ability to build the M4 Shermans
- to WG/LL: the HNLMS Karel Doormann CVL (colossus class cvl) + 1 Hawker Seafury
- to WG/LL: Type 209 class submarine, available middle of the 2nd era, other civis who can build it: Arg/Chile/Bol, Col/Peru/Venez, Greece, Turkey, S Afr, Indonesia, India
- to WG/LL: Type 206 class sub, available late 2nd era/early 3rd, WG/LL only unit

it's good to add the 209 b/c it fills in the gap we had w/ the french subs serving as the 'de facto' export subs.

the range on the F100 has been nudged down to 6 (was 12). thanks DarthCycle.

i've also done some extensive tests w/ the AA defense no's and the actual kill ratio and percentages for the ground-based AA units. i'm still fiddling w/ it...

there's a few other minor things we're exploring but all in all, it's looking like a 'fine tuning' is in order for v1.6

Actually, I suffered few losses. I expected their resistance to be tougher. But I forgot to mention that I have a Corps with 3 M48, thus making my attack a lot easier. "Freeing" Germany wasn't hard at all. Also, each city was bombed with everything I had before the attack. Those B-52s are fantastic. Something that surprised me was the absence of any air defence.

There was only one infantry in their base in Cuba. Since I expected some resistance there, I bombed the base before attacking. That infantry was destroyed by the second B-52. The only Soviet action in the region was an attack with bears against my transport convoy on its way back. I've lost 3 empty (fortunately) transports and a fourth one got severely damaged.

Now I've finally "freed" Cuba. It took me only 5 or 6 turns. And I also made peace with the Soviets. As I said before, it's not their time yet.

One thing I might suggest. Maybe the F-4 Phantom could be avaliable earlier. It is bit strange making it avaliable at the same time as the F-14 Tomcat because the latter replaced the former in the US Navy.

Any news on when the PBEM will be set up? It looks like 6 players would be good (US/Seato, UK/Nato, WP, China, Africa, and Latin America) However, having the AI play a few would be ok (I'd say China and Africa would be the "best" to be played as by AI).

I really like the idea of Latin America being out of the alliance. This way, the US does have to either leave some forces at home, or make the Latin American's happy allies. (Although I know a war between Latin America and USA would be historically inarcurate, it'd make VERY interesting playing).

First of all I'd like to say that playing this scenario is like rediscovering civlization III, and I have been playing it every chance i get for the past few months. Thank you El Justo for making this wonderful scenario.

Now I'd just like to say two things:
1. my time counter thing doesn't work. The one that says week __ year ____, it's just stuck on december and I can't seem to get it to work. This also happened with 1.4.
2. Also, I think the smaller third world nations should get more unique units, at least specific to third world countries only, that would help in repelling an onslaught of porwerful troops from powerful nations. I am saying this as Iran/Afghanistan/Pakistan being overrun by warsaw pact troops and wasting large portions of my army driving them back. This actually isn't that significant, but as an underdog player i think it would be great.

One more thing, I don't know if this was mentioned but spies from friendly and enemy nations keep stealing my workers but when I tried it the game just killed off the player...

Once again, thank you for this great scenario and I look forward to the next one.

To fix the week year bug, just update your version of conquests with the newest patch (1.22f I believe). These should be availible on the main Civilization homepage.

One thing I might suggest. Maybe the F-4 Phantom could be avaliable earlier. It is bit strange making it avaliable at the same time as the F-14 Tomcat because the latter replaced the former in the US Navy.
thanks Band. noted and changed (spread out as little more).

well done on your expeditions! :goodjob:

Any news on when the PBEM will be set up? It looks like 6 players would be good (US/Seato, UK/Nato, WP, China, Africa, and Latin America) However, having the AI play a few would be ok (I'd say China and Africa would be the "best" to be played as by AI).

I really like the idea of Latin America being out of the alliance. This way, the US does have to either leave some forces at home, or make the Latin American's happy allies. (Although I know a war between Latin America and USA would be historically inarcurate, it'd make VERY interesting playing).
i think that 6 players will be a nice set-up also. Kly is configuring everything so stay tuned...

First of all I'd like to say that playing this scenario is like rediscovering civlization III, and I have been playing it every chance i get for the past few months. Thank you El Justo for making this wonderful scenario.

Now I'd just like to say two things:
1. my time counter thing doesn't work. The one that says week __ year ____, it's just stuck on december and I can't seem to get it to work. This also happened with 1.4.
2. Also, I think the smaller third world nations should get more unique units, at least specific to third world countries only, that would help in repelling an onslaught of porwerful troops from powerful nations. I am saying this as Iran/Afghanistan/Pakistan being overrun by warsaw pact troops and wasting large portions of my army driving them back. This actually isn't that significant, but as an underdog player i think it would be great.

One more thing, I don't know if this was mentioned but spies from friendly and enemy nations keep stealing my workers but when I tried it the game just killed off the player...

Once again, thank you for this great scenario and I look forward to the next one.
welcome donkeyimage!

i often feel the same way about 'rediscovering' civ3 when i play TCW and this is after nearly 1 yr of testing/playing!

nivekclough is correct. you need to get the latest Conquests patch in order to fix your date problem (among the other small fixes it gives).

i see your point on the lesser civi units. we tried to pay close attention to this aspect and actually bumped up the D no's a good deal during testing as well as reducing shield costs for many of their units simply to slow down any major power's onslaught. we think (hope) we found a nice medium...

re the spy units:
you or any of your allies can't 'steal' workers from each other...only from your enemies/non-locked allies. iirc, when you go to capture some workers and encounter a stack of them, you first engage the worker unit at the top of the stack, kill him off, and capture any of the remaining worker units in the stack.

Sorry for the off topic, but I've been meaning to ask this. Do you have any plans on recreating Age of Imperialism or The Cold War for Civ IV? (Or at least "finishing" Age of Imperialism with you speed fixes for civ 3?)

It would seem a shame not to bring these scenarios into the new era of civ! :D

Sorry for the off topic, but I've been meaning to ask this. Do you have any plans on recreating Age of Imperialism or The Cold War for Civ IV? (Or at least "finishing" Age of Imperialism with you speed fixes for civ 3?)

It would seem a shame not to bring these scenarios into the new era of civ! :D
ahh...that's not off topic!

i'd love to make civ4 versions of my scenarios. however, there are 2 things that scare me off.

i would definitely like to 'clean up' AoI some at some point. however...in reagrds to civ4:

- the unbelievable amounts of time it'll take to get it off the ground. i cringe at the thought of making TCW from the ground up again. to be honest, my wife would probably divorce me if she saw me in front of the comp recreating them for civ4 :lol:

- my main point of contention: the lack of customized units for civ4. if people start making the 400+ units for TCW then i'd consider it. however, the feeling i'm getting from some of our top civ3 unit guys is that they won't make the 3D modeled units needed for civ4. what really is a shame is that the civ4 unit gfx are sheety imo. firaxis or whoever is making civ4 really dropped the ball on this one. it's too bad...

I had to post a new version of the MP biq to avoid a crash bug later in the game with a unit.

It can be found in this Post (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3070796&postcount=2328)

So how will we distribute identities for the first PBEM group? What about random?

One guy (El Justo, or Klyden maybe, the "Randomizer") decides on a reordering of serialized numbering of the six or eight tribes, to be different from the way it is now (or alternatively, he secretly decides to leave it exactly as it is now).

Another guy (El Justo, or Klyden maybe, the "Counter") receives emails from the five or six other players, and also, before reading any of those emails jots down a number that he also picks for himself. Everyone picks a number between 1 and 6 or 8, emails it to the "Counter," the Counter also picks a number of his own.

The Counter jots down the number picked by each guy, and the exact time at which the email note from each guy was sent. In the event that two guys pick the same number, whoever sent it first gets the number, then the other guy gets displaced to the next un-claimed number in the series.

The Counter then posts the summary of responses, and the Randomizer posts the reordered number of the tribes, and everyone knows what tribe they'll be playing.

Or, they could merely select random in the MP setup screen? (Sorry anthropoid... I really didn't understand what you were saying...)

quick question. for the change from 1.5 to 1.51 is it just a .biq change or does one need to also get the larger download?

Three remarks on the new units:
1. :goodjob:
2. The class 206 was introduced before class 209
3. About European Starfighter program:

Producer Sum BEL CDN DK D GR ITA NL NOR ESP TUR Non- Nato

Lockheed F 104 G/ Euro 97 0 0 0 96 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
Lockheed F 104 G/ MDAP 84 0 0 0 0 10 0 0 16 0 12 46
Lockheed TF 104 G/ Euro 191 12 0 0 137 0 24 18 0 0 0 0
Lockheed TF 104 G/ MDAP 29 0 0 4 0 6 0 0 2 3 6 8
Lockheed F 104 F 30 0 0 0 30 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Lockheed CF 104 D 38 0 38 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Canadair F 104 G/ MDAP 140 0 0 25 0 35 0 0 3 18 34 25
Canadair CF 104 200 0 200 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fiat F 104 G 200 0 0 0 50 0 125 25 0 0 0 0
Fiat 104 S 246 0 0 0 0 0 206 0 0 0 40 0
Fokker F 104 G 350 0 0 0 255 0 0 95 0 0 0 0
MBB F 104 G 260 0 0 0 260 0 0 0 0 0 0
SABCA F 104 G 189 101 0 0 88 0 0 0 0 0 0
TOTAL 2054 113 238 29 916 51 355 138 21 21 92 80

RF 104 G included; Lockheed US, Canadair Canadian, Fiat Italian Fokker Dutch, Messerschmidt- Bölkow- Blohm (MBB) German and SABCA Belgish companies.

German class designations

DD Z 1 - Z 6 Fletcher class: class 119
DD/ DG Hamburg, Hessen Schleswig- Holstein, Bayern: class 101/ 101 A (after conversion)
DG Lütjens, Mölders, Rommel Charles F. Adams class: class 103/ 103 A/ 103 B (after conversions)
FF Köln, Emden, Augsburg, Karlsruhe, Lübeck, Braunschweig: class 120
FG Bremen, Niedersachsen, Rheinland- Pfalz, Emden, Köln, Karlsruhe, Augsburg, Lübeck (MEKO): class 122
FG Brandenburg, Mecklenburg- Vorpommern, Bayern, Schleswig- Holstein (MEKO): class 123 (planned and ordered 1989, original Deutschland class, renamed)

Uboats:
Hai, Hecht (type XXIII) SC: class 240, ex U 2356, U 2367
Wilhelm Bauer (type XXI) SS: class 241, ex U 2540
U 1- 3 SC: class 201, scrapped fastly due to construction errors
U 4- U 8 SC: class 205, scrapped after about 10 years
U 9- U 12, U 1, U 2 SC: class 205 mod.
U 13- U 30 SC: class 206
Hans Techel, Friedrich Schürer SZ: trial Uboats, class 202
class 209 SS for export, in war times possibly also for German navy since Germany wasn´t allowed to build SS until about 1970

Adler

So how will we distribute identities for the first PBEM group? What about random?

One guy (El Justo, or Klyden maybe, the "Randomizer") decides on a reordering of serialized numbering of the six or eight tribes, to be different from the way it is now (or alternatively, he secretly decides to leave it exactly as it is now).

Another guy (El Justo, or Klyden maybe, the "Counter") receives emails from the five or six other players, and also, before reading any of those emails jots down a number that he also picks for himself. Everyone picks a number between 1 and 6 or 8, emails it to the "Counter," the Counter also picks a number of his own.

The Counter jots down the number picked by each guy, and the exact time at which the email note from each guy was sent. In the event that two guys pick the same number, whoever sent it first gets the number, then the other guy gets displaced to the next un-claimed number in the series.

The Counter then posts the summary of responses, and the Randomizer posts the reordered number of the tribes, and everyone knows what tribe they'll be playing.
i s'pose we could randomize it though i have no real preference on which position i get.

quick question. for the change from 1.5 to 1.51 is it just a .biq change or does one need to also get the larger download?
hi von_Clausewitz

'alls you need is the biq file (no need to DL the large folder again).

Three remarks on the new units:
1. :goodjob:
2. The class 206 was introduced before class 209
3. About European Starfighter program:

Producer Sum BEL CDN DK D GR ITA NL NOR ESP TUR Non- Nato

Lockheed F 104 G/ Euro 97 0 0 0 96 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
Lockheed F 104 G/ MDAP 84 0 0 0 0 10 0 0 16 0 12 46
Lockheed TF 104 G/ Euro 191 12 0 0 137 0 24 18 0 0 0 0
Lockheed TF 104 G/ MDAP 29 0 0 4 0 6 0 0 2 3 6 8
Lockheed F 104 F 30 0 0 0 30 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Lockheed CF 104 D 38 0 38 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Canadair F 104 G/ MDAP 140 0 0 25 0 35 0 0 3 18 34 25
Canadair CF 104 200 0 200 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fiat F 104 G 200 0 0 0 50 0 125 25 0 0 0 0
Fiat 104 S 246 0 0 0 0 0 206 0 0 0 40 0
Fokker F 104 G 350 0 0 0 255 0 0 95 0 0 0 0
MBB F 104 G 260 0 0 0 260 0 0 0 0 0 0
SABCA F 104 G 189 101 0 0 88 0 0 0 0 0 0
TOTAL 2054 113 238 29 916 51 355 138 21 21 92 80

RF 104 G included; Lockheed US, Canadair Canadian, Fiat Italian Fokker Dutch, Messerschmidt- Bölkow- Blohm (MBB) German and SABCA Belgish companies.

German class designations

DD Z 1 - Z 6 Fletcher class: class 119
DD/ DG Hamburg, Hessen Schleswig- Holstein, Bayern: class 101/ 101 A (after conversion)
DG Lütjens, Mölders, Rommel Charles F. Adams class: class 103/ 103 A/ 103 B (after conversions)
FF Köln, Emden, Augsburg, Karlsruhe, Lübeck, Braunschweig: class 120
FG Bremen, Niedersachsen, Rheinland- Pfalz, Emden, Köln, Karlsruhe, Augsburg, Lübeck (MEKO): class 122
FG Brandenburg, Mecklenburg- Vorpommern, Bayern, Schleswig- Holstein (MEKO): class 123 (planned and ordered 1989, original Deutschland class, renamed)

Uboats:
Hai, Hecht (type XXIII) SC: class 240, ex U 2356, U 2367
Wilhelm Bauer (type XXI) SS: class 241, ex U 2540
U 1- 3 SC: class 201, scrapped fastly due to construction errors
U 4- U 8 SC: class 205, scrapped after about 10 years
U 9- U 12, U 1, U 2 SC: class 205 mod.
U 13- U 30 SC: class 206
Hans Techel, Friedrich Schürer SZ: trial Uboats, class 202
class 209 SS for export, in war times possibly also for German navy since Germany wasn´t allowed to build SS until about 1970

Adler
it should be noted that the WG/LL position may have lost a little 'teeth' now that the Panthers are in (pre-placed/unbuildable) and they can no longer build the Shermans. access is still given to the M3's though (mainly for game-play reasons/defense).

noted on the 206 and 209.

re the Starfighter
i noticed that these planes were built under liscense in several allied countries, hence the different variations. however, i do not want to clog up the unit lines w/ all of those different variants. instead, i'd rather keep it somewhat streamlined by having the base 'export' version and the base 'US' version. as a result, all civis who were able to build them before can now build both (w/ a few exceptions - Japan being one~no G variant for them). now, each upgrade to their respective "F104G" and these upgrade to either the F16 (US only) or the Tornado (respective euro civis). this way, it cures the so-called 'dead end' nature of these units. the same goes for the Israeli M48 which upgrades to one of the Merkevas now.

please, please!! if anyone can recall a unit or units that may fit this 'dead end' title, say it! i want to fix them (though there shouldn't be many if 'atall). thanks...

Or, they could merely select random in the MP setup screen?

Yeah if it works that way, it is much simpler and the preferred method for randomly assigning tribes :crazyeye: I just can't remember if it does work that way, so the method I described is one way to randomize, even if you cannot do it in the MP setup window.

My _preference_ is to play U.S. because I know the most about that history, and that tribe in the actual game, not to mention the fact that they are very powerful. But I don't want to have an unfair advantage by being the first one to claim dibs on playing U.S., so it seems like random assignment for everyone is a way to minimize the extent to which anyone gets any such unfair advantage by being able to pick a tribe with which they are most familiar, or else one of the most powerful tribes.

Though obviously Klyden and El Justo should have to play their turns ONLY after they have taken 5 or 6 shots of hard liquor, just to equalize things, right :lol:

Though obviously Klyden and El Justo should have to play their turns ONLY after they have taken 5 or 6 shots of hard liquor, just to equalize things, right
you're forgetting I_Batman!!!! and i'm sure you wouldn't have to twist his arm too hard to fire 'em back! :lol:

randomized is fine by me...why don't you set it up Anthropoid?

if anything, i'd keep the 3 of us (Kly, I_B, and me) seperated. however, if it's not a big deal to seprerate us 3, then we can go completely random and let the no's fall where they may. either way is fine by me.

randomized is fine by me...why don't you set it up Anthropoid?


Ah, sorry I_Batman, didn't mean to leave you out of the shot-turn group! :p

I fired up the MP version last night and tried to set up a trial version in which I played every civ myself for a turn or two, just to get familiar with it and it crashed. Not sure why, but I'll try it again, and this time see if the tribes can be set to random.

Ah, sorry I_Batman, didn't mean to leave you out of the shot-turn group! :p

I fired up the MP version last night and tried to set up a trial version in which I played every civ myself for a turn or two, just to get familiar with it and it crashed. Not sure why, but I'll try it again, and this time see if the tribes can be set to random.
hmm...that's peculiar.

was there an error message?

I've got a mock MP game set up now and it is running fine. The previous time, it crashed right at the beginning of the first turn, when it went to my Palace. I have had the game crash a couple times while playing this mod, and I suspect it was when I was overloading the processor with clicks and/or keyboard input while it was dealing with lots of crunching.

Why doesn't everyone who wants to participate in the first PBEM just click on my handle/avatar and send me an email. In the email tell me exactly how you want to be called in the game, and your gender. Also tell me what time-zone you live in. It helps to have turns travel from east to west around the globe, though this is contrary to randomized tribes.

I've just checked and found that it is not possible to alter the order in which the tribes are listed in the MP setup window. Whoever is the Admin and player 1 is Europe, player 2 Africa, and so on. Thus, I can either do one of three things:

1) get out the old eight-sided dice and randomly assign a number to everyone once I get their email (obviously, if I host the game then I'm Europe, which is okay by me if it is fine by everyone else), or

2) Use a first received email, first in queue kind of approach to assigning tribes, or

3) Put the most easterly person's at the front of the queue, and only randomize each specific tribe assignment using the dice whenever two people are in the same time zone.

I think number three is the best option in being a combination of randomized tribes but also working with the time-zones issue. But if we do that, then whoever lives in Europe or Asia should host the game, not me.

The time-zones thing might seem to be a minor issue, but it does make a big difference in insuring that the game progresses at a nice steady pace of one turn per day. For example, I was in one PBEM in which we had one player in England, one on east coast US, one in Minnesota, and one in Pacific time zone. We did not arrange the order from east to west, and the consequence was that the guy in Minn was sending his turns to the guy in England when it was 9PM in MN, but something like 7AM in England. Consequently, except for rare days on which the guy in England could play his turn at lunch, his turns were sitting around for a full 10 to twelve hours before he played them and sent his turn to the guy in California (7PM England vs. early morning in Cali). Again, sometimes the turns would sit for another several hours before going back in time to the East coast. It sometimes took three days for the turns to make their way through one full circuit!

Contrast this with one in which I played with three guys, two in England and me in Montreal. They were before me, they played their turns when they got home from work, sent them to me while I was still "at work" then I played mine and sent it back in the evening of my time zone, which was late night for them. Sometimes, they'd be up late and actually manage to get another round of turns done, then I'd also get another round done before I hit the sack, thus, we'd get TWO turns done in one day, AND the turn would be in their inbox for them to play before going to work next morning.


When you've got eight players, it could be that we will only get one turn done every other day, and without making sure that the players time-zones line up east to west, it could easily make it one every three or even four days. Given that it is a 500 turn mod, it could take up to a year and a half to finish it, even if we average one turn per day! When you add in all the diplomacy emails that will be flying around as an additional delaying element, there is considerable reason to try to make the thing progress expediently, and ordering the players east to west in the turn queue is the most important thing to do in this regard.

I would enjoy taking part in a PBEM game, but I don't want to get in the way of anybody else as I'm miles away from everyone else - the GMT line runs right through my house :crazyeye:

@ Anthropoid: Message read, Email sent! I vote for option 3, most streamlined.

you're forgetting I_Batman!!!! and i'm sure you wouldn't have to twist his arm too hard to fire 'em back! :lol:

randomized is fine by me...why don't you set it up Anthropoid?

if anything, i'd keep the 3 of us (Kly, I_B, and me) seperated. however, if it's not a big deal to seprerate us 3, then we can go completely random and let the no's fall where they may. either way is fine by me.

Actually guys, I think I may speak blasphemy and pass on the PBEM, at least for now. I have promised El Justo for a week or two to get the the 70's and 80's biq's out the door, and I keep having Real Life stuff get in the way. Considering I am gearing up for playing hockey 4 times a week starting in 2 weeks (Anthropoid, GO HABS!), plus finishing the first draft of the biq's, plus I want to start getting deep into Python and XML for Civ IV mod's, I just don't think I will have the time to give this PBEM that it deserves.

Now, of course, if anyone player is in a bind for short period of time, or drops out, I will step in on a temp basis.

And naturally I will take great pleasure in making editorial comments on EVERYONE's position.

Sorry to hear that I_Batman. I, however, will take advantage of that fact that you aren't playing by spamming you PM inbox with questions for advice (ok maybe not spam it... but I'll probably ask a couple) and I'll let you know what going on "behind the scenes". Be sure to yell at me when I do something stupid. :crazyeye:

Sorry to hear that I_Batman. I, however, will take advantage of that fact that you aren't playing by spamming you PM inbox with questions for advice (ok maybe not spam it... but I'll probably ask a couple) and I'll let you know what going on "behind the scenes". Be sure to yell at me when I do something stupid. :crazyeye:

Not a problem at all. I will probably change my mind about playing in a couple weeks when I see the game getting good (and cry and moan how short-sighted I was), but I just don't think I will have the time to play the game every day. El Justo, Klyden and I had a game going earlier this summmer with 1.4 where we were hammering out sometimes 2 complete turns in a 24 hour period, but there were only 2 hours separating the three of us, and we all were VERY dedicated to the game. I know that to be in a PBEM you have to have that dedication to make it work for all concerned.

Enjoy the game!

Hmm, have not yet received niveclough's email and it has been 26 minutes supposedly. I went back in the thred to whereSorry if I miss anyone but it sounds like we have the following in order of their having spoken up in the thread:

1. Anthropoid
2. El Justo
3. niveclough
4. Klyden
5. von Clausewitz
6. Moff Jerjerrod
7. Man o' War

If we apply the tribes in a first spoke first assigned manner we'd get this:


1. Anthropoid (Europe)
2. El Justo (Africa-Mideast)
3. niveclough (Latin America)
4. Klyden (Warsaw Pact)
5. von Clausewitz (USA)
6. Moff Jerjerrod (SEATO)
7. Man o' War (China)

8. AI (UK)

Actually, given that the US-NATO-UK-Alliance is awfully strong to begin with, perhaps it WOULD be good to leave the UK as AI controlled? Thoughts? It could really alter the game, but then with Europe as a human player it would not be THAT easy for the Pact to take advantage of this. Moreover, this would spread the AI all around the globe.

The one possible down side is that Klyden and El Justo (_THE_ experts of the mod) would basically be on one team with this setup. Anyone wanna switch places with El Justo and play Africa/Arabs?

The Nobel Peace Prize Institute in Oslo wishes to express its profound worry regarding the current prospects of world war III. Therefore we urge alle the faction leaders; Chancellor Anthropid, Sheik Justo, General Niveclough, Chairman Klyden, President von Clausewitz, Emperor Moff, Chairman Man and the British Prime Minister, to seek a peaceful solution to this escalating tension. We hope the different factions will keep the world public updated on their view of this conflict as well as we hope the CNN (Civfanatics News Network) will cover this conflict unbiased through its excellent editor I_batman, providing live coverage of the conflict.
Once again the Nobel Institute will point out that war is not the answer to this conflict!!

Ps Please don`t bomb Oslo, please, please, please!! Ds

Hmm, have not yet received niveclough's email and it has been 26 minutes supposedly. I went back in the thred to whereSorry if I miss anyone but it sounds like we have the following in order of their having spoken up in the thread:

1. Anthropoid
2. El Justo
3. niveclough
4. Klyden
5. von Clausewitz
6. Moff Jerjerrod
7. Man o' War

If we apply the tribes in a first spoke first assigned manner we'd get this:


1. Anthropoid (Europe)
2. El Justo (Africa-Mideast)
3. niveclough (Latin America)
4. Klyden (Warsaw Pact)
5. von Clausewitz (USA)
6. Moff Jerjerrod (SEATO)
7. Man o' War (China)

8. AI (UK)

Actually, given that the US-NATO-UK-Alliance is awfully strong to begin with, perhaps it WOULD be good to leave the UK as AI controlled? Thoughts? It could really alter the game, but then with Europe as a human player it would not be THAT easy for the Pact to take advantage of this. Moreover, this would spread the AI all around the globe.

The one possible down side is that Klyden and El Justo (_THE_ experts of the mod) would basically be on one team with this setup. Anyone wanna switch places with El Justo and play Africa/Arabs?

Or El Justo could be UK and Africa/Middle east could be AI.

you guys are funny...

if there's a demand for Kly and I to be split then i'm happy to take the Commonwealth position. however, i wouldn't mind teaming up w/ him again.

another alternative would be to allow someone (presumably the Euro Union player) to control the Commonwealth position also thus keeping our dunce friend, the AI, out of the equation altogether.

just a thought...

Here is the first .sav for "The Cold War 1.51 MP1."

I applied players in the order in which people spoke up about playing in the PBEM. The order of the tribes (which does not seem to be selectable) was different than the last time, but it resulted in a good setup I think:

1. Europe (Scipio Africanus a.k.a. "Anthropoid" [Scipio is my standard screen name, and I couldn't see how to change it])
2. Africa (El Justo)
3. China (niveclough)
4. Latin America (Klyden)
5. UK (von Clausewitz)
6. Warsaw Pact (Moff Jerjerrod)
7. SEATO (Man O War)
8. USA (Mystery Player, I_Batman? We NEED YOU!)

Weird, that the order of the tribes was different this time round than it was before :confused:

Everbody click on my screen name and send me an email so we can distribute everyone's emails to everyone else. Try your note again niveclough.

For now, we have no eighth but I figured by the time the turn makes its way to the eighth player, we might have someone speak up, so why not just get it going. If no one speaks up by then, then either Man O War, VC or myself can play USA I suppose. I think having any AI in this scenario would really unbalance the game. True, the chance that it will sputter is greater with 8, but the difference in sputter-potential between 7 and 8 seems minimal.

Presumably the house rules of no intentional razing, and no tech stealing from allies applies in the MP as well?

One question Klyden: as Europe I had in most all of my cities, the option to build French, W. German, Israeli, or Scandinavian infantry. I presume that I should only build the nationality of the country in question (or other pan-national units obviously) in appropriate cities? You had mentioned that you tried to setup resources so that only local varieties could be built, but it does not seem to have worked quite right. I think that for Italian, Spanish and Greek it maybe DID work, but not for these others.

Here is the first .sav for "The Cold War 1.51 MP1."

I applied players in the order in which people spoke up about playing in the PBEM. The order of the tribes (which does not seem to be selectable) was different than the last time, but it resulted in a good setup I think:

1. Europe (Scipio Africanus a.k.a. "Anthropoid" [Scipio is my standard screen name, and I couldn't see how to change it])
2. Africa (El Justo)
3. China (niveclough)
4. Latin America (Klyden)
5. UK (von Clausewitz)
6. Warsaw Pact (Moff Jerjerrod)
7. SEATO (Man O War)
8. USA (Mystery Player, I_Batman? We NEED YOU!)

Weird, that the order of the tribes was different this time round than it was before :confused:

Everbody click on my screen name and send me an email so we can distribute everyone's emails to everyone else. Try your note again niveclough.

For now, we have no eighth but I figured by the time the turn makes its way to the eighth player, we might have someone speak up, so why not just get it going. If no one speaks up by then, then either Man O War, VC or myself can play USA I suppose. I think having any AI in this scenario would really unbalance the game. True, the chance that it will sputter is greater with 8, but the difference in sputter-potential between 7 and 8 seems minimal.

Presumably the house rules of no intentional razing, and no tech stealing from allies applies in the MP as well?

One question Klyden: as Europe I had in most all of my cities, the option to build French, W. German, Israeli, or Scandinavian infantry. I presume that I should only build the nationality of the country in question (or other pan-national units obviously) in appropriate cities? You had mentioned that you tried to setup resources so that only local varieties could be built, but it does not seem to have worked quite right. I think that for Italian, Spanish and Greek it maybe DID work, but not for these others.
howdy Anthro/Scipio

i see that you changed around the civi assignments some...no problems. however, i'd like to see whether all of the aforementioned civers are satisfied w/ this arrangement. iirc, Kly was WP before. no biggie though.

the order of the tribes needs to be edited through the 'Player Properties' screen in the editor. to be honest, it's not even worth switching around. i mean, yeah, we could switch to match our time zone thingie but this isn't a big concern for me.

i would say that if we have 7 human players that we should just get an 8th to fill out the roster. is there someone who expressed interest before that we haven't included in the player list?

yes, no intentional razing and no basing heavy bombers on your carriers. stealing techs from your allies is sort of moot since it's a human-based decision to declare war. hell, i'd give you the tech if you wanted it that bad and you're my ally. i'd even throw in a six pack, too ;)

as for the infantry units: i've hammered Kly to keep each civi's infantry units in-game in order to give us options (same for the multiple mechanized, air and sea units). in the past, we've sort of scaled out the A/D and shield values for these units in previous MP versions. i haven't looked at it close enough yet to get a firm handle on it. however, i will before we begin (assuming that the attached file isn't the first turn).

re the resources and limiting build ques to country specific units only...
keep in mind that any locale that is 'unconnected' to the mainland/continent will have to have direct access (ie a road leading directly to it~not an airport or harbour~those flags are removed in TCW [allows air and sea trade]). a good example of this would be Scandinavia for the euro position. they're bordered by an enemy (WP) and have no access to the euro trade routes. so, making a resource called 'Scandinavia' and making it required to build the 'Scandinavian Infantry' unit is probably the best way to go imo. again, i;d have to dig into the MP biq a little to see how Kly has it set up. stay tuned...

also...very important:
i'd be pretty steamed if one or more of our MP guys dropped out of the game once civ4 is released. now, don't get me wrong, it's wholly up to the individual regarding whether or not civ3 & TCW will still hold the same allure once the new civ game is released. 'alls i'm asking is that if this is indeed the case that this person(s) communicate w/ the group and promptly advise us of such an occurrence. remember, this game is going to take a long-ass time so we need to be open-ended about civ3 and our MP game(s). thank you!!!

Hi all,

Thanks for including me in this PBEM. I'm happy with the selection I've been dealt. I've PM'ed Anthropoid with my email address.

Now I'm definately picking up Civ4 when it comes out but I want to state here that I am committed to this PBEM because I'm enjoying TCW so much. It's got enough flavor to it to keep me hooked. Besides I'm also actively playing SOE and helping out with the new SOE mod as well so Civ3 will definately be on my harddrive for quite some time. :D

October 1964:
I conquered in a tough fight Murmansk loosing 2 infantries and a Leopard 1. At Dakar another plane was destroyed on ground by arillery of my Hamburg class DD Schleswig- Holstein.
Soviet tanks destroyed an allied M 48 and my fleet off Africa is bombed by Soviet heavy bombers. No enemy was shot down! Here is a mistake in the whole game. There is too less FlaK/ SAM efficience.

Adler

howdy Anthro/Scipio

i see that you changed around the civi assignments some...no problems. however, i'd like to see whether all of the aforementioned civers are satisfied w/ this arrangement. iirc, Kly was WP before. no biggie though.

the order of the tribes needs to be edited through the 'Player Properties' screen in the editor. to be honest, it's not even worth switching around. i mean, yeah, we could switch to match our time zone thingie but this isn't a big concern for me.

i would say that if we have 7 human players that we should just get an 8th to fill out the roster. is there someone who expressed interest before that we haven't included in the player list?

yes, no intentional razing and no basing heavy bombers on your carriers. stealing techs from your allies is sort of moot since it's a human-based decision to declare war. hell, i'd give you the tech if you wanted it that bad and you're my ally. i'd even throw in a six pack, too ;)

as for the infantry units: i've hammered Kly to keep each civi's infantry units in-game in order to give us options (same for the multiple mechanized, air and sea units). in the past, we've sort of scaled out the A/D and shield values for these units in previous MP versions. i haven't looked at it close enough yet to get a firm handle on it. however, i will before we begin (assuming that the attached file isn't the first turn).

re the resources and limiting build ques to country specific units only...
keep in mind that any locale that is 'unconnected' to the mainland/continent will have to have direct access (ie a road leading directly to it~not an airport or harbour~those flags are removed in TCW [allows air and sea trade]). a good example of this would be Scandinavia for the euro position. they're bordered by an enemy (WP) and have no access to the euro trade routes. so, making a resource called 'Scandinavia' and making it required to build the 'Scandinavian Infantry' unit is probably the best way to go imo. again, i;d have to dig into the MP biq a little to see how Kly has it set up. stay tuned...

also...very important:
i'd be pretty steamed if one or more of our MP guys dropped out of the game once civ4 is released. now, don't get me wrong, it's wholly up to the individual regarding whether or not civ3 & TCW will still hold the same allure once the new civ game is released. 'alls i'm asking is that if this is indeed the case that this person(s) communicate w/ the group and promptly advise us of such an occurrence. remember, this game is going to take a long-ass time so we need to be open-ended about civ3 and our MP game(s). thank you!!!

The weird thing is, I started up a mock MP game before, and it had the tribe order I first listed. Then I started up the one I posted today, and it was a different order. I thought this setup was good in that it kept you and Kly separate, and it put our "Mystery Player" at the end of the queue, giving us time to find someone to fill that position. At present the player eight position is set as "human player" with the label "Mystery Player," so SOMEBODY will definitely have to play it :D

Maybe we can convince I_Batman?

The .sav that I posted was intended to get us started with turn one, but I'll be happy to regenerate a new .sav, or to have someone else play Europe for that matter. I was just trying to get things rolling. I hope El Justo and Klyden aren't disappointed to play Africa and Latin America, but this seemed like a good way to keep you guys separated, and also compensate a bit for your exceptional knowledge of the mod.

Let me rephrase my question about national infantries: Is it okay if I build any unit that shows up in my production queue for any particular city? Or, do I need to refrain from building "West German" infantry in Spanish, Italian, etc. citiies? Currently, most of the different nationality units show up in most of my Western European cities queues.

I agree with you on the committment thing. The worst thing is when someone just won't respond, and won't even help to try to find a replacement player.

I definitely intend to get Civ4, but to keep playing PBEMs in Civ3. I've got one other PBEM going, that I don't see ending before November. Its not a big deal to fire up the program for a couple turns per day!

Hi all,

Thanks for including me in this PBEM. I'm happy with the selection I've been dealt. I've PM'ed Anthropoid with my email address.

Now I'm definately picking up Civ4 when it comes out but I want to state here that I am committed to this PBEM because I'm enjoying TCW so much. It's got enough flavor to it to keep me hooked. Besides I'm also actively playing SOE and helping out with the new SOE mod as well so Civ3 will definately be on my harddrive for quite some time. :D
hello Moff Jerjerrod.

no sweat mate. glad to have you aboard.

we'll work out the specifics in the coming days once Kly and i are able to confer. thanks.

October 1964:
I conquered in a tough fight Murmansk loosing 2 infantries and a Leopard 1. At Dakar another plane was destroyed on ground by arillery of my Hamburg class DD Schleswig- Holstein.
Soviet tanks destroyed an allied M 48 and my fleet off Africa is bombed by Soviet heavy bombers. No enemy was shot down! Here is a mistake in the whole game. There is too less FlaK/ SAM efficience.

Adler
Adler,

thanks for the maps dude.

AA effectiveness is something i'm working on. it will have more of a presence in the next version.

Resent Note, this time by PM!

China to all:

First we would like to say to everyone that China is interested only in 3 things, Trade, Farming, and Friendship. We plan on only building amusement parks and education television.

Second, the Grand Leader of China has started a thread in the PBEM forum. It is called "The Cold War "Nuclear Winter" PBEM". I think we should all post there to keep this thread uncluttered and help keep track of the game.

Nivekclough

The weird thing is, I started up a mock MP game before, and it had the tribe order I first listed. Then I started up the one I posted today, and it was a different order. I thought this setup was good in that it kept you and Kly separate, and it put our "Mystery Player" at the end of the queue, giving us time to find someone to fill that position. At present the player eight position is set as "human player" with the label "Mystery Player," so SOMEBODY will definitely have to play it :D

Maybe we can convince I_Batman?

The .sav that I posted was intended to get us started with turn one, but I'll be happy to regenerate a new .sav, or to have someone else play Europe for that matter. I was just trying to get things rolling. I hope El Justo and Klyden aren't disappointed to play Africa and Latin America, but this seemed like a good way to keep you guys separated, and also compensate a bit for your exceptional knowledge of the mod.

Let me rephrase my question about national infantries: Is it okay if I build any unit that shows up in my production queue for any particular city? Or, do I need to refrain from building "West German" infantry in Spanish, Italian, etc. citiies? Currently, most of the different nationality units show up in most of my Western European cities queues.

I agree with you on the committment thing. The worst thing is when someone just won't respond, and won't even help to try to find a replacement player.

I definitely intend to get Civ4, but to keep playing PBEMs in Civ3. I've got one other PBEM going, that I don't see ending before November. Its not a big deal to fire up the program for a couple turns per day!
Anthropio Americanus :p ,

no problem on which position i play...

I_B has a full slate of RL stuff for the next few weeks so i think he's gonna beg off for now. however, as he stated, he may fill in if needed (unless, of course, he changes his mind in the next day or so).

okay...here's the deal on the infantry units, etc:
there'll hopefully be no embargo at all on which units we'll be able to build.

this may seem a little tricky but here's how i want to do it-
for example, the "Commonwealth" position is comprised of the UK, Canada, Australia/NZ, and S Africa. now, we don't want the Aussies or Kiwis building British Infantry or Canadian Infantry, right? ---right---
this is very easy to accomplish for this civi b/c each and every portion of its 'empire' is not connected w/ each other thus not allowing for the sharing of resources. what this means is that if we flag the ANZAC Infantry unit as needing the 'Australia' resource in order to build it, then only Australian and Kiwi cities will be able to build them. same goes for the UK, Canada, and S Africa.

now, there'll be some civis which are side-by-side and will theoretically 'share' the same resources (ie the Euro Union civi~France, Italy, Sp/Port, and WG/LL). here we'll have to scale the A/D and shield values in order to make them relevant. this is what we did in prior versions. for yet another example, we could make the WG Inf unit the top dog for this civi, say 17A/15D (iirc, this unit is 17A/17D in the reg version). the French Inf could be 15A/17D while the others could be cheaper foot units w/ a similar A/D scaling (italy, sp/port). there are a few other Euro civis tucked into this set-up, too, so Kly and i will have to hash it out. this Euro position will certainly be the most complicated to work out but it's easy to do from a modding standpoint.

you may ask "why all the country resources?" well, some are already in the game if you haven't noticed already. there's probably about a dozen or so of them in TCW already. they're still there for the special ops and flavoured intel wonders (before the implementation of the 'dummy techs', they were the one of the requirements). anyway, adding in resources like this is perhaps the easiest thing for a modder to add into a scenario.

i hope that it's okay to hold off starting the MP game until we address these issues. like i said, though, it's 'nuthin but a thing' to alter so we won't wait long...

I would like to go with the same countries after the fix though. I have already started massive preping opperations as china, it'd be a shame to lose that now. :(

I_B has a full slate of RL stuff for the next few weeks so i think he's gonna beg off for now. however, as he stated, he may fill in if needed (unless, of course, he changes his mind in the next day or so).

i hope that it's okay to hold off starting the MP game until we address these issues. like i said, though, it's 'nuthin but a thing' to alter so we won't wait long...

If you think that he start of the game will be a few days away, and I am last in the queue, therefore I would not get the game for a few days after it started, that would give me about a week to get my act together on a few things. I guess with 8 players, I would only see a turn every 2-4 days, so I think I will have time to play then.

Love my wishy washy self doing a 180 in less than 24 hours.

I would much rather wait for El Justo and Kly to look the MP vesion over then start this now and find a problem in 1962.

Civ4 or no Civ4, I will finish out all the PBEMs I am in.

Hurray for I_Batman

I am fine with any position.

To answer some of the questions on the infantry aspect, first the UK position does work that way for the most part where there was a unique resource to use. Case in point, the Brits can only be built in England and Aussies only in Australia. Canadian and South American troops can be built in any of the cities. If you guys want to house rule it that you can only build troops in home country, that works for me as well and this certainly has to be that way for Israel. While I have Israeli infantry restricted to the Israel resource and they do not start the game connected, they could easily wind up connected and considering that Israeli infantry is almost as good as WG infantry at half the cost.. you get the picture.

The one place we run into issues is of course, Europe. The WG infantry is tied to the WG resource, so if you lose Germany, no more German troops for you. I did not include all infantry units because you are looking at something like 6-7 different types of infantry and to include them all seems rather redundant and fills up the build que. You have a good cross section of infantry to build from cheaper, but not as good quality to top of the line, but expensive.

The other place is the Africa-ME position. Lot of countries, lot of different infantry. African infantry is generally restricted to Africa and ME infantry is restricted to the ME. (ME in this case = Iran, Pakistan, etc). Again, there is a cross section of defensive and more offensive minded troops and a lower quality, but cheaper unit.

The additional house rule is no invasions on the first turn (everyone gets to move once).

The South American Union is now accepting bribes.. er trade offers for services. ;)

South America seems confident... Has Klyden secretly given South America radioactive monkeys!?! jk

I particularly like this setup because it keeps 2 of the 3 people who know this down pat out of major powerhouses. (Though knowing El Justo and Klyden they have something up their sleave).

China is also very interested in the "trade offers" department. :mischief:

I've got no issues with waiting for whatever needs to be fixed. I'm all for having a MP scenario working correctly and fairly before we start.

I'm also fine with playing any position as well if a new game has to be generated. ;)

Im sorry im new at this, and i am technologicaly retarded, how do i play the game once i download it?

It's easy. Once you have downloaded the correct files, you merely have to extract them to you conquest/scenarios folder.

(Mine is C:\Program Files\Atari\Civilization III Complete\Conquests\Scenarios though yours may be slightly different)

Once you have extracted everything to there, start up Civ 3 conquests, and on the titlescreen select civ content. Scroll down there until you see TCW 1.51 or some such thing. Select that, and choose a civ. When you select ok (the little circle) it will take a minute or so to load. Please be patient.

Have fun.

ok i did it just like you said, but it is giving me an error message that says i am missing something and then shutting down. Have I dont something wrong or is it something with the download?

Since the file is so big, sometimes it doesn't finish extracting. Try extracting again and see if the problem persists.

Just wondering,

I'm at the beginning of 1961, and the game is litterally down to a crawl. Turn (AI moves) that used to take about less than 1 min at the beginning of the scenario now take up to 20 minutes... it's almost unplayable. 3 turns for an hour of waiting is wayyyy too long. At this rate, half a game (200 turns) is going to take me like 60+ hours.

I'm really surprise by this and wondering if other players are getting similar benchmark for each turn with their PC. Before you all start asking about PC config and such: I own a Pentium IV with 1 Gig of good ram (was more expensive than MB+CPU combined) along with an Ati 9600 XT graphic card (more than enough for a 2D game like Civ). I've never had any performance issue with previous Civ3 scenarios and recent FPS (Battlefield Vietnam) or RTS (Dawn of War) games. They are recent compare to Civ3 at least :)

My suggestion: Have a war. The sheer number of units is slowing the game down. This is unstoppable really.

The worst I have gotten is 30 minutes, but I had reached 5000+ units or so :) (My comp is a monster)

South America seems confident... Has Klyden secretly given South America radioactive monkeys!?! jk

I particularly like this setup because it keeps 2 of the 3 people who know this down pat out of major powerhouses. (Though knowing El Justo and Klyden they have something up their sleave).

China is also very interested in the "trade offers" department. :mischief:

Actually, if the US is what I am being slotted into, you will be happy to know that is the position I played the least when bug-hunting. I usually played all the smaller civ's and WP, and China, to test their balance.

But I think that the changes Klyden is looking at may shift the balance of power.
And the only way to find out is to play the game. :)

Wow you're up late I_batman! It's a pitty I won't be getting your valuable advice, but I'll do my best anyways. Besides, I can probably learn more by playing with you. Good luck with the US!

13 September update ~ MP version 1.2

i did a good deal this evening and it's almost ready...i'll post info tomorrow morning as it's late here in New Jersey right now ;)

DarthCycle:

I had the same problem too and gave up on my first game because of the excessive wait times. What I did was modify the biq to eliminate all maintainence costs for buildings except military buildings. Sure this dramatically increases your gold revenue but it also significantly reduces the wait time between turns in the mid game.

It seems that a big factor in slowing down turn times is when the ai checks every civ to see if they need to sell an improvement to maintain a positive cash flow. The more buildings with maintainence costs it has to check the slower the time between turns. Another factor in slowing down the pace is the ai having to check the trade screens to see if it can trade techs. This has already been solved with this scenario as the designers made it such that you can't trade techs with other civs.

Moff

DarthCycle:

I had the same problem too and gave up on my first game because of the excessive wait times. What I did was modify the biq to eliminate all maintainence costs for buildings except military buildings. Sure this dramatically increases your gold revenue but it also significantly reduces the wait time between turns in the mid game.

It seems that a big factor in slowing down turn times is when the ai checks every civ to see if they need to sell an improvement to maintain a positive cash flow. The more buildings with maintainence costs it has to check the slower the time between turns. Another factor in slowing down the pace is the ai having to check the trade screens to see if it can trade techs. This has already been solved with this scenario as the designers made it such that you can't trade techs with other civs.

Moff
those are good points Moff. thanks for pointing them out.

14 September update ~ TCW MP version

okay...here's the deal w/ the infantry units for the latest incarnation of the MP biq:

due to the fact that trade has been essentially disabled in TCW (v1.5 onwards), it gives us the option of restricting a civi from build all of their units over the breadth of their empire. now, this only applies to positions w/ unconnected locations. for example, if you're palying as the Euro Union, you will not be able to build Greek Infantry in Brest. instead, they'll only be able to be built in the unconnected locale of Greece (yugoslavia blocks it from connecting to the rest of europe).

US: can build all of their infantry units but only stateside (ie requires "USA" resource)

Commonwealth Nations: each and every locale is 'unconnected' for them and they can build the following infantry units - British Inf (requires UK resource), Royal Marine (requires both Rubber and UK resources) Canadian Inf (requires Canada resource), ANZAC Inf (requires Australia resource), S African Inf (requires S Africa resource)

European Union: The "EU" resource is placed on mainland Europe only; ie France, Sp/Port,WG/LL, & Italy and they can build the following (bear w/ me here!): Scandinavian Inf (requires Scandinavia resource), Chasseur Alpin [fka French Inf ~ now it can airdrop and has a little lower A and a higher D] (requires EU resource), Spanish Inf [has the Amphibious flag - only 1st gen, non-generic (ie Marine Inf - PW = generic) EU infantry unit to have it] (requires EU resource), Bersaglieri Inf [fka Italian Inf ~ now has 2 mvmt, kept the orig A/D values] (requires EU resource), WG Inf (requires EU resource), Turkish Inf (requires Turkey resource), Greek Inf [unconnected] (requires Greece resource), Israeli Inf [unconnected] (requires Israel resource)

[U]Africa-ME: 3 total unconnected locations-continental africa+madagascar & the ME and they can build the following infantry units: N African Inf (medA/medD, requires Africa resource), Egyptian Inf (newly added unit, no gfx patch needed, requires Africa resource, higherA/lowerD), African Inf (required Africa resource, lowerA/higherD), Arab Inf (requires Iraq resource, medA/medD), Iranian Inf (requires Iran resource, higherA/lowerD), Paki Inf (requires Afghanistan resource, lowerA/higherD)

[U]China-NK-NV-India-Yugo (last one added): PLA Inf (rewuires China resource, medA/higherD), Indian Inf (requires China resource, medA/medD), Yugo Inf (unconnected locale, requires Serbia resource, orig A/D values), NVA Inf (2nd gen infantry unit, requires China resource, lowerA/higherD), the autopro'd units: Serbian Inf, N Korean Inf (slight nudge in stats; ie higher D iirc)

America Latino: C American Inf (unconnected locale, requires Mexico resource), Colombian Inf (unconnected locale, requires S America resource, medA/medD, amph flag), Argentinian Inf (unconnected locale, requires S America resource, higherA/lowerD), Brazilian Inf (unconnected locale, requires S America resource, lowerA/higherD)

WP-Cuba: Soviet Inf (requires Soviet Union resource, orig A/D values), Cuban Inf (requires Cuba resource, orig A/D values)

SE Asia: SE Asian Inf (requires South Vietnam resource, orig A/D values), Japanese Inf (unconnected locale, requires Japan resource, orig A/D values), Indonesian Inf (unconnected locale, requires Indonesia resource which is placed on every island of this nation, orig A/D values)

i think that's it fo rthe infantry units.

some of the mechainzed hardware, ships, and air units also has country specific resources being required. this is not the case across the board though.

the best thing about this setup is that we'll be restricted in our build ques based upon the resources which can not be imported/exported.

there's just a few more very minor tweaks that we have to do and then this hog will be ready to go. maybe even tonight. i will advise later on today after work and school...

thanks for hangin' on!

If you guys want to house rule it that you can only build troops in home country, that works for me as well and this certainly has to be that way for Israel. While I have Israeli infantry restricted to the Israel resource and they do not start the game connected, they could easily wind up connected and considering that Israeli infantry is almost as good as WG infantry at half the cost.. you get the picture.

I think the house rule of only being able to build units in nation-specific cities is a good rule, because, when I opened up my turn one as Europe, I had Israeli Infantry as a buildable unit in Paris, Bonn, Rome, etc. Not sure how or why, but I did. You might want to open up a mock MP version in which you set all the tribes as human players and then play the first couple turns yourself to check things out.

If we continue with this one, that is fine for me, if we decide we need to hold off until El Justo an dKly have screened the MP version and then restart, that is fine by me too.

Starting up a game and then having to restart would be somewhat aggravating, but play-teesting is sometimes the only way problems are found.

Still have not received any emails from anyone.

Just wondering,

I'm at the beginning of 1961, and the game is litterally down to a crawl. Turn (AI moves) that used to take about less than 1 min at the beginning of the scenario now take up to 20 minutes... it's almost unplayable. 3 turns for an hour of waiting is wayyyy too long. At this rate, half a game (200 turns) is going to take me like 60+ hours.

I'm really surprise by this and wondering if other players are getting similar benchmark for each turn with their PC. Before you all start asking about PC config and such: I own a Pentium IV with 1 Gig of good ram (was more expensive than MB+CPU combined) along with an Ati 9600 XT graphic card (more than enough for a 2D game like Civ). I've never had any performance issue with previous Civ3 scenarios and recent FPS (Battlefield Vietnam) or RTS (Dawn of War) games. They are recent compare to Civ3 at least :)


One thing that can speed things up is to go into Ctrl-P window and turn off as much of the animations and "show" aspects of the game. This speeds things up a lot. My last turn I was up to 1966, and turns were taking about 6 or 7 minutes with animations turned off. Having a war and reducing the number of units can help a lot. Controlling more territory also helps, as the AI tends to overkill on numbers of units relative to cities controlled.

With respect to that error message, search this thread for all the messages I've posted, you'll find a note discussing this, and noting that the only solution seems to be to download it at a time when there is less traffic. Also do a search on Psweetman's posts. He had some good suggestions.

I think the house rule of only being able to build units in nation-specific cities is a good rule, because, when I opened up my turn one as Europe, I had Israeli Infantry as a buildable unit in Paris, Bonn, Rome, etc. Not sure how or why, but I did. You might want to open up a mock MP version in which you set all the tribes as human players and then play the first couple turns yourself to check things out.

If we continue with this one, that is fine for me, if we decide we need to hold off until El Justo an dKly have screened the MP version and then restart, that is fine by me too.

Starting up a game and then having to restart would be somewhat aggravating, but play-teesting is sometimes the only way problems are found.

Still have not received any emails from anyone.
hi Anthropoid.

to answer some of your questions...

the issue you had w/ the Israeli Inf being able to be built in mainland Europe will no longer apply; ie the trade route from Israel to mainland Europe is now disrupted b/c i removed the land tile blocking the Dardenelle Straits near Istanbul. not only does this sever turkey and israel from the euro trade routes (ie roads), it allows WP access from the black sea to the med for their sea units. so, this move essentially 'kills two birds w/ one stone'.

i'm confident that we will not have to 'play-test' it as a group before we start for real. i agree, it'd be frustrating to start over. this is why we're trying to adjust everything now...

ok i did it just like you said, but it is giving me an error message that says i am missing something and then shutting down. Have I dont something wrong or is it something with the download?
hello Thehistoryman.

i would say to re-DL the large file and try to extract it again. iirc, psweetman1590 solved his dilema by cutting the TCW folder out of a sub folder of the extraction file and pasting it into the correct destination (Civilixation III/Conquests/Scenarios). i'm not sure why the sub folder appears but anyway, this may solve your problem.

hi Anthropoid.

to answer some of your questions...

the issue you had w/ the Israeli Inf being able to be built in mainland Europe will no longer apply; ie the trade route from Israel to mainland Europe is now disrupted b/c i removed the land tile blocking the Dardenelle Straits near Istanbul. not only does this sever turkey and israel from the euro trade routes (ie roads), it allows WP access from the black sea to the med for their sea units. so, this move essentially 'kills two birds w/ one stone'.

i'm confident that we will not have to 'play-test' it as a group before we start for real. i agree, it'd be frustrating to start over. this is why we're trying to adjust everything now...

Sounds good on holding off on starting MP1 :goodjob:

Yeah, not having Suez and Istanbul as links is probably good for the role of navies in the game. I had asked about this before, and you explained what I have independently observed in my game as U.S.: Not having Suez there, is more balanced, increases realism in making it more difficult to roll through N. Africa and Saudi. Definitely better without it. Probably same effect in Istanbul I'm betting. I also like the set up with fewer railroads in Africa, makes it slower to move across which is more realistic.

I think the minimal availability of workers in the game is a brilliant stroke. It does set up a situation where the AI can be exploited by carpet bombing tiles, but your upping of AA values should partially allevaite this in the SP version. The shortage of workers will be a positively fascinating feature for our MP game!

An incredible mod just keeps getting better! :p

As for the issue of a bug-free version for our first MP: based on the great work you guys have already done, I do not doubt your confidence one bit.

However, as the boy scouts say, "hope for the best, plan for the worst." If, in 5 weeks time, we encounter some obscure and rare bug that crashes the game, I for one will be thankful for the opportunity to play that far, and not the least bit annoyed with any of you guys. I know how hard it is to catch every single bug in a set of code that is this complex, and you guys have done a superlative job.

Even mediocre mods are fun to play, and should be appreciated. A brilliant, massive, engrossing, well-done mod like this should win some kind of award or something!

Sounds good on holding off on starting MP1 :goodjob:

Yeah, not having Suez and Istanbul as links is probably good for the role of navies in the game. I had asked about this before, and you explained what I have independently observed in my game as U.S.: Not having Suez there, is more balanced, increases realism in making it more difficult to roll through N. Africa and Saudi. Definitely better without it. Probably same effect in Istanbul I'm betting. I also like the set up with fewer railroads in Africa, makes it slower to move across which is more realistic.

I think the minimal availability of workers in the game is a brilliant stroke. It does set up a situation where the AI can be exploited by carpet bombing tiles, but your upping of AA values should partially allevaite this in the SP version. The shortage of workers will be a positively fascinating feature for our MP game!

An incredible mod just keeps getting better! :p

As for the issue of a bug-free version for our first MP: based on the great work you guys have already done, I do not doubt your confidence one bit.

However, as the boy scouts say, "hope for the best, plan for the worst." If, in 5 weeks time, we encounter some obscure and rare bug that crashes the game, I for one will be thankful for the opportunity to play that far, and not the least bit annoyed with any of you guys. I know how hard it is to catch every single bug in a set of code that is this complex, and you guys have done a superlative job.

Even mediocre mods are fun to play, and should be appreciated. A brilliant, massive, engrossing, well-done mod like this should win some kind of award or something!
wow Anthro! thanks for those kind remarks!

i've always been a fan of keeping the so-called 'canal areas' open to all sea units (ie suez, panama, etc). to be honest, the main reason i opened up the black sea route was to stimulate soviet naval activity and give them more access. i hadn't realized it that this would also sever the trade route from the ME into europe until i really began to think about it (and seeing it of course).

and yes, i always try to plan for the worst. i am only human and i'm certainly prone to making an ommission or an error somewhere along the way. my only concern really would be w/ the balance and the gameplay rather than a crash. i mean, all units are tested in-game to ensure proper play so if there's a bug, it'll likely be a balance thing rather than a crash. but, yeah, i always keep my eyes open for such an occurrence.

i did the worker thing as an experiment way back when and it's worked out nicely. i thought at the time that it was a reach but it's been pretty good and adds a few extra elements to the mod for sure.

ahh...my awards and rewards for TCW is the discussion, play-testing, and interaction w/ the civ community. some modders are out for attention and wanting firaxis or whoever to take notice. me? i could care less. it's immaterial to me what those people think of TCW. it sounds corny but my reward is having others enjoy playing TCW as much as i have...

Sounds good on holding off on starting MP1 :goodjob:

As for the issue of a bug-free version for our first MP: based on the great work you guys have already done, I do not doubt your confidence one bit.

However, as the boy scouts say, "hope for the best, plan for the worst." If, in 5 weeks time, we encounter some obscure and rare bug that crashes the game, I for one will be thankful for the opportunity to play that far, and not the least bit annoyed with any of you guys. I know how hard it is to catch every single bug in a set of code that is this complex, and you guys have done a superlative job.


May I make a suggestion?
When the MP is tweaked, and ready for release, delegate 2 civ's to each player. These civ's should be ones that they won't be playing during the MP. Then each person plays a hot seat game, with these two civ's, with the other 6 on AI.

Play this for a few days, (not too long, because guys will go nuts waiting), and playtest/debug.
Don't make comments about unit strenghs, but key on problems with units not buildable in the right locations, wonders not being buildable, stuff like that.

That way, if there is anything that gets past Klyden and El Justo, we have more eyes looking at it, and I would think a few days of prevention would be worth any angst of the discovery of a killer bug 2 months from now.

i went through all 492 units last night in the editor to sort of double-check and make sure they're all buildbale by the appropriate civis. man...i sure was bleary-eyed when i was finished. :crazyeye: extra sets of eyes, though, is the most effective way i believe.

Kly did a great job assgning all of those units...it's a very tedious task for sure.

.

france did drop out of nato in the early 60s but it's probably be weird to leave them out of the 'capitalist' alliance.

funny that you say that b/c i had a strange thing happen while playing as USA the other day. france caught me (for the 2nd time) trying to steal a tech and they declared war on me! however, i was not able to attack their units. i'm about 4 turns into the faux war with the french and i've spotted a few french DDs and a transport unit right off the east coast of the US!

unfortunately, i don't recall the australian comment.

El Justo,

Thanks for a wonderful scenario. Sorry for this late quote, I'm only up to list 21 on the forum listing for this thread, but I"m seeing continuing questioning about France being part of the Capitalist Alliance, in regards to their withdrawing from NATO.

I enjoy a unique perspective on the problem. I was part of the West German Navy as an exchange sailor, and also a staffer at the HQ of the Atlantic Fleet.

France stopped military cooperation with NATO in 1966, and ordered all American units out of France, but never withdrew from NATO. They have always been part of the European Union as long as its been in existance. As such, they would have been militarily committed to Western European defence. They are still operating as part of NATO, they have units deployed to Afghanistan as part of their NATO committment as we speak. I know this for a fact as we are now working up the 10th Mountain Division which will deploy some of its units there, and a company of the French Foreign Legion will operate in their vicinity.

This whole French issue can be terribly confusing to most people :confused: , because the French always speak with two voices :mad: , one for their internal political usage, and one to the rest of the world. They always honor their committments to NATO, however, and are very helpful in the Global War on Terrorism.

The reason the French are not in Iraq, but are in Afghanistan is because 9/11 was perceived by NATO as an attack on the USA, and Afghanistan was an appropriate response. Iraq was never regarded as such, so any NATO members that decided to assist, or were basically bribed into it :) , are there as part of the Coalition of the Willing.

I hope this clears up any continuing questions regarding the French.

Very respectfully,

Cowabunga

El Justo,

Thanks for a wonderful scenario. Sorry for this late quote, I'm only up to list 21 on the forum listing for this thread, but I"m seeing continuing questioning about France being part of the Capitalist Alliance, in regards to their withdrawing from NATO.

I enjoy a unique perspective on the problem. I was part of the West German Navy as an exchange sailor, and also a staffer at the HQ of the Atlantic Fleet.

France stopped military cooperation with NATO in 1966, and ordered all American units out of France, but never withdrew from NATO. They have always been part of the European Union as long as its been in existance. As such, they would have been militarily committed to Western European defence. They are still operating as part of NATO, they have units deployed to Afghanistan as part of their NATO committment as we speak. I know this for a fact as we are now working up the 10th Mountain Division which will deploy some of its units there, and a company of the French Foreign Legion will operate in their vicinity.

This whole French issue can be terribly confusing to most people :confused: , because the French always speak with two voices :mad: , one for their internal political usage, and one to the rest of the world. They always honor their committments to NATO, however, and are very helpful in the Global War on Terrorism.

The reason the French are not in Iraq, but are in Afghanistan is because 9/11 was perceived by NATO as an attack on the USA, and Afghanistan was an appropriate response. Iraq was never regarded as such, so any NATO members that decided to assist, or were basically bribed into it :) , are there as part of the Coalition of the Willing.

I hope this clears up any continuing questions regarding the French.

Very respectfully,

Cowabunga
hi Cowabunga.

thank you for clearing that up. i probably should have been more clear when i posted that info regarding france's withdrawal from what my sources describe as the "integrated military command" structure of nato. very interesting info though. thanks for sharing that :goodjob:

ADDIT:

it sounds corny but my reward is having others enjoy playing TCW as much as i have...

Well, ultimately it IS just a game, but I believe that it is one of, if not THE best games ever, and I do believe it will have a real legacy in human history, in fact that it already HAS had an effect in making people more aware of the big picture issues of human history.

I think you guys have really addressed a rather blaring gap in what Firaxis sold us. The game itself is suited for any stage of human history, but apart from WWII Pacific, we did not get anything modern. Y'alls mod addresses this gap, and does so in a very effective way. The scenario is IDEAL for a really fun, diplomatically-white-knuckle MP game, which is what makes civ more than just a turn-based military simulation game.


May I make a suggestion?
When the MP is tweaked, and ready for release, delegate 2 civ's to each player. These civ's should be ones that they won't be playing during the MP. Then each person plays a hot seat game, with these two civ's, with the other 6 on AI.

Play this for a few days, . . . .


I think this is a GREAT idea, and I'd be pleased to take part. The other good thing is, it would give some of us newcomers a bit more experience running the other civs, and this would make the eventual true MP more balanced, fun, and likely to actual finish out. Because I've already played USA in one SP game, and may well be playing Europe in the MP (although by all means if anyone else is keen to play Europe, I'll be happy to play any other one too, it was just that Euro was the first one in the setup order when I generated that first MP game). I'd be keen to play test the Pact, Latin America, Africa, or China, more or less in that order of preference.

I REALLY like that idea that someone (think it was Moff Jerjerrod) had about turning off the maintenance costs for buildings in order to speed up the turn times. Only thing is, it would make the International Trade thingy moot. Maybe that Trade thingy could be given some other benefit, like say plus one commerce in the city?

I suppose that it is also POSSIBLE that changing AI build queue settings might alter turn times a tad bit. For me on my Pentium III 2.6 chip, the slowing is only mild (max turn time I've seen is maybe 10 min in 1966) but it seems to be an issue for some folks still.

My game as US, Demi-God has definitely got a bit tedious. I know control all of Africa except the RSA part that I cannot take, and Madagascar. Arabs no longer exist nor Cuba. Russia has been severely set back, although I was surprised at how many casualties I STILL took despite using all 8 med tactical nukes and two ICBMs in my nuclear assualt on Moscow, Gorkiy, etc. Scandinavians took several eastern Russian cities. I'm up to about 1967, and last time I checked with spies none of my enemies are ahead of me, though several of my allies have built aircraft and tanks that I cannot yet build it seems.

Unless it is of interest that I finish this one, I probably won't bother, but it was fun to do, and I hope the reports were helpful. I have a bad habit of getting a game to the "all but won" stage then getting bored with playing any more.

I went into the editor and made a new version to mess around with a bit.

Few minor changes made to TCW by Scipio Africanus: helicopers made cheaper and more functional. All modern infantry, some 3rd World infantry, APCs, & subs given AA value of "1" minimum. Still none for tanks or artillery. All units that already had AA value doubled. Flak: 12; Mobile Sam: 20 m42: 19; Patriot: 35; ZSU: 27.

National Guard & Flak units given to AI as startup units type 1 & 2 in following numbers: Chieftain 1/1; Warlord 3/3; Regent 6/6; Monarch 12/12; Emperor 24/24; Demi-God 36/36; Diety 48/48; Sid 60/60.

The changes to helis were as follows
Unit Shields Move Trans Range A D Bomb
UH1 300 2 1 3 0 4 7
util 425 1 2 4 0 3 0
blackhwk 500 2 1 4 0 7 20
mi 24 500 2 1 3 0 7 40
mi 8 hip 600 1 2 3 0 4 20


I'm curious to know what others think of these changes. No presumptiveness about your work is meant guys :)

I'm curious to see if raising the AA factors will make the carpet bombing tactic less useful at disabling the AI, and make the game a bit more competitive at the lower difficulty levels for a powerful tribe like Warsaw or US. Also, I noticed that I had not built a single helicopter in my US game. I realize that since we are dealing with Division or Battalion level units, this heli units cannot be cheap, but helicopters have been a HUGE part of modern warfare, so I thought it might be prudent to make them more functional and cheaper.

i posted an update for the MP biq of the stat setup and flags for the revised infantry units!

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3082787&postcount=2

Though I'm sure I just missed it, how did you fix the problem message:

"text\PediaIcons.txt":ICON_BLDG_Theater

I don't know if there's a way to do this, but India should be made more naturally aggressive, what I mean by this is that I haven't seen them involved in any conflict at all or even to try and threaten anyone. I know historically they didn't have much of an individual part, but it would make the game more fun if the Indians just jumped into the fray. Also, I've noticed hordes of South Asians coming through my territory which to me means that they are either too overpowered in Asia or not lured enough by the possibilities for points. Maybe vietnam should have more victory point locations, like between the cities.

I've got notes from about 6 or 7 turns since i fixed the date thing, but they're mostly just what I've captured and how my current war is going.

P.S. I am playing Iran/afghanistan/pakistan

For the MP version, I think the minor changes you guys will be making in AA, infantry availability, land-connections etc., will be excellent, but I've been thinking about how to make the SP game a bit less easy for the human player to turn into a domination win quite so easily.

I like Moff's idea of turning off building maintenance for some or all of the governments, and instead, making military units beyond the allowed amount MUCH MUCH more expensive (not sure if it should be like 5 10 15 per unit?) with obvious differences between govts.

Thoughts?

Though I'm sure I just missed it, how did you fix the problem message:

"text\PediaIcons.txt":ICON_BLDG_Theater


Try Dling at a low traffic time of day. I had the same problem, and it finally worked when I dled at a time with low traffic, and the dl went through more quickly. The slow dl seems to corrupt the files.

Try Dling at a low traffic time of day. I had the same problem, and it finally worked when I dled at a time with low traffic, and the dl went through more quickly. The slow dl seems to corrupt the files.

It's about 7:45 AM, just got on campus, it should probably work now. Wonder if that'd be the case even with a high speed connection :confused: ? Oh well.

My game as US, Demi-God has definitely got a bit tedious. I know control all of Africa except the RSA part that I cannot take, and Madagascar. Arabs no longer exist nor Cuba. Russia has been severely set back, although I was surprised at how many casualties I STILL took despite using all 8 med tactical nukes and two ICBMs in my nuclear assualt on Moscow, Gorkiy, etc. Scandinavians took several eastern Russian cities. I'm up to about 1967, and last time I checked with spies none of my enemies are ahead of me, though several of my allies have built aircraft and tanks that I cannot yet build it seems.

Unless it is of interest that I finish this one, I probably won't bother, but it was fun to do, and I hope the reports were helpful. I have a bad habit of getting a game to the "all but won" stage then getting bored with playing any more.

I went into the editor and made a new version to mess around with a bit.

Few minor changes made to TCW by Scipio Africanus: helicopers made cheaper and more functional. All modern infantry, some 3rd World infantry, APCs, & subs given AA value of "1" minimum. Still none for tanks or artillery. All units that already had AA value doubled. Flak: 12; Mobile Sam: 20 m42: 19; Patriot: 35; ZSU: 27.

National Guard & Flak units given to AI as startup units type 1 & 2 in following numbers: Chieftain 1/1; Warlord 3/3; Regent 6/6; Monarch 12/12; Emperor 24/24; Demi-God 36/36; Diety 48/48; Sid 60/60.

The changes to helis were as follows
Unit Shields Move Trans Range A D Bomb
UH1 300 2 1 3 0 4 7
util 425 1 2 4 0 3 0
blackhwk 500 2 1 4 0 7 20
mi 24 500 2 1 3 0 7 40
mi 8 hip 600 1 2 3 0 4 20


I'm curious to know what others think of these changes. No presumptiveness about your work is meant guys :)

I'm curious to see if raising the AA factors will make the carpet bombing tactic less useful at disabling the AI, and make the game a bit more competitive at the lower difficulty levels for a powerful tribe like Warsaw or US. Also, I noticed that I had not built a single helicopter in my US game. I realize that since we are dealing with Division or Battalion level units, this heli units cannot be cheap, but helicopters have been a HUGE part of modern warfare, so I thought it might be prudent to make them more functional and cheaper.
hi Anthropoid.

sorry to not have responded earlier to this post.

please tell us more about your nuclear war as we've seen very few reports on this before. i'm surprised that you encountered such resistance after they were launched.

i like the idea of giving helis an extra mvmt point and i also agree that we should try to give them more relevance in TCW. i will look into it as one of the final touches.

the AA stats have been adjusted some for the MP version as well as the subsequent v1.6

my take on this is that the MP version's AA stats may have to be a tad lower simply b/c us humans can sort of exploit it and build them until the cows come home. however, the SP version should have a higher AA rating simply b/c were dealing w/ only 1 human and 29 dunces. :wallbash: the differences will only be slight though, certainly nothing drastic. as such, i think that the MP game will be a good testing ground for how well or how poorly the new AA stats perform.

[your AA stats are very near to what is now in for both versions ~ MP & SP]

i'm not sure i like giving the Flak as a starting unit. the Natl Gd is fine but i'd be worried that too many of the Flak Betteries may cause an imbalance. just me 2 cents...

lastly, could you PM me your email address so that either Kly or me can send you (the euro player) the MP biq? thanks mate.

to all of the MP players:
the 'infantry' explanation for the MP version is understood?

Though I'm sure I just missed it, how did you fix the problem message:

"text\PediaIcons.txt":ICON_BLDG_Theater
hello there Tank_Guy#3

i would do as the others have said and try to DL the file again. it's worked well in the past.

I don't know if there's a way to do this, but India should be made more naturally aggressive, what I mean by this is that I haven't seen them involved in any conflict at all or even to try and threaten anyone. I know historically they didn't have much of an individual part, but it would make the game more fun if the Indians just jumped into the fray. Also, I've noticed hordes of South Asians coming through my territory which to me means that they are either too overpowered in Asia or not lured enough by the possibilities for points. Maybe vietnam should have more victory point locations, like between the cities.

I've got notes from about 6 or 7 turns since i fixed the date thing, but they're mostly just what I've captured and how my current war is going.

P.S. I am playing Iran/afghanistan/pakistan
greetings donkeyimage.

the indian position always seems to be stuck between a rock and a hard place due to their non-alligned status and their antzy neighbors. however, i could investigate whether or not we could bump up their aggression rating. thanks for that...

there's already a bunch of VPs in 'Nam iirc (1 in each city). maybe some in the open would help keep the SEA's from venturing too far from home. i'll have to look into it.

Hi guys,

To celebrate getting a job interview yesterday, I've spent way too much time fiddling with settings in the editor.

Re: starting flak, what I wanted to do was give a basic fighter plane instead, but that was not an option. I'd just like to make it less easy for human in SP game to decimate the AI by bombing tiles. Glad my suggestions are helpful :), though some of them may be complete dead-ends or completely unuseful as I know much less about the delicacies of balance than you guys. So anything I post, just consider it as food for thought. Ultimately I think you guys will have the better estimate as to whether something will work or not, but newcomers sometimes have useful new ideas.

Re: the nuke war, I lost probably 15 or 25 marines and tanks trying to take Moscow, and Ashbagad (which the Russians had taken from Iran). I hit Leningr, Moscow, Ashbagad, Gurjev, Mashbad, and Yaroslavl with nukes then moved forward stacks of like 12 marines to Mashbad, and like 15 mod inf, 15 M-60s, & a corps to Moscow. Think I hit Moscow w/ two tac nukes, Yaroslavl with the ICBM, and the others with one or two tac nukes each. Also hit Nigeria with one tac nuke. I had my fleet of 30 or so Aardvarks in Africa, and used them and about 20 M-60s, 6 M-113s, 12 marines, and 2 corps to take control of Africa. When my stacks went to take Moscow and Mashbad, the marines in Mashbad were totally decimated by maybe 4 or 5 still remaining soviet APCs that were in the red. I managed to take Moscow, but lost probably 10 units there too. Didn't have many losses at all in taking Central Africa.

This may be a complete dead-end that you guys have already experienced, but I wanted to see if it was possible to make the Cold War a bit less "hot" by changing the alliances and goverments. I've made a mod to your mod (including the AA and AI startup changes I noted above) that I'll be happy to post if folks wanna check it out. Have not had a chance to play it yet, but started up as US and Russia, and the domestic advisor econ numbers at start look okay. Have not added or removed any tribes, units, bldgs, wonders or anything like that, just changing numbers in the editor. Here is what I did:

Set all govts to no Maintenance required, to speed up game play. To balance this out, and ALSO speed up game play (and reduce hot war incidence) also raised unit support costs dramatically) and allowed units for diff govts (see below).

For US there are 117 starting units and 136 total allowed with the starting array of 21 communities (based on my count of five, 12, and 4 towns, cities, and metros respectively). Assuming no additional cities, at maximum population growth the US total units allowed could go up to 231 units at no cost (11units/metro*21 communities), and 25gp per unit over that. Given that I was making about 5000 gp per turn in my game, I do not think this is too much, and it will force the AI to be more defensive against a human Warsaw, and force the human to be more strategic against an AI Warsaw.

For Pact there were a total 34 starting communities (18 towns, 13 cities, 2 metros) allowing at start up to 252 units at the very beginning. With no additional communities the Pact could have up to 374 units, and 10gp per unit over that. Not sure, but this seems like a fairly reasonable ratio, given that the communists have been much more militaristic focused, much more aggressive and interventionary, and have always maintained much larger arsenals and standing armies. I have not checked the implications that these numbers have for the other tribes, but I do not think anyone will be going into the red right off the bat.

Here are the new govt. stats, did not change the rush methods.

Cost per
GOVT Corrup Unit Town City Metro Police Draft
Anarch 6 0 0 0 0 0 0

Despot 5 5 4 5 6 2 2 xeno, resttle cost

Monarc 3 15 4 7 11 3 1
no trade bonus

Commi C 10 7 8 11 4 3

Repub 4 13 4 8 11 3 1

Democ 2 25 4 6 8 2 1 trade bonus (plus powerful Democracies get double-effect from wealth improvements)

Fascii 1 all units free 5 4 xeno, resettle cost

Feudal 4 7 7 9 10 4 3

ADDIT: AFTER starting up a game, made following changes in my mod of the mod:

Nat Guard and Flak at start numbers reduced ranging from 4 each for Chieftain 11 for Sid

Cerem Burial: turned off ROPs for this.

Mathematics: turned off ROPs and, MPP, but this still allows military alliances (for Iran, & North Africa only)

Currency: enables ROP (for USA, W Germany, UK, Japan, SE Asia)

Map Making: turned off ROPs for this tech

Polytheism: turned off ROPs for this tech

However, even with Currency on for ROPs, and SE Asia and Japan with Currency, US still cannot get ROPs with these two nations, so obviously ROPs can only be had with alliance members when locked alliances are on. Not sure how it will impact game if Japan and SE Asia are not alliance members with US?

-=-=-=-=-=-

Even if my rationale for the government changes in the previous post are valid, the numbers themselves may need to be further adjusted, and you guys will know much better than I. The changes I've been thinking about are primarily intended to make the two major tribes more real in play (US vs Commies) and I have not yet considered the impact this will have on the playability of the smaller nations. Assuming a good balance in reducing the heat could be achieved with the US and Warsaw players as human player, then the other tribes could then be addressed.

Anyway here is the rationale.

There should not be constant cyclic World Wars. Wars should be brief, intense, and result in fairly small territory gains, else stalemates.

It should be EXTREMELY difficult for US or NATO to achieve a Victory Point, or Domination Win, and virtually impossible to do Conquest, this is because (as we see in history of Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq/Afghan) Democratic societies suffer FAR more war weariness in real life than the game does justice to. Unfortunately we are stuck with None, Low, and High for the War Weariness settings and the algorithm is hard coded in Civ3 (i.e., we cannot go in and make tile bombing, or city razing a major source of war weary yet).

By taking out bldg maintenance, everyone is on even footing for econ, and this makes the numbers for military, the single biggest determinate, along with "holding on" to territory for the Democratic side vs. "expanding sphere of influence for commies, and striking the best tradeoff between allocation of resources to science vs. supporting a military.

IMHO, to be true to the actual Cold War, and not just a fun modern setting domination game, the game for the Democracy side whould be about holding off the commies advances, winning (or helping to win) proxy wars, and using propaganda, gold allocations, and strategic deployment of a relatively smaller, but more effective military force, along with covert war, and culture expansion to push back communist influence, and drive them into economic ruination, culminating in a fairly late game Space Race, else Wonder or Cultural victory (doing the latter would require some major changes, because I set it this way, and immediately lost as US, the Pact starts out with like 500K culture! and US with ~100K).

The game for the commies in contrast should be about territory, territory, and more territory, and victory at all costs, including whatever military efforts are necessary. With this in mind, further changes to the culture settings, happiness generators, etc., might be in order.

In my US Demi-God game, I found that in general, there was far too little war weariness. It should be challenging, not drop-dead-easy for the US to maintain a state of major for more than 12 or 16 turns straight. On the other hand, it should not be easy for the Commies to keep up in Tech without espionage, and adding more and more small towns to their holdings. I suspect that the unit support costs above are still FAR too low.

I reset the flags for the pre-game techs as follows

Bronze Wrk: diplo, Democracy

Masonry: diplo, Comminism

Alphabet: diplo, Republic

Pottery: diplomacy, Fascism

Wheel: diplo, Monarchy

Warrior Code: Feudalism

Cerem Burial: enables military alliances (for US and Israel only) [this setting is debatable, not sure if it is useful for AI against human Warsaw, if it can be exploited by human, of if it should actually be an MPP?]

Iron Wrk: Mutual Protection Pact (for Cuba-Warsaw ONLY)

Writing: Doubles benefit of wealth improvements (only for US, UK, Japan, W. Germany, France, & Israel. Canada and Australia have too diffuse pop to justify this and proabably their population growth needs to be checked anyway, did not observe closely how big their cities became. Decided to give this to Yugoslavia also, to make it a more viable bad guy in the face of so many Democracies)

Mysticism: enables War Mobilization (for Israel, Arabs, Iran, N. Africa, Columbia-Peru, N. Vietnam, South Africa & Yugoslavia only)

Mathematics: enables ROP, MPP, and military alliances (for Iran, & North Africa only)

Currency: enables ROP (for USA, W Germany, UK, Japan, SE Asia)

Map Making: enables ROP (for Pact, Cuba, Arab League)

Polytheism: enables ROP (for Pact, Indonesia, Arg-Chile, Col-Peru, C. Africa, Yugoslavia, maybe should be for other "swing" nations too?)

IMO, few ROPs should be allowed, they make it too easy for US human player to exploit.

Governments should thus fall out as follows:

Democracies: (US, UK, Canada, Australia, W. Germany [alliance one]) (Brazil, Israel, France, Italy [not aligned]) all democracies shun Commies

Republics: (C. Amer [part of alliance one, merely to keep human player from annexing it, I considered making it possible for Pact to get an ROP with Cent Amer via Polytheism]) (Japan, Arg-Chile, India, C. Africa, SE Asia, Indonesia [not aligned])

Monarchies: Spain, Turkey, Scandinavia (all not aligned)

Communisms: (Warsaw Pact [alliance 2]) China, Cuba (can sign MPP with Pact, but might also be won over by US propaganda?)

Fascisms: (Arab League [alliance 2]), (South Africa [think apartheid], N. Vietnam, Columbia-Peru [we needed a bad guy who might befriend Pact in S. America], Yugoslavia, all non-aligned), Fascisms shun neighbors generally

Feudalisms: Iran, North Africa, both non-aligned but can sign a military alliance with one another (to dissuade/challenge Israeli Imperialism), shun neighbors

With all this in mind, I broke apart the alliances, and changed the preferred and shunned and starting governments as follows:

Alliance 1: US, UK, Canada, Australia, W. Germany, Mexico

Alliance 2: Warsaw, and Arab League

All others non-allied. I realize the reason you set so many in Alliance 1 was to prevent "non-historical" wars like France vs. Israel, or Brazil vs. Spain, or Scandinavia vs. England, etc. But unfortunately, the effect of having every single world nation which has historically been friendly to the Western democracies part of a locked alliance is that it results in constant Word Wars, it stultifies proxy wars (Nicaragua, Columbia, Bay of Pigs, The Arab-Israeli wars, all THREE of them!, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Algiera, Congo, etc.). I THINK, that the downsides of breaking these alliances can be largely overcome by making small adjustments in the support levels, governments (both preferred and shunned), and perhaps some house rules about the human player NOT attacking certain "swing" nations without first having been overtly attacked. Something like the following e.g.,

House Rule for SP human play: Communist, Fascist, and Feudal govts can declare war on anyone they want at any time. Democratic, and Republic cannot declare war at all (though obviously can respond if warred upon, and must honor alliances). Monarchies can only declare war when they are antagonized with espionage or covert units. This combined with careful settings for preferred and shunned governments for all the various non-aligned nations MIGHT! :) prevent silly wars in large part, and make proxy wars like Vietnam, Kosovo, etc, more common.

The overarching idea for the government settings above is this. The US and her closest allies, should be THE ONLY ones that are locked in a contest against the Soviet Union. Cuba, though more loyal to USSR, should be a swing nation. The only comunist-backed nations that have been CONSISTENTLY on the side of the Soviets throughout the Cold War, were basically Syria, Jordan, and Egypt. Even Iraq was initially a US ally, and played the Soviets and US against one another for decades. Same for Arabia. The other nations should have to be kept friendly through various diplomatic means (protection, giving cash, and I think perhaps sharing resources too, though I understand why trade is basically shut off). The only other historically SOLID alliance is N. Korea China, and you've got them represented as one nation, which is fine because the Korean War was basically China vs. the U.N. with U.S. as quarterback.

With all this in mind, I reset the preferred/shunned governments as follows (ones not noted were not changed)

_FEUDALISMS_
N Afric Feudal/Demo (antagonistic to all Western Democracies, but not intrinsicaly pro Commie)
Iran Feudal/Republic (to create tension with India)

The idea with the Feudal government is NOT to reflect a true Medieval Feudalism, but rather, a fairly backward, authoritarian, and suppressive government, with a tendency to build a fairly large military, and to act aggressively from time to time, perhaps even somewhat unpredictably, but to not really have the capacity to become an expansionistic powerhouse, and truly challenge either the Pact or the West, but simply to be an annoying ugly regime that might have be dealt with at some point. Without wonders like "Jihadism" or things along these lines to make being a global crusader a possibility, these nations should be VERY difficult to win at, though potentially.



_FASCISMS_
South Africa Fascism/Anarchy (not anti communist but not pro-Democracy either)
Col-Peru Communism/Republic (anti Mexio, anti Argentina, friendly to Soviets)
Arab Fascism/Democracy (anti-Israeli, and migh cooperate with other Fascisms to form an "axis of evil)
N. Viet Communism/Republic (friendly to Commies, aggressive to SE Asia)
Yugo Communism/Monarchy (friend to Pact, though not locked alliance, and has designs on Turkey)

_COMMUNISMS_
China Commie/Republic (tension with Japan, SE Asia, and India)

Playing China should be much like USSR, although with less focus on Expansion, and more on espionage, and tech. China as AI should be about equally driven to take some territory and to best her enemies through more sublt means. USSR should be pure expansionist. China should be MORE antagonistic toward SE Asia, and Japan than US.

Cuba and Pact remain pro Commie and anti Democracy


_REPUBLICS_
The idea for the Republic nations, are historically authoritarian nations whose democratic traditions were just forming, and were vulnerable to communist interference, and needed to be both won over, and protected at times by the West (or else preyed on by the East!). Many people do not realize it, but the threat of communist movements in places like Japan, India, and even West Germany continued to be a SERIOUS issue into the late 1960s. Pact can get ROPs with many of these, but US cannot, except Japan and SE Asia.

Arg-Chil Republic/Democracy (not "pro-Commie" but not also "pro-US, a true "swing" nation)
Japan Republic/Commie (not a locked alliance, but shared animosity with Commies, must be won over and mollified by US
India Republic/Feudal (arch enemy of Pakistan, not so anti-Commie as the Anglo powers)
Indones Republic/Democracy (like Arg, not a great buddy to US)
C Am. Republic/Fasci (more concerned about her S. Am neighbors than USSR, but in locked alliance with US)
C. Afric Republic/Fasci (also more concerned about her African neighbors than USSR, can be won over by either side)
SE Asia Republic/Commie (similar to Japan, BUT with a very antagonistic neighbor in N. Viet)
Indonesia Republic/Democracy (not particularly friendly to anyone other than other 3rd World nations)

Re: Mexico, might be VERY good to have a small, but overly powerful relative to its size Fascist nation (Panama, Nicaragua?) to act as an irritant in Meso America. In this instance, having Panama as a strait city controlled by US. but threatened by the surrounding Fascist state might be good, and some Mexican VP locations and resources for the bad guys to go after too?

re: Africa, I think diversification of Africa into more smaller tribes is in order, though no idea how this would impact the game, or if it is even possible. For example, by collapsing UK into "Commonwealth" this would open up several slots. Then a "Botswana" city, owned by the Commonwealth, and a Falklands city owned by Commonwealth (and lusted for by RSA and Argentina respectively) could be set up. Likewise a French holding someplace in N. Africa, and/or West Africa could be established. Then, with these opened slots, the current "Central Africa" could be diversified into a number of non-aligned states, that are highly vulnerable to Soviet influence, else N. African, or Arab Imperialism. These colonies should have VPs, and a resource to make them longed for by the 3rd World AI, and represent a security maintenance issue for the Colonial Powers.

Differentiation of S. Korea and S. Vietnam would be good I think. Also, whatever is necessary to insure that Korea gets invaded by China before 1955 should be done on the map/civs, whatever. Korea should HAPPEN. Likewise, Vietnam should HAPPEN, and it would be neat if it involved an effort by the N. Vietnamese to "drive out" Western influence, as it actually was in real life. This might be facilitated by having a US military base (or two, with VPs and a resource or two for the N. Viet to covet) in S. Vietnam, and having S. Vietnam be a separte non-aligned vulnerable nation.



_MONARCHIES_
Spain Monarch/Commie (generally friendly to West, but not a locked ally)
Turkey Monarch/Fasci (tension with Arabs, and with Yugo)
Scandinav Monarchy/Anarchy (slightly wishy-washy about anti-Communism, and vulnerable to Soviet propaganda)

_DEMOCRACIES_
Italy Demo/Feudalism (to reflect pro-Commie elements in 1950s) more antagonistic toward Ethiopia historically
Brazil Democracy/Republic (tension with Argentina)
Greece Democracy/Fascism (tension with Yugo)
US, UK, France, Israel, W Germany, all remain pro Democracy/Communism shunned

MIGHT be appropriate to make UK an Monarchy, not sure . . .

hello there Tank_Guy#3

i would do as the others have said and try to DL the file again. it's worked well in the past.

Thanks for your help. By the way, this scenario looks awesome :goodjob: .

Uh, I tried before posting. But after I posted the above lines and tried it again, it ran. Yes, it does have fast-a$$ turn speeds :p .

Hi guys,

To celebrate getting a job interview yesterday, I've spent way too much time fiddling with settings in the editor.

Re: starting flak, what I wanted to do was give a basic fighter plane instead, but that was not an option. I'd just like to make it less easy for human in SP game to decimate the AI by bombing tiles. Glad my suggestions are helpful :), though some of them may be complete dead-ends or completely unuseful as I know much less about the delicacies of balance than you guys. So anything I post, just consider it as food for thought. Ultimately I think you guys will have the better estimate as to whether something will work or not, but newcomers sometimes have useful new ideas.

Re: the nuke war, I lost probably 15 or 25 marines and tanks trying to take Moscow, and Ashbagad (which the Russians had taken from Iran). I hit Leningr, Moscow, Ashbagad, Gurjev, Mashbad, and Yaroslavl with nukes then moved forward stacks of like 12 marines to Mashbad, and like 15 mod inf, 15 M-60s, & a corps to Moscow. Think I hit Moscow w/ two tac nukes, Yaroslavl with the ICBM, and the others with one or two tac nukes each. Also hit Nigeria with one tac nuke. I had my fleet of 30 or so Aardvarks in Africa, and used them and about 20 M-60s, 6 M-113s, 12 marines, and 2 corps to take control of Africa. When my stacks went to take Moscow and Mashbad, the marines in Mashbad were totally decimated by maybe 4 or 5 still remaining soviet APCs that were in the red. I managed to take Moscow, but lost probably 10 units there too. Didn't have many losses at all in taking Central Africa.

This may be a complete dead-end that you guys have already experienced, but I wanted to see if it was possible to make the Cold War a bit less "hot" by changing the alliances and goverments. I've made a mod to your mod (including the AA and AI startup changes I noted above) that I'll be happy to post if folks wanna check it out. Have not had a chance to play it yet, but started up as US and Russia, and the domestic advisor econ numbers at start look okay. Have not added or removed any tribes, units, bldgs, wonders or anything like that, just changing numbers in the editor. Here is what I did:

Set all govts to no Maintenance required, to speed up game play. To balance this out, and ALSO speed up game play (and reduce hot war incidence) also raised unit support costs dramatically) and allowed units for diff govts (see below).

For US there are 117 starting units and 136 total allowed with the starting array of 21 communities (based on my count of five, 12, and 4 towns, cities, and metros respectively). Assuming no additional cities, at maximum population growth the US total units allowed could go up to 231 units at no cost (11units/metro*21 communities), and 25gp per unit over that. Given that I was making about 5000 gp per turn in my game, I do not think this is too much, and it will force the AI to be more defensive against a human Warsaw, and force the human to be more strategic against an AI Warsaw.

For Pact there were a total 34 starting communities (18 towns, 13 cities, 2 metros) allowing at start up to 252 units at the very beginning. With no additional communities the Pact could have up to 374 units, and 10gp per unit over that. Not sure, but this seems like a fairly reasonable ratio, given that the communists have been much more militaristic focused, much more aggressive and interventionary, and have always maintained much larger arsenals and standing armies. I have not checked the implications that these numbers have for the other tribes, but I do not think anyone will be going into the red right off the bat.

Here are the new govt. stats, did not change the rush methods.

Cost per
GOVT Corrup Unit Town City Metro Police Draft
Anarch 6 0 0 0 0 0 0

Despot 5 5 4 5 6 2 2 xeno, resttle cost

Monarc 3 15 4 7 11 3 1
no trade bonus

Commi C 10 7 8 11 4 3

Repub 4 13 4 8 11 3 1

Democ 2 25 4 6 8 2 1 trade bonus (plus powerful Democracies get double-effect from wealth improvements)

Fascii 1 all units free 5 4 xeno, resettle cost

Feudal 4 7 7 9 10 4 3
greetings Anthropoid!

re the starting units:
it is an intersting idea w/ the interceptors and flak units. my first thought is that it'd be overwhelming in the SP version. i wouldn't really be able to give a more specific answer unless i tested it some.

it seems africa was much easier to take than russia. that's good i guess. the casulaty no's are still pretty high though.

i think that adjusting the maintenance costs for the buildings is a fantastic idea. no doubt it'll chop even more time off the wait times. i would like to experiment w/ this some for SP v1.6. great thinking!

i'm not sure i want to adjust the govt's for the civis. we've wrangled w/ the alliance set-up from one version to the next so that's always open for discussion. some of the set-ups, though, are pretty much set but we're always open minded.

one thing though that maybe nobody knows excpet me is that 2 civis and 2 only can change govt's in-game: Spain/Portugal and Central Africa

Sp/Port starts in Fascism and can actually switch to Democracy at any point in-game.

C Africa starts in Feudalism and can switch to Fascism

this is b/c each civi has both of the pre-assgined (free techs) dummy techs for the different govt's. i've never seen how it plays out in-game but i do know i set it up like this.

we'll have to look deeper into the maintenance costs and exact govt settings w/ the SP v1.6. my first thought is that an across the board ajustment like that may be detremental for the lesser civis. i know i had to do a lot of wrangling w/ some of the small civis in order to get them to be at least somewhat productive.

as for the ROPs, i think they need to be as simplistic as possible in order to be as little complicated as we can make it.

i agree that the "cyclic" nature of warfare is sort of weird but i'm afraid that is the nature of the beast (ie the civ3 game engine/declarations of war, etc).

a victory point win is real, real hard. iirc, the base VP locations for each of the "Big 2" alliances is at around 15-17 to start (initially occupy them from the start date). based on the pts that are awarded for them per turn, a civi must capture and hold 25 of them from beginning to end (c. 500 turns). now, this seems impossible. however, say you capture and hold 10 of them by the mid-game point (say 1970) and then go on to capture 10 more and hold each and every one from that point forward (10 more from 1970 onwards). at this point, you'd be close to the victory limit although i'm sure you see how hard that this would be.

altering all of those 'dummy techs' is a daunting task b/c most of them are in place for the flavor wonders.

i know that the current alliance set-up leaves something to be desired. however, there is some room for proxy wars as n vietnam is left out of all of the alliances as is india, and Arg/Chile/Bol. i think it'd be tough to stretch the alliances any further actually.

we tried leaving some civis out of the allaince loop like the Arab Lg, I/A/P, and Yugoslavia but to be honest, they consistantly got smeared by the soviets. it was like clock work, too, just about every playtest and there were many...the point is is that we put together much of the allainces mainly for gameplay reasons. granted, it's a compromise.

we also don't want to 'test' the AI as far as whether or not they'll be friendly to certain civis or not. remember, the AI is pretty dense.

i don't think it'd be worth it to add another civi to africa. there is one more spot left though for another civi but i can't think of a viable option to add in. one option already recommended was to give some colonial cities to some of the euro civis around the globe. i'm not too hip on this either. making S Korea or S Vietnam a seperate civi is unfeasable b/c of the map size.

great commentary Anthropoid and good luck w/ that interview!

Thanks for your help. By the way, this scenario looks awesome :goodjob: .

Uh, I tried before posting. But after I posted the above lines and tried it again, it ran. Yes, it does have fast-a$$ loading times :p .
good to see you got it working :goodjob:

MP update ~ 16 September

Kly is putting the finishing touches on it and he's to post it later today, probably tonight.

among the final additions:

all spec ops units are invisible & now have the pillage flag

all spy units 'see invisible' (same as before iirc)

we gave each civi 1 spec ops (where applicable) and at least 1 spy unit to start. this should make for interesting activity right from the outset.

here's what we ended up doing for this version and the AA no's:
1st gen-Flak: 10
2nd gen-SAM: 15
3rd gen-Duster:20~~SA13:18
4th gen-ZSU23:23~~Patriot:25

the bottom line: we ended up nudging only the 1st 2 gens up some and put the last 2 back at just about where they were before (v1.51). i guess what we really want more of is from the Flak unit in particular. plus, for the human MP version, i think it's more prudent to be cautious w/ nasty AA units. now, for the SP version, i'd be willing to bump up the AA no's a little b/c the AI isn't smart enough to build stacks of them.

costs for the AA units are moderate: 400 flak 600 sam
the high end ones are left the same iirc (700-999).

we also gave all helos 2 mvmt to make them worthy. i also bumped down their costs a little. trans capacity remains at 1 though. this was Anthropoid's suggestion iirc. :goodjob:

we did not mod the maintenance costs for this version. imo, it won't have an impact on game play b/c we're loading one turn at a time.

Ok, have the latest biq up that El Justo mentions in his post above. I don't know that the Spec Ops guys are invis, but they can certainly blow stuff up at this point. We can try it this way and see how it goes. The invis stuff might be a bit much, but we can judge later.

At any rate, I am ready to start the MP game we had set up. Looking forward to it..

Here is the link.

New MP biq (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3070796&postcount=2328)

El Justo, IIRC the ZSU 23 is a FlaK of the first generation.

Adler

ADDIT: SEE BELOW


Turn one of the PBEM has been finished by Anthropoid and sent on to El Justo.

Just curious, what do the Resources: "Europe, Scandinavia, EU, Greece, and Turkey" do for me, or someone with whom I might trade them? Is it intended that these can be traded?

El Justo, thanks for your comments by email about the myriad possible changes I dreamed up. Unfortunately, I think you guys are absolutely right about the alliances. How annoying this AI is! Within two turns, France was at war against Turkey, and Spain was at war with Scandinavia! :crazyeye:

Not sure the E2C plane is actually working like it is supposed to. It only seems to get one move in my version of 1.51 in my America-Demi-God game.

Re: possible changes to governments for the SP version. The only thing I'd suggest is considering making N. Vietnam, South Africa, and either Argentina or Columbia all non-aligned Fascisms, that do not have to pay military support or something like that. The idea being, a wild-card AI, that will build a large but technological 2nd or 3rd string military and cause problems. As it is, I think there is not enough action in Africa, SE Asia, and Latin America.

Thought you guys might find the following quote interesting. It is from "Secret Armies: Inside the American, Soviet, and European Special Forces" (1987) by James Adams, The Atlantic Monthly Press, New York.

"Small wars play a very significant role in contemporary international geo-politics. It has been estimated that in 1986 there were forty armed conflicts taking place, involving forty-five of the world's 165 nations. This figure, startling as it is, still does not adequately refletc the true situation: neither the isolated activities of terrorist groups nor the many brief but bloody attempts at revolution in Third World countries are included in it, since these are generally defined as being at a lower level of conflict than formal warfare."

I do not think it would be in error to increase the role of Special Forces, invisible units, etc. in either the SP or the MP version. In the "The Missing Links" mod, there are a number of invisible units buildable, and the AI does a pretty darn good (and annoying!) job of making use of these by building them in large numbers and picking at any unprotected workers, missionaries, or weak defending units.


ADDIT: also, I think that, the rate at which nukes are generated might need to be upped. At present, there is virtually no threat of nuclear holocaust. I've used up ALL of my nukes, and had only TWO cities be flattened (Miami in like 1951, and it has subsequently been regenerated to a massive, prosperous megalopolis, Riyadh in like 1965, and it is still devastated, and might never be fixed. All of the Soviet and Central African cities I hit, have most all the pollution cleaned up, but are still backwards as far as infrastructure. Part of what was distinctive about the Cold War period in history, is the importance of small proxy wars, not full-scale tank division sieges, and fleets of strategic bombers. The AI should have enough nukes that it can TRULY threaten global devastation if the human player gets a tad too pushy. Related to this, I think the Democracies should have to deal with more corruption. My African, Middle Eastern and Russian cities under control should be nearly as much of a liability as they are a benefit, but in fact, they are contributing in a BIG way to my economics, and even some of them are creating units periodically. I think my economy is super-SUPER strong, and some adjustments to make that a bit less of a boon for the human may be in order. I am making like 6000gp per turn, AND finishing Techs in 6 turns. I'm rushing loads of units, and not even bothering much to build infrastructure in the more distant parts of my empire now.

Here is a report on my America SP game, on Demi-God diffulty: Oct 1968 The Russians only control two towns west of the Urals: Murmansk and Archange'lsk. The Scandinavians (with lots of air support from US) took a strip of towns down toward Yarsolavl and all the way to Sverklovsk and Nivzhiny. US controls Rostov, Mashbad, Ashbagat, Kashi, and Yinchuan.

US is at war with China, and moving a stack of a corps, 20 M-60s, ~10 marines, 7 Apaches, 36 aardvarks, 10 F-15s, 5 F-14s, 10 A-10s, and sundry M-113s, and modern infantry deeper into Chinease territory. I have an invasion force of about 12 marines, 12 M-60s, 7 CVs, 7 DDs, 10 mod inf, 6 airborne, etc., ready to move in on Argentina when it is convenient. Shortly after my last report, the Russians used there last remaining ICBM to cream Riyadh. We're losing some forest to global warming about every 5 turn or so I'd guess. Central Africa is down to only Madagascar.

The capitalist pigs have about 84% of population, and about 68% of land. Need 85 of pop and 80 of land to win a Domination win. Figure I can win it before 1973. I'm only getting about 1% of land area per two cities conquested, so this one might just involve complete Capitalist Pig Domination of all the non=aligned nations.

Can everyone please post when they post their turns and possibly combat results in the "Nuclear Winter" PBEM thread. It makes tracking the game easier, and helps stop a game from dying. It also has the added benefit of not cluttering up this thread!

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=128628 is the thread.

Thank You!

El Justo, thanks for your comments by email about the myriad possible changes I dreamed up. Unfortunately, I think you guys are absolutely right about the alliances. How annoying this AI is! Within two turns, France was at war against Turkey, and Spain was at war with Scandinavia! :crazyeye:


The AI in most cases decleares war because of the "submarine bug". I turned the invisible flag for submarines off and there was no war for years.
There is also a possibility to make the AI start wars when you want it to. Just create an invisible, immobile unit owned by "South-East-Asia" for example in North Korea. After several turns the China AI will attack this unit and will start the war.
This could be a chance to trigger wars. For example give North Vietnam later in the game the possibility to build invisible scouts with low attack and defense stats. Maybe they will walk in the South Vietnam territory and the AI will then "accidentally" attack that scout and start a vietnam war. I didnt test that but this would be a very interesting idea to trigger wars in scenarios.

ADDIT: SEE BELOW


Turn one of the PBEM has been finished by Anthropoid and sent on to El Justo.

Just curious, what do the Resources: "Europe, Scandinavia, EU, Greece, and Turkey" do for me, or someone with whom I might trade them? Is it intended that these can be traded?



OK Anthropoid, if you are not playing Europe, they are not any good to you. Certain units, or wonders, need these resources to be built. Not sure which ones, but I have seen that in the past for stuff in this scenario.
No one you trade with can use them either.

The AI in most cases decleares war because of the "submarine bug". I turned the invisible flag for submarines off and there was no war for years.
There is also a possibility to make the AI start wars when you want it to. Just create an invisible, immobile unit owned by "South-East-Asia" for example in North Korea. After several turns the China AI will attack this unit and will start the war.
This could be a chance to trigger wars. For example give North Vietnam later in the game the possibility to build invisible scouts with low attack and defense stats. Maybe they will walk in the South Vietnam territory and the AI will then "accidentally" attack that scout and start a vietnam war. I didnt test that but this would be a very interesting idea to trigger wars in scenarios.

That is an awesome idea Surtur! I think I'll try that!

El Justo, IIRC the ZSU 23 is a FlaK of the first generation.

Adler
thanks Adler. i'll take a look at it.

btw, how are the maps coming along?

ADDIT: SEE BELOW


Turn one of the PBEM has been finished by Anthropoid and sent on to El Justo.

Just curious, what do the Resources: "Europe, Scandinavia, EU, Greece, and Turkey" do for me, or someone with whom I might trade them? Is it intended that these can be traded?

El Justo, thanks for your comments by email about the myriad possible changes I dreamed up. Unfortunately, I think you guys are absolutely right about the alliances. How annoying this AI is! Within two turns, France was at war against Turkey, and Spain was at war with Scandinavia! :crazyeye:

Not sure the E2C plane is actually working like it is supposed to. It only seems to get one move in my version of 1.51 in my America-Demi-God game.

Re: possible changes to governments for the SP version. The only thing I'd suggest is considering making N. Vietnam, South Africa, and either Argentina or Columbia all non-aligned Fascisms, that do not have to pay military support or something like that. The idea being, a wild-card AI, that will build a large but technological 2nd or 3rd string military and cause problems. As it is, I think there is not enough action in Africa, SE Asia, and Latin America.

Thought you guys might find the following quote interesting. It is from "Secret Armies: Inside the American, Soviet, and European Special Forces" (1987) by James Adams, The Atlantic Monthly Press, New York.

"Small wars play a very significant role in contemporary international geo-politics. It has been estimated that in 1986 there were forty armed conflicts taking place, involving forty-five of the world's 165 nations. This figure, startling as it is, still does not adequately refletc the true situation: neither the isolated activities of terrorist groups nor the many brief but bloody attempts at revolution in Third World countries are included in it, since these are generally defined as being at a lower level of conflict than formal warfare."

I do not think it would be in error to increase the role of Special Forces, invisible units, etc. in either the SP or the MP version. In the "The Missing Links" mod, there are a number of invisible units buildable, and the AI does a pretty darn good (and annoying!) job of making use of these by building them in large numbers and picking at any unprotected workers, missionaries, or weak defending units.


ADDIT: also, I think that, the rate at which nukes are generated might need to be upped. At present, there is virtually no threat of nuclear holocaust. I've used up ALL of my nukes, and had only TWO cities be flattened (Miami in like 1951, and it has subsequently been regenerated to a massive, prosperous megalopolis, Riyadh in like 1965, and it is still devastated, and might never be fixed. All of the Soviet and Central African cities I hit, have most all the pollution cleaned up, but are still backwards as far as infrastructure. Part of what was distinctive about the Cold War period in history, is the importance of small proxy wars, not full-scale tank division sieges, and fleets of strategic bombers. The AI should have enough nukes that it can TRULY threaten global devastation if the human player gets a tad too pushy. Related to this, I think the Democracies should have to deal with more corruption. My African, Middle Eastern and Russian cities under control should be nearly as much of a liability as they are a benefit, but in fact, they are contributing in a BIG way to my economics, and even some of them are creating units periodically. I think my economy is super-SUPER strong, and some adjustments to make that a bit less of a boon for the human may be in order. I am making like 6000gp per turn, AND finishing Techs in 6 turns. I'm rushing loads of units, and not even bothering much to build infrastructure in the more distant parts of my empire now.

Here is a report on my America SP game, on Demi-God diffulty: Oct 1968 The Russians only control two towns west of the Urals: Murmansk and Archange'lsk. The Scandinavians (with lots of air support from US) took a strip of towns down toward Yarsolavl and all the way to Sverklovsk and Nivzhiny. US controls Rostov, Mashbad, Ashbagat, Kashi, and Yinchuan.

US is at war with China, and moving a stack of a corps, 20 M-60s, ~10 marines, 7 Apaches, 36 aardvarks, 10 F-15s, 5 F-14s, 10 A-10s, and sundry M-113s, and modern infantry deeper into Chinease territory. I have an invasion force of about 12 marines, 12 M-60s, 7 CVs, 7 DDs, 10 mod inf, 6 airborne, etc., ready to move in on Argentina when it is convenient. Shortly after my last report, the Russians used there last remaining ICBM to cream Riyadh. We're losing some forest to global warming about every 5 turn or so I'd guess. Central Africa is down to only Madagascar.

The capitalist pigs have about 84% of population, and about 68% of land. Need 85 of pop and 80 of land to win a Domination win. Figure I can win it before 1973. I'm only getting about 1% of land area per two cities conquested, so this one might just involve complete Capitalist Pig Domination of all the non=aligned nations.
Anthropoid,

those country resources you refer to offer modest bonuses like +1 food, +1 luxury, and +1 commerce (most of them at least). they're in the game primarily for the flavor infantry units.

i'll have to look at the EC2 thing. it's claim to fame should be the extra move.

i would love to diversify the govt settings and maybe even add some into the mix and give the AI or human the option of switching to a like-minded govt. caution should be used w/ the support costs mainly b/c if one govt has a 'zero' maintenance cost then they'd switch to this govt real quick and never change back. however, i'd be interested to look a little further ito the govt settings and the like for subsequent versions.

it is terribly difficult to simulate many of the historical wars during this perios. i mean, sure, we'll get a few of them right and some will even occur at similar dates. however, w/ the alliances tying our hands somewhat, we're forced to kinda wing it and see how the AI responds (or doesn't respond).

nuke production could always be nudged up. i'll look into that.

the corruption settings for the Democracy govt could also be altered. i'd have to look into it though. as for war weariness...Democracy has the highest setting iirc. happiness factors, though, are kinda thrown out the window since i minimalized the impact of this feature in TCW (ie rioting, luxuries coming in, etc).

that's good to see allied Scandinavia take some cities w/ your help.

how has china fared against the soviets (up to now that is)?

nice diversification of your forces, too...

The AI in most cases decleares war because of the "submarine bug". I turned the invisible flag for submarines off and there was no war for years.
There is also a possibility to make the AI start wars when you want it to. Just create an invisible, immobile unit owned by "South-East-Asia" for example in North Korea. After several turns the China AI will attack this unit and will start the war.
This could be a chance to trigger wars. For example give North Vietnam later in the game the possibility to build invisible scouts with low attack and defense stats. Maybe they will walk in the South Vietnam territory and the AI will then "accidentally" attack that scout and start a vietnam war. I didnt test that but this would be a very interesting idea to trigger wars in scenarios.
hi Surtur.

those are some neat ideas you have there...however, removing the 'invisible' flag from the subs would do a great disservice to the naval warfare aspect of the scenario. iow, it essentially makes naval transit wayyyy easier. plus, it'd render building subs as useless b/c of all of the rest of the surface vessels that can be built. this is the main reason i flagged them as invisible...ie, to give them a 'raison d'etre'.

i wouldn't change this for the subs for my versions but you're completely free to do as you wish for your game(s). :)

i would like to see how the invisible land unit method you desribed works out in testing. to be able to 'trigger' wars may definitely be a good thing...

hi Surtur.

those are some neat ideas you have there...however, removing the 'invisible' flag from the subs would do a great disservice to the naval warfare aspect of the scenario. iow, it essentially makes naval transit wayyyy easier. plus, it'd render building subs as useless b/c of all of the rest of the surface vessels that can be built. this is the main reason i flagged them as invisible...ie, to give them a 'raison d'etre'.

i wouldn't change this for the subs for my versions but you're completely free to do as you wish for your game(s). :)


I completely understand your point here. It's just a shame that the submarine bug was never fixed in civ 3 :(.
Anyway thank you for this great scenario. I'm really enjoying it :crazyeye: . I made some changes for my version trying to increase realism. First I placed the immobile invisible units to start wars in korea and india/pakistan. This works quite well in the beginning. I also changed the situation in Africa, added 2 cities and gave some to the european colonists. Also placed some vp there. I gave Central Africa a small wonder buildable in the 50s or 60s which produces some offensive units who have the "unknown owner" flag. I hope they will conquer or destroy cities in Africa without starting wars to simulate the independences of most African states. Didn't play as long to test this. I also wanted to simulate the delivery of arms in the cold war. So I gave the Warsaw Pact and the US a unique resource which they can trade with other states. States who have this resource can build some of the soviet (or US) weapons/tanks/airforce cheaper and maybe earlier without researching the required tech. I am not so sure how to balance this right and which weapons were used in delivery of arms. However this would be an interesting possibility to support countries who are not in your alliance without starting your own war. Maybe this could also be interesting for your multiplayer version.
Again thank you for this great scenario :goodjob: .

I am short on time right now. Sorry, I could not have a look yet.

Adler

hi Surtur.

those are some neat ideas you have there...however, removing the 'invisible' flag from the subs would do a great disservice to the naval warfare aspect of the scenario. iow, it essentially makes naval transit wayyyy easier. plus, it'd render building subs as useless b/c of all of the rest of the surface vessels that can be built. this is the main reason i flagged them as invisible...ie, to give them a 'raison d'etre'.

i wouldn't change this for the subs for my versions but you're completely free to do as you wish for your game(s). :)

i would like to see how the invisible land unit method you desribed works out in testing. to be able to 'trigger' wars may definitely be a good thing...

I did accidentally trigger a war with invisble units. US were marching Sherman's across my country to get to China, who they were at war with. I was not thinking sharp, and parked a Spetsnaz in front of them. They ran into it, just like a sub. Started a nasty war I did not want.

Anthropoid,

that's good to see allied Scandinavia take some cities w/ your help.

how has china fared against the soviets (up to now that is)?

nice diversification of your forces, too...

Yeah, Scandinavia has been kicking butt!

China and Soviets did not appear to have lost or gained anything from each other. Soviets had taken one city (Mashbad?) from Iran, and that is about it except for Scandinavia, and a couple Russian cities Britain took.

Re: the sub issue, I'm gonna try it for the SP game and see what I can do. True, for an MP game, subs obviously should be invisible, but for SP, given that AI "KNOWS" they're there ANYWAY (but then "ACTS" like it doesn't know they're there, and runs into them "accidentally !?! :crazyeye: ) it seems moot if the human player's are invisible. And as far as the AI having or using subs, I do not think I have EVER seen the AI use modern naval units in ANYTHING remotely resembling a smart tactic, so it would seem to be largely moot for that too.

The general idea I'm coming to for this mod is that, maximizing realism at least at the outset, might be a tad easier by focusing on getting all the editor settings "right" for only ONE of the human playable tribes. The incredible work you guys have done El Justo totally sets up for this to be done! So, I'm kinda messing around, trying to adjust things so that it is set up good for the human to play America.

Re: the sub issue, I'm gonna try it for the SP game and see what I can do. True, for an MP game, subs obviously should be invisible, but for SP, given that AI "KNOWS" they're there ANYWAY (but then "ACTS" like it doesn't know they're there, and runs into them "accidentally !?! :crazyeye: ) it seems moot if the human player's are invisible. And as far as the AI having or using subs, I do not think I have EVER seen the AI use modern naval units in ANYTHING remotely resembling a smart tactic, so it would seem to be largely moot for that too.

The general idea I'm coming to for this mod is that, maximizing realism at least at the outset, might be a tad easier by focusing on getting all the editor settings "right" for only ONE of the human playable tribes. The incredible work you guys have done El Justo totally sets up for this to be done! So, I'm kinda messing around, trying to adjust things so that it is set up good for the human to play America.

Naturally, I am biased, but I will disagree with your points about subs, and agree to disagree about the realism issue.

First, I find that subs are used quite well by the AI, except when it comes to building missile boats and loading them with tactical nukes.
Outside of that tactic, albeit a very powerful tactic, the AI does a good job with subs. I have played WP and China many, many times to see my naval fleets wiped out by subs of the AI.

Second, I am not sure what you mean about getting the settings "right" for one civ in the SP game. The game was set up so any human player had his hand full against the AI. Naturally, any human is a far, far better adversary than the AI, but at higher levels in the game (I usually play demigod) , the AI puts up a major fight. I have played China, Israel, WP, UK, Japan, Australia, Canada, US, and Indonesia at various times through the game, and found all of the positions quite challenging. Maybe it is my style of play, and maybe because I was playing to test for bugs, but I have always had a great time playingf the game.

Maybe with the MP we are embarking on we shall really see the depth of this scenario. With 8 human players, I am really hoping that is the case.

On the submarine bug:

This question have been discussed in the WW2-Global thread time
to time. My position still is:

No doubt submarines will cause wars, however not so many wars as
some thinks. I know from my personal mod that AI often declares war
for no reason and without logic.

Rocoteh

...for no reason and without logic.

Rocoteh

That perfectly describes Civ3's AI.

Second, I am not sure what you mean about getting the settings "right" for one civ in the SP game. The game was set up so any human player had his hand full against the AI.

I think (I hope anyway! ;) ) that you guys realize I am VERY appreciative of your work, and of the challenges involved in making a scenario like the "Cold War" using the C3C game engine. You guys have done an incredible job balancing the units, the production rates, the map, and many other aspects of the mod.

But, don't take this the wrong way, it is NOT a realistic scenario. As an interesting, "what-if" alternative to history, it is probably the best mod I've ever seen, but as a realistic simulation of history, in which a savvy human can _BARELY_, through great insight, planning, and attention to detail, alter the course of history (and avoid being defeated by the AI) it is not on the mark yet. IMO, an optimally balanced historical SP scenario should not be about "what method will YOU CHOOSE to win against the AI," but about "CAN YOU figure out how NOT to lose, against the AI?"

Consider the "Rise of Rome" scenario. It is not easy to win as Rome even on Monarch setting, let alone Emperor. Some of the other ones are not so hard, but that one to me is the gold standard. Simply accomplishing the realworld historical successes of the central figure in the historical scenario should not be the least bit easy for the human, let alone a foregone conclusion, based on a single early game action (which in the case of my single game on Demi-God as US, was a preemptive nuclear strike on Warsaw). Maybe it is simply not possible to simulate perfectly the realities of the Cold War, OR, maybe _IF_ the US HAD performed a preemptive first strike, she COULD have won the Cold War through aggression :p It is an interesting question, which is unfortunately central to this issue of "realism vs. playability," as well as the practicalities of actual editor settings and AI limitations.

First off, the Cold War was between the USSR and the USA. All the rest were teammates and intriguers of these two quarterbacks. IMO, the other tribes should be largely irrelevant for the primary structure of the mod and settings. I really do not want to be presumptive, but my view is that getting things "balanced" for the other tribes would be a followup issues as far as the SP game goes. Thus, there should be two versions of the SP game, one in which the human plays USA (and the editor settings are adjusted so that the AI controls all the other tribes in a way that makes it challenging for the human playing USA), one in which the human plays USSR (and the editor settings are adjusted so that the AI controls all the other tribes in a way that makes it challenging for the human playing USSR). Additional versions could be created for the other tribes too, but it seems kinda pointless to play one of the platoon corporals or privates, instead of one of the sergeant majors. The key point here is that, having editor settings set up so that it is challenging for a human to play the US should be in some ways mutually exclusive to the settings which would make it challenging for the human to play USSR.

For the USA version, everyone except basically UK, Australia, and Canada (and even THAT is debatable given the historical significance of Trudeau!) should be _vulnerable_ to the spread of communism. Vice versa for the USSR version, everyone except perhaps Arab League should be vulnerable to the lure of capitalist imperialism.

Again, do not take this the wrong way. I LOVE this scenario, and I have had a LOT of fun playing with it (and very much looking forward to playing it a lot more). I am incredibly congratulatory, and admiring of the awesome work you guys have done. All the pieces are there (well most of them anyway, there are no terrorists, and special forces are not sufficiently represented IMHO). IMHO, the pieces are simply not adjusted properly yet, at least for the SP game. I'd say for the MP game, things are probably more right. But that is just my guess.

Unfortunately, in my changing of the mod, I've somehow changed something that needed an ANIMNAME file that it cannot find, and now it crashes :blush: I hope my lack of ability to accomplish the incredible work you guys HAVE already done does not mean that my comments are hypocritical. I cannot even begin to do what you guys have done in getting things set right in the editor. But as a player, I was able to beat the AI on Demi-God playing US far too easily, and it is this that I am saying indicates an impetus to alter things to "be more realistic." And then of course, there is always the issue of the stupid AI, which we will never be able to overcome for C3C, as well as the issue that C4 will be out soon, and some or all of those AI difficulties might be circumventable with that much more moddable engine.

I do not think it can be said too many times: thanks again for the fun scenario guys :goodjob:

After the long months you guys have spent working on this, it is a testament to your patience, dedication, and character that you are still friends with one another, AND still engaged in a discussion about the project AT ALL!! :p Most lesser men would have gotten disgusted and given up a _LONG_ time ago (e.g., _me_ with my American Revolution mod :( ). The fact that you ARE still engaged in discussion, suggests to me that you guys remain interested in feedback, and in the possibility that the mod could be made even better than it already is, and my comments are intended to provide constructive feedback, to quench your apparent thirsts to keep improving it.

I completely understand your point here. It's just a shame that the submarine bug was never fixed in civ 3 :(.
Anyway thank you for this great scenario. I'm really enjoying it :crazyeye: . I made some changes for my version trying to increase realism. First I placed the immobile invisible units to start wars in korea and india/pakistan. This works quite well in the beginning. I also changed the situation in Africa, added 2 cities and gave some to the european colonists. Also placed some vp there. I gave Central Africa a small wonder buildable in the 50s or 60s which produces some offensive units who have the "unknown owner" flag. I hope they will conquer or destroy cities in Africa without starting wars to simulate the independences of most African states. Didn't play as long to test this. I also wanted to simulate the delivery of arms in the cold war. So I gave the Warsaw Pact and the US a unique resource which they can trade with other states. States who have this resource can build some of the soviet (or US) weapons/tanks/airforce cheaper and maybe earlier without researching the required tech. I am not so sure how to balance this right and which weapons were used in delivery of arms. However this would be an interesting possibility to support countries who are not in your alliance without starting your own war. Maybe this could also be interesting for your multiplayer version.
Again thank you for this great scenario :goodjob: .
hey Surtur.

no problems mate and thanks for the nice remarks.

yes, i'm afraid that what Rocoteh writes about subs in civ3 is true. i couldn't have written it any better :lol:

i'd use caution w/ the immobile units as we discovered that the AI will moronically try to load these units onto transports or helos. now, it's been suggested that that when the AI tries to do this, the game engine shuts down and locks up [i've seen it as have others & it ain't pretty b/c once it occurs, you're screwed]. as such, we've removed all immobile units from the game.

however, so long as your immobile units aren't near a coastal tile or in a city then you're okay b/c the AI can't get the hardware there to load them (try to at least).

your method of resources for the US and soviets is interesting. however, rearranging all of the build ques like that would take a good deal of time. as it now stands, almost all of the civis can build one form of american, soviet, chinese, french, or even brazilian hardware. but please feel free to mod it to your tastes. again, i have no problems w/ that... :)

On the submarine bug:

This question have been discussed in the WW2-Global thread time
to time. My position still is:

No doubt submarines will cause wars, however not so many wars as
some thinks. I know from my personal mod that AI often declares war
for no reason and without logic.

Rocoteh
yes Rocoteh. i have noticed similar results.

i think that what I_Batman writes that the existing set up for the subs is working nicely.

my take is this:

the Cold War saw the advent of the long range submarine (and the SSBN). some could even say that subs were the backbone of the Cold War.

anyway, my point is that subs absolutely, positively must be a significant feature of any cold war game. no? well, the old way we had it (no 'invisible' flag) made subs just about useless. i mean, hell, i'd rather build 'meself a Spruance class DD than have some low-end sub unit w/ awful D. well, this all changed for v1.5 onwards b/c all subs have the 'invisible' flag now as well as the 'see invisible' flag which was subsequently removed from many of the surface vessels (not all though). some may question the histroical accuracy of such a set up. i point directly to the awesome gameplay results that this method has produced. accordingly, i am willing to compromise the accuracy a smidge in favor of boosted naval gameplay.

yes Rocoteh. i have noticed similar results.

i think that what I_Batman writes that the existing set up for the subs is working nicely.

my take is this:

the Cold War saw the advent of the long range submarine (and the SSBN). some could even say that subs were the backbone of the Cold War.

anyway, my point is that subs absolutely, positively must be a significant feature of any cold war game. no? well, the old way we had it (no 'invisible' flag) made subs just about useless. i mean, hell, i'd rather build 'meself a Spruance class DD than have some low-end sub unit w/ awful D. well, this all changed for v1.5 onwards b/c all subs have the 'invisible' flag now as well as the 'see invisible' flag which was subsequently removed from many of the surface vessels (not all though). some may question the histroical accuracy of such a set up. i point directly to the awesome gameplay results that this method has produced. accordingly, i am willing to compromise the accuracy a smidge in favor of boosted naval gameplay.

El Justo,

I think submarines were invisible in version 1.1.

As you say SSN:s, SSBN:s, and submarines were the backbone of the major
powers fleets during the Cold War.
(With the exception of US of course.)
I think it was around 1985 SSN:s and submarines were promoted
to the first place in Janes Fighting Ships.

No doubt submarines must be invisible.

Rocoteh

yes Rocoteh. i have noticed similar results.

i think that what I_Batman writes that the existing set up for the subs is working nicely.

my take is this:

the Cold War saw the advent of the long range submarine (and the SSBN). some could even say that subs were the backbone of the Cold War.

anyway, my point is that subs absolutely, positively must be a significant feature of any cold war game. no? well, the old way we had it (no 'invisible' flag) made subs just about useless. i mean, hell, i'd rather build 'meself a Spruance class DD than have some low-end sub unit w/ awful D. well, this all changed for v1.5 onwards b/c all subs have the 'invisible' flag now as well as the 'see invisible' flag which was subsequently removed from many of the surface vessels (not all though). some may question the histroical accuracy of such a set up. i point directly to the awesome gameplay results that this method has produced. accordingly, i am willing to compromise the accuracy a smidge in favor of boosted naval gameplay.

The subs are definitely key to the game, if you want naval domination.
We have all seen the AI cheat and bomb the crap out of surface ships, but for some reason the same AI can't "see" the subs, and will ignore them when it comes to bombing.
I am speaking about subs that have not been detected by a sub of the AI.
If an AI sub is close enough see my subs, the AI definitely bombs them out.

If the invisible flag was removed, subs would be a complete waste to build.

As I stated earlier, the one game engine downfall, that we just can't get around, is that the AI cannot intelligently use its SSBN's. If they do build one, which is rare, it is sent out to see without any tactical nukes or cruise missiles.

At least I have yet to see a missile attack from a AI SSBN. If anybody else has, I would love to hear about it.

ADDIT: One last point, then I'll shut up about the subs. Sorry if I am coming across as preachy or as an opinionated newby. Correct me if I'm not quite right here, but aren't navies about (1) protecting trade, (2) extending power, i.e., monitoring an adversaries movements, and protecting ground force transportation, and bombardment units (BBs, CAs, CVs, and the missile boats in this mod).

Because Firaxis took out the possibility of ANY resources that HAVE to be transported to allow things to operate or be built, the salience of (1), the PRIMARY salience of navies is made moot. The only thing transports can carry are workers, settlers, military units, and princess/treasure units, thus, the mechant marine networks on which subs (as well as pirate ships) preyed historically have been eliminated. Thus, non-missile subs are more or less irrelvant in the game, except as lurkers that have a minute chance of sinking an expensive ship, that is disproportionate in value, i.e., a cheap shot.

I've pondered how it might be possible to reset treasure units to at least have SOMETHING that HAD to be transported, and thus could be preyed on by pirates or subs, and thus give pirates and subs a raison d'etre, but apart from treasure units that either give VP or gold, I cannot think of anything. Thus, in order for this to be made salient, the transports would have to become a critical part of transporting enough VP or gold to make a win a possibility, and this has implications for a whole host of other settings, economy, map, shield production, etc.

Thus, we are faced with the paradox. If subs are to be made "realistic," virtually the entire game ecology has to be modded! :rolleyes: Consequently, I can definitely see the reasonable conclusion that subs should just be left alone, and accept that stupid wars might occur as a result of the AI ramming them.

I see your point about the subs El Justo, and you are absolutely right that subs eventually became the primary medium for the nuclear deterrent. However, that was not until the mid-1970s. The MX was still a major issue in the 1980s, and they were going to spend BILLIONs on that underground railway system to be able to move something like 200 MX missiles between 23 different sites. In the end, the SSBNs were realized as a much more efficient solution to making nuke proliferation essentially pointless.

Does the AI actually load nukes onto its subs? Even if it does, would it ever fire a missle in such a way as to surprise the human? If not, then the issue of subs being invisible as a benefit for the AI in SP games seems relatively moot.

I have no idea to what degree the sub bug accounts for the stupid AI wars; Surtur would have to clarify what he meant by "no wars for many years" when he took away the invisibility for subs.

One solution to this would be, make the nuke carrying subs invisible, but not the others, and make the nuke carrying subs have a very low attack or something, to keep the AI from using them for anything except nuke toting/lurking?

Potential options to make non-missile subs tactical and strategic value salient, although eliminating invisiblity MIGHT be: give them ZOC, up their attack values so that they actually have an excellent chance of sinking ships, give them enough movement that they can pop out, attack, and pop back to a port, or hiding spot, BUT make them have a chance of just plain SINKING if they end their turn in ocean or sea? (this would reflect the weakness of subs to the picket ships that would be accompanying the convoys/squadrons that are represented in the game as single ship icons. Part of helping this would be to make the later subs have more and more stealth targets?

After all, the whole point of the invisibility is that the unit can _SIT THERE_ despite a passing enemy, and NOT be seen. Units that are outside a culture's visible range are invisible anyway.

The strategic implications of the missile and attack subs are respectively: (a) provide a platform for short-range nukes to get close to an enemy territory; (b1) surprise an enemy ship, transport or fleet, and (b2) be able to sink enemy ships selectively, and with a success ratio that is disproportionate to the subs shield cost, and survivability, in short a cheap shot.

A and B1 might be achieved by giving subs LARGE movement points. B2 is achieved with the stealth attacks.

Other benefits of this system would be: 1) subs are NOT historically surveillance vessels, but because they have invisible, the human tends to use them as such; 2) subs are NOT blockaders, nor picket ships, but because they have invisible, again the human uses them that way; 3) subs historically had the ability to dash in, attack, and then dash away, but could NOT stand up to a direct fight very well, and would have to return to port or a rendezvous in order to resupply, also related to this, they did not historically cruise submerged most of the time; 4) sub interdiction historically, was as much about intelligence deriving from where a sub was based, than it was about combing vast tracks of ocean with "see invisible" units. Thus forcing subs to return to a port or coast (where they are readily visible using the espionage screen to investigate city) at the end of every turn, else risk sinking might more accurately represent the actual intelligence parameters of attack subs.

I think (I hope anyway! ;) ) that you guys realize I am VERY appreciative of your work, and of the challenges involved in making a scenario like the "Cold War" using the C3C game engine. You guys have done an incredible job balancing the units, the production rates, the map, and many other aspects of the mod.

But, don't take this the wrong way, it is NOT a realistic scenario. As an interesting, "what-if" alternative to history, it is probably the best mod I've ever seen, but as a realistic simulation of history, in which a savvy human can _BARELY_, through great insight, planning, and attention to detail, alter the course of history (and avoid being defeated by the AI) it is not on the mark yet. IMO, an optimally balanced historical SP scenario should not be about "what method will YOU CHOOSE to win against the AI," but about "CAN YOU figure out how NOT to lose, against the AI?"

Consider the "Rise of Rome" scenario. It is not easy to win as Rome even on Monarch setting, let alone Emperor. Some of the other ones are not so hard, but that one to me is the gold standard. Simply accomplishing the realworld historical successes of the central figure in the historical scenario should not be the least bit easy for the human, let alone a foregone conclusion, based on a single early game action (which in the case of my single game on Demi-God as US, was a preemptive nuclear strike on Warsaw). Maybe it is simply not possible to simulate perfectly the realities of the Cold War, OR, maybe _IF_ the US HAD performed a preemptive first strike, she COULD have won the Cold War through aggression :p It is an interesting question, which is unfortunately central to this issue of "realism vs. playability," as well as the practicalities of actual editor settings and AI limitations.

First off, the Cold War was between the USSR and the USA. All the rest were teammates and intriguers of these two quarterbacks. IMO, the other tribes should be largely irrelevant for the primary structure of the mod and settings. I really do not want to be presumptive, but my view is that getting things "balanced" for the other tribes would be a followup issues as far as the SP game goes. Thus, there should be two versions of the SP game, one in which the human plays USA (and the editor settings are adjusted so that the AI controls all the other tribes in a way that makes it challenging for the human playing USA), one in which the human plays USSR (and the editor settings are adjusted so that the AI controls all the other tribes in a way that makes it challenging for the human playing USSR). Additional versions could be created for the other tribes too, but it seems kinda pointless to play one of the platoon corporals or privates, instead of one of the sergeant majors. The key point here is that, having editor settings set up so that it is challenging for a human to play the US should be in some ways mutually exclusive to the settings which would make it challenging for the human to play USSR.

For the USA version, everyone except basically UK, Australia, and Canada (and even THAT is debatable given the historical significance of Trudeau!) should be _vulnerable_ to the spread of communism. Vice versa for the USSR version, everyone except perhaps Arab League should be vulnerable to the lure of capitalist imperialism.

Again, do not take this the wrong way. I LOVE this scenario, and I have had a LOT of fun playing with it (and very much looking forward to playing it a lot more). I am incredibly congratulatory, and admiring of the awesome work you guys have done. All the pieces are there (well most of them anyway, there are no terrorists, and special forces are not sufficiently represented IMHO). IMHO, the pieces are simply not adjusted properly yet, at least for the SP game. I'd say for the MP game, things are probably more right. But that is just my guess.

Unfortunately, in my changing of the mod, I've somehow changed something that needed an ANIMNAME file that it cannot find, and now it crashes :blush: I hope my lack of ability to accomplish the incredible work you guys HAVE already done does not mean that my comments are hypocritical. I cannot even begin to do what you guys have done in getting things set right in the editor. But as a player, I was able to beat the AI on Demi-God playing US far too easily, and it is this that I am saying indicates an impetus to alter things to "be more realistic." And then of course, there is always the issue of the stupid AI, which we will never be able to overcome for C3C, as well as the issue that C4 will be out soon, and some or all of those AI difficulties might be circumventable with that much more moddable engine.

I do not think it can be said too many times: thanks again for the fun scenario guys :goodjob:

After the long months you guys have spent working on this, it is a testament to your patience, dedication, and character that you are still friends with one another, AND still engaged in a discussion about the project AT ALL!! :p Most lesser men would have gotten disgusted and given up a _LONG_ time ago (e.g., _me_ with my American Revolution mod :( ). The fact that you ARE still engaged in discussion, suggests to me that you guys remain interested in feedback, and in the possibility that the mod could be made even better than it already is, and my comments are intended to provide constructive feedback, to quench your apparent thirsts to keep improving it.
hello doctor!

there is a distinct difference between what i consider to be "constructive criticism" and "nit-picking". your comments, past and present, are clearly more associated w/ the former so worry not mate!

now, i would have to disagree w/ you somewhat when you say it's not "realistic". sure, there are aspects of the game engine that prevent us from accomplishing exactly what occurred during the Cold War. these are the facts. however, and it's a _BIG_ however, we must all remember that the Cold War was just that, cold; ie, not a single shot was fired in aggression by the US or USSR against one another. it was more ideological than anything else. now, sure, it's hard to precisely simulate all of this in civ3. there are a few different features that allow for this simulation though. take, for example, the humongous investment in science that the US undertook during this time period. well, one can try and build the "Mainframe Computer Plant" or the "Space Program" Sm wonder, or the "Lunar Landing", or, better yet, the "Ballistic Missile Shield" great wonder. each of them have their particular bonuses and the like. culture also plays a large part for many of the 'front line' civis. make sure you build these types of bui8ldings or else you're gonna get swept over by the commie culture wonders. as for the accuracy of the hardware, it's, imho, spot-on; ie smooth and very organized unit lines and upgrade paths.

does this mean TCW is perfect? no way. there's always room for improvement. i'm the first to admit it. :D

as for the core group of us who've worked on TCW:
we each really, really enjoy playing and modding TCW. no doubt about that. i used to always profess that it's impossible to work together in groups when modding for civ3. well, i was very, very wrong about that as the dudes who've helped out (notably Kly, I_B, Rocoteh, and vingrjoe to name a few) have proved my theory wrong. i think the key to it has been the unspoken 'open door' policy we have where nothing is set in stone and we always, always bounce ideas off one another. i never implement any changes w/out consulting the core guys. i believe that this is probably one of the reasons that we've never wanted to kill one another :crazyeye:

as for the core group of us who've worked on TCW:
we each really, really enjoy playing and modding TCW. no doubt about that. i used to always profess that it's impossible to work together in groups when modding for civ3. well, i was very, very wrong about that as the dudes who've helped out (notably Kly, I_B, Rocoteh, and vingrjoe to name a few) have proved my theory wrong. i think the key to it has been the unspoken 'open door' policy we have where nothing is set in stone and we always, always bounce ideas off one another. i never implement any changes w/out consulting the core guys. i believe that this is probably one of the reasons that we've never wanted to kill one another :crazyeye:

Speak for yourself. I am still very angry that Canada never got a DeathStar unit, or Klingon battlecruisers, at the very least.
:)

This has been a real treat the last months helping put this together, and we have been really lucky to get a crew together that pretty much think alike on the big issues.

And I have a feeling that Civ IV will not satisfy a lot of the hardcore players, and CIV III and these scenarios may survive for some time.

On the submarine bug:

This question have been discussed in the WW2-Global thread time
to time. My position still is:

No doubt submarines will cause wars, however not so many wars as
some thinks. I know from my personal mod that AI often declares war
for no reason and without logic.

Rocoteh

This is true of course. However in this mod it is nearly impossible to play without having a world war III after some turns. But without the "invisible" flag there were only 3 wars in the first 50 turns:
- 2 of them were triggered by me with immobile units (Korea war and Indian-Pakistan war)
- After ~35 turns I think Great Britain declared war on Arab League and after some turns all NATO States helped them.

But there was no war between US and USSR.
Now there 2 different opinions how far the realism should go:

1. Most people want a "what if" scenario. In this case a ww3 is ok and should happen.
2. Some people want an as realistic as possible scenario. This is of course very difficult with the current civ3 engine and there will never be complete realism. Also in such a version you have to change thinks that might ruin the gameplay, make units useless (submarines) and wars not so interesting (no world wars).

I like both solutions but would prefer the second and already tried this in my own versions.
But you can also do something in this direction without disabling the invisible flag of subs. In my games ww3 broke out because USSR declearing war on Scandinavia or the other way round, just after some turns. Moving the USSR subs or the subs of the NATO nations out of the baltic sea would maybe help preventing an early ww3.

Glad my prolix comments are not taken as an effort to pick nits :) Wish I had the know-how, the focus, the time, and the commitment that you guys had to make something like this. It's edifying to think that you guys will keep on doing all the dirty work ;)

El Justo,

I think submarines were invisible in version 1.1.

As you say SSN:s, SSBN:s, and submarines were the backbone of the major
powers fleets during the Cold War.
(With the exception of US of course.)
I think it was around 1985 SSN:s and submarines were promoted
to the first place in Janes Fighting Ships.

No doubt submarines must be invisible.

Rocoteh
that's interesting Rocoteh. i know Kly often peeks into the Jane's when we've re-visited the unit lines for the sea vessels.

Just some of my opinions of the sub issue as far as what they are (and are not) used for.

Subs are absolutely used for blockade duty and this goes back to WW1 when the Germans declared the area around England to be a war zone. That was absolutely refered to as a blockade. It happen again in WW2. The US sub force did to Japan what Germany had hoped would happen to England. I can name numerious operations in WW2 that subs were an integral part of for purposes of information and intelligence to the high command of several of the powers involved.

Subs are also used for intelligence gathering missions. They can observe a great many things that others can't. Since the advent of nuclear subs, I don't know what you have been looking at, but normal SOP is the sub is under the water. They don't bother to surface much because to do so is really hazardous from the stand point of collisions and there is no real practical reason to do so. Even diesel electric boats will snorkel in preference to being on the surface simply because they have a head start on a dive in case of trouble.

In creating TCW, one of the things we talked about was does the game have the right "feel" in the areas we have some control over? One of the areas I think we did succeed in is that as a player running a convoy of troops, the two big threats you face are aircraft and sub attacks and indeed, I think this is exactly what the situation would be in most cases. You absolutely need control of the sea to move things over the water to get any place and its up to the other person to dispute that control. As an example, the units the British most feared in their war with Argentina, it was the 3 operational Argentian subs.

While things like special forces are represented in a small way, (and I agree with them being in the game) they really don't fit the scale of the game. I was sort of beating on El Justo when he started talking missile boats because they are simply too small for the scale of the game to be represented. This is a game of grand strategic scale with units representing divisions and squadrons. Small units have to be factored in a lot of times and can't really be represented that well.

As El Justo mentioned, this game has several elements of the cold war era with the space race, the culture fights that take place on the borders and the spy units to name a few.

Very nice scenario. How did you get the loading times so short ?

Just some of my opinions of the sub issue as far as what they are (and are not) used for.

Subs are absolutely used for blockade duty and this goes back to WW1 . . . .

Cool. I stand corrected. Shoulda phrased that as more of a question than a statement, but in any event, I got the expert to speak up so it was a success. Thanks for clarifying those points :)

The Brits were worried primarily about the 3 subs. Cool, didn't know that.

Were subs used for intell in the 1950s or was it only later? I seem to recall hearing that some of the more recent ones could tap into coastal communications and such, but when did that commence? Honestly, the extent of my knowledge of sub technology is having watched Das Boot twice! Are the A/D/M numbers really accurate relative to the other ships? I'm curious why the decision for the lack of bombard for DDs, though I'm guessing it was for balance? Also, I'd love to hear ya'lls opinions about this issue of merchant ships or lack thereof. It is probably not salient to this mod, given that piracy and merchant shipping interdiction were not major issues, but I'd think for WWII, it is a major issue?

According to one of my Canadian colleagues, there are a couple aging, rusting Russian nuke subs that are beached against the Canadian side of the arctic leaking nuclear contaminants into the arctic :mad:

Evidently, as the things aged, the Soviets could not afford to pay for there upkeep or something, so they just beached them on this side and abadoned them. Thank you Moff!

Must be some pretty scary aging old missile silos and such over there in Russia . . . *shudder*

Actually, subs being used for intel is a pretty broad term. They were not used too much for electronic evesdropping (small, non-descript ships were much better at this), but were used to monitor shipping in most cases. They have had other missions, including mapping underwater obstacles and conducting scientific research. (Subs under the Artic ice).

The US used several subs on occasion to watch for Japanese ships approaching the landing areas of wherever it was they had amphibious operations going on. The Japanese stationed subs outside of Hawaii to watch for the US carriers when they started the Midway operation (unfortunately for them, they US carriers were already at sea before the subs got on station).

Piracy has not been something that has taken place during the 20th century. There have been plenty of merchant and warship raiders that have been the scourge of merchant shipping. These have primarily been used against stray ships and after nearly getting their butts handed to them twice, I think it is safe to say that Nato would have implemented convoys immediately. Nato would have faced the same type of interdiction campaign on a broad scale in that WP would have attempted to disrupt merchant shipping with surface ships, mines, aircraft and subs. These are the exact items that Germany used during WW2.

Subs are very susceptable to damage as they have little reserve buoancy compared to a surface ship (but then you expect that from something designed to intentionally sink). It does not take much of a leak to become a serious issue. For sub warefare, it is all about getting the first shot in, especially since if they were not detected before, they most likely will be after the shooting starts. Given the limitation of the game engine and also observations of how subs have been treated in other scenarios, the numbers are about right. We elected to make adjustments as the game progresses because you get into the nuclear propulsion factor and also the fact that subs have become more and more about being used against each other. Having the good attack means that whoever the agressor is gets the jump and often the advantage. A sub that has been found and is attacked is in serious trouble.

Honestly Are the A/D/M numbers really accurate relative to the other ships? I'm curious why the decision for the lack of bombard for DDs, though I'm guessing it was for balance?

Anthropoid,

When I and El Justo discussed unit-sizes and stats for TCW
September last year, we agreed that DD-units in most cases should
represent 5 ships.
With a standard armament of 1-3 x 100mm-127mm guns this represent less
than 1 artillery battalion in a shore-bombardment situation.
One have to to remember that the defending units are divisions =
10 000-15 000 men. A lesson from the Falklands war was that this
type of light artillery bombardent seldom was effective.
Thus I think that is correct that these units have no bombardment-factor
(in most cases).


Rocoteh

Klyden, piracy is still a problem especially in Inodnesia and the Horn of Africa. I heard a few month ago a German frigate repelling a pirates attack on a sailing ship, the "Lilli Marleen", A German ship owned by a Malaysian IIRC.

Adler

that's interesting Rocoteh. i know Kly often peeks into the Jane's when we've re-visited the unit lines for the sea vessels.

El Justo,

Yes its hard to think there should be a better source than Jane's.

On the future for CIV III scenarios after the release of CIV IV:

Should CIV IV be "CIV III-light" with new graphics I also think
some CIV III scenarios can have a future.

Let us also hope that Firaxis will "open the files" so that CIV III
can be changed in the same way its said you can mod CIV IV given
you are a computer-pro,

Rocoteh

Thanks for the info on the DD Rocotech! and thanks for all the info on the subs too Klyden! The thought and effort that have gone into the units is far beyond most mods, and indeed, beyond Firaxis base work!

Based on what you're saying Klyden, subs are perfectly set in the game! What I use the cheapies for is to monitor enemy shipping: park it around a corner somewhere on Sentry, and it wakes up if anything passes. Thus, as you guys say, turning off invisible would seriously impact the accuracy of subs in the game.

One other question. I know that the nukes are hard coded to all be setting "1," and this seems to be a slight problem no? I would imagine that, a 1965 tactical nuke had a LOT more destructive capacity than a 1955 version, and even more of a difference for 1975, and 1985?

I can't quote numbers, but my sense is that, by the mid 1960s (?, wasn't Bay of Pigs and Cuba Crisis 1963), those short-range nukes were frighteningly destructive. I have the sense that, part of why the US and USSR never shot at each other in the Cold War, but ony at Proxies and satellites, is that, the scale of the conventional and nuclear destruction which could have occurred would have devastating for both W Europe and W Russia (at the start) and later for both NATO in general and Russia in general. When did a MAD situation really exist for the first time? Maybe the reason I kicked butt so well in my own USA Demi-God game is that I made a pre-emptive strike before the Soviets could enforce MAD, which would mean that, the game IS perfectly realistic, and my criticisms are misplaced, because the ease of my winning is a reflection of a historical intuition to avoid getting into a MAD situation?

El Justo,

Yes its hard to think there should be a better source than Jane's.

On the future for CIV III scenarios after the release of CIV IV:

Should CIV IV be "CIV III-light" with new graphics I also think
some CIV III scenarios can have a future.

Let us also hope that Firaxis will "open the files" so that CIV III
can be changed in the same way its said you can mod CIV IV given
you are a computer-pro,

Rocoteh

I think I read on post somewhere on this website that Firaxis does not own the Civ III code. I know that would seem incorrect since Civ III is plastered all over their web site, but I don't think my memory is that shot, yet. I think Warpstorm posted that.

And trust me, if they open-sourced civ III code, I would be booking time off work to dive into it and alter it.
Oh, can you imagine the possibilities??????

I think I read on post somewhere on this website that Firaxis does not own the Civ III code. I know that would seem incorrect since Civ III is plastered all over their web site, but I don't think my memory is that shot, yet. I think Warpstorm posted that.

And trust me, if they open-sourced civ III code, I would be booking time off work to dive into it and alter it.
Oh, can you imagine the possibilities??????

I_batman,

Yes, I agree.
It would mean possibilities I doubt we will find CIV IV.
Strategic warfare, naval intercepttion and so on......

Rocoteh

One other question. I know that the nukes are hard coded to all be setting "1," and this seems to be a slight problem no? I would imagine that, a 1965 tactical nuke had a LOT more destructive capacity than a 1955 version, and even more of a difference for 1975, and 1985?

I can't quote numbers, but my sense is that, by the mid 1960s (?, wasn't Bay of Pigs and Cuba Crisis 1963), those short-range nukes were frighteningly destructive. I have the sense that, part of why the US and USSR never shot at each other in the Cold War, but ony at Proxies and satellites, is that, the scale of the conventional and nuclear destruction which could have occurred would have devastating for both W Europe and W Russia (at the start) and later for both NATO in general and Russia in general. When did a MAD situation really exist for the first time? Maybe the reason I kicked butt so well in my own USA Demi-God game is that I made a pre-emptive strike before the Soviets could enforce MAD, which would mean that, the game IS perfectly realistic, and my criticisms are misplaced, because the ease of my winning is a reflection of a historical intuition to avoid getting into a MAD situation?

I can't quote on the history of the nuclear arms race, (El Justo is the history major), but I can let you know how the AI typically works once the first nuke is unleashed.
Extremely rarely, the AI will strike first. I have had cases where China was down to 3 cities, and still would not use nukes, even when I conqured Bejing.

However, once the nuclear genie is let out of the bottle, all nukes will be used by all AI civs, as fast as they are built.

If US launches against WP, WP should fire back with everything they have, and will continue to do so as long as a state of war exists.
IF WP launches, then France, UK, and US will all attack.

I have yet to see a game where this does not happen, once the first nuke is launched.

Given the geography, it is in WP's best interest NOT to start a nuclear war, since there are 3 times as many ICBM's, and twice as many tactical nukes coming back at it. (AI playing US won't use tactical nukes properly)

I have been thinking about it, and I am wondering if we should not crank up the production rate of the ICBM nukes, to more closely emulate MAD.
I can't comment of France, UK, or China's nuclear capabilities in the Cold War, because I just don't know, but both the US and WP at they peak could have laid waste to the entire planet (around 1980???)

And I am in the midst of a game in 1.5 right now, and I have 6 ICBM's in 1976.
Given the firepower of an ICBM in Civ III, I could lay waste to only 3-4 cities with those. (Not talking tacticals here).

I would think in 1976 reality, WP could do far, far more damage than that if they launched their entire ICBM arsenal.

If US, WP, and possibly the other 3 nuclear powers, had significantly more ICBM's, hence a far more destructive force, would this be closer to historical accuracy?

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/southafricawin.JPG

I played this on Monarch as South Africa, with an aggressive strategy and found it oddly easy once I got going, winning by Domination in the early 70's. I took all of Africa, Arabia, parts of Iran the Soviets conquered, the whole WP, India and North Vietnam. The Americans and Scandanavians! got Cuba The only challenge I found was when the Chinese declared on me in the midst of my attack on Central Russia and I almost got swamped by their tanks.

Next time I'm going to play on a higher difficulty as China, UK or France, and try and keep more peaceful. I like this scenario, keep up the good work.

Given the firepower of an ICBM in Civ III, I could lay waste to only 3-4 cities with those. (Not talking tacticals here).

I would think in 1976 reality, WP could do far, far more damage than that if they launched their entire ICBM arsenal.

If US, WP, and possibly the other 3 nuclear powers, had significantly more ICBM's, hence a far more destructive force, would this be closer to historical accuracy?

I'm guessing the nuke production rate might need to go up by a factor of 20 or 30. By late 1960s the world was already afeered of global holocaust as I recall (might be wrong). That means that, there were so many tactical nukes and ICBMs poise ready to take out targets in both east and west, that both sides would have been virtually destroyed, which is why there were NOT big tank division and bomber fleet battles in Europe.

Unfortunately, doing this would mean that the most fun aspects of the game would be eliminated (i.e., the classic "civilized" rolling wall of armaments plowing through an enemies territory, and turning the map your color!), and it would be virtually impossible for either side to win via VPs, because very little territory would change hands except in the proxy wars, and what little might change via culture or covert wars.

The other idea I had recently was that, the commies maybe should not rush by killing off population, it weakens them tremendously as the AI I suspect, and it is not exactly realistic. The Xenophobic, and Population Resettlement settings might be more realistic, and it might be that they suffer different corruption, and have different SW, etc., but the pop rush doesn't seem very realistic.

I played a couple turns of Surtur's version with subs turned visible, alliances broken apart, etc., etc. The main problem with not having Central America allied with U.S. immediately became apparent.

The Korean War triggered faithfully on like turn two thanks to his invisible immobile units in China, and I took this excuse to get rid of some of those troublesome tactical nukes. Cubans retaliated by smashing Miami (ah well). Hit Odessa, Warsaw/Berlin, and a city in China.

EVERYBODY who could do so declared war on me, including Central America, which I conveniently used as an excuse to annex them.

Before the end of 1950, I controlled all of Central Mexico, although granted I did lose about 3 Sherman's in the process.

Yes I forgot that nuclear wars will cause everyone declaring war on you. So I will put the South American states back to the NATO alliance to avoid them declaring war on US.
Disabling pop rush might also a good idea. I realized in my game as well that espacially the soviet cities had very low population because the AI rushed like hell.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/southafricawin.JPG

I played this on Monarch as South Africa, with an aggressive strategy and found it oddly easy once I got going, winning by Domination in the early 70's. I took all of Africa, Arabia, parts of Iran the Soviets conquered, the whole WP, India and North Vietnam. The Americans and Scandanavians! got Cuba The only challenge I found was when the Chinese declared on me in the midst of my attack on Central Russia and I almost got swamped by their tanks.

Next time I'm going to play on a higher difficulty as China, UK or France, and try and keep more peaceful. I like this scenario, keep up the good work.

Wow, that is incredibly impressive, particularly from such a weak starting position.

El Justo,

Yes its hard to think there should be a better source than Jane's.

On the future for CIV III scenarios after the release of CIV IV:

Should CIV IV be "CIV III-light" with new graphics I also think
some CIV III scenarios can have a future.

Let us also hope that Firaxis will "open the files" so that CIV III
can be changed in the same way its said you can mod CIV IV given
you are a computer-pro,

Rocoteh
yes Rocoteh. i agree. however, i am skeptical that they'll release any source codes for civ3.

Anthropoid wrote: When did a MAD situation really exist for the first time?
this is a tricky question as the american and soviet nuclear arsenals, at least in the beginning of the cold war, were a point of contention for many historians. according to john l. gaddis, the yanks had much more of a numerical advantage of nukes in the beginning. by this i mean that kruschev was essentially blowing hot air during the 50s when he proclaimed the the soviets possessed a huge stockpile of IRBMs. many in the eisenhower adim often wanted to call Uncle Niki's bluff but this never really happened. needless to say, time and the end of the cold war (as well as the opening up of all of the commie archives!) has revealed the real truth: the US had a clear numerical superiority in deliverable nuclear war heads up to about the 1970s.

EDIT: also, the supposed 'Bomber Gap' that historians and text books often have written of is a myth. the Ike Admin undertook (as we all now) an aggressive aerial surveillance against soviet russian during the 50s. gaddis notes that Ike and his peeps were clearly aware, after due time of course, that the supposed 'gap' really didn't exist. again, they kept this info in their proverbial pocket instead of risking 'hot war' should they have tried to call kruschev's bluff on this one, too.

the only real edge that the reds had against the yanks during the 50s nuclear build-up (if i were to even call this an edge) was the dpeeded devlopment of the H-bomb. iirc, they beat the yanks to punch here.

the bottom line: Uncle Niki was a maniacal, deceitful, and hollow liar who continuously bluffed in order to a) spook the West and b) to cement his own authority w/in communist russia.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/southafricawin.JPG

I played this on Monarch as South Africa, with an aggressive strategy and found it oddly easy once I got going, winning by Domination in the early 70's. I took all of Africa, Arabia, parts of Iran the Soviets conquered, the whole WP, India and North Vietnam. The Americans and Scandanavians! got Cuba The only challenge I found was when the Chinese declared on me in the midst of my attack on Central Russia and I almost got swamped by their tanks.

Next time I'm going to play on a higher difficulty as China, UK or France, and try and keep more peaceful. I like this scenario, keep up the good work.
hi Sybot.

that is quite an impressive run you've made there. if you want a real challenge, try the Chi-Coms on a high level. i guarantee you will face more w/ this position.

the UK is a really fun position to play as they're sort of nestled away on the islands there. their hardware and foot units are some of the best in the game, too.

france ain't bad either. they have a nice selection of aircraft.

Yes I forgot that nuclear wars will cause everyone declaring war on you. So I will put the South American states back to the NATO alliance to avoid them declaring war on US.
Disabling pop rush might also a good idea. I realized in my game as well that espacially the soviet cities had very low population because the AI rushed like hell.
hello again Sybot.

i'd be careful tweaking the nato and commie alliances if you want to maintain any sembelence of historical accuracy. this, however, is completely up to you.

i like the idea of disabling pop rush. i'll look into that. thanks.

hello again Sybot.

i like the idea of disabling pop rush. i'll look into that. thanks.

This would have a DRAMATIC effect on the game, and it might make winning on Emperor VERY hard :p

In my US Demi-God game (which I _AM_ still doing a turn on every now and then) in which I'm edging towards a domination win (Dec 1969 I believe it was last I played), the way I've done so well is that I've paid for probably > 1 million GP worth of rushed units and buildings. If I had not been able to rush AT ALL, it would have been a _VERY_ different game.

Another possibility would be to simply double or triple the shield/gp and shield/pop cost for upgrading?

ADDIT: One thing you might consider adding to the standing house rules El Justo: I was reading about U-2 spy planes today. They evidently need a VERY long runway, and even have to have a spotter driver to help them land. So basing on carriers should probably not be allowed.

Also, for new dlers, you might include a comment about bombing tiles? The issue of pre-emptive strike should probably be left open, because it is POSSIBLE that the US or WP would have done it, and the human DOES pay a consequence in the form of reduced AI friendliness (although the lack of any real need for trade or diplomacy makes that a bit irrelevant). But bombing all tiles definitely unbalances the game and players might appreciate being made aware of this.

My first game as US on Demi-God has got pretty tedious. I'm up to Nov 1969. Progress has definitely slowed down. I lost a LOT more M-48s and M-1s trying to take Buenos Aires than I thought I would, even with a HUGE number of bombers in support (though did get the other two northern/western cities with little problem). Worst part is, I've used nukes so often, I'm pretty sure my "allies" are sabotaging my production! I tried to plant a spy in Italy, and they declared war on me! so I abandoned that turn . . . Not sure I'll finish that game but it was an interesting experiment.

It is DEFINITELY possible to "win" by using a preemptive strike strategy, followed by a carpet bombing of tiles.

Okay so, having established that for everyone's edification :), thought I'd try another scenario. This time, I'm using Surtur's changed version, with several new African small nations, Arabs not in locked alliance with Pact, etc., etc. I'm going to play with the restraints that:

1) I WILL NOT use preemptive nuke strike
2) I WILL NOT declare war first (since I am the US)
3) I will ONLY bomb tiles that have (i) a unit in them, (ii) a radar, (iii) a resource of some sort, or (iv) are a strategic choke point. Maybe for (iv) the rule should be "no two adjacent tiles may be bombed unless than both have one of these conditions present, else one of them is an important highway."

Given the shortage of workers, the capacity for the human US player to simply reduce the AI to the Stone Ages really unbalances things, so I think this rule is good way to reduce this exploit.

These self-imposed "house rules" will represent the reality of U.S. political restraint in the Cold War. Could be quite interesting cause Surtur reports having made the Special Forces more powerful.

What do you guys think?

I think this might dramatically alter the game flow and be a better test of the way you guys have structured the mod (having played a couple turns and got my arse kicked without first having softened 'em up with four or five nukes).

ADDIT: One thing you might consider adding to the standing house rules El Justo: I was reading about U-2 spy planes today. They evidently need a VERY long runway, and even have to have a spotter driver to help them land. So basing on carriers should probably not be allowed.

Also, for new dlers, you might include a comment about bombing tiles? The issue of pre-emptive strike should probably be left open, because it is POSSIBLE that the US or WP would have done it, and the human DOES pay a consequence in the form of reduced AI friendliness (although the lack of any real need for trade or diplomacy makes that a bit irrelevant). But bombing all tiles definitely unbalances the game and players might appreciate being made aware of this.

My first game as US on Demi-God has got pretty tedious. I'm up to Nov 1969. Progress has definitely slowed down. I lost a LOT more M-48s and M-1s trying to take Buenos Aires than I thought I would, even with a HUGE number of bombers in support (though did get the other two northern/western cities with little problem). Worst part is, I've used nukes so often, I'm pretty sure my "allies" are sabotaging my production! I tried to plant a spy in Italy, and they declared war on me! so I abandoned that turn . . . Not sure I'll finish that game but it was an interesting experiment.

It is DEFINITELY possible to "win" by using a preemptive strike strategy, followed by a carpet bombing of tiles.

Okay so, having established that for everyone's edification :), thought I'd try another scenario. This time, I'm using Surtur's changed version, with several new African small nations, Arabs not in locked alliance with Pact, etc., etc. I'm going to play with the restraints that:

1) I WILL NOT use preemptive nuke strike
2) I WILL NOT declare war first (since I am the US)
3) I will ONLY bomb tiles that have (i) a unit in them, (ii) a radar, (iii) a resource of some sort, or (iv) are a strategic choke point. Maybe for (iv) the rule should be "no two adjacent tiles may be bombed unless than both have one of these conditions present, else one of them is an important highway."

Given the shortage of workers, the capacity for the human US player to simply reduce the AI to the Stone Ages really unbalances things, so I think this rule is good way to reduce this exploit.

These self-imposed "house rules" will represent the reality of U.S. political restraint in the Cold War. Could be quite interesting cause Surtur reports having made the Special Forces more powerful.

What do you guys think?

I think this might dramatically alter the game flow and be a better test of the way you guys have structured the mod (having played a couple turns and got my arse kicked without first having softened 'em up with four or five nukes).
Anthropoid,

yes, the U2 should not be based on a carrier as well as the heavy bombers for the US.

bombing enemy tiles has pretty damaging effects on the AI. i agree about your conditional bombing suggestions.

which nations did you add to Africa? i ask only b/c there's essentially only 1 open spot among the exisiting civis to add one (30 in the base game). imho, breaking up C Africa is insignificant.

i guarantee the Arabs will get steam rolled by the Soviets. it happened in just about every play-test we did when we played around w/ keeping them unalligned. i'd be interested to see your results.

i never, ever launch pre-emptive nuclear strikes and always seem to do quite well.

i'm always wrangling w/ those dang sp force units. one suggestion would be to give them the HN flag and maybe an extra HP (-1 total). this would enable them to attack enemy units w/out a declaration of war. i haven't tested it but it's worth discussion i think.

i've also done some testing w/ the 'no support costs' for the improvements/buildings. i adjusted the govt settings for the unit support costs as well so as to not have massive reserves in my cofers. so far, the economic side of it is quite balanced (a few civis played). however, i have not seen any real reduction in turn times as we had originally thought it may give us. i mean, the times are still pretty quick but i do not see any remarkable difference w/ the support costs chopped down. my question would be whether the game engine actually uses time/energy determing support costs even though the setting is at zero. does the game engine simply skip the process or does it actually weigh it still w/ the zero support? my guess, and a guess only, is that it does indeed 'think' of the costs even though it's set at zero.

So far the Soviets have not done anything to the Arabs. I'm finding it to be better with these conditions of no preemptive and minimal tile bombing. Its up to like 1954, Korean Wars I and II have come and gone, and now WP is at war with the West. MIGHT take Vladivostok but then again might not. Even when in the red, those APCs can take out a couple M-4s or even M-26s.

I'm tending to agree with you that, not having Arabs aligned with Soviets is moot. I believe Surtur collapsed some other tribe into one (Greece and Britain? Spain and France?) Also we have a Chile which is a non-aligned bad guy nation type. I believe the idea with the more smaller nations in S Am and Africa is to increase the chance of small proxy wars there. The things I'd suggest still:

1. Make nukes generate more rapidly, so that MAD is achieved at some point.
2. Make Special Forces multi-tiered with cumultatively greater and greater levels of power. 1st only air drop and 2 moves (Ranger). With Special Ops maybe allow some slightly different new unit, for example, a "Special Forces" that has slightly better A/D than a Ranger and a bombard ability to simulate their ability to act as saboteurs in times of war. With Sub Tactics you might consider an amphibious flavor Spec Ops (e.g., an "SBS" unit that comes from a SOW that must be coastal, and is comparable to ranger except an amphibious unit with hidden nationality? Then with Helicopters allow a new SOW "Fort Bragg" which generates a "Green Beret" every ~10 turns 15/12/3 airdrop, ZOC, bombard=10. but becomes obsolete after a while. Then you could add Delta Force with either Mech Infantry or Air Cavalry or both, maybe even best to make Delta Force depend on Jet Fighter Bombers? Delta Force hidden nationality, ZOC, airdrop, bombard=15 18/17/2. Advanced Subs could allow building a Great Wonder or SOW that would generate a Navy SEALS every 30 turns or so, 19/17/3 airdrop, amphib, hidden nat, ZOC, bombard=15. The Soviets could have their own versions of these.
3. Give the terrorist nations the ability to build "Terrorist Unit" that has hidden nationality and pillage, maybe something like 14/3/2 ? There could be multiple levels of this, and you coudl even have some sort of Stealth-Cruise Missile like thing that comes from some ME SOW called "The Base" or something. This thing could like fly across the ocean and take out a building or something. Also a unit that looks like worker but is a "suicide bomber" and acts like a cruise missile could be good (Check the out the Rise and Rule and "The Missing Links" mods, they already have these units included).
4. Make N. Vietnam Fascist (but no other nation can be) and give them free military, and allow them to build a bad arse unit around the beginning of second era that would have blitz, and high movement so it would be very hard to kill it.

i'm afraid i'm against removing the arabs from the soviet alliance simply b/c, at some point in the scen, they're mince meat. there's no 2 ways around it...

the rate for the autopro' of nukes will be increased a bit in the next version. iirc, i moved it from 20 to 18 for the tactical nukes (IRBM).

putting in all of those sp force units seems redundant to me. by this i mean that the ones we have in there already are hard to define in game terms. adding to this seems like overkill to me. also, we have to remember that we don't want the map flooded w/ all of these sp force units b/c in RL, they operate on a very small scale compared to the conventional armies. i would like to see how the sp force units test out w/ the HN flag and an extra HP (-1 total iirc).

N Vietnam already has an advantage: cheap units and the NVA Inf and VC units. these 2 seriously outgun their neighbors' firepower. plus, they were communist, not fascist.

EDIT: if memory serves me right, the NV position can begin building what amounts to the equivalant to a 2nd gen infantry unit earlier than any other civi (NVA Inf & VC).

good ideas though...

i'm afraid i'm against removing the arabs from the soviet alliance simply b/c, at some point in the scen, they're mince meat. there's no 2 ways around it...

the rate for the autopro' of nukes will be increased a bit in the next version. iirc, i moved it from 20 to 18 for the tactical nukes (IRBM).

putting in all of those sp force units seems redundant to me. by this i mean that the ones we have in there already are hard to define in game terms. adding to this seems like overkill to me. also, we have to remember that we don't want the map flooded w/ all of these sp force units b/c in RL, they operate on a very small scale compared to the conventional armies. i would like to see how the sp force units test out w/ the HN flag and an extra HP (-1 total iirc).

N Vietnam already has an advantage: cheap units and the NVA Inf and VC units. these 2 seriously outgun their neighbors' firepower. plus, they were communist, not fascist.

EDIT: if memory serves me right, the NV position can begin building what amounts to the equivalant to a 2nd gen infantry unit earlier than any other civi (NVA Inf & VC).

good ideas though...


Glad to hear that my thoughts are appreciated. The NV, I really had not checked out or noticed anything about them, so I probably should have kept my mouth shut. Sounds like you've got them dialed already.

The SpecOps, :blush: so it's just a bias on my part, but it was worth a try! Mostly just wanted to give you the ideas should they be appealing to you. You're right at the Division level, their role should not be too accentuated.

But what about the terrorists? :p

The Nukes, glad to hear you'll be proliferating them a bit, and yeah, best to try a moderate adjustment first and see what effect it has.

Re: the Arabs, I'll bet you're right. I'll let you know how long they last in this version of Surtur's I'm playing :)

BTW, his use of invisible units to set off the Korean War worked quite well. He mentioned something about giving N. Viet an SOW that produces an invisible offensive unit that would spark off the North-South Vietnam conflict. We'll see how that goes.

Glad to hear that my thoughts are appreciated. The NV, I really had not checked out or noticed anything about them, so I probably should have kept my mouth shut. Sounds like you've got them dialed already.

The SpecOps, :blush: so it's just a bias on my part, but it was worth a try! Mostly just wanted to give you the ideas should they be appealing to you. You're right at the Division level, their role should not be too accentuated.

But what about the terrorists? :p

The Nukes, glad to hear you'll be proliferating them a bit, and yeah, best to try a moderate adjustment first and see what effect it has.

Re: the Arabs, I'll bet you're right. I'll let you know how long they last in this version of Surtur's I'm playing :)

BTW, his use of invisible units to set off the Korean War worked quite well. He mentioned something about giving N. Viet an SOW that produces an invisible offensive unit that would spark off the North-South Vietnam conflict. We'll see how that goes.


OK, Couple things I can comments on:

1.Yeah, Arabs will die if they are un-allied. Guaranteed.
2.I would not mind seeing more ICBM's in the game to establish MAD, but to get there, we would likely need an ICBM every turn to be produced.
According to Klyden, the WP did not even begun to have capabilities of destroying the planet until well into the 70's. That being said, I am in a game in 1980 playing WP and have a grand total of 8 ICBM's, which is probably 1/25 of what would be needed to wipe out humanity on this game map.
3. Terrorists are really difficult to implement. The ONLY thing I would suggest
is to give the SP forces the ability to destroy improvements within a city. I am not sure if that is even possible. Flagging the unit with stealth attack capability only allows it to pick out a unit in a stack, al a subs, but I am not sure there is a way with the editor to flag the SF unit to attack improvements on a specific basis.

OK, Couple things I can comments on:

3. Terrorists are really difficult to implement. The ONLY thing I would suggest .

The terrorist, and suicide bomber units in the "The Missing Links" mod actually seem to work pretty well. They're fairly cheap so the AI builds a ton of them and they can be quite a pest on the harder difficulty settings. Still they are not really that great for a human, who cannot afford to use a mass attack technique, so they make a nice addition to the mod overall. The AI uses them to keep the human guessing, forcing the human to be more cautious, and the human uses just a few of them strategically.

It would be neat if a ground unit could have stealth attack. I know they can. There is a Medieval "Flemish" foot unit in a mod I played a long time ago, I THINK it was TML, but not for sure. I even made a map of it, with the Flegms as the protagonist. This unit was sort of like a Celtic swordsman, and it had stealth attack, though only against units, not buildings.

Not sure if you can flag a ground unit with the "stealth bombard attack or not" Will have to check that out!

El Justo, et al:

Thanks, this is a fantastic thread to read in addition to a very difficult scenario to play out from alot of different positions. I can only hope that you and the others that have spent so much time and energy in developing these twists to the game carry on to Civ IV sometime down the road. Once again, Thank you.

Glad to hear that my thoughts are appreciated. The NV, I really had not checked out or noticed anything about them, so I probably should have kept my mouth shut. Sounds like you've got them dialed already.

The SpecOps, :blush: so it's just a bias on my part, but it was worth a try! Mostly just wanted to give you the ideas should they be appealing to you. You're right at the Division level, their role should not be too accentuated.

But what about the terrorists? :p

The Nukes, glad to hear you'll be proliferating them a bit, and yeah, best to try a moderate adjustment first and see what effect it has.

Re: the Arabs, I'll bet you're right. I'll let you know how long they last in this version of Surtur's I'm playing :)

BTW, his use of invisible units to set off the Korean War worked quite well. He mentioned something about giving N. Viet an SOW that produces an invisible offensive unit that would spark off the North-South Vietnam conflict. We'll see how that goes.
Anthropoid,

your comments are greatly appreciated. very thoughtful and cerebral for sure.

i have also seen terrorist-type units in scenarios. iirc, the Iran-Iraq War by Mr. Black has them and they were flagged as a cruise missle w/ a unit that was a C&P of the standard worker unit. there affect was nominal, at best (as far as game-play was concerned). definitely a neat concept though...but i'm not exactly sure how or what to call it. the Arab Lg position can build the "Intifada" GW in the very late game stages. it autopro's a Palestinian Guerilla unit every so many turns. they are strictly a low-end infantry unit though.

i would certainly like to find a final solution for the sp ops units. for some reason, i'm not satisfied w/ how they are set up right now.

El Justo, et al:

Thanks, this is a fantastic thread to read in addition to a very difficult scenario to play out from alot of different positions. I can only hope that you and the others that have spent so much time and energy in developing these twists to the game carry on to Civ IV sometime down the road. Once again, Thank you.
Koba the Dread,

you're quite welcome mate. we've had quite a blast playing it and putting it all together. no doubt.

i'm afraid that TCW for civ4 will take some time to materialize; mainly b/c of the lack of custom units. also, i'm still resrving judgment on whether civ4 is even worth buying. from what i've seen thus far, i'm not too impressed. however, i shall have a better opinion of it once it's been played by other CFC members, especially by those of whose opinion i regard highly...

welcome to the boards, too!

ADDIT: with respect to terrorist and suicide bomber units, this is more or less what I've seen before, and depending on the basic C3C Tech Tree.

Atomic Theory (or whatever it is that reveals uranium in C3C) allows production of terrorist units. The suicide bomber unit depends on some other slightly later tech. The terrorist anim seemed to be unique, and the suicide bomber used the worker anim and icon.

The suicide bomber had all the abilities of a normal worker, except it was flagged as a cruise missile with a fairly high bombard ability. I'm not sure how it could attack without causing war, but it think it simply had hidden nationality, but not invisible. It still APPEARED to be a normal worker of the (and if you clicked on it that is what it said it was if you were the opponent). If you looked in TML you'd see how this is set up, and it worked fine in that mod. This worked, although I agree, its impact was nominal, the AI DID use it to surprise me. Given that this unit was fairly cheap in shields (but cost one population) it could be pretty annoying used by the AI in some situations, and DEFINITELY annoying in the hands of a human opponent.

Alternatively you could give these suicide bomber guys a pillage ability.

The terrorist unit, had a shield cost that was slightly less than a rifleman as I recall and had A/D/M of 11/3/2, and treated all tiles as roads as I recall. Also blitz, invisible, and hidden nationality. The AI used this unit (as well as the "Assassin" medieval era version of this) rather effectively, and it required the human to adapt (although as always with the AI, once you figure out how it works, you've figured out the puzzle, and it doesn't change). I _THINK_ the terrorist had pillage too.

It would be a fairly simple matter to allow certain nations to build these units, and perhaps a good idea to have them have two tiers: a fairly weak initial version, and a stronger "Level 2" version that comes out in the late 1960s. The effect of the AI being able to build fairly large numbers of these, and them being able to attack without causing war was to very accurately simulate the actual "low intensity" warfare that was so typical of the Cold War. You had to have fortified troops, fighting and dying along your border, or in your vulnerable places, and STILL you were not at war with the AI antagonist who was sending terrorists and bombers to attack you.

One other idea would be to have a late age terror unit/SOW that would simulate Al Qaeda, and the current pan-national Jihad. To represent the new level of sophistication in tactics used by the 911 attackers, you could have an "Special Martyr Squad" unit that had a comparatively very large bombard ability, had precision-bombing, hidden nationality, and perhaps collateral damage. You could even have a "dirty-bomb" equivalent unit that acted as a nuclear weapon. Not sure if these could be launched outside of cities or not, but you could probably figure out some way to make it work.

I did a little experiment and gave Spetsnaz: Hidden Nat, invisible, stealth (all units in the game) 17/14/2, as well as ZOC and what it had before. Also gave it the Precision Bombing flag.

Played WP up till the first one popped up, and then used it to see what it could do. I attacked a U.S. infantry on the border. He was the only one in the stack, so the stealth attack choose window did not come up, but I know that this works for land units because of that Flemish swordsman unit in that other mod.

No precision-bomb choice though.

I think if you wanted to have a scarce (e.g., auto-produced) SpecOps unit that could act as a saboteur in cities, you'd have to make it an air unit. Not sure if you could still give it movement points A/D etc.

Based on the role of Spetsnaz in the Soviet takeover of Czechoslovakia, and the opening of the Afghan occupation, I do not think it would be historically inaccurate for them to have hidden nationality, and stealth, as well perhaps as giving the Soviets the Intell Agency or else allowing them to buid it right from the start. The bonus of espionage could be that spies become elite?

Basically, in concert with KGB agents pre-placed in the victim country, Spetsnaz covert forces were the spearhead which opened up the airport, disrupted/executed local political and military leadership, and even sabotaged field military units (e.g., pre-placed KGB/Spetsnaz Agents who were "advisors" to the Afghan military in Kandahar, the day before the occupation, gathered up an entire battalions ammunition and anti-tank guns for "inspection"). This allowed within <24 hours, for thousands of standing Soviet troops to be flown in, all without declaring war, and all without provoking the West into war. Within a couple days or less of the start of the operation, there were 80,000 Soviet troops in Afghanistan, and a handful of <1000 guys made this possible, using special operations tactics. With the political instability in the weaker states neighboring Russia, and the "fog of war" effect hovering over the matter in the immediate aftermath, the Russians could claim that they were "called in to help stablize the country" and hold up their puppet local leader/political group. The reality that this had been a Soviet "invasion" and hostile takeover of the neutral else pro-Western government would not be provable and even if it was, the Soviets had by fiat made the means by which they had secured control irrelevant. Once they had flown in the big guns, within a matter of mere days, any protestations the West might make were merely academic. Was the West gonna declare war?

This is why the Cold War was fraught with such paranoia, and why the Red Scare found such fertile ground! Already by 1955 the West had seen a handful of smaller states "flip" to the East-Bloc, with _very_ little organized resistance, and seemingly with the West powerless to do anything about it. Why? The Soviets were (and maybe still are?) the masters of espionage, spec-ops, covert warfare, propaganda, puppet-government manipulation, and integrating this all into a coherent grand strategy. Democratic nations, with swarms of busy journalists buzzing everywhere, are comparatively VERY weak (as our continued struggles with "winning" demonstrate) at this form of warfare. People were terrified at the covert "nation-toppling" and insidious political influence which the Soviets appeared to possess (and in large measure DID possess, although it was as much through intimidation, murder, and extortion than by ideological conversion). Lets not forget, in actual history Cuba was a _STRONG_ U.S ally at the beginning! The Revolution was about KICKING OUT the US corporations primarily, and in the longer-term pushing back the "occupation by the Capitalist Pig" all over Latin America.

Re: wanting to adjust SpecOps, El Justo, you should read that book I cite up above. Very good general overview of the role of SpecOps in the Cold War so far.

I'd like to mod the various helicopters to make the ground units (Close air support) Basically I will give them all terrian as road, high movement stats, and air drop capabality to cross bodies of water.

However does anyone have recommendations on what the stats of the various helicopter units should be?

Movement, attack, defence, operatiinal range, bombardment (I think I will keeep that) Any suggestions?

I'm playing as Warsaw now, and I'm seeing the true genius of this mod. Many of the things I've asked about are becoming more clear to me now.

Kongo Revolution! Nice :) etc.

You gotta love the East-Bloc's predisposition for _B_I_G____A_R_S_E___ guns. Guess they never did forget Leningrad?

This just might be fun to play the Commies for a change :lol:

Anthro,

it'd be hard to identify a terrorist type unit at the division level scale we have the game set at. by this i mean that this type of unit can't really be on par (HP-wise_ w/ amy one civi's infantry unit. if you think for a minute about it you could see that it's a farce to have a terrorist/hijacker/suicide bomberunit square off against a civi's infantry units. the only real doable thing would be to make them a cruise missile unit and expend themselves upon use. it's still a tough sell though...

also, not sure if everyone is aware of it but both the Arabs and the Iran/Afgh/Pak positions can build or autopro' either the Palestinian Guerilla unit, a Republican Guard unit, an Afghan Guerilla, and/or the Mujahideen unit. we wanted to try to stay as close to 'division level' as we could when i envisioned these flvor units.

also, the Arabs have the ability to build the "Chemical Warhead Plant" in the late game stages. it autopro's a "Chemical Warhead" every so many turns and iirc, i flagged these bombs as nukes. so, the Arabs have some bargaining power by the end.

what's the name of that book? i missed it...

I'd like to mod the various helicopters to make the ground units (Close air support) Basically I will give them all terrian as road, high movement stats, and air drop capabality to cross bodies of water.

However does anyone have recommendations on what the stats of the various helicopter units should be?

Movement, attack, defence, operatiinal range, bombardment (I think I will keeep that) Any suggestions?
hi silver.

well, for the next version i plan to give all helo units 2 mvmt points but i am keeping them as air units. however, i've seen before where folks have modded them over as ground units.

i would say that the 1st 2 gens or so of the helos are primarily transport and the later gens are G/A. i would think that each would have an op range of a couple hundred miles. movement rate would probably be the only thing i'd mod unless you're pitting the helos against other ground/infantry units. if this is the case, then i'd consider moving the A/D values up a great deal. maybe sub in the bombardment no's for the A? i dunno as it's been a long time since i've tried this method.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0553281623/002-6609678-9466447?v=glance

I agree, a terrorist unit should not be able to take on a main division head to head. But the third world nations (some of them) should have the ability to harass the powerful nations by pillaging tiles, stealing workers, and perhaps even sabotaging city structures. This would represent terrorism, and the unit should have _some_ Attack Defense capacity, and should flee from combat very readily.

the review appears to be a bit biased. no?

i'm no military guy but i'd venture to say that the US Sp Forces are far from an "F".

interesting nonetheless...

one other sidenote:
during the course of testing v1.6, i've noticed that VP landmarks out on the open seas is completely useless; ie the AI does not care abolut them and simply passes right by w/out even stopping. this is hundreds of turns of testing, too. so, i assume it's safe to say that we can put this one to bed. it's too bad, too, b/c i would like to see more naval activity if that is 'atall possible.

also, anyone who'd want to help test w/ v1.6 is more than welcome. 'alls you need is the biq file as i haven't added any extra gfx (used exisiting gfx instead). there are a multitude of adjustments for 1.6. too many to go into right now but the offer stands: i'll ship out the biq file to you if you're interested.

Those reviewers seem to be: a Western journalist; a peacenik; and a US Special Forces, based on the tone of their reviews. The first reviewer says pretty much everything, and effectively says nothing. The second reviewer seems to take home the message that the West was the cause!?! (must not have actually READ the book! :) ), and the third reviewer clearly has had his ego-bruised by Adams recounting of the many mistakes resulting from very deeply-ingrained structural, organizational, and cultural deficiencies in the US military and SpecOps-Conventional relations/competition in particular.

I'm about half way through the book and I haven't encountered any reference to SAS="B Grade" Spetsnaz="A Grade" etc. He does indeed tell in concise detail about some of the key successes and failures of the SpecOps groups of each nation, but I have not encountered anything that I'd deem "contemptuous," except for the way he talks about East-Bloc policies and actions. If there is one thing military men are even more keen to fight over than territory, it is authority and funding from their respective governments!

I find his coverage to be nicely balanced b/w synthesis and detail, and while neither congratulatory of either East nor West, he is also not deluded by his obviously "pro-Western" sentiments.

It is one thing to be "for your side" and ideally a totally separate thing to be "critical of your sides mistakes." Spetsnaz had a better track record of successful operations, that much is fact. Adams simply synthesized the broader historical background for this empirical generalization at a time when it was a very hot topic.

I'd love to try 1.6! Please do send it. What tribe would you like me to play test, and what diff level?

i can send it to you around lunch time today as my files are at my home PC.

it doesn't matter really as far as which civi to play. i'm actually into the mid 60s now as WG/LL.

lastly: well, since you're currently immersed in the sp ops book, i'd ask for a synopsis on what could be implemented for these units based on your conclusions and our parameters.

Testing 1.6 already :eek:

wow, you must have been working hard El Justo!!

I'd love to try 1.6 too... as soon as I get my computer up and running again, which could be as early as this evening (i'm not sure if you are aware of the ongoing drama of my "upgrading").

If you want, feel free to email it to me any time, but please don't be annoyed if it's left to rot/rust in my inbox for a week or two before play test reports start emerging from my fingertips.....

cWell in order of what is most important:

1. Give Spetsnaz hidden nationality
2. Give Spetsnaz Stealth
3. Up Spetsnaz Attack just a tad, and give it Blitz, so that it has a moderate chance to attack a standard Post-War unit and survive. Attack of 17 with blitz did not seem too powerful. I attacked US Postwar Inf twice and they only died once, but barely scratched the Infantry unit. True, if you could build a STACK of 17 movement 2 blitz units, you'd have a game-unbalancer, but with limited numbers they must be used more creatively.

Also, given Spetsnaz hidden nationality makes them redundant with the Spy. However there WAS a major focus on espionage by the Soviets, so perhaps this is not overkill.

4. Given all of this, you MIGHT consider slowing down Spetsnaz auto-produce rate. Having played an SP on Demi-God as WP with these changes included, I was up to about 1953, and it had not given me any great advantage. However, I DID have a stack of about 4 or 5 Spetsnaz units that I was just about to use in the invasion of Istanbul. By my estimates the max finish times (assuming full-bore science at 6 turns per tech) for the Three Eras are.

First (1950-59) 132 turns into the game
Second (1960-1975) 250 turns into the game
Third (1976-1989) 346 turns into

I would say maximum of 5 Spetsnaz per era would force the Soviet human player to use them wisely. At present they get just over 6 per era.

Just doing this, in combination with NOT giving ANY other SpecOps units (ranger and commandos) Hidden Nationality, would nicely represent the difference in how East and West used, and took advantage of SpecOps up through the mid 1970s.

I think this would be a minimum to give the Soviets a bit more of an historically accurate Covert war edge that they seem to have had, at least up to the late 1980s. With everything else left alone, this would give the Soviets at least a semblance of the covert war edge which they had, so the rest are just possibilities which would involve a bit more work in the editor (still in order of what I'd deem most important).

5. Give Soviets a 2nd SpecOps unit "VDV Advisor (actually should be called ‘Infiltrator’!)" or something along those lines. Hidden Nationality, Bombard=25 (might need to be fairly high for the unit to have any utility at all), ZOC, Airdrop. These should cost about 1.5 to 2 times more than the cost of a battle tank, and maybe have higher maintenance. Also may be good to make them require some other Tech/SOW or something besides Soviet Identity. Might be interesting to link this to the tradable resource the Soviets can give away which Surtur has experiment with "Soviet Arms." For its anim, and icon this guy would use the VDV paratroop, and so maybe his ADM should be identical to that units.

The keys to this unit are: (i) expensive, so cannot be made en masse; (ii) NOT invisible, so it has a short survivability in the field (D might need to be lower); (iii) can covertly drop next to an enemy city in preparation for a covert-takeover; (iv) assuming no response by the victims, softens up the defenders for Spetsnaz. The number of these producable, MUST be kept low, but two of these with maybe 3 Spetsnaz (aka by about mid 1960s) should enable Soviets a chance to take over Third World cities without declaring war. The key problem with this unit is, how to prevent the human from building a baker's dozen and taking over the entire planet. Would be worth experimenting with . . . Probably best to have them auto-produced so that the first possible one comes available at the date of the Revolution in Czechoslovakia, August 21, 1968, which is 206 turns into the game, i.e., sometime around Sub Tactics / Advanced Carriers.

One option for this would be to make the "Infiltrator" be auto-produced from a Communist-Dependent Small Wonder, that needs Soviet identity, and the Soviet Resource to be built (to insure that it is ONLY EVER built in one of the core Soviet cities). The SW would become available with Spec Ops (turn ~120 leaving about 90 turns). With tons of Engineers, the top Soviet cities in late 1950s can probably generate about ~85 shields??

Thus, a sheild cost for this wonder of 1700 would make it require about 20 turns to build in Moscow or one of the Soviet biggies (and interestingly it is in this era that allies can start sabotaging production ! :) ) That leaves 70 turns to the earliest possible onset of the historic use of infiltrators in Czechoslovakia. Depending on how tough their bombard is compared to the Yugo defenders, you might want to make them auto-produce 1 every 22 turns, giving up to 3 by circa Aug 1968 game-tech-wise if not game date-wise.

If there were 4 Yugo Inf in Prague, with defense of 16, 3 of these guys with bombard 25 and 5 Spetsnaz "MIGHT" do the job?

Given that the Period of most intense Soviet covert actions was 1965-1975 you might make the SW go obsolete with some later Tech like "Modern Ground Attack" (~turn 280). This would restrict the Soviets to grand possible total of about 6.36 "Infiltrators" during the entire course of the game (assuming my numbers are right).

6. Give Soviets a 3rd SpecOps unit "Saboteur" or something . . .
Hidden Nationality, Invisible, AirDrop A/D/M 3/10/1 Bombard=15 "Air Unit" with mission "Precision Strike." Unlike the Infiltrator, which has low survivability, this guy is invisible (though slow) so has a slightly better chance to escape. The idea is, he drops down next to the city, and takes out the Civil Defense, or Barracks or Harbor, or whatever. Again the Soviets should be highly restricted in how many of these they can ever have.

7. Give US player the chance to build a “Delta Force Unit” starting Mod Military Org. This guy would approximate Spetsnaz, not be auto-produced (representing the greater POTENTIAL flexibility in military budget allocation by the Yanks than the Commies), but be so expensive that the human is restricted in how many he can ever produce (AND requiring a resource in city radius, that is ONLY in Memphis, TN [should be Fort Bragg NC, but Atlanta should not become the Delta Force-Town, so Memphis is the next best option]). I’d say Memphis at its peak is producing about what, 50 shields from tiles? Given that Mod Milit Org comes at earliest at about turn ~222, that leaves about 250 left in the game. Certainly it should be IMPOSSIBLE to ever have more than 10 Delta Force units in the game (corresponding to about 25 Spetsnaz possible in total). If you can set Delta to be a non-rushable unit, then just make his shield cost so high that it takes Memphis 20 turns to build one at MAXIMUM production As far as how he differs from Spetsnaz, make his attack stronger, but defense weaker? Not really sure, but whatever would produce game balance would be good. I’d give him a bombard ability like the Soviet Infiltrator (although only B=13) A/D/M 18/9/2 hidden nationality, invisible, pillage, Blitz, ZOC, airdrop. With considerably fewer of these hidden nat units available to the US during the mid-late game, the US capacity to engage in “regime change” secret attacks like the Soviets will be much slower, but POSSIBLE by the mid 1980s. One tactic this would open up to the US player is this: By circa Jet Fighters, US will have two Delta Force Regiments, which it can airdrops into the mountains next to a “Communist Sympathizer” city. These guys have a low, but not negligible defense, so they might be able to survive a couple turns, bombarding units in the stack, and using their stealth ability (if not a spy mission in advance) to soften up the defenders. After this, the US declares war (still NOT in ROP abuse) airdrops in the airborne, air strikes the beejesus out of the city, and takes control.

8. Give US player the chance to build another unit with Advanced Espionage “Navy SEAL” only buildable in Los Angelos or Norfolk. This guy would be a true bad ass in every respect, and would fill the role of the Soviet Saboteur, as well as multi-functional other tasks. A/D/M 20/20/3 “Air Unit” with Precision Strike, Bombard=25. Hidden Nationality, blitz, pillage, amphibious attack, airdrop. With this unit, I would lean towards it NOT being auto-produced, to allow the human player the OPTION to rush (at VERY high cost!) a handful of these guys toward the end game. Not sure if it is possible to specify that a Bldg allows CONSTRUCTION of a unit (as opposed to auto-production), but if so this would be the trick to this unit. Put a resource in LA and Norfolk, and make the “SEAL School” Bldg require that resource to be in the city radius. Then make the SEAL unit cost about 2000 shields. That should do the trick!

Testing 1.6 already :eek:

wow, you must have been working hard El Justo!!

I'd love to try 1.6 too... as soon as I get my computer up and running again, which could be as early as this evening (i'm not sure if you are aware of the ongoing drama of my "upgrading").

If you want, feel free to email it to me any time, but please don't be annoyed if it's left to rot/rust in my inbox for a week or two before play test reports start emerging from my fingertips.....
hi there man o' war.

dude, i'm always working on something...whether it's TCW or something else :lol:

why don't you PM me or send me an email when you're ready and i'd be happy to ship it over to you.

cWell in order of what is most important:

1. Give Spetsnaz hidden nationality
2. Give Spetsnaz Stealth
3. Up Spetsnaz Attack just a tad, and give it Blitz, so that it has a moderate chance to attack a standard Post-War unit and survive. Attack of 17 with blitz did not seem too powerful. I attacked US Postwar Inf twice and they only died once, but barely scratched the Infantry unit. True, if you could build a STACK of 17 movement 2 blitz units, you'd have a game-unbalancer, but with limited numbers they must be used more creatively.

Also, given Spetsnaz hidden nationality makes them redundant with the Spy. However there WAS a major focus on espionage by the Soviets, so perhaps this is not overkill.

4. Given all of this, you MIGHT consider slowing down Spetsnaz auto-produce rate. Having played an SP on Demi-God as WP with these changes included, I was up to about 1953, and it had not given me any great advantage. However, I DID have a stack of about 4 or 5 Spetsnaz units that I was just about to use in the invasion of Istanbul. By my estimates the max finish times (assuming full-bore science at 6 turns per tech) for the Three Eras are.

First (1950-59) 132 turns into the game
Second (1960-1975) 250 turns into the game
Third (1976-1989) 346 turns into

I would say maximum of 5 Spetsnaz per era would force the Soviet human player to use them wisely. At present they get just over 6 per era.

Just doing this, in combination with NOT giving ANY other SpecOps units (ranger and commandos) Hidden Nationality, would nicely represent the difference in how East and West used, and took advantage of SpecOps up through the mid 1970s.

I think this would be a minimum to give the Soviets a bit more of an historically accurate Covert war edge that they seem to have had, at least up to the late 1980s. With everything else left alone, this would give the Soviets at least a semblance of the covert war edge which they had, so the rest are just possibilities which would involve a bit more work in the editor (still in order of what I'd deem most important).

5. Give Soviets a 2nd SpecOps unit "VDV Advisor (actually should be called ‘Infiltrator’!)" or something along those lines. Hidden Nationality, Bombard=25 (might need to be fairly high for the unit to have any utility at all), ZOC, Airdrop. These should cost about 1.5 to 2 times more than the cost of a battle tank, and maybe have higher maintenance. Also may be good to make them require some other Tech/SOW or something besides Soviet Identity. Might be interesting to link this to the tradable resource the Soviets can give away which Surtur has experiment with "Soviet Arms." For its anim, and icon this guy would use the VDV paratroop, and so maybe his ADM should be identical to that units.

The keys to this unit are: (i) expensive, so cannot be made en masse; (ii) NOT invisible, so it has a short survivability in the field (D might need to be lower); (iii) can covertly drop next to an enemy city in preparation for a covert-takeover; (iv) assuming no response by the victims, softens up the defenders for Spetsnaz. The number of these producable, MUST be kept low, but two of these with maybe 3 Spetsnaz (aka by about mid 1960s) should enable Soviets a chance to take over Third World cities without declaring war. The key problem with this unit is, how to prevent the human from building a baker's dozen and taking over the entire planet. Would be worth experimenting with . . . Probably best to have them auto-produced so that the first possible one comes available at the date of the Revolution in Czechoslovakia, August 21, 1968, which is 206 turns into the game, i.e., sometime around Sub Tactics / Advanced Carriers.

One option for this would be to make the "Infiltrator" be auto-produced from a Communist-Dependent Small Wonder, that needs Soviet identity, and the Soviet Resource to be built (to insure that it is ONLY EVER built in one of the core Soviet cities). The SW would become available with Spec Ops (turn ~120 leaving about 90 turns). With tons of Engineers, the top Soviet cities in late 1950s can probably generate about ~85 shields??

Thus, a sheild cost for this wonder of 1700 would make it require about 20 turns to build in Moscow or one of the Soviet biggies (and interestingly it is in this era that allies can start sabotaging production ! :) ) That leaves 70 turns to the earliest possible onset of the historic use of infiltrators in Czechoslovakia. Depending on how tough their bombard is compared to the Yugo defenders, you might want to make them auto-produce 1 every 22 turns, giving up to 3 by circa Aug 1968 game-tech-wise if not game date-wise.

If there were 4 Yugo Inf in Prague, with defense of 16, 3 of these guys with bombard 25 and 5 Spetsnaz "MIGHT" do the job?

Given that the Period of most intense Soviet covert actions was 1965-1975 you might make the SW go obsolete with some later Tech like "Modern Ground Attack" (~turn 280). This would restrict the Soviets to grand possible total of about 6.36 "Infiltrators" during the entire course of the game (assuming my numbers are right).

6. Give Soviets a 3rd SpecOps unit "Saboteur" or something . . .
Hidden Nationality, Invisible, AirDrop A/D/M 3/10/1 Bombard=15 "Air Unit" with mission "Precision Strike." Unlike the Infiltrator, which has low survivability, this guy is invisible (though slow) so has a slightly better chance to escape. The idea is, he drops down next to the city, and takes out the Civil Defense, or Barracks or Harbor, or whatever. Again the Soviets should be highly restricted in how many of these they can ever have.

7. Give US player the chance to build a “Delta Force Unit” starting Mod Military Org. This guy would approximate Spetsnaz, not be auto-produced (representing the greater POTENTIAL flexibility in military budget allocation by the Yanks than the Commies), but be so expensive that the human is restricted in how many he can ever produce (AND requiring a resource in city radius, that is ONLY in Memphis, TN [should be Fort Bragg NC, but Atlanta should not become the Delta Force-Town, so Memphis is the next best option]). I’d say Memphis at its peak is producing about what, 50 shields from tiles? Given that Mod Milit Org comes at earliest at about turn ~222, that leaves about 250 left in the game. Certainly it should be IMPOSSIBLE to ever have more than 10 Delta Force units in the game (corresponding to about 25 Spetsnaz possible in total). If you can set Delta to be a non-rushable unit, then just make his shield cost so high that it takes Memphis 20 turns to build one at MAXIMUM production As far as how he differs from Spetsnaz, make his attack stronger, but defense weaker? Not really sure, but whatever would produce game balance would be good. I’d give him a bombard ability like the Soviet Infiltrator (although only B=13) A/D/M 18/9/2 hidden nationality, invisible, pillage, Blitz, ZOC, airdrop. With considerably fewer of these hidden nat units available to the US during the mid-late game, the US capacity to engage in “regime change” secret attacks like the Soviets will be much slower, but POSSIBLE by the mid 1980s. One tactic this would open up to the US player is this: By circa Jet Fighters, US will have two Delta Force Regiments, which it can airdrops into the mountains next to a “Communist Sympathizer” city. These guys have a low, but not negligible defense, so they might be able to survive a couple turns, bombarding units in the stack, and using their stealth ability (if not a spy mission in advance) to soften up the defenders. After this, the US declares war (still NOT in ROP abuse) airdrops in the airborne, air strikes the beejesus out of the city, and takes control.

8. Give US player the chance to build another unit with Advanced Espionage “Navy SEAL” only buildable in Los Angelos or Norfolk. This guy would be a true bad ass in every respect, and would fill the role of the Soviet Saboteur, as well as multi-functional other tasks. A/D/M 20/20/3 “Air Unit” with Precision Strike, Bombard=25. Hidden Nationality, blitz, pillage, amphibious attack, airdrop. With this unit, I would lean towards it NOT being auto-produced, to allow the human player the OPTION to rush (at VERY high cost!) a handful of these guys toward the end game. Not sure if it is possible to specify that a Bldg allows CONSTRUCTION of a unit (as opposed to auto-production), but if so this would be the trick to this unit. Put a resource in LA and Norfolk, and make the “SEAL School” Bldg require that resource to be in the city radius. Then make the SEAL unit cost about 2000 shields. That should do the trick!
holy schnykies Anthro!

i like the HN idea for all sp force units

the stealth flag is interesting. what exactly would you prefer it to have the 1st crack at? worker units? infantry? other sp ops units?

the blitz flag is also interesting. iirc, it already has it (at least the US one does iirc).

if a boost in stats is in order for the sp force units, then, yes, by all means it would be reasonable to up the rate for autoproduction.

i don't think adding more sp force units into the game is the best fix. as a matter of fact, i think it'd clog up the unit lines and create an even more difficult situation in figuring out how and where the units are best applicable. we shouldn't forget that we're working on 'division level' so these sp force units need to be configured entirely around this method.

i agree that the soviet sp forces could bring more to the table than the yankee and western counterparts.

a few more notes on your comments:
- adding in another or more imp's and wonders would require me to re-name and/or replace existing imp's and wonders as there's no more room to add any more. believe me when i write this as i've had some real crazy sheet happen a few months ago when i went in to add more of them (crashes, etc).
- flagging a unit as real high in shield value essentially renders the unit useless as far as the AI is concerned. by this i mean that a 17/10 unit costing 900 shields will never, ever be built as the AI has much more attractive units to build for their buck. iow, this would be only applicable to a human player.
- the hard-coded limit in shield costs is 999. here's another one where i've been very frustrated with as we've always wanted to scale out the costs a little further but our hands are tied due to this limitation. ask I_B. he and i spoke many times over the summer about how asanine this feature is...

holy schnykies Anthro!

i like the HN idea for all sp force units

the stealth flag is interesting. what exactly would you prefer it to have the 1st crack at? worker units? infantry? other sp ops units?

the blitz flag is also interesting. iirc, it already has it (at least the US one does iirc).

if a boost in stats is in order for the sp force units, then, yes, by all means it would be reasonable to up the rate for autoproduction.

i don't think adding more sp force units into the game is the best fix. as a matter of fact, i think it'd clog up the unit lines and create an even more difficult situation in figuring out how and where the units are best applicable. we shouldn't forget that we're working on 'division level' so these sp force units need to be configured entirely around this method.

i agree that the soviet sp forces could bring more to the table than the yankee and western counterparts.

a few more notes on your comments:
- adding in another or more imp's and wonders would require me to re-name and/or replace existing imp's and wonders as there's no more room to add any more. believe me when i write this as i've had some real crazy sheet happen a few months ago when i went in to add more of them (crashes, etc).
- flagging a unit as real high in shield value essentially renders the unit useless as far as the AI is concerned. by this i mean that a 17/10 unit costing 900 shields will never, ever be built as the AI has much more attractive units to build for their buck. iow, this would be only applicable to a human player.
- the hard-coded limit in shield costs is 999. here's another one where i've been very frustrated with as we've always wanted to scale out the costs a little further but our hands are tied due to this limitation. ask I_B. he and i spoke many times over the summer about how asanine this feature is...

IMHO, only Spetsnaz should have HN to start, in order to reflect Soviet focus on covert war going all the way back to Napoleon. The possibility for the West (Commonwealth & US) to create hidden nationality units should not be possible till end of First Era at earliest.

Re: Stealth, yeah I was just having a look at that (taking the day off! since I'm at a conference for the rest of the week :) ) and I think that Spetsnaz should only be able to stealth strike at the Postwar Infantry of nations that are not in the G7 (i.e., NOT: Britain, France, W Germ, US, ANZAC, and China) nor their "allies" (Arabs, Cuba). Moreover, no modern Infantry, and no ships, nor jets that are post "Advanced Air Defense." This would represent the early game edge that a Spetsnaz could enjoy in sabotaging enemy airfields and command and control.

You could also give Stealth to Royal Marine Commandos, and have them have a comparable array of sabotage abilities.

Postwar US rangers should not have stealth (if Adam's book is accurate), but having a US Spec Ops unit that is built in mid 1960s (Green Beret?) and based off of Ranger and has Stealth would be good.

I notice that quite a few of the units have blitz. I believe what blitz does is allow the unit to survive an attack that it lost (not sure), so only a flexible unit that could withdraw and regroup should have it.

For the additional wonders, bldgs. Wow. Didn't realize that! That must be why it crashed on me when I tried to add "Truman Doctrine!"

As for the AI not making use of units, the way that these SpecOps should be used effectively is proabably beyond the AI in an SP game anyway, so it is kind of a moot point actually. The AI uses brute force, and mass numbers.

As far as the issue of "Division Level:" numbers of men/vehicles, and size of armaments/arsenals are not everything. The idea that a 100 man unit can defend against, and even 'defeat' a unit of 10,000 is not without historical precedent.

There are numerous examples in history of relatively tiny numbers of soldiers (read 'Company-Level Groups'), well-equipped, well-organized, and well-led, holding off HUGE numbers of (read 'Division-Level Groups' less well-equipped, poorly-organized, poorly-led, else low-morale soldiers.

300 Greeks held off 100,000 Persians at Thermopylae for about a week.

95 British riflemen held off some 4000 Zulu warriors at Rorke's Drift for several days. The Americans did it to the NVA in the Ia Drang Valley in 1965 (believe it was about 600 US soldiers holding off at least one entire Division of NVA, if not more). There are numerous battles in the American Revolutionary war in which ranger companies of 50 to 100 men wrecked havoc on British Regiments numbering 2000+ In the current war in Iraq, there are 135,000 conventional US troops in Iraq, fighting what one could conclude (if one believes left-wing pundits) is a "losing battle" against at most 30,000 "insurgents."

Using proper tactics, with proper solidarity, training, equipment, and leadership, a group of 10 can easily wipe out a group of 100.

Thus, there is no basis on which a Civ unit that represents merely 300 men (effectives plus support) should not, or cannot have an attack value, or even a defense value that is comparable to a unit that represents 3000 men (effectives plus support).

The main issue is that, it should not be possible for such disporporitionately EFFECTIVE units as SpecOps to be produced in as mass of numbers as are conventional troops.

I would point out that people seem to be forgetting about the espionage/spy screen that you can spend cash on in order to sabotage various city improvements, etc as part of the cold war. We don't need a bazillion units running around that can sabotage/blow up stuff. It simply did not happen during the cold war era if you think about it. There is a huge difference between what happen with the cold war era and the terrorist era we have today. For the most part, terrorist activites were confined to revolutionary activity, the middle east conflict and the IRA. A final point on more units is that every single one slows the game down.. make the ones you put in count for something.

I would point out that people seem to be forgetting about the espionage/spy screen that you can spend cash on in order to sabotage various city improvements, etc as part of the cold war. We don't need a bazillion units running around that can sabotage/blow up stuff. It simply did not happen during the cold war era if you think about it. There is a huge difference between what happen with the cold war era and the terrorist era we have today. For the most part, terrorist activites were confined to revolutionary activity, the middle east conflict and the IRA. A final point on more units is that every single one slows the game down.. make the ones you put in count for something.

True. But I find the spy screen to be rather boring, whereas moving little guys around on the screen, for whatever reason is "fun!"

Also, there are some nontrivial differences in the parameters of using the spy screen vs. a unit, and these differences are not the same with human vs. AI opponents.

Spy screen has a different set of unpredictabilities, advantages and weaknesses. Attacking the AI, with hidden nat stealth affords the human a means to take over a city with little or no risk of fomenting a full-scale war with that tribe and its allies, whereas the dice always seem to be loaded at just the wrong moment in the spy screen.

Also, "power" in the spy screen is about economy, and the Soviets did not use their economy to exert their influence covertly. They used submachine guns, grenades, and pistols in the hands of the most expert users, in concert with propaganda aimed at the disenfranchised, alienated, and the gullible.

Frankly, I rather loathe the spy screen in C3C, and HOPE that it is a tad bit better in C4, though I have to admit, it is FAR better than almost any "diplomacy" interface I've ever seen before in any other game (which is not very many! :D

I would point out that people seem to be forgetting about the espionage/spy screen that you can spend cash on in order to sabotage various city improvements, etc as part of the cold war. We don't need a bazillion units running around that can sabotage/blow up stuff. It simply did not happen during the cold war era if you think about it. There is a huge difference between what happen with the cold war era and the terrorist era we have today. For the most part, terrorist activites were confined to revolutionary activity, the middle east conflict and the IRA. A final point on more units is that every single one slows the game down.. make the ones you put in count for something.It's a cool gameplay mechanic though, and besides Espionage in Civ 3 is way too weak. That's just my opinion, of course.

i had understood the role of the spetsnaz, so far as in the event the cold war would turn hot, was to infiltrate prior to an invasion to hit key targets and at or near the top of their list was air defenses. from what i understand of the role the us green berets and the british sas during the iraq war was, at or near the top of their list, the destruction of air defenses along with scud missle batteries. so having hidden nationality and stealth attack (which is just selective targeting, not really anything stealthy) for special forces type units would fit. the down side is that stealth attack doesn't work against a stack in a city, which is where such air defense and bombardment units would most likely be during peace, and war. so good idea that won't work due to the AI, though most humans would also have their AA units in cities as well. right now, i'm using kgb to knock out the flak at the us airbase in germany, it works pretty well but spetsnaz would work much better. another thing to remember about HN units is they can't capture a city, you'll eventually need to occupy with a unit that carries the national flag.

blitz doesn't give the unit a retreat option, that is for any 'fast' unit (2 or more movement) fighting a 'slow' (1 or less movement) unit. Blitz gives the oportunity to attack more then once a turn. the E-2 awacs has 2 movement, but it can't recon twice. what it can do is re-base then recon. the recon is an 'attack' while the rebase is a 'move'. i haven't tested it or anything, but if you want it to recon twice, i would guess giving it blitz would work.

as far as terrorists and suicide bombers and such, the scope and scale of this scenario is to large for such things. there are no commercial airlines to bomb, hitting an entertainment complex or mass transit system in this scenario will not have the same effect as it does in real life, airports may have been a valued target but with air trade not an issue the value is much less. unless you want something that will just randomly kill the population of a city, wait aircraft and artillery already do that, unless you want to do that while at peace then i guess they might have some use. personnally i am disappointed when my bombardment hits population instead of a unit, almost as bad inneffective bombardment.