Another WW2 scenario

[rhettrongun]

I'll add that if you're still dissatisfied with Russia, you should feel free to just edit the scenario yourself. Changing "permanent war or peace" settings is very easy.

Just open the map file using world builder and go to the scenario settings menu, select Russia from the player list and check whatever boxes correspond to the allies players under the "permanent war or peace" diplomatic status drop down menu.

 

[Ghandi Khan]

Points taken... I would just say that even though here is a very long list of belligerents in WW2... the "canonical" Allies are the UK, the USA, and the USSR. The "canonical" Axis powers are Germany, Italy, and Japan. Without those 3 on the right side it just doesn't feel right to me. But... I totally agree with you that it can be fun to play through things in a different way. For example playing as the Germans and trying to maintain a peace with the Soviets. But if you're going to go that route... well then why tie the hands of the USA or any other country for that matter? There were many Americans sympathetic to Germany prior to Pearl Harbor.

As for China/Arabia... eh.... yes China was getting aid from the Americans. But were they hard and fast allies? Not really. I could easily see an alternate history where China gives up Manchuria (which wasn't even really theirs anyway) to appease Japan and works out some kind of non-aggression pact with them in exchange for help against the USSR. The two cultures had a lot more in common than the Japanese had with the Nazis... they didn't really start hating each other until after the rape of Nanking.
And Arabia... well there were and still are many Arabs who loved Hitler for his stance on mass-murdering Jews. I live in Saudi Arabia and can speak with some authority on this matter. Little Arabia history lesson, since you admit you don't know.
The Arabian Peninsula was dominated by the Ottoman Empire before the 20th Century. The Ottomans were allied with the Germans in WW1 and ended up fighting and losing to the British during that war, after which point the empire basically fell apart. This is how Israel and Jordan came under British rule. This was before the discovery of oil in Arabia so nobody had any interest in the Arabian desert, but the British did lend nominal support (definitely not "heavy influence") to AbdulAziz ibn Saud when he went about establishing his kingdom because ibn Saud was at first taking lands away from the Ottomans.
The Ilkwahn (bedouin soldiers) allied with ibn Saud wanted to take over the British possessions of Palestine and Jordan... but ibn Saud was rightly afraid of a direct conflict with them and held off on this. The bedouin leaders revolted and were executed for it. So at this point the only thing allying Arabia with the Brits was fear of their army.
They discovered oil in in 1938. That's when the Americans showed up. So the Sauds did have some ties to the Americans but it had only just begun by this period in history, and they could have just as easily told the Americans to get lost. They didn't have a history of any sort.
So.. long story short... Saudi Arabia was not even really involved in WW2 at all. They were afraid of the British but certainly not loyal to them, and they were recent business partners of the Americans but that relationship was still extremely new. Ideologically, they were very much in favor of the Jew-killing Nazis, only their fear and greed kept them from declaring total support for Adolph Hitler and declaring a war to liberate Palestine from the Imperialist/Zionist British. That's why it makes no sense for them to be doggedly loyal to the Allies' cause.

I understand your other points. And I'm going to play around with the saved game file to see if I can fix the permanent peace thing in my own game.

 

[Ghandi Khan]

sorry for the stupid question... but how do I open worldbuilder? :-/ I haven't found it yet. I thought it wasn't included in this game.

 

[Ghandi Khan]

tried looking for firetuner Runtime Lua Console... found a few tutorials on how to use it... can't find the thing itself.. will keep looking.

Still can't find it.

If I can figure out how to turn off the permanent alliances I'll probably play through the scenario again with a different civ or two. If I can't... that's kind of a deal breaker for me. I don't want to only be allowed to win on time and not be able to have a another British-Chinese war even 50 years after WW2 would have concluded.

one more question: you mentioned playing through the game as the Argentinians... are all civs supposed to be playable?
Because when I load up the mod on my PC... my only options are The UK, USA, Germany, Italy, Russia, China, Egypt, India, Japan, and Greece, I think... there is a lot of empty space under those civs but nothing I click on. And the ability to do Advanced Setup is not there for this scenario. If I could choose the other civs I might try to. I like playing at the underdogs. For instance I won the Civ IV 1000 AD scenario as the Aztecs once.. and their starting position is absolutely horrible.

 

[Ghandi Khan]

Another question, sorry:

what about Teams?

If the Allies are on one team, and the axis on another.. can you win a domination victory if you just eliminate all the capital cities of the opposing team? plus any independents. I don't know how this works, I've never experimented with using teams in Civ V.

 

[rhettrongun]

Ok, I'll just help you with getting world builder so you can set it up however you want. Maybe you'll like tinkering around with it as much as I did, and end up making your own scenario.

-Open up Steam and go to the "Library" section.
-Select "All games" drop down menu and click on "tools".
-An alphabetical list shows up. From it select "Sid Meier's Civilization V SDK" and it should download/install the modding tools for you.

As far as the teams go, this scenario doesn't actually use real teams. So, that doesn't matter. If it was a real team game, every civ on a team would have shared vision/technology/diplomacy.

I've never seen the issue where some civs do not show up as playable. Even so, I think someone else already reported that earlier ITT, and someone posted a solution to it.

 

[Ghandi Khan]

Ok, I'll just help you with getting world builder so you can set it up however you want. Maybe you'll like tinkering around with it as much as I did, and end up making your own scenario..

possibly. I made several scenarios for Civ IV just using the basic world builder... never got around to uploading any of them though... by the time I was finished I thought that nobody was playing Civ IV anymore. I work slow.

My custom factions for Alpha Centauri were awesome, IMO... haha. I loved that game. So easy to customize.

 

[Ghandi Khan]

oh okay I see. I need some "DLC" civs... which ones do I need? I downloaded the Spanish for free. I have not downloaded anything I had to pay for. I guess I need Polynesia and the Vikings?

In my game, I guess to make up for the fact that I don't have all the DLC I'm supposed to have, some civs are repeated. For instance Elizabeth is used for both the British and the Spanish. Alexander is used for both Greece and Australia. Maybe those are the only two. If I DL Spain and Polynesia am I good to go?

[edit: okay... online the DLC (so damn expensive... $5-$7 for one or two civs + a scenario?? no wonder I haven't downloaded any of this stuff before. It should be like 99 cents max for a scenario) has civs for Babylon, Spain + Inca, Polynesia, and The Vikings.
I assume the ones I need are Babylon (Iraq), Polynesia (Australia), and Spain (Spain)... right?

by the way I got WorldBuilder to work. Thank you for the help with that. I never used Steam for anything other than to download Civ 5. Using WorldBuilder, I was able to figure out that the blank spot that appears for me for playable civs begins with Iraq... which I assume is supposed to match up with the Babylonian civilization which I have not yet downloaded.. so that explains that.

I already downloaded a MOD for free that adds Isabella back into the mix. Is that good enough to work for her or do I need the DLC Isabella? Anybody know?]

 

[os84]

My custom factions for Alpha Centauri were awesome, IMO... haha. I loved that game. So easy to customize.[/QUOTE]

So true! Where have to good days gone? Costumizing scenarios had been pretty easy with Civ3 too, as i remember..

 

[Ghandi Khan]

I know a lot of people really loved Civ 3 but for whatever reason that one passed me by...

I played Civ 1 a bit... my older cousin had it and introduced me to it, and after that I convinced my World Civ teacher that the game had some educational value and so after that all the computers in the Mac Lab had it installed.

I played Civ 2 through a few times start to finish when I borrowed it from my cousin.

Civ 3 I never played until many years later, after Civ 4 had already been out for a long time, and at that point it seemed dated.

Civ 4 I played to death... I don't know how many 1000s of hours I've dumped into that game...
my favorite thing to do with that game was to make complex but tiny maps for fast games that still had an epic feel. I'm creating my first such map for Civ 5 since you helped me find the worldbuilder tool... thanks..

but, as much as I have gotten my money's worth from Civ 4, Alpha Centauri was still my favorite... it was just so easy to edit... civs were simple text files, graphics were all on one sheet, and audio was all mp3s... I made some *wildly* different civs in that game.. that forced you to play the game very very differently. And then I play tested them over and over and over and over just to make sure they were balanced even in spite of being enormously different. (I'm not talking something boring like +1 gold on each plot or +10% combat bonus... I had Civs that could not research new technologies, civs that could not support armies of more than a couple units, civs that had zero population growth, etc... each had huge strengths and huge handicaps... but I actually got them all to be perfectly balanced against each other. So much fun. Wish I still had that game...

 

[os84]

loved alpha centauri too. i really like the idea to focus on a common target/city, together with youre AI-buddy. just so many brilliant ideas, dont know where to start to list them. there had been a alpha-centrauri MOD for CIV 4 - did you play it?

 

[Ghandi Khan]

loved alpha centauri too. i really like the idea to focus on a common target/city, together with youre AI-buddy. just so many brilliant ideas, dont know where to start to list them. there had been a alpha-centrauri MOD for CIV 4 - did you play it?

No, I never played it.
I loved being able to customize my units.
I liked the isomorphic terrain and the fact that you could raise or lower global sea levels, and create giant craters with Planet Buster missles (I also think it appropriate that the entire world declared war on you when you did.. in Civ 5 people use nukes and nobody seems to notice or care.)
there were lots of things to like about that game...


Anyway... I finished my first map using worldbuilder. It's pretty simple. but for some reason I can't get it to load. The game stops responding every time I attempt to being the scenario. No idea why. I wasn't trying anything fancy.. just 19 civs and 8 city states on a smallish map. No DLC or mods.

 

[Ghandi Khan]

Have you tried using the live tuner? IIRC you can force declare war using it, though I could be wrong about that. It's worth a check if you're really wanting to go to town on the remaining challenges in your current game. If you've never used the tuner just google it "firetuner Runtime Lua Console", and read up on how to activate it for use. After you've got it up and running it's pretty user friendly to figure out.

Is there any way to change a saved game other than this? I can't find the program anywhere... I'm sorry I keep spamming your scenario thread with my own problems. If I ever start another game using the scenario I'll definitely make some changes in WorldBuilder first but that doesn't work for my game already in progress.

 

[nokmirt]

Interesting game so far. I am playing as America. Right now I suppose it is in my best interest to gather more oil resources, which I have done. The Phillipines need to be fortified so, troops and aircraft are on there way there. In the meantime, I have denounced Japan, and Germany. I see I have a bit of a u-boat problem off the Eastern Seaboard, so I will have to build more coastal defense ships and subs. France could use some help, if they survive I will start building an expeditionary force and send it over, if possible.

 

[Ghandi Khan]

Interesting game so far. I am playing as America. Right now I suppose it is in my best interest to gather more oil resources, which I have done. The Phillipines need to be fortified so, troops and aircraft are on there way there. In the meantime, I have denounced Japan, and Germany. I see I have a bit of a u-boat problem off the Eastern Seaboard, so I will have to build more coastal defense ships and subs. France could use some help, if they survive I will start building an expeditionary force and send it over, if possible.

France won't last long without help... but I was able to successfully defend Manchuria and Hong Kong playing as the Chinese. I imagine the Americans are more powerful than I was when I started my game.

I still haven't figured out how to change my save game mid-game to turn off the stupid always peace thing... which blocks the only path to victory for everybody except Russia. Very disappointed about that as I was hoping to finish my game as the Chinese but I cannot.

 

[Ghandi Khan]

and... what the hell...

okay I decided to try and give this scenario one more whirl even though I'm still upset I can't finish my China game.
I loaded up the map in WorldBuilder so I could edit just a couple things. I changed a few of the civs and the starting year and I think I took off the silly permanent peace thing (though it didn't appear to be there when I loaded the scenario initially anyway. ?) Anyway, just minor changes.

I load up the game and the map and try to start... the game freezes.

What's wrong with my World Builder??

I made a small simple map and I could never get that to work. I uploaded it here and nobody offered any advice on what I was doing wrong.

Then I took this scenario and made some very minor changes, saved it, and now I can't get it to load either.

WTH... I'm not using some strange 3rd party program to edit these maps/scenarios... I'm just using the tools I downloaded from Steam.

 

[nokmirt]

France won't last long without help... but I was able to successfully defend Manchuria and Hong Kong playing as the Chinese. I imagine the Americans are more powerful than I was when I started my game.

I still haven't figured out how to change my save game mid-game to turn off the stupid always peace thing... which blocks the only path to victory for everybody except Russia. Very disappointed about that as I was hoping to finish my game as the Chinese but I cannot.

I will try later.

 

[Ghandi Khan]

In your original reply (which showed up in my inbox) you said something about it being a game issue... it's not. It's just a feature of this scenario that you only have two paths to victory (time and domination) and because of the permanent peace that is in place between those parties at war at the start of the game... only Russia has the opportunity to actually win.

If you are playing as the Americans you will not be able to win a domination victory because you can't declare war on Britain and several other countries. Though I guess one twisted backward way of doing it would be to give help to Germany and Japan until they conquered most of the world... and then stab them in the back and conquer them... of course by the time that happened your 150 turns would have probably already ended.

I like this scenario except that I hate it. I tried to change the permanent peace thing but apparently I'm too dumb to figure out how. Whenever I change a map in worldbuilder it crashes my game when I try to play it.

 

[nokmirt]

In your original reply (which showed up in my inbox) you said something about it being a game issue... it's not. It's just a feature of this scenario that you only have two paths to victory (time and domination) and because of the permanent peace that is in place between those parties at war at the start of the game... only Russia has the opportunity to actually win.

If you are playing as the Americans you will not be able to win a domination victory because you can't declare war on Britain and several other countries. Though I guess one twisted backward way of doing it would be to give help to Germany and Japan until they conquered most of the world... and then stab them in the back and conquer them... of course by the time that happened your 150 turns would have probably already ended.

I like this scenario except that I hate it. I tried to change the permanent peace thing but apparently I'm too dumb to figure out how. Whenever I change a map in worldbuilder it crashes my game when I try to play it.

You can play just to have fun. I am moreso concerned with trying it. So far it is fun. The 150 turns seemed like to few, but in game that would be awhile. There is the usual just one more turn.

 

[Ghandi Khan]

You can play just to have fun. I am moreso concerned with trying it. So far it is fun. The 150 turns seemed like to few, but in game that would be awhile. There is the usual just one more turn.

Well of course, why else play if not to have fun? But for me it would be more fun if I could actually win the game and declare war on whom I chose.

I think if you play through you will find that 150 turns is more than enough time. You are starting in the Industrial/Modern era with the world already made and cities already largely developed... so that's plenty of time.