The War of 1812

The War of 1812 Scenario

Updated Version 0.6
May 11,2006

By Roibeard

Hello All,

I've created this scenario for your enjoyment.

The War of 1812 was often referred to as a "forgotten war" but it was a key turning point in North American history. It established the legitimacy of the upstart nation of the United States of America. It had an even deeper legacy on Canada by uniting the French and English-speaking parts of Canada under a single national identity separate from Britain.

The war ended in a stalemate, primarily due to strategic blunders on both sides. Can you, as President James Madison or King George III replay this conflict to a decisive end, and decide the future of the young nation of the United States of America?

This scenario is based on the American Revolution scenario that is pre-installed with Civ IV, and uses its semi-random events script to handle militia and reinforcements. It also has an interesting semi-random system to simulate the involvement of Native Americans on the side of the British.

This is a total war scenario. No research. No wonders. Nothing to get in the way of your warmongering. You have 100 turns (about 2 years in game time) to achieve a conquest victory by occupying or burning down every one of your enemy’s cities. Nothing short of total conquest will win.

Against the AI, playing as either nation should provide a balanced and challenging game, although experienced warmongers should play at Prince or higher. Playing as the British is definitely more challenging than the Americans. I have a suspicion that winning might to *too* easy on Noble, but I just may have too much "insider information". I look forward to feedback from others who would like to play-test the scenario.

Changes implemented in v.0.6
Playtesting was indicating that the scenario is too easy for the American player. A few changes were made to balance this.

1. Changed Madison from Financial + Organized to Expansive + Philosophical. This will make money management an issue for the American player and the additional great people will help.

2. Added the Canadian town of Amherstburg near Detroit. This forces the American player take another city and opens up a Western front.

3. Added the Native American Shawnee Nation as a barbarian civ in the vicinity of present-day Ohio. The Shawnees were openly hostle to the U.S., which was rapidly expanding into this area.

4. Both Native American civs (Shawnee and Creek) now start with more units, which makes them a little more dangerous.




Known Issues:

1. The "White Flag Problem" exists on some computers (including mine!). I plan to fix this when I have the time.

2. TextInfos are in English only. If anyone would like to contribute additional TextInfo in other languages, please modify the TextInfo XML files in Assets\XML\Text\ and send them back to me. I'll be happy to incorporate them.

Below is the link to download the files. Please follow the instructions in the "Readme" file for installation. This is installed like any other mod in the mods folder. The map goes into the PublicMaps folder.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/Warof1812_v.0.6.zip

Note: in the zip file, you'll also find a PDF file with historical notes, development notes and strategy tips.

Here are some screenshots.

A naval battle in Baltimore Harbor


The Niagara Frontier


I hope everyone has as much fun playing this as I've had creating it.

Change americans to the industril era sol as the british 1795-1900 is the instriel era

read your PDF, and it looks like a great szenario. just about to play, but i dont think it would be a bad idea to include the French, for as i understand it, the French/British diplomacy was a big part of the U.S.'s problems before the war, and it wouldn't have been to unrealistic in my opinion. Just a thought before I play .

You're right. French/British/American diplomacy was a key pre-war factor, primarily concerning trade. The British blockaded French ports, preventing U.S. trade with France. However, the U.S. was decidedly neutral in the European war with Napoleon (they wanted to supply both sides!).

As far as gameplay, since the French wouldn't have sent troops to North America or had any cities on the map, I just thought Napoleon popping up every now and then would be kind of an annoying distraction.

hello
it's impossible to play units disapears randomly (packs of 10 units goes off like this!!!!!!!!!)

hello
it's impossible to play units disapears randomly (packs of 10 units goes off like this!!!!!!!!!)

Click to expand...

Hmm... didn't experience that in my own testing. Can you provide more details so I can debug?

Roibeárd said:

Hmm... didn't experience that in my own testing. Can you provide more details so I can debug?

Click to expand...

I believe this is referring to the fact that the militia that randomly appear will eventually disappear. It doesn't occur to units that you have actually built. I noticed this when I played it as well, it is somewhat annoying, but once you realize that it will happen, it works out fine, you just have to realize that the militia are not "regulars" and therefore should only use them to reinforce the defense of a city, and not serve as the only defense.

I think in general that it is a good scenario, and I enjoyed it, however I would recommend that people play it one difficulty level higher than they are used to playing at if they want it to be challenging if you plan on playing as the Americans. I haven't played as the British yet, so I can't comment on the difficulty of that.

I believe this is referring to the fact that the militia that randomly appear will eventually disappear.

Click to expand...

twansalem - Thanks. I should have thought of that.

Yes, by design, the militia disappear. This works exactly the same as it does in the American Revolution Scenario.

It is definitely more difficult as the British because you don't have the unit production capacity of the Americans and you have a lot more cities to conquer. You also have money and problems. I thought of various techniques for making it more challenging (but just as fun). I think I'll try changing Madison's traits from Financial + Organized (same as Washington) to perhaps Expansive + Industrious. This will take some of his money away and force some harder decision-making in city production. The industrious trait wouldn't provide any advantage in the wonder-building dept. because there are no wonders, but the half-price forges make sense.

The AI is such a lousy military strategist, especially when playing the British. During my testing, I caught the AI sending an invasion force on two undefended transports, while the Ships of the Line and Frigates were just uselessly bombarding a few coastal cities instead of defending the transports.

my game fails to load the mod, what's wrong?
btw im still on 1.52, is that a problem?

my game fails to load the mod, what's wrong?
btw im still on 1.52, is that a problem?

Click to expand...

The scenario was created and tested using only 1.61 - so that could be the problem.

Before we reach that conclusion - have you double-checked that it is installed correctly? (I know you probably have, but it doesn't hurt to ask...)

1. Copy the folder called "War of 1812" to the folder:
C:\Program Files\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Mods\

2. Copy the file called "War of 1812.Civ4WorldBuilderSave" to the folder:
C:\Program Files\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\PublicMaps\

Interestingly the US was on the verge of going to war with BOTH Britain and France, it was a toss up at the time who it would be. But there were many Francophiles in the American government and we ended up going to war with the British, specifically over impressment of sailors off off American ships.

I think adding in timed world events with France/Britain could make the scenrio even better.

I think adding in timed world events with France/Britain could make the scenrio even better.

Click to expand...

That wouldn't be too hard to implement, due to the fact that there is already a Python script with timed events from the Revolutionary War scenario. This script also controls the reinforcements and militia generation events.

I'll take a closer look at the script and see if I can hack my way through it.

- jefmart: do you have any specific historical events that should be included in the script?

Love the scenario, but is there any reason why there aren't any fishing boats and how would I go about putting them in?

Roibeárd said:

You're right. French/British/American diplomacy was a key pre-war factor, primarily concerning trade. The British blockaded French ports, preventing U.S. trade with France. However, the U.S. was decidedly neutral in the European war with Napoleon (they wanted to supply both sides!).

As far as gameplay, since the French wouldn't have sent troops to North America or had any cities on the map, I just thought Napoleon popping up every now and then would be kind of an annoying distraction.

Click to expand...

Yeah, representing the French through events (like in the original scenario! ) is probably the best option. Although in the original they do send units so it would need to be done differently.

One thing that could be done is to simply provide the British with extra units based on their success in North America. I don't know how you have their reinforcements set up now.

Oh, and I'm glad you're having fun making some changes to my scenario.

Hello Trip,

Nice to hear from you... and thanks for letting me hack your script. If you've seen the modified script, I apologize for any nausea that may have resulted.

Trevor - I'll work on those fishing boats - you probably had yours pillaged and want to rebuild them!

Haha, no problem, I'm glad you were able to use it. It's not exactly an example of perfect code either, though I did try to set things up reasonably and comment it so that others might adapt it for their own uses, like you're doing.

One thing that could be done is to simply provide the British with extra units based on their success in North America. I don't know how you have their reinforcements set up now.

Click to expand...

I modified your script so that after turn 40 (March 1813) the British get larger chunks of reinforcements. This is meant to simulate the fact the Napoleon was getting his butt kicked in Europe by then, allowing the Brits to free up a few more troops for N. America.

It's not quite historically accurate, but it balances play.

It certainly would have been more accurate to set up the French as a non-playable civ at war with Britain, and using the war/peace status to allow for larger groups of reinforcements, but this could be subject to wierd AI-to-AI diplomacy - like a peace treaty in turn 2.

My main reason for leaving the French out of the scenario was just to keep AI diplomacy from being a factor.

I love this scenario, as an avid History buff, and a guy who still giggles at the thought of drunks from Halifax marching into washington and burning down part of the white house I was honoured to play, and win, the war as the "British" aka. Canadians.

Time to put a bitter end to you royalist goody two-shoes in Canada

Watch in horror as you are made to play football in imperial measure....