The Belgian Revolution Scenario

I am working on a scenario right now and need help with a couple of questions:

1. I am using the Napoleonic scenario from Civ3 Conquest as the basis. Therefore, the scenario has two tech ages, but only the second one has techs that can be researched. I am trying to "fix" certain techs as starting/free techs in the "Napoleonic Age" tech era, but can't figure out how to do this.

2. In the scenario, I have the French and Belgians in a locked alliance against the Dutch. Other civs in the game (as AI) are the British and Prussians. Is it possible to have the Brits and Prussians start out neutral (thus no alliances and not at war) but predispositioned to ally with only the Dutch?

For #2, how about making it so that only the Dutch can sign mutual protection pacts and military alliances?

Virote_Considon said:

For #2, how about making it so that only the Dutch can sign mutual protection pacts and military alliances?

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That's a pretty good idea, should work nicely.

Re: #1. You can set the starting techs by editing the players in the editor (ALT+ENTER), then going to the Players tab. Assign a civ to each player, and then un-check "Use Civ Defaults". After doing that you'll be able to pick the starting techs for each civ.

Virote_Considon said:

For #2, how about making it so that only the Dutch can sign mutual protection pacts and military alliances?

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da3dalus said:

That's a pretty good idea, should work nicely.

Yes I agree - that will work just fine. Thanks!

Re: #1. You can set the starting techs by editing the players in the editor (ALT+ENTER), then going to the Players tab. Assign a civ to each player, and then un-check "Use Civ Defaults". After doing that you'll be able to pick the starting techs for each civ.

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Darn it, I knew that....I was wracking my brain trying to figure out what I was missing

I wonder if i should just start a new thread for the scenario for additional questions?

Start a new thread when this one has only 3 posts? It would be a waste.
It would be better to just change the title if you want the thread to be more related to your specific mod.

Steph said:

Start a new thread when this one has only 3 posts? It would be a waste.
It would be better to just change the title if you want the thread to be more related to your specific mod.

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You are correct, thanks for pointing that out Steph.

I am having one additional problem when using Steph's Editor for the scenario. I am trying to create the tech tree and have one particular tech called Belgian Constitution that needs to be available only to the Belgians. In the editor under the tech tab, you can select techs to be available to specific civs only. However, each time I go and save the file, the change is not saved. I know that I am missing something very simple but what is it?

Also, since the scenario is set up to play only as the Dutch and the war should be restricted to the Low Countries (with the possibility of intervention by Prussia and England), I have been messing with the idea of giving the other civs no ability to build units. Instead, they would start with some standiing armies and the building of other forces would be from unit-producing wonders. To try to keep all conflicts within the Lowlands, I figure to make victory based on vp's and only Low Country cities would be worth vp's. Is this a bad way of going about it?

Brucha said:

I am having one additional problem when using Steph's Editor for the scenario. I am trying to create the tech tree and have one particular tech called Belgian Constitution that needs to be available only to the Belgians. In the editor under the tech tab, you can select techs to be available to specific civs only. However, each time I go and save the file, the change is not saved. I know that I am missing something very simple but what is it?

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It doesn't work lie that at all! The file format doesn't allow to limit a tech to a civ. There is no way to do this in the regular editor. In the tech tab, this list is just for info, so you know what civ can research the current tech.

If you want to do it, you have to make your civ a non-era civ, and then, in the civilization page, give it as a starting tech to Belgium.

If you want to research it, then create a "Belgian" non era tech; give it to Belgium, and then make it a prerequesite of "Belgian constitution".

Then, if you go to tech page, you'll see it's available only to Belgium.

Brucha said:

Also, since the scenario is set up to play only as the Dutch and the war should be restricted to the Low Countries (with the possibility of intervention by Prussia and England), I have been messing with the idea of giving the other civs no ability to build units. Instead, they would start with some standiing armies and the building of other forces would be from unit-producing wonders. To try to keep all conflicts within the Lowlands, I figure to make victory based on vp's and only Low Country cities would be worth vp's. Is this a bad way of going about it?

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My Napoleonic wars is based almost exclusively on unit-producing improvment, so it should work.

Just make sure the civs who can't build proper units can build one basic offensive or defensive unit, otherwise the game will crash!

add-onGood to know that Steph about your editor. I think the Belgian non era tech method should work fine, thanks for the tip! I also decided to allow each civ the ability to conscript militia troops (Schutterij for the Dutch as one example). The problem is that the militia needs to be made available to build normally in order to be able to conscript them. To prevent the AI from building them (other than by conscription) I thought about raising the shield cost to something very high, say 3,000 shields. Would the AI still try to build (rather than conscript) such an expensive unit above other city improvements that are available, regardless of the shield cost?

Also, what would happen in a scenario that does not allow normal building of units and not alot of city improvements? How would that affect the AI once it has no improvements or units to build? I imagine that cities would switch over to producing wealth since that would be the only thing available to biuid after a point. However, would having vast amounts of gold afect the game in any way? One additional problem to this is whether or not there will be enough city improvements in the game to keep the AI busy. I think, off hand, that there are maybe four improvements and two wonders available to build. Hopefully I am explaining this clearly.

I am also debating on including military academy wonders into the scenario, and giving each civ a single starting army. However, the AI never seems to use armies effectively or build them for that matter (I know that this has been alot of discussion in the past about the AI using armies effectively).

Lastly, sorry about all the continuous questions. Up until now my modding has been limited to simple changes in existing scenarios and not a mod like this. Though I am using the standard Napoleonic War .biq, I am mainly using the units and graphics, since I cannot create unit graphics to save my life!

EDIT: I have been reading Steph's thread on his napoleonic mod here where they discuss unit producing wonders. There some people mention the downsides of drafting units, like militia for this scenario. As the player I guess I would limit myelf to the building of drafted units, though I am still unsure as to the Ai's reaction to drafting them.

Also, I wonder (in the opinion of a moderator) if I should go ahead and have the name of the thread changed to something like, 'The Belgian Revolution Scenario' or something.

Brucha said:

Also, what would happen in a scenario that does not allow normal building of units and not alot of city improvements? How would that affect the AI once it has no improvements or units to build? I imagine that cities would switch over to producing wealth since that would be the only thing available to biuid after a point.

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This won't work. If you have no offensive or defensive unit to built, the game will crash... So you need to keep at least one unit, such as basic line infantry, that can be built by anyone, and use unit-producing buildings for the others.

Lastly, sorry about all the continuous questions. Up until now my modding has been limited to simple changes in existing scenarios and not a mod like this. Though I am using the standard Napoleonic War .biq, I am mainly using the units and graphics, since I cannot create unit graphics to save my life!

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Why use the ugly units from this Scenario when Sandris made more than one hundred excellent units??

Also, I wonder (in the opinion of a moderator) if I should go ahead and have the name of the thread changed to something like, 'The Belgian Revolution Scenario' or something.

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If you have general question, you could keep it like that, but if it is more directed to specific scenario, as it seems to be the case, I think it would be better to change the name, you may get more exposure.

Steph said:

This won't work. If you have no offensive or defensive unit to built, the game will crash... So you need to keep at least one unit, such as basic line infantry, that can be built by anyone, and use unit-producing buildings for the others.

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I thought about that and decided to include the building the militia troops as mentioned above to allow them to be drafted but raise the shield cost very high to prevent the AI from building them, if that would work.

Steph said:

Why use the ugly units from this Scenario when Sandris made more than one hundred excellent units??

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By god you are right? I will do that. thank you!

Steph said:

If you have general question, you could keep it like that, but if it is more directed to specific scenario, as it seems to be the case, I think it would be better to change the name, you may get more exposure.

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Well, since all the questions I have is geared towards the Belgian Revolution mod, then I should change it if that would ok with you.

Brucha said:

I thought about that and decided to include the building the militia troops as mentioned above to allow them to be drafted but raise the shield cost very high to prevent the AI from building them, if that would work.
.

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Yes it would. The unit doesn't need to be actually build, so it doesn't matter if it's very expensive. It just need to be available in the list.
I may probably use something along this line too .

Brucha said:

Well, since all the questions I have is geared towards the Belgian Revolution mod, then I should change it if that would ok with you.

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Go ahead

Um, how do I go about changing the thread name? I assume only a mod can do so?

I was wondering how long it would take you to ask

Steph said:

I was wondering how long it would take you to ask

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I bow before the master I am kind of slow on the uptake!

Time for another question. All units in the scenario (except for militia types which can only be drafted) will be produced by unit-generating wonders placed in all cities at the game start. However, I would like a tech that would be needed to be researched to allow a second tier of better, elite troops that would also be wonder produced. Now, could you have a starting wonder that could produce a later unit once the tech is researched - so basically, the wonder produces nothing until the specific unit becomes available through researching the tech.

O

Not really. But if the wonder requires a resource, then it won't produce the unit until the resource becomes available.

So you could preplace the wonder, and the resource, but make the resource unavailable at start. It will be revealed when the tech is discovered, triggering the production of the units.

Steph said:

Not really. But if the wonder requires a resource, then it won't produce the unit until the resource becomes available.

So you could preplace the wonder, and the resource, but make the resource unavailable at start. It will be revealed when the tech is discovered, triggering the production of the units.

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Ah, excellent workaround, thank you! I really like the idea of uunit-producing wonders since, as you had nemtioned in your Napoleonic thread, the AI tends to build more elite type troops rather than the more common troopt types, such as line infantry.

The Dutch ally with the British?? I dont thinks so...

Redback said:

The Dutch ally with the British?? I dont thinks so...

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Ok, time for a history lesson......

Actually, at the opening of the revolution, the European powers were not pleased with the French backing of the Belgians, minaly due to the Napoleonic Wars just 15 years earlier. While France supported the rebellious Belgians, the rest of Europe supported the Netherlands and a unified Netherlands and Belgium. The reason for this was that the rest of Europe feared that France would absorb Belgium into itself - the British werre especially opposed to this (look up the Talleyrand partition plan of 1830).

Historically, the rest of Europe never intervened in the revolution, but not because of lack of support for the Netherlands. Prussia's economy was in shambles by 1830 and financially go to war, while the Russians were busy with the November Uprisings in Poland. England, on the other hand, began to follow a policy of trying to keep France geographically isolated.

EDIT: On the other hand, following the treaty (also the Treaty of the XXIV Articles), Britian and France sided together to force the Dutch to follow the treaty directives, even threatening coercion. Quoting History of Holland By George Edmundson:

An Anglo-French squadron set sail (November 7) to blockade the Dutch ports and the mouth of the Scheldt; and in response to an appeal from the Belgian government (as was required by the terms of the Convention) a French army of 60,000 men under Marshal Gérard crossed the Belgian frontier (November 15) and laid siege to the Antwerp citadel, held by a garrison of 5000 men commanded by General Chassé. The siege began on November 20, and it was not until December 22 that Chassé, after a most gallant defence, was compelled to capitulate.

The moral of the story is that European politics have never been set in stone for very long and former enemies often times become new-found allies...