techumseh
Deity
It's good to have you back, Drew! A big setback like that can be very demoralizing, but I'm happy you're getting back in the game.
A Soaring Spirit ToTPP conversion
- Thread starter McMonkey
- Start date
It's a great game from a historical perspective. Really well researches units & campaigns. The divisions are all unique and have their historical strengths & weaknesses (52 so far, including Finnish, Romanian & Hungarians). It is fast-paced and has a steep learning curve. I'd only consider myself an intermediate player still after a year! I finished mid-table in Division Four of the last league, which I was pretty pleased with. It's a million miles from Civ2 or strategy games like Open General, though it does have some things in common. It is moddable, but I'm not planning in getting involved with that side. My Discord is called the Boot Camp & is intended to help new players learn the game & find others of a similar skill/experience level to play. We're currently running a cup competition, the First Greenhorn Cup, which has been a big success. If you're on Discord and wanted to take a look, let me know & I'll send you an invite.
I've been playing through A Soaring Spirit over the last few days. I think it's only really going to work as a multiplayer, as the AI has no idea about trade, building colonies to protect your trade routes etc... It's still fun, but hardly challenging. I realise this is just the conversion at this point. I look forward to seeing what changes you make!
I went through the events, and here are their explanations:
Strategos:
AI Strategos have 28 attack, 8 Firepower, 40 hitpoints, and it ignores city walls. They still have no defense value.
A Strategos will be available to you for 8 turns, after which he will retire (during the next after production phase). You can press Tab to find out his last year of service. The Retirement or death of a Strategos will be broadcast to all players.
A Strategos prevents a unit from being reduced to 1 hp when defeating a Rich Village.
When a unit attacks from the same square as a Strategos, the defender immediately loses 20% of its HP before combat begins.
When a unit being attacked has a Strategos on its square, and its HP is less than the attackers Firepower, it will do 2x its own firepower in damage to the attacker. This happens every relevant round of combat. That is, the defender will keep doing bonus damage until it or the attacker is finally defeated.
Rich Villages:
On AI turns, they have no defense and the diplomacy role. On human turns, they have 12 defense and role 1.
Defeating a Rich Village yields 150 gold and generates a Slave unit on the attacker's tile (even at sea). The winner unit is reduced to 1 HP (unless there is a Strategos on square).
Colony Sites:
Tile fertility for colony sites is set to 15, and fertility for all other tiles is set to 0. This only affects the AI's decisions, but also should prevent advanced tribes in inopportune places.
On each human turn, during the "After Production" event phase, every colony site (not occupied by non-barb forces/city) has a 1/90 chance of upgrading. The upgrades are as follows:
If the tile has no rich villages, add a rich village.
If the tile has 1 or 2 rich Villages, add 2 more rich villages.
If the tile has 3 or more rich villages, add a fortress.
If the tile has a fortress, create a city, and remove the rich villages.
Lydians:
The following cities have an Eastern Fortress placed in them each turn, if there isn't one (I think the AI likes to disband them). Thyatira, Sardis, Tralles, Mylasa, Xanthus, Colossae, Rhoas, Celaenae, Ipsus, and Dorylaeum. Magnesia has an Eastern Fortress restored until turn 44 (the city needs to be captured to stop the first Persian Invasion.
Technology Proliferation:
During the after production phase, if a tribe has the prerequisites for a technology, it has a chance to receive the technology. Each tribe that already owns the tech gives a 1/14 chance, so if 3 other tribes have the tech, the chance to receive it is 3/14.
AI tribes are given a full research box each turn. (Human players are expected to trade to fill the science box most turns.)
Dual Monarchy (Communism):
Dual monarchy improves with the availability of other, better governments (empire, oligarchy, democracy).
Base palace distance 25 (I calibrated this so that Prasiae would have similar corruption under Tyranny and Dual Monarch). The improvements to Dual Monarchy happen when ANYONE discovers the relevant tech, not just the player actually governing with the Dual Monarchy.
War Council (empire) reduces palace distance by 5, and increases free support from 3 to 4.
Oligarchy reduces Palace distance by 10.
Democracy reduces Palace Distance by 10.
Empire (Fundamentalism):
Maximum effective science rate is 0, so technologies can't be discovered at all. Tribes with an Empire government must rely on the technology diffusion mechanism, or direct gifts from other players.
Ships And Pirates:
Ships can re-generate their movement points by pressing K if they are adjacent to land, or if they do not need to end their turn adjacent to land. Owning Lighthouse still requires ships to be adjacent to land to recharge. The number of remaining re-generations is given by the fractional movement point. E.g. 9 3/6 means the ship can regenerate movement points 3 more times this turn.
EDIT: Note: on the first turn, some tribes start with a reduced number of re-generations for their ships.
Ships cannot regenerate movement points if there is an enemy (at war) warship (ship with attack > 0) within 3 squares of the regenerating ship. You must first bring in your own warships to defeat it.
Certain kinds of units are "enticing" to pirates, and you run the risk of generating a Lydian Liburnae in an adjacent square whenever a ship with that kind of cargo attempts to regenerate movement points. Traders, Merchants, Citizens, Colonists, Helots, and Slaves are cargo that can trigger piracy.
Every square has a chance of generating pirates, starting at -2% (there is no chance until the probability is above 0%) and increasing by 1% for every relevant ship recharge, until pirates are generated, and the probability is reset. In practice, this should mean that pirates will appear along popular trade routes, but it is very unlikely they will appear anywhere else.
Liburnae have a movement allowance of 3, so they will hopefully stay in place for a short time after generation.
Pirates never generate for ship movement regeneration within a city.
Minor City Defenses:
If a human player stations any units outside of a Minor City (except on the ocean) at the end of his or her turn, the Minor City will receive 2 Mercenary Hoplites.
If a full health fortress is attacked, its owner receives 2 mercenary hoplites. This also applies to the fortresses in player capitals at the start of the game, but is most relevant for the Minor Cities.
Enslaving Greeks:
If Slaves, Colonists, Citizens, Engineers, or Helots are defeated in battle, the winner receives a slave unit at the winner's location.
Capturing Cities:
Any units supported by a captured city are rehomed to another city.
Wonders:
Human players have certain rules when it comes to Wonders of the World.
A Wonder of the World can only be built in a city with the Master Builder improvement. Wonders won't appear in your build options if a master builder isn't already in the city, and if the Wonder is completed without a master builder (for example, if it is sold), the Wonder will not actually be completed, and the shields lost. The Master Builder disappears once the Wonder is complete (and is removed from all other cities owned by that tribe, if some peculiar circumstance resulted in a tribe having two cities with a Master Builder improvement).
The Master Builder improvement can only be in one city at a time. If it is built in another city, the first city will lose the Master Builder. A Master Builder can only be built if the tribe owns strictly less than 25% of all Wonders currently constructed (unless they own no wonders, in which case they can still build the Master Builder). Note that strictly less than 25% means that 5 players must have a wonder before anyone can start on a second, but after that, 4 players could divvy the wonders between them.
Eureka Moment is exempt from these conditions, since it is rather weak in the face of technology diffusion.
Building and Joining Cities:
Only colonists can found cities. A city founded by any other unit will disappear. You will be warned when making the attempt.
Only Colonists and Citizens can join cities. Events will undo an attempt by any other unit.
The correct name for city will be supplied when founding it, so you don't need to look up the list in the readme.
Key Press Events:
1. Open the "archives", which may be limited, since some events are legacy events.
2. Open the diplomacy gifting menu. Certain Technologies and unit types can't be given away. The lists are in diplomacySettings.lua.
3. Open the "planning" information, which tells your research progress, how much research you will generate, and when the next Oedo Year is, so you can plan a government change.
K. Recharge Ship Movement
Esc. Opens the combat log.
Tab. Opens a help dialog.
Unit Bribes:
The original game had a house rule that only Lydians and Barbarians could be bribed. I used TOT features to forbid bribery of certain units, and allow those units to be bribed away from other players as well. So, for example, a Mercenary Hoplite can be bribed from other players.
Combat Modifiers:
Squares are stackable using the TOTPP NoStackKills. Mountain and Resource terrain are not stackable, and will kill all units on the tile via event.
City Walls give only +50% to defense, although the Colony Square tile gives +100% already. This (along with changes to unit defenses) is designed to roughly match the relative combat effectiveness that existed when most tiles had 'stackable' fortresses.
Legacy Events Changes from Original:
The pirate generation event was removed, since there is a Lua replacement. The rich village plunder events were removed, since they were implemented in Lua.
All other events remain. Removed events were commented out, so it is easily visible what has changed.
Map Changes:
Stackable squares removed.
3 Trading Ports created in map corners, each with 2 trade squares. There are a few hill tiles added to the eastern edge of the map, so that sailing to Egypt is possible.
Strategos:
AI Strategos have 28 attack, 8 Firepower, 40 hitpoints, and it ignores city walls. They still have no defense value.
A Strategos will be available to you for 8 turns, after which he will retire (during the next after production phase). You can press Tab to find out his last year of service. The Retirement or death of a Strategos will be broadcast to all players.
A Strategos prevents a unit from being reduced to 1 hp when defeating a Rich Village.
When a unit attacks from the same square as a Strategos, the defender immediately loses 20% of its HP before combat begins.
When a unit being attacked has a Strategos on its square, and its HP is less than the attackers Firepower, it will do 2x its own firepower in damage to the attacker. This happens every relevant round of combat. That is, the defender will keep doing bonus damage until it or the attacker is finally defeated.
Rich Villages:
On AI turns, they have no defense and the diplomacy role. On human turns, they have 12 defense and role 1.
Defeating a Rich Village yields 150 gold and generates a Slave unit on the attacker's tile (even at sea). The winner unit is reduced to 1 HP (unless there is a Strategos on square).
Colony Sites:
Tile fertility for colony sites is set to 15, and fertility for all other tiles is set to 0. This only affects the AI's decisions, but also should prevent advanced tribes in inopportune places.
On each human turn, during the "After Production" event phase, every colony site (not occupied by non-barb forces/city) has a 1/90 chance of upgrading. The upgrades are as follows:
If the tile has no rich villages, add a rich village.
If the tile has 1 or 2 rich Villages, add 2 more rich villages.
If the tile has 3 or more rich villages, add a fortress.
If the tile has a fortress, create a city, and remove the rich villages.
Lydians:
The following cities have an Eastern Fortress placed in them each turn, if there isn't one (I think the AI likes to disband them). Thyatira, Sardis, Tralles, Mylasa, Xanthus, Colossae, Rhoas, Celaenae, Ipsus, and Dorylaeum. Magnesia has an Eastern Fortress restored until turn 44 (the city needs to be captured to stop the first Persian Invasion.
Technology Proliferation:
During the after production phase, if a tribe has the prerequisites for a technology, it has a chance to receive the technology. Each tribe that already owns the tech gives a 1/14 chance, so if 3 other tribes have the tech, the chance to receive it is 3/14.
AI tribes are given a full research box each turn. (Human players are expected to trade to fill the science box most turns.)
Dual Monarchy (Communism):
Dual monarchy improves with the availability of other, better governments (empire, oligarchy, democracy).
Base palace distance 25 (I calibrated this so that Prasiae would have similar corruption under Tyranny and Dual Monarch). The improvements to Dual Monarchy happen when ANYONE discovers the relevant tech, not just the player actually governing with the Dual Monarchy.
War Council (empire) reduces palace distance by 5, and increases free support from 3 to 4.
Oligarchy reduces Palace distance by 10.
Democracy reduces Palace Distance by 10.
Empire (Fundamentalism):
Maximum effective science rate is 0, so technologies can't be discovered at all. Tribes with an Empire government must rely on the technology diffusion mechanism, or direct gifts from other players.
Ships And Pirates:
Ships can re-generate their movement points by pressing K if they are adjacent to land, or if they do not need to end their turn adjacent to land. Owning Lighthouse still requires ships to be adjacent to land to recharge. The number of remaining re-generations is given by the fractional movement point. E.g. 9 3/6 means the ship can regenerate movement points 3 more times this turn.
EDIT: Note: on the first turn, some tribes start with a reduced number of re-generations for their ships.
Ships cannot regenerate movement points if there is an enemy (at war) warship (ship with attack > 0) within 3 squares of the regenerating ship. You must first bring in your own warships to defeat it.
Certain kinds of units are "enticing" to pirates, and you run the risk of generating a Lydian Liburnae in an adjacent square whenever a ship with that kind of cargo attempts to regenerate movement points. Traders, Merchants, Citizens, Colonists, Helots, and Slaves are cargo that can trigger piracy.
Every square has a chance of generating pirates, starting at -2% (there is no chance until the probability is above 0%) and increasing by 1% for every relevant ship recharge, until pirates are generated, and the probability is reset. In practice, this should mean that pirates will appear along popular trade routes, but it is very unlikely they will appear anywhere else.
Liburnae have a movement allowance of 3, so they will hopefully stay in place for a short time after generation.
Pirates never generate for ship movement regeneration within a city.
Minor City Defenses:
If a human player stations any units outside of a Minor City (except on the ocean) at the end of his or her turn, the Minor City will receive 2 Mercenary Hoplites.
If a full health fortress is attacked, its owner receives 2 mercenary hoplites. This also applies to the fortresses in player capitals at the start of the game, but is most relevant for the Minor Cities.
Enslaving Greeks:
If Slaves, Colonists, Citizens, Engineers, or Helots are defeated in battle, the winner receives a slave unit at the winner's location.
Capturing Cities:
Any units supported by a captured city are rehomed to another city.
Wonders:
Human players have certain rules when it comes to Wonders of the World.
A Wonder of the World can only be built in a city with the Master Builder improvement. Wonders won't appear in your build options if a master builder isn't already in the city, and if the Wonder is completed without a master builder (for example, if it is sold), the Wonder will not actually be completed, and the shields lost. The Master Builder disappears once the Wonder is complete (and is removed from all other cities owned by that tribe, if some peculiar circumstance resulted in a tribe having two cities with a Master Builder improvement).
The Master Builder improvement can only be in one city at a time. If it is built in another city, the first city will lose the Master Builder. A Master Builder can only be built if the tribe owns strictly less than 25% of all Wonders currently constructed (unless they own no wonders, in which case they can still build the Master Builder). Note that strictly less than 25% means that 5 players must have a wonder before anyone can start on a second, but after that, 4 players could divvy the wonders between them.
Eureka Moment is exempt from these conditions, since it is rather weak in the face of technology diffusion.
Building and Joining Cities:
Only colonists can found cities. A city founded by any other unit will disappear. You will be warned when making the attempt.
Only Colonists and Citizens can join cities. Events will undo an attempt by any other unit.
The correct name for city will be supplied when founding it, so you don't need to look up the list in the readme.
Key Press Events:
1. Open the "archives", which may be limited, since some events are legacy events.
2. Open the diplomacy gifting menu. Certain Technologies and unit types can't be given away. The lists are in diplomacySettings.lua.
3. Open the "planning" information, which tells your research progress, how much research you will generate, and when the next Oedo Year is, so you can plan a government change.
K. Recharge Ship Movement
Esc. Opens the combat log.
Tab. Opens a help dialog.
Unit Bribes:
The original game had a house rule that only Lydians and Barbarians could be bribed. I used TOT features to forbid bribery of certain units, and allow those units to be bribed away from other players as well. So, for example, a Mercenary Hoplite can be bribed from other players.
Combat Modifiers:
Squares are stackable using the TOTPP NoStackKills. Mountain and Resource terrain are not stackable, and will kill all units on the tile via event.
City Walls give only +50% to defense, although the Colony Square tile gives +100% already. This (along with changes to unit defenses) is designed to roughly match the relative combat effectiveness that existed when most tiles had 'stackable' fortresses.
Legacy Events Changes from Original:
The pirate generation event was removed, since there is a Lua replacement. The rich village plunder events were removed, since they were implemented in Lua.
All other events remain. Removed events were commented out, so it is easily visible what has changed.
Map Changes:
Stackable squares removed.
3 Trading Ports created in map corners, each with 2 trade squares. There are a few hill tiles added to the eastern edge of the map, so that sailing to Egypt is possible.
Last edited:
In the current version of this scenario, I've exempted Eureka Moment (Darwin's Voyage) from the wonder building restrictions, since it seems rather weak with the technology diffusion mechanic that is in place. However, upon review, a number of wonders seem a bit weak, especially if building one is likely to prevent you from building a better one. I'm thinking it might make sense to use Lua to bestow additional bonuses for certain wonders.
Black Sea Grain Trade (Pyramids)
Great Temple of Apollo (Hanging Gardens)
Colossus (Colossus)
Lighthouse (Lighthouse)
Great Temple of Poseidon (Oracle)
Long Wall (Great Wall)
Great Academy (Sun Tzu's War Academy)
Grand Mines (King Richard's Crusade)
Grand Embassy (Marco Polo's Embassy)
Great Temple of Zeus (Michelangelo's Chapel)
Great Observatory (Copernicus' Observatory)
Great Voyage (Magellan's Expedition)
Great Temple of Athena (Shakespeare's Theatre)
Great Temple of Dionysis (J. S. Bach's Cathedral)
Great College (Isaac Newton's College)
Great Agora (Adam Smith's Trading Co.)
Eureka Moment (Darwin's Voyage)
Statue of Zeus (Statue of Liberty)
Statue of Apollo (Eiffel Tower)
Great Temple of Artemis (Women's Suffrage)
Great Forge (Hoover Dam)
Grand League (United Nations)
Great Temple of Aphrodite (Cure for Cancer)
The wonders in bold strike me as rather weak (Statue of Zeus only because it is available so late). Here are some ideas I've had for additional wonder effects:
More likely to receive technologies through the tech diffusion mechanism (Grand Embassy).
Immunity from Pirates.
When captured, destroy all wonders owned by the capturing tribe.
Disable wonders for tribes at war with owner (Grand League).
A unit attacking the city is destroyed even if it is victorious (Long Wall).
Units produced by city are None units.
If anyone has ideas for supplemental wonder effects, I'd like to hear them. If any of these ideas seem too strong, or if other wonders strike you as too weak (or strong), I'd like to hear that as well. Or, even just general comments.
Black Sea Grain Trade (Pyramids)
Great Temple of Apollo (Hanging Gardens)
Colossus (Colossus)
Lighthouse (Lighthouse)
Great Temple of Poseidon (Oracle)
Long Wall (Great Wall)
Great Academy (Sun Tzu's War Academy)
Grand Mines (King Richard's Crusade)
Grand Embassy (Marco Polo's Embassy)
Great Temple of Zeus (Michelangelo's Chapel)
Great Observatory (Copernicus' Observatory)
Great Voyage (Magellan's Expedition)
Great Temple of Athena (Shakespeare's Theatre)
Great Temple of Dionysis (J. S. Bach's Cathedral)
Great College (Isaac Newton's College)
Great Agora (Adam Smith's Trading Co.)
Eureka Moment (Darwin's Voyage)
Statue of Zeus (Statue of Liberty)
Statue of Apollo (Eiffel Tower)
Great Temple of Artemis (Women's Suffrage)
Great Forge (Hoover Dam)
Grand League (United Nations)
Great Temple of Aphrodite (Cure for Cancer)
The wonders in bold strike me as rather weak (Statue of Zeus only because it is available so late). Here are some ideas I've had for additional wonder effects:
More likely to receive technologies through the tech diffusion mechanism (Grand Embassy).
Immunity from Pirates.
When captured, destroy all wonders owned by the capturing tribe.
Disable wonders for tribes at war with owner (Grand League).
A unit attacking the city is destroyed even if it is victorious (Long Wall).
Units produced by city are None units.
If anyone has ideas for supplemental wonder effects, I'd like to hear them. If any of these ideas seem too strong, or if other wonders strike you as too weak (or strong), I'd like to hear that as well. Or, even just general comments.
Northerner
Warlord
- Joined
- Mar 8, 2017
- Messages
- 262
Any interest in trying to get a PBEM of this going? I finally have Civ 2 working on a computer again.
I did play this upon release, and wrote a long post with comments and ideas about wonders, but I suppose I never posted it. Something might come back with another playthrough.
I did play this upon release, and wrote a long post with comments and ideas about wonders, but I suppose I never posted it. Something might come back with another playthrough.
