Caesar's Gallic Wars

[Tanelorn]

Can you have variable missile range -say one square for stones and javelins, two for arrows etc.?

 

[JPetroski]

Yes as each occupies it's own unit slot you can change anything you want.

 

[Tanelorn]

Cool. I am thinking Tomcat/Phoenix combo , air launced torpedos and sub launched cruise missles. Great news!

 

[McMonkey]

This really is a revolutionary development. Previous non-Naval missile carrying units were possible, but extremely fiddly to move around the map and always a messy solution. Whether It be ancient siege artillery, medieval longbows, WWI artillery or WW2 bombers, ranged missile units have always been a glaring omission in Civ2. The solution has been the high attack, low movement & low defence artillery type unit that must move into direct contact with enemy units.

'K' units will open up dozens (if not hundreds) of new possibilities. Tank warfare could get really interesting, as will bombing campaigns and naval-air warfare. The advantage of adding an element of gradual damage to combats, instead of a straight forward duel to the death will also make for interesting gameplay possibilities.

If you can work out a supply system to determine whether the 'K' units can trace their line of supply back to a friendly city then another major flaw in Civ2 will finally be addressed. Isolated units will quickly become sitting ducks. Encirclements will become a much more effective tactic. This Is pioneering work you guys (and TheNamelessOne) are engaged in.

Test of Time appears to be going through a renaissance right now. Quite remarkable given the venerable age of the game engine. Keep up the good work guys!

 

[CurtSibling]

How easy is this system to run alongside CIV2? I am not a big fan of micro-managing outside apps, as this breaks the flow of play.

 

[JPetroski]

Lua fully integrates with the game--it replaces the events file. You don't have to leave the game or do anything different. Hitting "k" to call up ammunition is just as easy as hitting "r" to build a road.

The hard part is building the actual code, so lua is more work for the designer, but for the player, it makes things seamless .

 

[CurtSibling]

This is encouraging to hear! If it is ready for use this year, I will definitely try it in my Overlord and Moff scens...

 

[Civinator]

This really is a revolutionary development...Whether It be ancient siege artillery, medieval longbows, WWI artillery or WW2 bombers, ranged missile units have always been a glaring omission in Civ2. The solution has been the high attack, low movement & low defence artillery type unit that must move into direct contact with enemy units.

The next problem will be, if the AI will use it properly. In Civ 3 the AI landartillery routine is spoiled.

Test of Time appears to be going through a renaissance right now. Quite remarkable given the venerable age of the game engine. Keep up the good work guys!

 

[JPetroski]

The next problem will be, if the AI will use it properly. In Civ 3 the AI landartillery routine is spoiled.

I can all but guarantee you that the AI will have absolutely no idea how to use this feature. With that said, it will work fine for the human player, and should shine in multiplayer.

 

[CurtSibling]

Scenario designers can adopt this feature as an extra tool, and give the AI some help to provide challenge, using normal CIV2 units/events.

 

[Civinator]

Nevertheless good luck to your project! I´m interested in having a look into your lua scripted events. It would be sufficient to have only some events working. Is the file containing the lua scripting also called 'Events'?

 

[techumseh]

I'm particularly interested in your exploration of supply lines, perhaps an even greater Civ2 deficiency than missile units. It's pretty hard, for example, to make a realistic Afrika Korps scenario without some sort of supply rules. In conventional board wargames, supply rules are usually of two types: 1) tracing a line of supply of a set length to a supply source (usually a city or fortress, or the map edge), and 2) supply units, that move with the army and are expended to support movement and combat. Effects of lack of supply typically include reduced combat and movement and often, elimination of the unsupplied units. I'm very keen to hear how you plan to deal with it.

 

[JPetroski]

From my discussions with Grishnach, it seems that it is theoretically possible to use several solutions, some quite complex. Right now, he's in the process of trying out a relatively simple one to prove the concept. Basically, the map is divided into zones. Certain zones feed into other zones (some can't feed into all neighbors because of geography, or just trying to keep the flow at least somewhat historical). Supplies "start" in the Cisalpine Gaul zone (northern Italy). You would then trace a line back to Cisalpine Gaul from other zones to see if you are in supply. Each zone is controlled by a particular city. Control the city, and you can have supplies in that zone, and any zones it feeds into (because you'd need supplies to launch offensives).

So, if you control A, B, C, and D then you would also have supplies in E.

However, if you controlled A,B and D, but NOT C, then you would not have supplies in either D, or E.

The thing is, with lua, you can check to see if certain variables are present in certain grids (controlled cities, type of units, # of units, etc.) So there are plenty of ways to do it, and we picked one that would seem to work.

I plan on releasing a map explaining this with the game, and also perhaps using on-map text, depending on how cluttered that gets.

 

[tootall_2012]

Hi John,

As McMonkey said this is completely revolutionary and should transform scenario designs. Though I knew lua would be a powerful tool, you and Grisnach apparently are using it in ways I didn't even imagine was possible. I'm very eager to see what you end up doing.

With regards the supply issue, would it be possible to limit the number of attacks your ranged units can make, be based on the number of missile units available on any given turn? For example, each turn you receive x number for each missile type unit (be it arrows, pilums, stones, etc), at one or more locations. Every time you want one of your a ranged unit to make an attack, lua first has to check if there are any missile units for that type of ranged units left in it's stockpile. If yes, it's allowed to attack but one equivalent missile unit is then subtracted from the stockpile, otherwise it can't attack.

In this manner, you might have to accumulate a large stockpile of your missile units before trying to launch a major attack, for example.

Of course, I have no idea if this is possible at all, but thought I'd ask to see if it could be done.

 

[JPetroski]

I would have to difer to @Grishnach on that one... Definitely a cool idea.

 

[techumseh]

That does sound complex, and possibly problematic. Might I suggest that a supply line of no more than a set number of movement points to a city that contains a particular type of unit or improvement, would, if possible, have far fewer unintended outcomes?

 

[JPetroski]

That is a pretty good idea if possible. And a reason to drag the old "SDI Defense" out of hiding.

 

[Grishnach]

Hi there!

I'll take a shot at both ideas - the zone approach fits very nicely to a more general "province" class I thought about, the city approach is probably simpler but off the top of my head I don't know if the lua interface has the possibilities to check every detail ... I'll take a look.

A minor nuisance about the distance might be diagonal movements- in terms of a standard metric the distance is of course larger in thr diagonal directions though it requires the same amount of movement points...


Oh and one additional comment to key pressed - I used "k" only because there is no other game option linked to it, it would of course be possible to react to any key. But for now I try not to overreach, so the code takes only the one.

 

[Grishnach]

Now I forgot one point: something like a strategic arsenal would be possible, yes. TNO set the lua stuff up in a way that allows for the persistent storage of arbitrary information, so could have a counter which reacts to e.g certain city productions (+1) and to a key pressed (-1 as long as positive) or something like that.

And AI would definitely be a problem, the main point being that there is no trigger which fires "just in between" (every time a unit is activated for example). Some very simple stuff like randomly creating munitions (and reducing movements) at the start of each turn would work, but for that would, I guess, be of little use in the current setting of Gallic Wars - perhaps for some other scenario that would look different.

 

[JPetroski]

Please see this video for a demonstration of the ranged attack and area of recruitment that Grishnach has implemented. This is an early version of the scenario so the ring of Gallic citizens around Alesia is gone. I'm just showing off a concept here, not a scenario