Napoleonic Europe [Scenario]

[Lord Olleus]

one possible way of fixing the draft problem is simply to break the upgrade chain at recruit 2. Its not a perfect solution but its better than nothing. The costal cottages doesn't really make sence, as you can't build them after they've been pillaged. I think it would be better to just give +1 commerce to all costal tiles, and then have ships prevent people from working there.

[AlazkanAssassin]

Would you prefer that cottages be buildable on coast squares, or removed from them?

If I break the upgrade chain I will have to balance them as buildable units.
How hard would it be to make a sort of "national guard" unit that is not able to leave your civ boundaries and thus only useful as defense?

[Lord Olleus]

it would be quite easy to do, but very hard to make the AI use it. Much better to have the as 'defend only' troops (like machinegunners), although that doesn't really do what you want it to do.

[memdee]

Hi,
awesome mod! Since I'm a great fan of that era myself, I love it.
Started a game as Britain. I blockaded all French ports (and, later on, as Naples joined Bonaparte, all Italian ones too), so I didn't have to worry about my mainland being invaded.
Also, in the first few turns, I sent an expeditionary force to Egypt and took it.
Meanwhile, the French invaded Austria, which first became my vassal and then, after having lost Salzburg and a few other cities, the Ottomans'. I wasn't able to send any troops to Austria for support because a few turns earlier, I took Bordeaux and Marseille, hoping to bind most of Napoleon's forces in order to lure them away from Austria and the Netherlands. I didn't have any real hope of being able to keep Bordeaux and Marseille, but I managed to hold them much longer than I expected (about 4 or 5 years), costing Napoleon masses of troops and two very good cities. But in the end, he took them back, spamming my defenders with thousands of light cavalries (which were promoted as to withdraw from combat - and that's what they did! He hardly lost any because they withdrew with something like a 60% chance while I had to keep the flow of Regulars from across the channel coming).
After that, he finally took Holland, despite of all my troops there. By the way, after the "city of Holland" was in French hands, the Dutch continued to exist in the scoreboard with about 28 points, although they didn't have any cities left. A bug?
Anyway, I asked the Russians to join the war against Napoleon, and for 750 gold, they did and in a few turns, took Holland. Wtf? That was unforeseen.
At that point, it was the year 1808 and my citizens began to get really, really angry because I had had war for 8 years now. Also, most of my cities were 20+.
After having played 4 hours, I saved and quit. I'll continue sometime, though.

Oh, another spelling error I noticed: It's Leipzig, not Liepzig

Anyway. Love your mod and the fact that Britain is, in fact, capable of completely ruling the sea, although I can see that the AI wouldn't be.
Can't wait for the next release

[Paasky]

I think the 28 point thing is because the scenario requires complete kills, correct?

If you haven't fixed it already, another typo is Sarajevo


I've noticed that the AI loves cavalry in my mod too, so I'll limit the numbers of them, as I limit Grenadiers & Lights (20 per civ, Guards are at 10 per civ).

Lord Olleus, would you mind doing a bit of python mixing for me? I have a few codes from TheLopez to unite with (IIRC your) Guard promotion python. Plus a few new, very teenytiny requests (some civs unable to change state religion or civics, if unit A is buildable in a city, then hide unit B from being able to be built). PM if you can do these, I'm sure it wouldn't take more than 30mins of your time

[AlazkanAssassin]

Paasky's right about the complete kills. You have to destroy their ships as well to wipe them out.

And I think I will try out the defensive only idea of Lord Olleus for the militia units in the next release. (If it works well in internal testing)

[AlazkanAssassin]

I have posted yet another new version. 0.65

Highlights of the changes include:
Buildable Conscripts units that cannot attack.
32 total spreading leader promotions.
New unit art for the great general. (see download page for screenshot)

[Andrew_Jay]

I gave the scenario a try last night, and it is quite excellent.

I played as France, captured Holland, and vassalised Italy, Austria and Spain. The naval scene has been pretty tense as I try and build a fleet in the Mediterranean. Next step I guess is to unleash my vassals against Prussia and see if I can't get them to also bow to me. Then it's on to Russia!

I played the older version, but want to say that you're great general looks awesome. I look forward to seeing how it turns out in game.

Some suggestions I'd like to offer:

MAP:

Too many trees? Also, I guess this goes here, but try and tighten up the age everyone is playing in - France's German allies have ancient era cities.

UNITS:

Generally really good, but some could be tidied up in terms of their abilities. For example, is it necessary to list all of the cavalry types? Can't you just put in a bonus against Mounted units?

Unit lines - while I didn't explore them all, perhaps they could be more straightforward? Conscript I (instead of "Recruit") - Conscript II - Musketmen - Regulars (or perhaps "Line Infantry") - Guards?

Also, an idea for your conscript could be a unit that simply doesn't move, like an ICBM - you have to build it where you will be defending.

DIFFERNTIATING NATIONS:

You mentioned some of the challenges in giving nations their appropriate strengths and weaknesses (such as Britain being good at sea, Russia and the Ottomans not being as powerful as their size would suggest, etc.). I have two ideas on this.

Leader Traits - create some new traits such as "Land Power", "Sea Power", "Land Dominance", etc. Britain could be "Sea Dominance", France "Land Dominance", I picture Prussia as a "Land Power". These traits could give land or naval units a certain free promotion, and their absence would be the handicap for certain nations.

Civics - perhaps for more flexibility, taken from the game Europa Universalis. There could be a military category where you pick degree between "sea" and "land". France would be at the extreme of the land side, Britain the extreme of the sea side, with appropriate bonuses/handicaps for each. Set certain civics as the favorite for each nation and you should be good. Or perhaps just some general military civics, which I'll get into below.

CIVICS:

Really could use some work. I'd like to help here a little if I can, if just to suggest some names and general effects. Off the top of my head . . .

Government - Absolute Monarchy (military bonus) [most states], Constitutional Monarchy (economy bonus) [Britain], Republic (economy bonus, draft?) [Holland], Dictatorship (military bonus, war warriness bonus) [France]

Labour - Serfdom (draft) [Russia, Austria, Prussia], Emancipation (more productive towns and villages)

Economy - Mercantalism (same), Cottage Industry (more productive towns and villages), Free Markets (same), State Property (same) [perhaps Labour and Economy can be combined?]

Legal - Absolutism/Decree (war warriness bonus, increased corruption?) [good for weakening Russia], Liberalism (economy bonus, culture/GP) [Britain], Revolution (military bonus, increased Great Generals?) [France].

Military - Sea Power (free promotion for ships, reduced land build rate) [Britain], Levee En Masse (free promotion for land units, increased production, reduced ship build rate, draft?) [France], Professional Army (free promotion for land units) [Prussia?], Militia (generic poor military option, maybe call it "18th Century Doctrine"?) [everyone else?]

[AlazkanAssassin]

Be carefull with an invasion of Russia, that's what ruined Napoleon you know.

Yeah, i can see how there could be too many trees, the map i used was designed as a regular map so it had trees as they would have been at 4000BC and I didn't remove very amny of them.
Yeah, I had noticed that some of them start in the anchient era, but hadn't gotten around to fixing it yet.

At the moment, yes. I need to list all of the cavalry types. the warlords unit code allows for combat bonuses vs. unitcombats (horse,gun,melee) but attack or defence bonuses can only be applyed for a unitclass. I would need to include an SDK component to remove it a i don't think that it is worth it for what is really a cosmetic issue. And I don't want the infantry to have an attack bonus vs. cavalry, because the infantry square formations used at the time couldn't really move on the attack very well.

The current version does have a 'Conscript I', II now as well as a 'Recruit' unit.

I'm not sure what version you are using, but I have started with some national differences. the british have "seafaring" which makes their navy start with drill and navigation. and napoleon has aggressive (combat1) in addition to his original traits. Also, the Ottomans have no acess to banks and their units cost more to build. Russian barracks don't provide XP, tey make the units cheaper, so Russia will have more, less promoted units.

Yeah, i havn't changed any of the civics yet. You've got some good ideas there for them and i'm sure I will read through your post again before try setting up the civics in the mod. If I change them at all that is, Right now they mind themselves so you can get along with your conquests.

I'm glad you enjoy playing it, and thanks for the comments!

[AlazkanAssassin]

I have now gotten unique national flags working; on my computer at least.
Check out the screenshots on the download page to see a few of them.
I havn't uploaded any version with them yet, but I'm sure I will sometime soon.

[AlazkanAssassin]

What do you think of my new Main Menu Screen?

[memdee]

Sweet.
But how about a more...universal style for the background?
Something like this (it's just supposed to be an example, but I don't like the low resolution of the Battle of the Pyramids painting ):

P.S.: I noticed another spelling mistake: It's "Straßburg" or "Strasbourg" (depending on whether you prefer the German or the French name), but it's surely not "Strausburg" (which, in German, means "Ostrich Castle" )

[AlazkanAssassin]

Well, with the new custom flags, we have some white flag issues.
I have uploaded a fix in the first post.
Only apply the patch if you are having white flag issues.

[Paasky]

I have the same problem on my old pc which uses t lowest gfx settings. What did you do to fix it? Something to do with mipmaps?

[AlazkanAssassin]

Transparency.

Flags for newer cards need the alpha channel set to all transparent.
See the flags in my white flag fix for this.

Flags for older cards (such as the one i get to build my mod on) require the alpha channel set to all opaque.
See the flags in my scenario files for this.

[AlazkanAssassin]

Which looks better, 12 or 8 man formations? (Or do you hate them both?)

[Paasky]

The more the merrier I say

I've been sort-of doing those too, but seeing how you're far better at the gfx side, I'll just copy them from yours

[Lord Olleus]

They're both amazing, but I'll agree with Paasky on with one, the more the merrier.

I've been playing the senario for a while as the French and I'm nearing the end. I'll do a complete post later, but I'll just say this for the moment. It will include a 120exp Napoleon.

[AlazkanAssassin]

The more the merrier?
What about this 64-man double-square formation?
Or is that a little too merry?

[The Navy Seal]

How does it look like when they go in combat? Whats with the huge guy in the formations? Oh and sixty fours a bit to much.