GOTM 158

I was traveling and absent for a while. I have loaded the game and took a look around but not been able to start yet. How come there is no spoiler thread yet?

The deadline is the best part of 2 months away so I wouldn't be surprised if things are quiet on the spoiler front for some time. And personally I felt discussion here in the game thread before playing was a better match for this scenario.

Looks interesting, though I am not sure I have enough time to play.

The greatest scenario player I ever knew was the late great LaFayette. I competed against his best scores in the wonderful Spanish collection (I will try to find this site again if anyone is interested). It seems there have been very very few organized scenario competitions like GOTM 158, perhaps for fear some players could not get the Gold Edn. Glad to see this ! Good luck !

I have been studying the game for several sessions now. There is a lot to discover before starting to play. Just about everything has changed and some changes make you wonder why (Like Library, University, Marketplace, many of the wonders, ...).

Thanks Inkerman for extensive research. I have studied your posts (10-15) in detail and added a lot of notes of my own. I have quite a few minor questions and notes which I will gladly post if there is interest.

The only major concern preoccupying me right now is the trench. First I thought it is the fortress. But now I realize it is not as I can see fortresses on the terrain as well. Like a fortress it prevents stack death though and it obviously increases the defensive strength of units in it but I do not know by how much. It is kind of like a unit but not one we can produce. It is not listed anywhere in the game's civilopedia. Units in cities can be asked to create a trench but units outside do not seem to have that capability.

I can do a lot more experimentation to find out but I am hoping someone aleady knows:
- Do you take a trench over like a fortress or do you have to destroy it in battle?
- Can our rivals make more trenches? Can we? if so, how?

It's been a while since I looked at the game, but I'm pretty sure a trench is just a unit with 0 movement that has a high defensive value. Just like in regular civ 2, a unit can't prevent stack kills or increase the defence of other units, but the scenario designer probably put fortresses on the squares where he placed trenches.

If the trench is not listed in the Civlopedia, then it will have a prerequisite of NON, so it will be impossible to build more, because there is no technology that enables it. Check your defence minister for the attack/defence value of trenches.

As usual you are right on Prof. Thanks a lot. I do not know why it did not occur to me to check rules.txt. It is indeed a unit with zero movement and just like you predicted the designer placed most ( but not all) of them in a fortress

Does anyone know why some port cities cannot produce ships? For example German colonies in Oceania and Russian cities on Black Sea except Sevastopol and British colony port Morseby and Brisbane?

The scenario designer disabled it. Harbours (and Platforms), Ships, and Hydro Plants each have a flag associated with them telling the game if the city can build those objects (set when the city is founded). The designer can edit the saved game data to manually change these flags.

Thanks Prof. It is great to have you around. Are you playing this one? (There is still time. )

First I thought it is a bug, but the more I explored it the more I got convinced it is deliberate. But I did not know this is possible. The odd thing here is that our only shipyard (port facilities) is in a city that cannot build ships! I wonder if that is an oversight or deliberate.

It was probably deliberate, in order to allow ships to be repaired quickly in that region.

I started playing a few months ago, Paris even emptied itself for me to take easily. I may finish. Unfortunately, the GOTM has to compete with both graduate school and other civilization projects that I have.

I did not think of the repair aspect, that is a good point.

Glad to hear you are playing Prof. I spent a lot of time studying this and finally started playing last night but I have managed only 1 turn so far. Bruxells is in my cross hair. Paris will be soon.

Are we allowing airlifts?

Airlifts are not allowed. The command is not even in the menus.

I just discovered that changing between production types has only a 1% penalty. You may find that useful to know.

Edit: Does the airlift command ever appear in the menu? I just airlifted an infantry between 2 nearby German cities and the airlift message was even altered to fit the theme. I haven't been airlifting my freight, and not I won't start.

How did you that airlift? I looked for this at the outset since long distance deliveries are so profitable and the command is just not on the menu.

I discovered the 1% penalty as I was reading rules.txt.

I used the L key like normal, and it gave me the list of cities with Aerodromes. I do think it kind of breaks the spirit of Germany's struggles to build Aerodromes in the Far East and airlift freight, which is why I asked.

To make fighter planes we need a tech called "the Great War". In rules.txt its prerequisite is plumbing whose prerequisites prevent it from ever showing up as a choice. My guess is that at some point the game just gives it to us like it gave Anzac forces to the British. Shouldn't we know these rules?

You can check events to see when technologies are given, but it gives a technology number rather than the name. On turn 11, we will be given the tech for fighters, and I think the Allies will get fighters soon after (though I believe they start with a fighter unit) through events also (at least they did in my game).

You are right Prof. If I knew this existed I would have built airports in remote locations for van delivery. I can still do that I have only played to Feb 1915.

Other players,
Please comment on air lift and "the Great War"

I just studied events.txt and on turn 11 we will get deflector gear which allows the most basic type of fighter plane. I suppose knowing this is legit as it is out in the open.