A House Divided 1861 - 1865 ToT scenario released

techumseh said:

Perhaps I spoke too soon. I just received notice that I must capture 3 of 4 cities before the Presidental election in 12 turns or lose the war. That wasn't part of my plan.

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Hi Techumseh,

This particular game feature is covered in Major Game Concept #18 of the ReadMe. As such, you should have known in advance that this was coming. Though I have tested it, it's the one event in the game I'm not 100% certain that it works entirely properly.

I will admit that this particular event, though seemingly innocuous and straightforward, i.e. you either capture the minimum number of objectives or you don't, ended up being my nemesis during the design phase. Originally, the event required that you capture 6 of 9 objective cities, i.e. Memphis, Vicksburg, New Orleans, Nashville, Chattanooga, Atlanta, Charleston SC, Columbia or Richmond to Win the Presidential election.

@IF
TURN
turn=44
@AND
CheckFlag
Who=Union
Mask=0xFD6
Count=6
State=Off
@THEN
JUSTONCE
TEXT
ABRAHAM LINCOLN LOSES THE 1864 NOVEMBER PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION!
...
ENDTEXT
EndGame
endscreens=yes
@ENDIF

@IF
TURN
turn=44
@AND
CheckFlag
Who=Union
Mask=0xFD6
Count=6
State=On
@THEN
JUSTONCE
TEXT
ABRAHAM LINCOLN WINS THE 1864 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION!
...
ENDTEXT
@ENDIF

But during my testing the event didn't behave as expected. The 'Lose' event would trigger if you captured none, 1, 2 or 3 of the objective cities and the 'Win' event worked if you captured the minimum 6 objectives. But the 'Lose' event would fail to trigger if you only captured 4 or 5 objective cities by the November 64 date. So after many tests, and no small amount of frustration, I had to compromise and reduce the number of required objective to 3 out of 4.

I'm including the original event file if any other designer is able to determine where my error lies.

techumseh said:

Looks like Lincoln lost the election. Formulating Plan B.

Click to expand...

Hi Techcumseh,

Looks like our last threads crossed paths. I guess the 1864 Presidential election event triggered properly for you in this case.

I would be very curious to get a copy of your last saved game file for October 1864. If you have it could you attach it to your next thread?

Sure, here you go. I opened it up with the cheat menu to have a look afterwards. I was far from achieving any of the election goals it seems.

The situation in the Virginia theatre during the last few turns was fairly representative of the final year of the war - essentially trench warfare. However, the lack of any offensive action on the part of the Confederates is disappointing. Even when the Heartland, Antietam and Gettysburg offensives were announced, nothing really happened. The attacks during the game were by naval shells on both land and sea targets. The only other attack was by a Confederate raider on one of my engineer units.

Hi Techumseh,

I took a quick look at your saved game and I see what you mean with the Confederate player not being aggressive, particularly in Virginia.

I have to ask first, when you reached the November 1864 turn did you actually get the following event generated message: "ABRAHAM LINCOLN LOSES THE 1864 NOVEMBER PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION!" followed by the end of screen pop up window? If not, that means the event failed to properly trigger.

With regards the first issue, lack of aggressivness, I've been thinking and I believe there might be two possible causes, i.e. 1) though it sounds counter-intuitive, maybe I need to make the Union player the protagonists in the game and 2) I remember reading somewhere that the AI determines whether it will attack an enemy unit based, at least in part, on the production cost ratio between the defender/attacker. The higher the difference the greater the odds the AI will attack. As such, perhaps I need to make the cost of the Union units higher thereby enticing the AI to attack more (and give the Union player more foundries at the start to offset the extra production cost and maintain the play balance of the scenario).

Only testing will determine if I'm correct on that score. Nevertheless, I will still wait for Agricola's feedback, and yours if you have any other observations, before I move forward with changes.

Strictly on a strategy note, I noticed you didn't attempt to build any road network in Kentucky. I believe each player should obviously devise their own plans, but in my particular testing, I found it crucial to establish such a network if you want to maintain any kind of concerted and sustained offensive effort.

Re: 1864 Election

The TOT Manual states the following:

The mask parameter, in turn, supports two mutually exclusive
optional parameters, Threshold and Count. Using Count, you limit the trigger
to activating only if the total number of matches is exactly the number you
specify. Threshold, on the other hand, is a minimum; if the match total is equal
to or more than the specified number, the trigger is activated.

Click to expand...

Unfortunately, you don't have enough space to do this properly, but replacing Count with Threshold might help.

BTW, each civ can have a set of flags. There is no reason you can't use the French or British flags to keep track of Union and Reb events that have happened.


Re: AI Inactivity
I can sympathise with your problems with a passive AI. The two things I learned while developing AI events is that the AI is abysmally stupid and that in order to get it to attack a specific target, it's attack units have to be overwhelmingingly strong.

Tootall, yes it triggered the end of the game, including the "you lost" message.

I think the union as protagonist might be just the ticket. The other idea, which I'm sure you won't be crazy about, is to replace the fort as stackable with airfields. Lots of work, and you'd have to give up the balloons, but it's a thought.

My strategy didn't fit the time frame of the scenario. As von Moltke said: "No plan survives contact with the enemy." Or the scenario designer. I've started my second game, and am being far more aggressive from the start. The light artillery is effective against CSA infantry in cities and the dragoons work well in the open.

I spent far too much engineer time on the northern E-W rail link last time. I can see that the Union must attack on all three fronts, just as they did in the actual war: in Virginia, towards Richmond; in Tennesee, towards Atlanta, and down the Mississippi towards New Orleans. So once I finish the railway to Washington, I'll switch to Kentucky and Tennesee.

@tootall

Here are the events needed to make Election 1864 work properly. You already have have most of them in the Events file.

AGRICOLA said:

@tootall
Here are the events needed to make Election 1864 work properly. You already have have most of them in the Events file.

Click to expand...

Hi Agricola,

Thank you for the events document. I hope it will finally resolve my problem and allow me to re-instate my original concept of requiring 6 of 9 objectives. As you indicated, I only have a few 100's of kb left in my event file, and as such I will have to review it to see what I can take out or optimize to insert this feature.

[Note: Did you check out Appendix B: Events in the ReadMe file. It lists the objective cities required to trigger each specific event].

tootall_2012 said:

Hi Agricola,

As you indicated, I only have a few 100's of kb left in my event file, and as such I will have to review it to see what I can take out or optimize to insert this feature.

Click to expand...

Some of the text messages could go - eg. the frequent anouncements that a governor has raised a brigade somewhere, or the messages about the historical battle when certain cities are captured.

techumseh said:

The other idea, which I'm sure you won't be crazy about, is to replace the fort as stackable with airfields.

Click to expand...

Hi Techumseh,

I'm not certain why you believe the airfield over the fortress attribute would make a difference, unless it's because you believe the defender gets a 50% defense bonus. I can say because I've decided to always use the stackable(fortress) attribute for all past or future projects that I always take that in consideration by increasing the attack combat factor of all lands units by 50% as well (factors rounding down). For example: The original attack/defense factors of the Union Infantry was 5/4, modified to 7/4 (attack factor of 5 x 50% = 2.5 + 5 = 7.5 rounded down to 7).

techumseh said:

I can see that the Union must attack on all three fronts, just as they did in the actual war: in Virginia, towards Richmond; in Tennessee, towards Atlanta, and down the Mississippi towards New Orleans. So once I finish the railway to Washington, I'll switch to Kentucky and Tennessee.

Click to expand...

You have to remember that this was the first truly industrial war and from the Union's perspective you have to wage a war of attrition. As such, you have to keep a constant pressure on the South and relentlessly grind down their forces. If you adopt a policy of build first and attack later you will undoubtedly find that you will run out of time and lose the war. As you've indicated, I've found the 3 pronged approach to work the best.

The light artillery will only get you so far in Virginia before you confront the more formidable defenses of Richmond/Petersburg and as the more powerful US Canon Rifle and US Mortar are a few years off before you can develop their technologies you should use that time to grind your way through to Manassas and Fredericksburg while building your railroad network into Virginia.

The defenses are not as powerful in the Eastern Theater and as such you should use the first 2 years to grab as many objectives as you can along the Mississippi river and Kentucky/Tennessee front. Don't wait too long to develop the 'USMRR' technology (try to develop it probably no later than mid-1862). The sooner you get it the sooner you will start receiving the engineer units essential for building the rail lines required for sustaining your offensives in the later part of the game.

techumseh said:

Some of the text messages could go - eg. the frequent anouncements that a governor has raised a brigade somewhere, or the messages about the historical battle when certain cities are captured.

Click to expand...

I know that text is always a big consumer of space. There were a number of messages I had inserted during the testing phase just to confirm the events were working. I will have to be a little more ruthless still in cutting out text if I want the 1864 Election event to work as I had originally planned.

By the way, I forgot to ask, did you experience the same lack of aggressiveness in your American Civil War scenario?

Hi Tootall,

I haven't played this scenario yet, but I took a look at the Readme, and it's very detailed and impressive as usual. Having read what others are saying, I think one of the problems with lack of aggressiveness is due to the defense stats.

Techumseh is right to suggest that you may want to convert all fortresses to airfields. This can very easily be done with the Civ Stack utility. You probably have it already, but if not, see here.

The defense stats are currently too high with the stackable fortress improvement. It seems you are mistaken about the added bonus provided by fortresses. It doesn't give an extra 50% bonus; rather, it increases defense by 100%! You are confusing the "fortify" command with the fortification attribute. Fortifying a unit gives it an extra 50% bonus, but the fortification improvement doubles its defense (regardless of whether the unit has been fortified).

Cheers!

minipow01 said:

I haven't played this scenario yet, but I took a look at the Readme, and it's very detailed and impressive as usual. Having read what others are saying, I think one of the problems with lack of aggressiveness is due to the defense stats.

Click to expand...

Hi Minipow01,

Thanks again for all your constructive observations on my Battle of Iwo Jima scenario. It was very much appreciated.

Thanks you for pointing out the100% defensive bonus of the Fortress attribute. That's odd that I always thought otherwise. Oh well, live and learn. I guess I have a few options to look at now with regards to re-establishing the AI aggressiveness, e.g. 1) changing the attribute of all tiles from Fortress to Airbase or 2) increasing /decreasing either the attack or defense value of units and/or 3) making the Union the protagonists.

Note: Thanks, I do have the civstack utility. I would hate to have to change the attribute of all those tiles manually !!

tootall_2012 said:

By the way, I forgot to ask, did you experience the same lack of aggressiveness in your American Civil War scenario?

Click to expand...

It's for 2 human players only. Given the giga map of the US, there was simply no way the AI could handle either of the protagonists. And no, I found no lack of aggressiveness on the part of McMonkey.

techumseh said:

... And no, I found no lack of aggressiveness on the part of McMonkey.

Click to expand...

lol I'm certain McMonkey will appreciate to know that!!!

tootall_2012 said:

Hi Techumseh,

I'm not certain why you believe the airfield over the fortress attribute would make a difference, unless it's because you believe the defender gets a 50% defense bonus. I can say because I've decided to always use the stackable(fortress) attribute for all past or future projects that I always take that in consideration by increasing the attack combat factor of all lands units by 50% as well (factors rounding down). For example: The original attack/defense factors of the Union Infantry was 5/4, modified to 7/4 (attack factor of 5 x 50% = 2.5 + 5 = 7.5 rounded down to 7).

Click to expand...

Minipow01 is right about the defense bonus of forts, but I don't agree that units in the scenario are too strong defensively. I think you have it about right. The reason I suggested airbases is that I have a strong hunch (not tested) that fortresses affect the movement of all units. We know that units with a MF of 2 will "fort-up", but I have long suspected that using forts as stackable terrain causes other units to move less and be less aggressive in general. When making a scenario without air units, I use the airbase for stackable terrain.

You have to remember that this was the first truly industrial war and from the Union's perspective you have to wage a war of attrition. As such, you have to keep a constant pressure on the South and relentlessly grind down their forces. If you adopt a policy of build first and attack later you will undoubtedly find that you will run out of time and lose the war. As you've indicated, I've found the 3 pronged approach to work the best.

The light artillery will only get you so far in Virginia before you confront the more formidable defenses of Richmond/Petersburg and as the more powerful US Canon Rifle and US Mortar are a few years off before you can develop their technologies you should use that time to grind your way through to Manassas and Fredericksburg while building your railroad network into Virginia.

The defenses are not as powerful in the Eastern Theater and as such you should use the first 2 years to grab as many objectives as you can along the Mississippi river and Kentucky/Tennessee front. Don't wait too long to develop the 'USMRR' technology (try to develop it probably no later than mid-1862). The sooner you get it the sooner you will start receiving the engineer units essential for building the rail lines required for sustaining your offensives in the later part of the game.

Click to expand...

Good tips, thanks. By mass building light artillery and dragoons, I reached Richmond by the end of 1861, then used up most of my artillery on a disasterous seige. I will use naval movement to surround the 2 cites and await better guns.

There is a glitch in the events counter that you developed (great idea, btw) to keep the European powers neutral. You have to kill the CSA infantry units one per turn. I killed 3 in the last turn left, but only one was counted. I'll have a look at your events and see if this can be overcome.

Regardless, this is a great opportunity to check out the British and French intervention. I'll let you know how it goes. On to Toronto!

techumseh said:

There is a glitch in the events counter that you developed (great idea, btw) to keep the European powers neutral. You have to kill the CSA infantry units one per turn. I killed 3 in the last turn left, but only one was counted. I'll have a look at your events and see if this can be overcome.

Click to expand...

This is covered in Major Game concept #15 in the ReadMe. Technically you are correct to say it is a glitch, but in the end it is glitch that worked in my favor. Originally I wanted the Union player to have to kill as many as ten CSA Infantry over ten months but as my event file kept growing and I had increasingly less space, I was compelled to reduce it to five. The fact that the Union player can only 'officially' kill one unit per turn and only has 7 turns to do it makes it more challenging. Otherwise, it would be too easy for the human player and there would never be a chance were the Europeans would actually get to intervene.

AGRICOLA said:

@tootall

Here are the events needed to make Election 1864 work properly. You already have have most of them in the Events file.

Click to expand...

Hi Agricola,

I was reviewing the 'election.doc' you sent me. I believe there is an issue with the logic associated to the first CHECKFLAG:

@IF
CHECKFLAG
who=French
mask=0b00000000000000000000000111100000
threshold=3 ;at least 3 of Richmond, Atlanta, Chattanooga and New Orleans captured
state=on
@THEN
FLAG
continuous
who=French
flag=1
state=on
@ENDIF

It seems in this scenario that the event will fail to trigger if the player either 1) only captures 0, 1 or 2 objectives or 2) if they capture any combination of objectives other than the ones specified above. For example, what if the player captures Island No 10, Baton rouge, Nashville. Under these circumstances the Flag 1 wouldn't trigger and therefore would fail to meet the criteria of the 'Lincoln re-elected' event below, which require both flag 1 and 2 to be on. This could occur even if in reality they had captured six of the required objectives.

@IF
TURN
turn=???
@AND
CHECKFLAG
who=French
mask=0b00000000000000000000000000000110
count=2
state=on
@THEN
text
Lincoln re-elected President. Long live the Union!
endtext
@ENDIF

In that case, shouldn't the checkflag work like this instead:

@IF
CHECKFLAG
who=French
mask=0b00000000000000000011111111100000
threshold=0 ;Richmond, Atlanta, Chattanooga, New Orleans, Island 10, Memphis, Vicksburg, Baton Rouge or Nashville captured
state=on
@THEN
FLAG
continuous
who=French
flag=1
state=on
@ENDIF

Which means you can capture as little or as many objectives as required and thus ensure that flag 1 will always be on for both the 'Lose' and 'Win' event. Since the 'Win' event requires both Flag 1 and 2 to be on you must capture the minimum number of objectives for it to activate.

Does this sound correct?

Bad news, I'm afraid. The British and French have also failed to attack. I've blocked them with militia and continued my offensive against the Confederates. I'm going to increase the MF of all units by one, except those with a current MF of 1, and start again. Have you yet made any modifications to deal with this issue?

Sorry, but no. I think you may have the Threshold parameter backwards. Let me try to explain the end of the event sequence a bit more fully.


I previously posted the following an excerpt from the TOT Manual about COUNT and THRESHOLD. The following is a slightly edited version of the previous post.

The mask parameter, in turn, supports two mutually exclusive optional parameters, Threshold and Count.

Using Count, you limit the trigger to activating only if the total number of matches is exactly the number you specify.

Threshold, on the other hand, is a minimum; if the match total is equal to or more than the specified number, the trigger is activated.

Click to expand...

Also, if I understand CHECKFLAG correctly, it only checks the flags marked by 1 in the
mask=0b00000000000000000000000111100000.

Consequently, the following event considers only Flags 6,7,8 and 9 It will not look at any others. The event will turn Flag 1 on only if the CHECKFLAG result is 3 or 4. This is how it checks whether or not a player has met the condition that he must capture at least 3 of Richmond, Atlanta, Chattanooga and New Orleans.

@IF
CHECKFLAG
who=French
mask=0b00000000000000000000000111100000
threshold=3 ;at least 3 of Richmond, Atlanta, Chattanooga and New
state=on ;Orleans captured
@THEN
FLAG
continuous
who=French
flag=1
state=on
@ENDIF


The next event considers Flags 6 to 14. The event will turn Flag 2 on only if the CHECKFLAG result is 6,7,8 or 9. This is how it checks whether or not the condition that players must capture at least 6 of New Orleans, Island 10, Memphis,Vicksburg, Baton Rouge Richmond, Atlanta, Chattanooga and New Orleans has been met.

@IF
CHECKFLAG
who=French
mask=0b00000000000000000011111111100000
threshold=6 ;at least 6 of Richmond, Atlanta, Chattanooga, New
state=on ;Orleans, Island 10, Memphis,Vicksburg, Baton Rouge and
@THEN ;Nashville captured
FLAG
continuous
who=French
flag=2
state=on
@ENDIF


Consequently, only if both conditions are met, will both Flags 1 and 2 be on and the following CHECKFLAG event will fire.

@IF
TURN
turn=???
@AND
CHECKFLAG
who=French
mask=0b00000000000000000000000000000110
count=2
state=on
@THEN
text
Lincoln re-elected President. Long live the Union!
endtext
@ENDIF


The following event checks if only one condition has been met.

@IF
TURN
turn=???
@AND
CHECKFLAG
who=French
mask=0b00000000000000000000000000000110
count=1
state=on
@THEN
text
Lincoln defeated, war over. Union split. Long live the Rebs!
endtext
@ENDIF


Here, I should have added one more event to close a loophole for the case where neither condition has been met.

@IF
TURN
turn=???
@AND
CHECKFLAG
who=French
mask=0b00000000000000000000000000000110
count=0
state=on
@THEN
text
Lincoln defeated, war over. Union split. Long live the Rebs!
endtext
@ENDIF


Hope this helps.