Spanish Civil War ToT Mod

That does make the events much easier to browse. I also like having all of the text documents open as tabs within Notepad++. I did use something like this a few years ago when I started dabbling with C++ but then forgot all about it. Thanks for the advice!

Could you point me to the option where I can apply syntax highlighting please Catfish?

I forgot to mention this in the Read Me: When you run the ToTPP launcher tick all of the boxes except for: Move Debug & DirectShowVideo (both located near the bottom of the options).

DirectShowVideo is not required as I have no video's in the scenario and Move Debug is a scenario creation tool.

I suddenly got really busy the last two days, just after your scenario was released...

I'll give it a go today!

Always the way. It's always better to sit down to a new scenario when you can relax and really get into it. Don't rush on my account. I would be lying if I said I wasn't curious to hear what you guys think of the scenario, but I can be patient

McMonkey said:

Could you point me to the option where I can apply syntax highlighting please Catfish?

Click to expand...

Language → Define your language... If you want to try my scheme, download the attachment and click the Import... button in the User Defined Language window. When you open an events file, in the Language menu, select Civ2 Events. If it isn't listed in the menu, restart Notepad++. Keyword groups are as follows:

Group 1 (Macro Statements): bold, dark blue
Group 2 (Triggers): bold, red
Group 3 (Actions): bold, green
Group 4 (Parameters): brown
Group 5 (Modifiers): purple
Group 6 (Wildcards): blue-green
Group 7 (Values): orange

If you're red-green colour blind, you might want to change that scheme. AFAICT, Notepad++ doesn't support spaces in keywords. That rules out "Defender Only" and "No Broadcast". No big deal.

Thanks. I will certainly make use of this.

Hi McMonkey,

First of all I would like to congratulate you on completing your project and being the first to release a scenario using TNO's TOTPP project. You've clearly put a lot of effort in it.

The choice of terrain and unit graphics are beautiful and blend very well together (no components overwhelm another)! I especially like the way you are using the unit health bars to identify the warring factions (very clever).

Because I've had similar issues in the past with regards the text not wrapping properly in the game text boxes, I always make it a practice to manually set my line breaks for each text section in the event file itself. Thereby I can control how they display.

I certainly appreciate the fact that you took the time, and had the patience and courage, to create the PEDIA file (it's such a big task I could never bring myself to do it).

There are a lot of units in the game. What does each unit represent in scale, i.e. companies, battalions?

A question of personal taste, but with regards the html help files I prefer not to place white text on a black background (I find it's harder on the eyes). Otherwise, the information is very useful.

Thanks to TNO's TOTPP event heap feature your event file appears to be quite large. Did you have any issues with implementing it (the event file and masks have always been my bane and always end up taking the most of my time when testing my scenarios)?

UPDATE: Two questions: In what file did you modify the health bars and how do you get a unit icon to appear in your opening 'SPANISH CIVIL WAR v1.0' file (I've been trying to figure that one out forever without much success).

Good job!

Thanks for the feedback tootall. I always spend a lot of time tinkering with the appearance, swapping terrains and editing the map until I get the look right. It's nice to hear it is appreciated!

I experimented with the unit shield and eventually discovered it was possible to put a large coloured surround on each health bar. With the ToTPP shield colour setting it was possible to clearly distinguish the reds and yellows, essential in a scenario where both sides often fielded the same, or very similar, unit types. Have a look at the top right corner of the units.bmp to see how I set it up.

If I had worked on this only at home I may well have skipped the pedia. Fortunately I worked several evening and night shifts and had plenty of time to do some copy/pasting from Wikipedia. I thought it would be a nice touch and it helped while away the hours!

When I first started work on the scenario I got detailed figures for troop numbers and the proportion was around 1000 men per Infantry unit. Aircraft, ships and armour were also proportioned correctly. However as the game developed I had to adapt to compensate for the AI's inability to co-ordinate attacks. This means the actual number of troops is skewed in the AI's favour, but the overall effect remains historically accurate. I believe the term is poetic licence.

ToTPP allowed me to be less economical with the events. No need to combine events to save space. When I needed a new event I just wrote it knowing I wouldn't run out of space! I did have a few issues with flag events during testing, but as it turned out a lot of them were not necessary (esp. unit creation) as I was able to ditch the flag and just give them spawning co-ordinates in certain cities. If the Republic is doing better than expected then the units cannot spawn. The flag events are mainly for text pop-ups now,

To get a particular unit to show on the Intro screen just select it (so it is flashing active) when you save as scenario. This way you can pick any human controlled unit to appear, as long as it is in the scenario from the start and has moves left.

I hope you enjoy playing SCW. I really enjoyed my own play-test which is a good sign I guess!

So it has been two months since the Spanish Civil War ToTPP was released. Has anyone played it? If so, what do you think of the Scenario? After a bit of a break from Civ2 I'm just starting a new game today and I plan to build a page for it on the Scenario League Wiki. Your comments would be very welcome

I got a number of turns into a game (sometime in late 1937, I think) before I realized I'd made too many mistakes and probably wasn't going to win that one. I plan to start another one soon. I greatly like the great detail of the pop-up texts and the numerous flavours of units. Franco is an AI monster (at least at my skill level), which is probably a good feature. Out of curiosity, what unit type is garrisoning the Portuguese cities? I realize they're unattackable, and I didn't use the cheat mode out of respect for your scenario design, but there are no infantry with Portuguese flags on the units.bmp file (or if there are, for some reason I didn't see them), but their cities' flags are up, indicating a garrison. The question's purely semantic, but I am a bit curious.

I believe I garrisoned neutral cities with Bunkers as they cannot move.

I would recommend keeping a save after the AI's first turn so you can restart without having to sit through the lengthy initial rebellion. Until the flow of Soviet equipment is sufficient to allow for a coordinated offensive in strength I would recommend concentrating on holding key cities, re-organising your forces and garrisoning front line cities with at least one fighter. Any offensive with the Militia units is likely to be very costly indeed and will leave you exposed to the Nationalist's counter attack. When the Nationalists capture a city they receive a machine-gun unit to garrison it. These will need to be taken out with artillery, bombers or elite infantry en mass. Getting the right units to the right area at the right time is key to doing well in this scenario. Its crucial to have a clear plan and try to stick to it. Piecemeal attacks will deplete your forces and end up in stalemate at best. Carefully husbanding your units, rotating decimated units to rear areas for refitting and trying to gain veteran status in early skirmishes is also vital for the latter battles.

The objective of the scenario isn't necessarily to wipe the floor with the Nationalists. Initially it is survival, then it is focused offensives against vital targets to build up to a bigger offensive in the latter stages. I would abandon any ideas of a dramatic early blitzkrieg and plan for a methodical campaign whilst being prepared to repel major Nationalist offensives.

Yes, you pretty much got my main mistakes right there.

I'll try this again shortly following your advice there and see what I can do.

That's helpful, McMonkey. My problem has been difficulty in figuring out a coherent strategy, and losing too much ground whilst trying to figure one out.

Initially I would focus on the defence of Madrid, Bilbao, Catalonia, the Levante (coastal area between Barcelona and Valencia) and the area around Ciudad Real. Your initial batches for Fighters should be used in a defensive manner to counter the Nationalist Bombers. I would limit offensive operations to focused sallies to take out vulnerable enemy Artillery.

As the flow of Soviet Aid begins to bolster your forces I would look to concentrate your forces on one objective at a time. Beware for powerful counter attacks. Maintaining your lines of communications between Madrid, Valencia and Barcelona will be vital. It will be tough going to begin with as the Nationalists have superior numbers and equipment, but if you can maintain your forces strength and strike with precision the tide can be turned. Think of your campaign as a building process, securing your lines, re-opening communications then building up forces for concentrated offensives once you have the offensive troops required.

It is a tough scenario, but I have always enjoyed the scenarios where I have lost on my first few attempts. Feels like more of an achievement when I finally figure out the key to victory.

P.S. You will lose ground initially. The key is deciding where to stand and fight and where to cut your losses. You can't hold out everywhere!

I missed the DL, LoL It looks great, I ll run it once I get my pc fixed

Burma is just about ready for playtesting, so once I get it out the door, SCW is next on my agenda.

I definitely look forward to seeing Burma! BTW, techumseh, it seems someone on the Civ3 forum's working on a scenario exactly along the lines of your Blood and Iron idea (in fact, theirs is called 'Blood and Iron: Conquests of the Chancellor'). I don't know if you own a copy or are at all familiar with the Civ3 engine, and, for all I know, they may well be using mechanics that exist in Civ3 but have no applicable equivalent in Civ2, but I thought it might not hurt to have a peek and see how they're doing it.

Thanks Patine. I gave up on Civ 3 long ago, but I'll check out the forum.

(edit) Can you give me a link?

Looking at this closer (the Civ3 forums' organization and labelling seems very arcane compared to the Civ2 forums), it seems, after reading more of the thread, to just be someone's single-player game as Germany renaming his leader to Otto von Bismarck and titling his game as above, trying to play in the RP style of Bismarck. It's disappointing, I know, and I was somewhat disappointed too. The mistake came from my own lack of understanding of Civ3, as well as how their forums and community.