Comrades, I'm both Happy and Sad when I see this...

Civ II [Extended] (Yes I just came back from Mars so just seen this...)
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=10557931
What a great work it is! We don't have to deal with the fortress balance problem any more
But wait, how can we get rid off the Stackable Terrain on each and every tile of all the SCNs? I mean, how to do it without a hand cramp?

--------------another topic-----------------
When I pick on McMonkey's Fortress Europe again today, I just have a idea to solve the the FighterBomber paradox (to make them better dedicated fighters in ground attack but at the same time poorer in air combat):
Make a house rule, when send out FighterBombers for a bombing mission, you MAY save the game, open the rule.txt, remove the FighterBomber's "fighter" flag, increase its attack value to a certain value, close and save, reload-----you need to redo this if you need the FighterBombers in an dogfight, or before the end of your turn.

I tried a few times, it's not bothering as it seems and it Does saved me and the free world from some Panzers
The only problem left may be: tell me, this is not cheating

One thing that is possible with FighterBombers (which is slightly cheaty) is something I done when play-testing "Eurasian Wars".

I would use planes like the Do-235 and position it over a stack at the end of a turn, then use the "Shift-N" endturn command, thus locking all units in place.

It prevented ground units from attacking the stack, but fighters could, so there was an element of risk...But adding bombers and AA made it a STACK OF DOOM!

Hey Great people think alike: I used the very same tactic to take back air superiority from the fascist invaders
But btw I don't call it slightly cheaty

And hey, what about my questions...

Have you tested pathos new utility? I intend to when I do my next CIV2 session.

Yes I've tested it and it works fine.
And it works so fine that I regret didn't find it earlier

I tried it out too, and it works magnificently! The only shortcoming is that the application is limited to the current execution of your civ2 program. Once you completely exit Civ2, the changes are no longer in effect. That is, you can't hardwire any changes into .scn or .sav files.

In terms of the bomber problem, I have given this issue a lot of thought. Since bombers unbalance the game play, human players should never be permitted to use an air unit with a range > 1. One way around this is to effectively treat bombers as helicopters. This makes much more sense, even if ground units (e.g., infantry) could manage to shoot down the bomber/helicopter. The key is to make it difficult for ground units to kill bombers, but make it easier for fighters to shoot them down. The solution, in my view, is to give bombers (glorified helicopters) higher firepower and much higher defense values. This would encourage the player to use their fighters to attack them. When combat ensues between a helicopter and an attacking fighter, the former loses half its defense and has its firepower reduced to 1. This would make for more realistic air combat, and would ensure that bombers aren't sitting ducks to enemy infantry.

EDIT: I just realized that the problem with the above is that bombers would be able to capture enemy cities, which is obviously undesirable. I wonder if changing their domain to "3" would solve this problem. See this interesting link.

Hi minipow01,
Thank you for sharing your ideas.
However domain 3 means the "air unit" has no need to land and refule. So don't think it's ok for air.
But it would be nice for a hover amphibious unit or "advanced" helicopter.
-------BTW------
What I mentioned in the origin topic is not about air cover stack...it is about how to make multirole fighters that are better than dedicated fighters in ground attack, but at the same time poorer in air combat.

clightning said:

What I mentioned in the origin topic is not about air cover stack...it is about how to make multirole fighters that are better than dedicated fighters in ground attack, but at the same time poorer in air combat.

Click to expand...

Okay, I get what you're saying. But since we're on the topic of stackable terrain, I think it's important that a bomber's presence shouldn't necessitate tons of enemy fighters to attack a stack of ground units. Like CurtSibling said, the combination of bomber and AA would make the stack essentially invincible. My comments were meant to address that sort of problem

Also, I agree that domain 3 would no longer count as "air". That's my very point; "air" units with a range > 1 totally unhinge the game play. What we need is something similar to a bomber that doesn't have the built-in limitations. Of course, you are right that a domain 3 unit would be a bad replacement for a bomber. It's too bad that helicopters have the capacity to capture cities. Otherwise, I think my idea is pretty good. (With the appropriate house rule, it could definitely work).

Ok i see.
But IMO:
1, air unit range=1 is no good: range=1 bombers can attack multiple times and can not be intercepted; range=1 fighters can not escort bombers...
2, there is a popular House Rule among most recent SCNs: no air stacks allowed. I think that fixed the problem mostly.
3, if in a morden SCN, a morden fighter can easily defeat the hardest ground enemy, including SAMs, then air stack is not a problem at all---------if you insist SAM should still be a tough target, then give SAM the "carrier" flag to disable a SAM-Air stack

clightning said:

2, there is a popular House Rule among most recent SCNs: no air stacks allowed. I think that fixed the problem mostly.
3, if in a morden SCN, a morden fighter can easily defeat the hardest ground enemy, including SAMs, then air stack is not a problem at all---------if you insist SAM should still be a tough target, then give SAM the "carrier" flag to disable a SAM-Air stack

Click to expand...

That's a good house rule. But what should you do when you're attacking a specific target (say, a city) from both air and ground? Do you purposely bomb the city from a square that is unoccupied by your attacking ground units? If your bomber is attacking from a road square, you may accidentally provide cover for your ground units.

I agree that fighters should be made more strong on attack. When using normal (unstackable) terrain, a veteran fighter might eventually be able to defeat the strongest ground defender (and thus kill all the other units). However, when using stackable terrain or fortresses, you will need to have LOADS of fighters to pick off each unit. This is what concerns me so much, because it forces you to massively engage your aircraft, while your ground units are helpless to intervene. I don't think a scenario dealing with, say, WW1 (or even WW2) should be reduced to a slugfest of fighters against ground units.

Well, a house rule is a house rule, it requires carefulness...
If any player violated this, he should disband all airs or all grounds in the stack
And yes fighter should not be that powerful before "percise weapon" era. I think that's why the only SCNs that don't forbid air stack are very morden ones or SciFi ones.
And, there is another solve (if you can bare all the strangeness with it):
1, give all ground units "carrier" flag;
2, rebalance tons of A/D values to make sure the Grounds in a stack would stand first to enemy Grounds, Airs stand first to enemy Airs...

clightning said:

1, give all ground units "carrier" flag;

Click to expand...

Brilliant idea! That totally does the trick!! How many designers know of this? I guess the key is to not accidentally fly your planes over the path of your ground units (that is, if you're planning to attack on that turn!)

Thank you but Be warned! this trick brings only a little bit less problem than it solves:
1, you still need house rule to forbid Bombers landing on a Tank to refule/reload;
2, as in most cases, Fighter's D value is less than Bomber's A value, a Fighter covering ground units would be very likely got "bombed down" by enemy Bombers, thus offer no air protection---but air protection is the reason we send Fighters there, right?----yes, you can rise FD to balance that but it would cause other imbalance...and very hard to achive an over all balance.
3, you need take care of the Navals so no everyone is a Carrier...

So that's why I returned to "No Stack Allowed" after test the above...hope you may have a better way out tho

Good stuff, clightning!

Also, this seems like a good time to post these links!

http://sleague.apolyton.net/Guides/sldt_domain_3.shtml
http://sleague.apolyton.net/Guides/sldt_landseaair.shtml

Those guides are available on the SL wiki. I didn't convert the entire Tips section for my own health you know. I've got no idea why Apolyton still hosts those pages when the rest of the old SL site doesn't work. SEO?

http://sleague.civfanatics.com/index.php/Domain_Three_Units
http://sleague.civfanatics.com/index.php/Mixing_and_Matching_Land,_Sea,_and_Air_Unit_Abilities

BTW, I saw Pathos' thread back when he started it, but it didn't hold much interest for me because the patcher is for MGE only - plus I'm not currently playing or designing.

Skyer created a no stack kills patch for ToT six years ago (full file attached). It's a no-CD cracked ToT 1.1 executable. It lacks Timbatron's CPU fix, so you'd probably need to launch the game using Til's CPU-Throttle. To patch Skyer's file using MastermindX's 64-bit patcher you may need to first delete Civ2.TMMbak. You'd have to test this lot for compatibility.

So that's 3 steps:

1. Place Skyer's Civ2.exe in your Test of Time folder. Back-up your original.
2. Launch the game using Til's CPU-Throttle.
3. If you're running 64-bit Windows, patch the file with MastermindX's 64-bit patcher.

Thank you Catfish.
I knew Skyer's Civ2.exe. But my problem is:
When I use it, it works fine with some SCNs (Battle of France 1944, Dictator-Six, Fortress Europe v1 3 ALPHA TEST, Korea_v1.3) but crashes with others (EurasianWars_Scenario9, EurasianWars2010, First Strike TOT, RedFrontToT)---and as I noticed that, strangely, it can only run SCNs with Stackable Terrains.
And it also crashes when I start a vanila new game.
I don't know why it is so---I just installed CPU-Throttle and run MastermindX's 64-bit patcher as you suggest but it didn't solved the above problem.

BTW - Is there a 64-bit friendly version of CivCity kicking around...?

OK, I had a bit of a bugger around with the Skyer patch using the above steps. I started an Original game (large map, King difficulty, 7 tribes) and let the AI run around until AD 1000. The stack kill business was working fine. No crashes or other strangeness. I ran Red Front ToT until November 1941 without incident. At least this time I didn't have to suffer the 'X units were lost' messages. I saved and reloaded games, also without a problem. I'm running the game on Windows 7 64-bit. Not using any of the compatibility modes. My directory location is: C:\Games\Test of Time\. All scenario folders sit inside the main ToT folder.

CurtSibling said:

BTW - Is there a 64-bit friendly version of CivCity kicking around...?

Click to expand...

You must be getting old.

Thank you for test, Catfish
However it seems that I'm in a uniqe problem...
Don't know what shall I do now...

Maybe someone else can reproduce your problem and you can compare notes with them. Anyone else tried Skyer's 'No Stack Kills' patch?