Caesar's Gallic Wars

[JPetroski]

We could actually use lua to give them movement points but not allow them to move onot any terrain - I'm a little confused if your tests have confirmed that MP is or isn't necessary though.

It wouldnt be the end of the world for them to be able to move either.

Thanks for your comments!

 

[minipow01]

Lua to the rescue! Movement points are necessary, and it has to span the distance between the airlift target and the nearest city housing the Ambush unit. I think 10 movement points would work well.

 

[Civinator]

Thank you all for this great scenario!

I´m astonished about the graphical richness of this scenario (on the other side I´m slightly confused by the coal resource, that looks like the iron resource in Civ 3). I´m now starting with testing all the new concepts introduced with lua.

And one question to the instruction text of this great scenario:

II. OBJECTIVES There are 65 objectives within the game. You are tasked with taking 70, and you have 106 turns to do so.

How can I take 70 objectives, if there are only 65 in the game? Is this an impossible mission or a simple typo?

 

[JPetroski]

Probably a typo =)

There are a few things I missed. To ensure playability please remove the settler flag from the ambush unit so it doesnt destroy cities on you.

 

[Civinator]

Thank you very much for the answer.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

I've started playing Caesar's Gallic Wars, and it's looking good. I have a couple of suggestions, however. First is to use

activate
unit:activate()

Activates a unit, clearing its orders, and, if it has a human owner and movement points left, selects it on the map.

to activate newly created ammo units. Usually, I want to fire the ammo as soon as its created, and preserve movement on the creating unit in case it is best moved elsewhere after the attack.

The second, which might be some work, is to provide a means of accessing the text of old events. Upon capture of Geneva I was told to attack someone, and I've already forgotten who that is supposed to be.

 

[JPetroski]

Are you talking about the way that when you load up ammo you have to actually click on the unit to get the ammo "underneath it"? I too find this very annoying - where do I put

activate
unit:activate()

to make sure that the ammo is activated? This would also come in handy for Over the Reich.

 

[JPetroski]

Oh and the Germans are coming to get you - Ariovistus I believe. When you capture Geneva he gets in a tiffy.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

line 872 becomes:

civlua.createUnit(artilleryUnit.munitionCreated, currentUnit.owner, currentTileCoordinates, {randomize=false, veteran=false})[1]:activate()

line 909 becomes (if you want recruited units to activate immediately):

civlua.createUnit(recruitmentUnit.unitRecruited, currentUnit.owner, currentTileCoordinates, {randomize=false, veteran=false})[1]:activate()

civ.createUnit is a more "basic" command to create units than civlua.createUnit, which might be better to use if you're making a single unit at a time.

I tested this code change on Archers, Slingers, Scorpio and Onager. I also tested it on Caesar recruiting scouts and a centurian recruiting auxiliaries.

 

[JPetroski]

Thank you! That will make it into the next update. Definitely a great little trick.

I think I will only use it for the ammo though as the recruitment is a little different - I think as a player I'd prefer to be able to hit 'k' 3 times and get my 3 units rather than hitting it once, moving the unit, then hitting it again.

For the ammo though, it's clearly the way to go!

 

[Prof. Garfield]

A couple other things I've noticed:

You might want to set the Averni Territory as immune to bribery. Bumping into it with a scout opens the bribe unit window.

You might want to change the "We can't build railroads without the railroad technology" message. It implies that paved roads can't be built at all, rather than explaining that there is a technology to allow them to be built.

 

[JPetroski]

I agree - now that a few of you are actively playing I'll wait a bit and then upload a release that fixes these issues.

 

[JPetroski]

New update with some minor changes is posted to CFC and the Scenario League wiki:

-Fixed the ambush units – they now have movement rate of 10, and air superiority and should work as intended.

-Munitions activate immediately on creation rather than requiring cycling to activate them.

-Fixed typo in the “Objectives” section of readme.

-Changed Arverni Territory (and several other units that I had missed) to “immune from bribery.”

-Changed the message that pops up when trying to build railroads without the proper tech to be less ambiguous – the player should now realize that they can build them eventually, but they need the proper technology.

-Added a new unit icon for the druid, compliments of Tanelorn.

-Shortened text in difficulty selection to accommodate smaller monitors.

 

[Fairline]

Very late to the party here JP, but I finally got round to playing this properly this week, and just wanted to say what a blast it is to play and thanks for making it. I love the lua stuff, especially recruiting auxillia in the correct regions and of course the missile troops - brilliant stuff

I'm a big fan of scenarios like this and Germanicus that have plenty of space between cities to fight battles in the open, rather than forcing the player to hunker down in cities and conduct a succession of sieges.

Quick question - silly old Caesar crossed the Rhine and then killed the event unit destroying the Rhine bridge. Oops. Is there another way back across or should I reload my save?

 

[JPetroski]

I'm pretty sure I didnt think of the possibility that you could get a unit stuck there, as sad as that is! Sorry

 

[Fairline]

No problem, I had a save from the start of the turn. I'll be a bit more careful who I kill without looking at them properly

 

[Civinator]

I made a story about this great scenario at the German site civforum.de, where I documented every Roman action with screenshots. The tragedy about the collapsing bridge over the Rhine can be found here:
https://www.civforum.de/showthread....lische-Krieg&p=8158134&viewfull=1#post8158134

The Roman troops attacked a stack of Cheruscis with the bridge guardian inside that stack. A complete Roman legion, the last Roman cavalry and some archers became isolated on the other side of the Rhine - and Titus Labienus fall from the collapsing bridge into the ice-cold floods of the Rhine and was black-blue frozen rescued to the other banks of the Rhine, too.

On the other side: With those isolated troops, the Romans were able to kill Ariovist and became part of an unbelievable story in finding the 'Big Christmas Tree'.

Unfortunately I had to stop that story at Christmas 2018 for RL reasons.

There should be a solution to evacuate the Roman troops at the other side of the Rhine by founding a city at the Roman side of the Rhine and building there a boat, or to send the Roman troops at a very long journey to the spring of the Rhine and enter here Roman territory on the other side of the Rhine again.

For an isolated Caesar, I think a reload of the save is definitely in that special case the better solution, otherwise a lot of money for Rome will be wasted, if Caesar cannot enter his bureaucratic job in the months of winter (so the financial gains of that job in my eyes are extremly overpowered).

 

[JPetroski]

Now that I know a bit more about lua, it wouldn't be hard to add an event using a different key, such as backspace, to allow the player to destroy the bridge rather than needing to attack a unit.

So, you could probably press a key, get a dialogue box to pop asking if you are sure or not, and then selecting yes would destroy it.

I can probably make this change fairly soon once I have a bit of time. It's likely within scope of my lua understanding. Sorry it's to late to help you gents, however!

 

[Fairline]

Hehe great story civinator

I love games that allow a bit of role playing and emergent storytelling, as they say, and that sounds like your experience with the isolated legions, frost bitten Titus, the German nudist and the Christmas tree

Dagnabbit I need to reload the save again now. I reloaded, took a brief excursion over the Rhine to kill the German Chief whotsisname and then retired to the west bank to destroy the bridge. Now I find there's an Easter egg Christmas tree to kill! Must have it.....

 

[Civinator]

Fairline, thank you very much for your kind words.

You can find the story about Titus Labienus and the Christmas tree here: https://www.civforum.de/showthread....lische-Krieg&p=8158862&viewfull=1#post8158862

That part of the Caesar story was released by me on 23rd December 2018. This explains, why it contains a christmas tree and a video clip about 'Rudolphus Rubrinasus', a part to explain the nonsense text in the German song 'Oh Tannenbaum', speaking about leaves for a needle tree and an interesting story why christmas in Germany is called Weihnachten. To see the christmas tree in the game, you must use the slightly modified units file I have attached to this post.