Civil War scenario now entering beta testing

Up now on the mod hub under Industrial or Other scenarios, play as either the Union, or the Confederacy. Scroll down for screenshots.

Description - The North and South are at war. With capitals very close together will the war focus on the well defended Virginia border, or is another route more effective?


*********** Current version beta 5(3/11/2011) *Tested and working, Zip file has been posted here-> http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=16743 *******************


The scenario includes 3 xml files to keep techs coming slowly, give defensive building boosts, and give 12 turns per year.

The only route to victory is to capture the enemy capital, Washington or Richmond. These locations are only three plots apart so crank the difficulty if you are a master of conquest. Enjoy everybody!

Wow. This is a great looking map. I didn't have time to do a full play through, but this looks very promising. I really like the decision to model some of the major rivers with coast tiles, the importance of naval warfare on the Mississippi was overlooked in a lot of the Civil War mods I'd seen in past versions of civ.

My largest concern is that it may be too easy to take Richmond or Washington because of how bad the combat AI is, I'll report back when I've had a chance to play through a full game. I don't know if there will be a good way to fix that issue. I wish it was possible to play mods in multiplayer, this would be a great one for a 1v1 deathmatch.

Thanks, I hope to have this scenario fully ready if and when multiplayer mods happen. Hopefully the AI will at least be smart enough to keep their capitals well protected. A confederate player playing on lower difficulties might need to delay any invasions some turns to give the union AI a chance, as they don't start with as many troops near the capital, or a great general.

On the list of near term objectives are to fit the dates to rough historical accuracy and balance happiness, culture, gold, and production. If necessary I can remodel the capitals to be farther apart, or have a ring of defenses, or better terrain advantages and defensive buildings. And I've been unable to finish my first play test and get good screen shots, but those are coming too.

As, promised, screen shots from the first play test. I'm playing the south on deity, so far the battles have been in Tennessee and Virginia/outskirts of DC, and a stalemate exists which is good, I was unable to conquer Washington with an early attack, so that's looking good too.

I downloaded it but didn't even bother to play it as it's really really laggy on my Laptop

Looks pretty decent, though.

Hi.Really good effort.The settings(map,economy,money,armies) are mostly accurate.I played it in warlord difficulty for both sides.The only issue ,in my opinion, is that the goal for both sides (capture Washington or Richmont - 3 blocks away one from the other) leads the player to 1 strategy :Send all your available armies there.
What i want to suggest is that maybe you should add more cities so that the game lasts a lot more.I enjoyed a lot this mod(propably the best i ve tried) and it could get a lot better.

P.S.
It would be usefull if someone that has tried it in greater difficulty post a thread.

Ah, unfortunately the map is too big for my computer...I was really excited, too.

Perhaps a win could also constitute capturing so many enemy cities (rather than just the capitol)?

I just finished my playthroughs. I played as the Confederates and the Union, both on Deity. It was definitely a fun scenario to play, but unfortunately both of my games were quite short. I won as the Union on turn 10, and as the Confederates on turn 14.

It was definitely easier to win as the Union. They're given a huge amount of starting money, more than I even knew how to spend. I wasted some time getting factories up instead of just buying troops, but once I started buying rifles and cannons on the east coast it only took a couple of turns to grab Richmond.

As for the Confederates, it was a lot harder to take out Washington. I was able to buy a pair of cannons, but that exhausted my gold for the rest of the game. The Union AI used that huge starting money to buy a cannon in a city any time I got close to it, which of course made things a bit tougher. Unfortunately the combat AI is simply too horrible, they wasted a lot of bombards on my caravels and cavalry. Also because getting Washington would be the win, I didn't worry about preserving my army once I knew I could win, I sacrificed more units than would have been smart for any other city.

Is there a way to set it so the player has a small amount of starting cash and the AI has a lot? If this could be done it would make the Union a much harder side to play with.

I don't know about the levels of culture that both sides start with. I'd think it might be better to have some policies pre-selected for both sides. It appears that Piety is a necessity for both sides if you want to stay happy. Aside from that I'd give the Confederacy some policies from the Honor branch, and the Union a few from Commerce.

I like the suggestion prsman made, that other cities should be included in the victory condition. If that's not possible, I also had an idea about modifying the palace to make capitals harder to capture. If you could create a new resource called 'strategic location' and placed it under some key cities on both sides, and had the palace increase the city's defensive bonus for each source of this resource in the empire it might force players to grab a few other cities before going for the kill.

I also noticed a couple of small bugs with the map, there were land resources located in a few places in the water; the Great Lakes, Lake Okeechobee, and the Gulf of Mexico.

I'm not a modder, so I'm not certain if any of my suggestions are possible. I think this is a really cool mod and I'd love to see it continue to develop. Good luck with everything, if there's anything I can do to help feel free to ask.

Thanks for the comments and ideas everyone, I hope to have a new version in a couple of days. I may add hard versions for advanced players where the enemy has extra starting units and gold, and oligarchy is already preselected. I could also move the capital to Atlanta in the south and Philly or NYC in the north. Less realistic, but more playable. I'll try a few other things first, as I'm hoping to keep the mod simple, and easily compatible with other mods, and one single version where all you have to adjust is the difficulty. First idea is going to be adding a massive defensive bonus to the palace building, so it is impractical to attack early on. Keep the feedback coming, and thanks again.

*Should be done tomorrow(March 11th), tech fixes, water resources, better date accuracy and beefed up capital defenses are done, and just need to be tested.

New version is up. beta 5(3/11/2011)!! Zip file has been posted here-> http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=16743

Looks like this scenario has become my most popular. Since I've got new versions up on all my other scenarios, I'll be focusing on this one for a while. This one also seems the most stable for my computer to play, so I can finally finish a playtest(fingers crossed).

The short term agenda is listed on the first post. My more ambitious goals include different classes of cavalry, militias of garrison strength, and near rifleman strength, different classes of artillery, later versions sacrificing speed and/or range, but for a specific, large increase in firepower, or against specific targets(including the gatling gun and horse artillery), and possibly more defensive building options.

Also, I want to add iron requirements to cannons(2,) riflemen(1), and ships(3, 4-5 for ironclad), horse requirements by type of mounted unit(less for scouts, more for heavy), and balance the resources so that the Union can build more rifles, ships, and cannon, while the Confederates have an advantage in total cavalry possible. I'll likely give an infantry special unit to both nations, then give the union special artillery and the confederacy a special cavalry unit.

As always, I'm interested in hearing how you think things are progressing so far, and what direction the scenario should go in next. No idea too big or small to be considered. Thanks everyone, and good gaming.

I like it Buddha and goes nicely with the two Empire Total War Civil War mods Im playing now as well - ACW 2.7 and TCW. Im a Civil War freak and also have Take Command 2nd Manassas and Scourge of War Gettysburg an off shoot game from TC2M.

The problem with making a Civil War game is that the capitals are so close together for both N and S. I really believe this is what doomed the South as they had to bulk their forces near Richmond and left their flanks wide open in Tenn, Miss and Missouri which were taken out fairly quick in the war by the Union. When they moved the Confederate capital from Montgomery Alabama to Richmond VA is when the S lost the war imho. Prohibiting the export of cotton didn't help them win either...

Anway, Im thinking of creating a huge Scenario based on Westward expansion in America starting in 1803 based around Lewis & Clark's expedition of the Louisiana Purchase and Thomas Jefferson's interest to explore it then go from there to 1890's and the closing of the Great American West. I have the map mostly done that includes everything from the Mississippi west to the Pacific Coast and everything N to S from extreme southern Canada to central Texas to California.

The problem is I want to include scripted event like the Alamo, Custers Last Stand, Fettermans Massacre and Adobe Walls and custom units like mountain men, french trappers and traders, trail blazers, Lakota dog warriors, etc. And leaderheads, Thomas Jefferson replaces Washington, Lewis & Clark as a scout or settler unit, Jim Bridger as a trail blazer scout unit, Zebulon Pike as a explorer alpine unit, etc. Natural wonders would include Old Faithful in the correct location in Yellowstone, The Great Salt Lake in Utah, Pikes Peak in Colorado, Fort Mandan in North Dakota, the Yellowstone and Columbia Rivers, Continental Divide, Sierra Nevada Mountains, The Grand Canyon.. etc. but wishing and doing are two different things.

Keep you updated and keep up the good work on this scenario!

For whatever reason I cannot install anything from the hub ... extracts but does not populate the Mods and Maps folders. Is it possible to provide a link to a zip file as you did for the WWII scenario?

The new patch makes science a big factor, you will have to upgrade to artillery and infantry, as well as get a lot of experience for those units, to have a chance at taking the capital. On harder settings, you will also have to encircle the capital to prevent reinforcements from turning the tide of that crucial siege. I probably went too far in terms of science cost and capital defense, let me know what you think, and how many turns it took you to actually bag the new, heavily defended capitals, and on what difficulty. *P.S. Anyone having luck with a combat AI mod also enabled? If the AI used formations and tactics this mod could get a lot tougher on the middle difficulties.

Zip file has been posted here-> http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=16743

Thanks for the zip version!

Uh, the zip link seems to be broken.

Thanks, fixed it. Zip file -> http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=16743

It's a lovely map! You could probably make this simpler to play, but nearly as realistic, by eliminating many of the minor cities ... maybe half on each side.

As pointed out above, it's fairly easy to win on either side. That is a function of how poor the general AI is and the proximity of the capitals. You can't do anything about the former, but consider dealing with the latter. This is completely non-historical, but try putting the Union capital somewhere like Boston and the Confederate capital in New Orleans or even Austin. Turn off all win options except domination to make the sides fight through a lot of territory to win. That would force the player to develop cities and land and not just buy a few units to end it.

If you provide an optional scenario like that I'd be willing to put in some hours play testing it.

Oh and there are some city name typos ... should be Asheville and Greensboro, for example.

How do I play the Mod? I downloaded it. I installed it. I made sure it is in the game directory in the MOD folder. It shows up on the installed mods list. Yet how do I play it? I went to Main Menu->Mods->Single Player, but the mod isnt on there. Help

maybe put the Confederate capital at Birmingham. It was the original capital. Or maybe Vicksburg, which had capital importance in the war.

You might be able to keep the Union capital at Washington, or maybe in Philadelphia, which was the orginal capital until it was taken by Brits

(If you haven't guessed: I'm a history buff.)