SCENARIO: Age of Imperialism; 1895-1924, Deluxe Version

[Tani Coyote]

While I'm off doing my own thing in China, Japan got Russia to declare war on Britain, and Russia, with its monopoly on military alliances, got most of Europe to declare war on the British.

Result? Britain (once in control of half of French Africa and much of Germany's territory) has fallen apart:

Spoiler :

That screenshot is out of date; Britain has been kicked out of North Africa by the most recent campaigns. It's always satisfying to see the British hegemony collapse, especially when you have nothing to do with it.

With the world dogpiling the Brits, we figured we may as well use our large manpower reserves and kick them out:



Shortly after beating them, the French demanded tribute; we refused and war ensued. We managed to kill off their invasion stack before counterattacking:



Once we took the north of Vietnam, I didn't push any further south due to underdeveloped rail lines and the river in the area making a good natural frontier. Our next stop was evicting Portugal:



Why so many Steam Transports being built? We wanted to be sure to land 100+ units on Japan's doorstep in a single turn once we were done.



Russia has declared war (courtesy of the Turks, who declared war on us when we refused to pay tribute) on us, but their fight with Britain, Germany and Austria is draining their resources, even if they are the tech leader. Next stop: Vladivostok, then Manchuria!

China may be limited in various departments, but it looks like they can easily get their production up to good levels and become a regional powerhouse.

...naturally I dread taking on the Japanese and Russian fleets, but alas, what can one do? I just have to hope they get in nice and close to the coastline so my artillery hordes can send them to the bottom.

With regards to production, I have veteran Cavalry and veteran Maxims coming every 4 turns, while I have several Elite Cavalry built up from picking off invaders as well as several Corps. I'd say China's pretty set to take the fight into Siberia, though I'd rather take Japan because it's a much richer, concentrated location. Evicting Russia from Manchuria is a definite must to put all those forests between me and their forces, though.

 

[Tani Coyote]

I changed gears...



I seem to have posted in the wrong thread. This is clearly Europa Universalis.

...

The Balkans, wow! I didn't expect these guys to have so much potential. I had to skimp on the army a bit at first, but they're incredibly powerful once a few years go by. All those hills add up to a ton of production when amplified by the improvements, not to mention wonders. I was constantly running into the red at first to keep up with the Great Powers, but now I'm the undisputed tech leader and have managed to snag quite a few of those economic (Tea, Tobacco, etc.) wonders despite my small territory. Even in peacetime, a lot of those cities' shields get into the triple digits, so just imagine this beast when mobilized!

Taking on the Turks was a gamble at the time since they deployed a ton of cavalry against me, but fortunately my City Guards and handful of Maxims were more than up to the task. Once I'd bled their initial invasion force (and the smaller one the turn later) dry, it was basically just a slow push to the impassable mountain range in the East. I was quite glad I was able to spawn a Corps unit, because using it to pick off at least one full health unit every turn or two was essential to cutting down Constantinople's MASSIVE defenses.

Similar to my China game, it looks like this is another game where Britain went neutron star on us. At first they were doing incredibly well because several factions went suicidal (at their height they owned Togoland, Namibia, all but one city of Tanzania, half of Persia and half of Spain as well as Spain's African colonies). Suddenly, though, France (which had previously eaten the Congo) attacked them and began to curbstomp them into oblivion; France also declared war on the Dutch and Portuguese around the same time, so they've conquered Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, the Congo, Angola, Tanzania, and are pushing into Rhodesia and South Africa. That they began practicing the AI's time-honored tradition of alliance spam to get everyone and their sister to attack Britain was only secondary to their war machine. They actually ended up evicting both the Lowlands and Portugal from the continent.

Unfortunately, they made the mistake of demanding tribute from me while they were busy going Napoleon IV in Africa. My defenses made short work of their first attack stacks, and my purse was fat enough to get a few European and African buddies to attack them. I'd say it's time for the Balkans to Balkanize France. Given the fact Iberia's split between Germany, Russia, Britain, France, and Spain, and the Benelux being split between Germany and France, it'd fit the trend, no?

My original goal had been to attack Britain in an amphibious assault to claim Malta, Cyprus, and perhaps Egypt, so as to get a basic colonial power base (and all the delicious VPs and conscript workers that brings), but France has me instead planning to land a huge invasion force in Egypt before proceeding westward to kick them out of the Maghrebi coast (after all, the Maghreb has coal AND iron, while Egypt only has one; if there's one thing I've learned, it's that access to steel is king in AoI).

Byzantines... Blue Blob... this really is Europa Universalis, isn't it?

Future tip for any players... if you have extra luxuries, sell them to Russia. They'll pay a crapton more than the other European powers. I was able to net nearly 100 gpt by selling Turkey's tobacco to them.

 

[El Justo]

nice, Sonic that position can indeed get it cranked up once all the infrastructure is in place.

 

[Tani Coyote]

Some more updates on the Balkan game:

I was preparing to sail across the Mediterranean to seize British Egypt and Cyprus while they're getting dogpiled from every direction, but France declared war on me when I refused to grant tribute.



That went so well for them. Right now, I have my artillery moving around Metropolitan France and shelling their cities so as to make it easier for the AI to take them. My reasoning is a weaker France in Europe will lead to a weaker France abroad; now that I've got myself a solid five city position in Africa, I'm going to do whatever it takes to see the breakup of their empire (preferably without a British restoration).

I managed to drag Italy, China, Germany and the Ottomans all into an anti-French coalition, and it paid dividends. Their large European armies suddenly weren't able to touch me now that they had to go through a hostile Austria.

Unfortunately, Russia decided to declare war on me after I refused tribute only two turns later. This was in spite of that lucrative tobacco for tin deal we had.



...I'm not complaining though. Four more cities are now mine (we've since signed peace; the Germans and Austrians can have fun with Russia and France) and the Russian Black Sea fleet is no longer an annoyance.

The chaos that ensues with military alliances aside, the AI is extremely aggressive this game around. I'm guessing it might be submarines, but for some reason Russia and others are declaring war on countries they don't even border, like Portugal, without any alliance prompting it. As it stands, Russia, Austria-Germany, France, and Britain are regularly all at war with each other, and the world map is shifting accordingly, while America is just minding its own business after annexing all of Canada.

I don't mind though... all this anarchy just breeds opportunity.

 

[username2015]

Hi- first time poster here.

I downloaded the most recent version for this mod, which looks awesome by the way, but I get the following error message when I try to run it:

Load Error
Error Reading File
Missing Entry in "text\PediaIcons.txt" ICON_BLDG_Theater

Any idea how to fix this, or if I'm doing something wrong? I'm pretty sure I downloaded everything correctly....

 

[El Justo]

hi there. your error is easy to fix and a common one.

easiest way to do it is to download the large AoI folder to your desktop. unpack it to your desktop. you should then have an unpacked folder named AoI. click on it and you'll see another folder inside of the original one called AoI. 'cut' this one and paste it into your Conquests/Scenarios folder in the civIII directory. this ought to do it have fun and welcome!

 

[username2015]

Thanks El Justo- awesome game, I've been playing as the Americans, and every detail is amazing. The units are beautiful, music is epic, and the map incredibly detailed. I don't know how I ever played civ3 without this!

I have a follow up question- ran into an error related to the Panama Canal:

"art\wonder splash\2PanamaCanal.pcx"

I'm sure there's a fix for this somewhere in this 300 page thread, but I haven't been able to find it yet. Any suggestions?

 

[El Justo]

thanks for the nice words. it's a neat scenario to play.

that error/crash, i would have to take a look at. did the error message indicate that a file was missing ?? i imagine it occurred when you built a wonder and the splash screen was initiated ? it easily fixed and you can resume play once it's sorted out...

 

[El Justo]

ok, i have some good news for AoI fans i've started to work on a v5.0 with the intent to put together a new version albeit one with minimal gameplay changes. i have a little more free time on my hands nowadays and i put down my last project due to a few irritating snags.

the genesis for this version lies with our very own Civinator. some time ago, he assembled an Art/Units folder with 130+ new units that were released since AoI 4.0's release in November 2009. the units are almost exclusively sea units, made by Delta_Strife. Civinator had been urging me (Vuldacon too) to relocate my files when the Storm Over Civ site went dark. and in the process, he provided me a link with his Art/Units folder. i'll use this as the base for v5.0.

also on the gfx docket will be new advisors (they're painfully out of place imho) and also some new city population heads.

the second point that motivated me was to introduce a new 'theme' for AoI, to freshen it up and to give it a true 'American' feel through a whole new interface and accompanying gfx. so i introduce the new name for v5.0: AoI Tin Pan Alley Edition 5.0. my goal will be to have the civer play this new version as if it were through the eyes (and ears) of an American during the AoI time period. as some of you know, American History is my Bag. and i will make -zero- apologies for stripping out the international flavor we tried so hard to present in all the other incarnations of AoI. this is a theme i've wanted to expound on for some time...and the time is now i'm still trying to sort through exactly what will go into the new look. i have some ideas. i just need to get them from paper to computer.

for those not familiar with Tin Pan Alley, i encourage you to click here. this is uniquely American and as an amateur Music Buff/Historian, i consider this time period critical in the development of the US and the World Leader in Music & Culture. it was the predecessor to jazz, blues, big band/swing, and rock and roll even. it is the Great Grand Daddy of American Pop Music, for sure (not that i'm a big pop music guy).

so with that said, to further the 'theme', i will introduce a whole new soundtrack for v5.0. i have a preliminary list of songs so far numbering 50-some in total. now, the remarkable thing is that i've discovered a new and far more error-proof way to compile the Sounds/Build folder. this had always been a thorn in my side, compiling these soundtrack folders. it was mainly due to errors and crashes that i could not diagnose. these problems are no more so i have some leeway now that i did not have before. goal will be to compile one big Build folder, not era/culture specific although the songs will be ordered sequentially, and almost all of them are from the famed Tin Pan Alley. i actually have the first era of songs inside the folder, tested, and they run well. i may need to tweak some songs to get them just right. but for the most part, it sounds real neat, a marked improvement over the last soundtrack (which is pretty good imho). this one though will be far more diverse.

since i have so many songs, and all the eras are represented so well, i may release individual Sounds/Build folders for each era. savvy civers will be able to DL the folder and accompanying Text file and plug-and-play. they can swap out, say era1 sounds for era2 sounds once they get there; and same with era3 and 4 too. just another way further the immersion experience.

as far as gameplay changes are concerned, i'll dabble with some slight wrinkles for the great power civs. among consideration is govt switching for some civs like russia, ottomans, germans maybe, austrians perhaps. think actual revoultions and whether we can really institute it. as you know, AoI does not allow govt switching. i still need to flesh this all out though. also under consideration is the addition of some new wonders (and the removal of some of the anitquated and generally unneeded dummy wonders). i have a running list. we'll see what makes it past the cutting room floor. my intial thought is to give each of the main powers one small wrinkle each. haven't dwelled too much on it yet but i will in time. ideas on this stuff is always welcomed.

so if any of you long-timers (and short-timers!) have any ideas, please share them here. keep in mind that the ideas should be simple and not impact game play too much. and there's no guarantee we'll implement siad changes. consider it a public brain-storming session, if you will

 

[username2015]

thanks for the nice words. it's a neat scenario to play.

that error/crash, i would have to take a look at. did the error message indicate that a file was missing ?? i imagine it occurred when you built a wonder and the splash screen was initiated ? it easily fixed and you can resume play once it's sorted out...

Yeah- the error did indicate that a file was missing, and you're exactly right, I had just built the Panama Canal- and that's when the error popped up. I really appreciate your help with this!

 

[Delta_Strife]

Looks like I had better do some more American ships for that period.

 

[El Justo]

Username2015, i'm not seeing that wonder in the files. Did you add it in? If so, you have to make sure there are entries in the pediaicons file and the civilopedia (although not having the latter will not cause a crash).

@Delta, bring it on

 

[Tani Coyote]

I'd be especially interested in what could be done with Austria if it successfully transitioned into a federal state as Ferdinand was interested in prior to his assassination!

...

Playing another game... this time as the French. And it's actually been HARDER than the Chinese and Balkan games. Sure, I turned the difficulty up to second-hardest, but I figured the French would be more than up to the task.

Before the first year was up, Portugal decided to throw itself against Britain for whatever reason. Result: Goa fell and a city in Angola. The British carved them up nicely, so I used what few forces I had (my strategy in AoI is to focus on production first and then churn out hordes of units later). I took Bissau, Macau, and the Madeira Islands, greatly consolidating my position.

A few turns later... Britain decided to attack me in Indochina, hilariously much like a balance of power action.





The war lasted about 6-7 turns and the Brits managed to put us against the wall numerous times. Fortunately, a lot of rushing and drafting tipped the scales in our favor and we were able to hold out.

In the end, the war's a mixed bag. We lost Guyana and Brazzaville to Brazil and the Lowlands (I "leased" them the territory rather than let the Brits take it, so I could consolidate my defenses; I'm also intending for Brazil and the Lowlands to be proxies in future wars). France's debt payments are now 1/3 of the economy since I took out so many loans to pay for rushed units who had a life expectancy of 1 turn. Had the Brits not accepted peace I would have been screwed, given that my people were rioting and my economy shrinking as the Governors rushed to keep them from tearing the country apart.

While we lost a considerable amount of French Col. Infantry as well as the whole of our Navy in Indochina, we did enjoy some successes. I'm fairly certain we killed more British troops than we lost, if only slightly. In the naval department, they only sank 1 of our battleships while we got 6 of theirs. I also wiped out the whole British naval presence around Gibraltar over the course of three turns, helped partly by my lovely TBs and probably a lot due to luck on the defense.

The war has left us with a sizable stockpile of rushed artillery in Indochina, which I will of course be using against Siam soon. Despite the loss of 2 cities, we still retain the 3 we took and overall have a position that's more easy to defend; Brazzaville and Guyana were quite out of the way. I am also seeing the potential of Coastal Fortresses from this, given a single fort was enough to stop 20+ British TBs from making a dent. The artillery numbers in Indochina and Africa are adequate enough our defense shouldn't be so crazy next time, while I've also managed to get some European troops in the colonies to keep order in what's left of French Central Africa.

More importantly, we won the war as far as Europe's concerned: since the Royal Navy was conspicuously absent, we destroyed quite a few coastal tiles (disconnecting Cornwall in the process) and that should set them back a bit.

In the end I managed to get Britain to pay a modest indemnity of 100 gold, so I think it's safe to say we emerged the victor despite being marred with so many setbacks. I've now turned full attention to rushing workers and railways are going smoothly worldwide. Before long, it should be an easy task to defend my vast holdings with a fairly small force.

...of course I am definitely going to get vengeance on the Brits next time their backs are turned. I was content to mind my own business, but now they've secured a spot on the list.

I think I'll roleplay an alliance with the Germans and Austrians...

 

[El Justo]

nice report. thanks for sharing. France can be tricky to play with all the other competing interests right at its doorstep(s).

 

[El Justo]

update 2/20/15

the first thing i wanted to tackle with this v5.0 is the Build folder which houses the soundtrack. i've actually completed three (3) eras so far. now, this is a pretty big deal for me...because in the past, i've had a ton of issues getting the mp3's to run correctly. i'm aware of the required specs and all that. so this time, i downloaded the audio program Audacity and cleaned up the files as i added them in and checked the specs.

of course, a great deal of the songs are 'Tin Pan Alley' tunes. the first song is from 1894 (1895 start) and the last one i put in there is from 1919 (end of era3). all i can say right now is that it's pretty groovy

i did lower the overall volume of the songs so that it will not be overpowering, to have it act more as an ambient sound more than a pure music track. my main reason is that there are vocals in a bunch of the tracks...and i always felt that vocals sort of distract from the intent of the music. so i lowered the master volume some and on some tracks, i added in some phonograph crackling for effect of course.

era1: 12 tracks
era2: 11
era3: 18
era4: ?? between 8-16 ??

keep in mind that the tracks are all relatively short (there's one in era3 that is 9 mins but that's the longest, by far). most of them are 2 or 3 mins, some around 4. the v4.0 soundtrack, while short on actual tracks, the length of each one was pretty long. one of the mahler symphonies ran 25 mins just by itself. so the sum of all the parts for v5.0 will be close to the sum of parts for 4.0.

i will probably get to the era4 set this weekend. i have a handful of songs lined up for this slot, just need to sort through them, line them up by year, run the files through Audacity and get them game-ready like the others.

i've decided to roll the whole 4 eras into the same Build folder, just like before. by this i mean that when you start a game in v5.0, it'll run from the 1894 song all the way through the last song from era4 which would be 1924. this will be the base setup. however, i will also break each era into individual Build folders and let savvy civers plug-and-play the era-specific folders as they progress through each era. so you can run the era1 Build folder only when you're playing in era1. and then you can switch to the era2 Build folder once you hit it (1905). i'll probably toss a few more songs into the era Build folders.

i also fired up the new Art/Units folder in a game as Belgium. they look good so far.

Balthasar has agreed to help out with the interface and i think we're going to kick around some ideas soon, maybe this weekend. he is a collector of Art Nouveau sheet music. so this should be real neat

 

[Virote_Considon]

Sounds good so far!

Will you be including any more of the changes you had planned to make before the last upgrade of this scenario met its unfortunate demise - such as a colonial Manchuria/Central Asia, the "local uprisings" or the additional cities and islands and such? I can see you've got Belgium as its own civ - would it be a safe bet to assume you've also got Romania added?

 

[El Justo]

yes, i do want to revisit a lot of that stuff. of course, nothing drastic to add but some wrinkles perhaps.

in my test run game as belgium, romania is a stand alone civ. iirc, we implemented that for 4.0 (and the lowlands split of netherlands and belgium).

Belgium is a neat little position to play. it's obviously limited but Brussels can crank out some shields. i have been able to snare the handful of +2 free tech wonders which has put me ahead of the pack in science. i've got maxim MGs now. so that helps with defense. the Congo holdings have been built up. but i am surrounded by potential hostiles. i've been acquiescing for all tribute demands. i've reached 1904 and i still need a good deal more time to build up any kind of offensive force. my defensive forces are just okay. guarding my road net in africa is key. hordes and hordes of british, french, german, portuguese, spanish units marauding through my colonial territories...yet none will entertain a fair RoP with me (they want mad gold). the brits have nipped away a bunch of the french holdings in sahara region and down the west coast of africa. i need to stay on their good side, at least for now. i would be helpless if they threw the kitchen sink at me in africa. france could overrun me too. the portuguese are a good target for me, especially with that iron resource. but any kind of offensive is not in the cards atm. it will have to wait until i have ample forces (and arty).

i did build a pile of diadem class cruisers early on. i paired them with some older pc's for convoy duty.

i'm 5th overall in VPs so far. i basically sent back 2 convoys over the course of the game. first one had 12 RMs and the 2nd had 16. a real pita getting into the english channel for unloading. brits at #1, france, germany, US, and then me @ 5. not bad for tiny little Belgium

i've kicked the idea around (again, we did way back when, too) of linking Belgium with the Brits. what say you ???

 

[Virote_Considon]

Hmm... It's an interesting thought.

On the one hand, that "irrelevant piece of paper" did cause Britain to go to war in Belgium's defence, and Belgium (due to its geographical location) was considered an important region to keep on-side.

On the other hand, this could be Bad News for Belgium of the otherwise bellicose British civ got its hands dirty with France/Germany.

It would also change the dynamic of colonial warfare in Africa - no Belgium-British tension over Katanga province, but perhaps a useful ally for the Brits on the African continent where I think they usually fare less-than-best.


Personally, I think linking them wouldn't work out too well - I see it as something which would probably hamper the smaller Belgian civ than it would the British civ.

 

[El Justo]

yeah, that's sort of what we thought all along, that it would sort of hamper tiny Belgium. but of course that "irrelevant piece of paper" changed the whole dynamic of that war. so it's a worthy question to ask imho, as a developer. niall ferguson beat it to death in his ww1 book.

 

[Virote_Considon]

Indeed.

I suppose you could always turn it on provisionally for now - if it really does hamper Belgium too much, this would get identified rather quickly and could simply be undone, as it's a relatively easy change to make.

This is, of course, assuming that such an alliance wouldn't affect unit stats and the like either way and thus could remain the same whether the alliance was in effect or not.