I was just thinking that if you really want to keep the effect of shipping raw materials to Japan and then sending them back out in supply form, you could do the following (implies more work though):
- Add new unit: Ambassador (diplo role; cannot be built).
- Add new unit: Merchant Port (immobile; cannot be built).
- Add new unit: Manufacturing (immobile; cannot be built).
- Remove all 'Japanese (P)' cities and units.
- Remove all 'Warlord' (i.e. Barbarian) cities and units.
- Rename 'Warlord' (barb) to 'Japanese Industry' (or whatever).
- Rename 'Japanese (P)' civ to 'Warlord.'
- Place the new 'Warlord' civ's cities where old barb 'Warlord' cities were.
- Place barb Manufacturing unit where Japanese (P) cities were (only in Japan though).
- Place Merchant Port near each historical trading city (under that civ's flag).
- Give Japanese 1 Ambassador unit.
- Event: spawn (interval) Japanese Resources unit in each Merchant Port square.
- Event: spawn (interval) Japanese Resources unit in historical resource-rich cities.
- Event: spawn Supplies in Japan when Resources destroyed (attacker=barb).
(Pardon the point-form, I don't meant to suggest anything. I just personally find it easier to put it all together.)
The result should be that when your Ambassador bribes a Merchant Port (a high cost but well worth it), Resource units will begin to appear there (the turn interval is whatever you think would be appropriate). You then send your Merchant Marine unit to pick up the Resources and take them back to Japan. Once there, you suicide the Resource units against one of the barb Manufacturing units (just as you would against the garrison of a Japanese (P) city) and Supplies appear (in Tokyo I assume). You then send them wherever needed as you normally would.
(Note that if the barb Manufacturing units are destroyed by anyone but the Japanese, nothing happens, except that the Japanese have one less Manufacturing unit at their disposal--hence the need to intercept any enemy units that might destroy the barb units; essentially the same strategy used with the Japanese (P) cities.)
When the embargo occurs, Japan loses here Merchant Ports and must depedn on colonial aquisitions (namely Manchuria).
Adding the manufacturing process makes it more complicated but at least this has the advantage of allowing you to swap the Japanese (P) civ with the barbs so as to have the Warlord player function as a real civ and you don't have Japanese (P) cities using city tiles in Japan. The Manufacturing units also look different from cities so Japan doesn't look as cluttered. Unfortunately, they still exhert ZoC but this can be compensated for--regardless of what you decide to do--by simply placing immobile Japanese units around those sqaures, thus allowing your units to pass through these areas without being blocked.
The one advantage Japanese (P) cities have is that they can re-build their units if destroyed whereas the barb units can't be replaced without an elaborate events structure to do so.
Some more suggestions:
- Organize starting units into stacks (since there's no risk of them bieng attacked first turn.
- Spawn Army Reserve units (home=none) in each city the AI captures. Aside from ensuring that the AI's offensive units keep going rather than garrisoning themselves in the city until defensive units arrive/are built, it also ensures that the AI will adequately defend its conquests. (Suggest reducing Army Reserve H/F.)
(Pearl Harbour shouldn't be that difficult to capture at first except that you have to get your units all the way over there. The practically invinsible Army Reserve garrisoned there makes little sense--Japanese Marines would have slaughtered the ill-prepared reserves at Pearl...had the Japanese actually invaded.)
- Add Troop Transport sea unit (very expensive) and make Merchant Marine coastal (and slower). Former is only buildable when war tech researched. This prevents any long-range amphibious invasions too early in the scen.
- Change Roads to look more rugged. They look too developed in areas where a dirt road would have been a luxury at the time. (Suggest at least removing the white dividing lines.)
- Naval Base improvement should be *much* more expensive considering a) its strategic value in a scen with this level of naval activity and b) because hisotrically, a naval base woudl have taken at least a year, if not more.
- Destroying US Battleship Row (Pearl Harbour attack) should have a visible negative effect on the US fleet (e.g. loss of shields to support naval units homed to Pearl Harbour).
- Give Infantry Japan ADM=6.4.2 and Marines Japan ADM=7.3.2 so that the former is the primary defensive unit. Otherwise there's no point to building more Infantry when you can build Marines for 10 more shields.
BTW, are you interested in including some kind of effect when the AI loses/gains resources? (Not sure if historically relevant, since most weren't exclusively dependent on a particular area like Japan was...AFAIK.)
Then there's the thing with getting the AI to make amphibious assaults: you have some good stuff like when the Japanese get tech, US Marines spawn at points ranging from the US to Australia to Japanese islands (depending on which of those the Japanese owns at the time). It's difficult to know what the AI will do with amphibious units; having amphibious and transport units in the same city doesn't necessarily mean that the AI won't just move the transport elsewhere and leave the land units behind. The MoveUnit action doesn't help because it will only result in the transport moving where you wnat it to but the land units will still get left behind. The only way of forcing 'landings' thatI can think of is to temporarily change the terrina next to the island to land, spawn the marines there and change it back again next turn (i.e. once the marines have attacked the city or moved into that square). You could also use 0-range air units (e.g. Airborne) but then you have the problem that the AI ignores the coastal flag and you then get these units patrolling all over the Pacific!
Some questions:
Why does the Civil Defense unit have the settle role?
What's the point of the 'Listening Post' cities?
Why don't all large coastal cities have Fishing Wharf?
What's with the Emissary speech (i.e. "I would like to present to you...")?
P.S. Spelling: Culcutta should be Calcutta.
- Add new unit: Ambassador (diplo role; cannot be built).
- Add new unit: Merchant Port (immobile; cannot be built).
- Add new unit: Manufacturing (immobile; cannot be built).
- Remove all 'Japanese (P)' cities and units.
- Remove all 'Warlord' (i.e. Barbarian) cities and units.
- Rename 'Warlord' (barb) to 'Japanese Industry' (or whatever).
- Rename 'Japanese (P)' civ to 'Warlord.'
- Place the new 'Warlord' civ's cities where old barb 'Warlord' cities were.
- Place barb Manufacturing unit where Japanese (P) cities were (only in Japan though).
- Place Merchant Port near each historical trading city (under that civ's flag).
- Give Japanese 1 Ambassador unit.
- Event: spawn (interval) Japanese Resources unit in each Merchant Port square.
- Event: spawn (interval) Japanese Resources unit in historical resource-rich cities.
- Event: spawn Supplies in Japan when Resources destroyed (attacker=barb).
(Pardon the point-form, I don't meant to suggest anything. I just personally find it easier to put it all together.)
The result should be that when your Ambassador bribes a Merchant Port (a high cost but well worth it), Resource units will begin to appear there (the turn interval is whatever you think would be appropriate). You then send your Merchant Marine unit to pick up the Resources and take them back to Japan. Once there, you suicide the Resource units against one of the barb Manufacturing units (just as you would against the garrison of a Japanese (P) city) and Supplies appear (in Tokyo I assume). You then send them wherever needed as you normally would.
(Note that if the barb Manufacturing units are destroyed by anyone but the Japanese, nothing happens, except that the Japanese have one less Manufacturing unit at their disposal--hence the need to intercept any enemy units that might destroy the barb units; essentially the same strategy used with the Japanese (P) cities.)
When the embargo occurs, Japan loses here Merchant Ports and must depedn on colonial aquisitions (namely Manchuria).
Adding the manufacturing process makes it more complicated but at least this has the advantage of allowing you to swap the Japanese (P) civ with the barbs so as to have the Warlord player function as a real civ and you don't have Japanese (P) cities using city tiles in Japan. The Manufacturing units also look different from cities so Japan doesn't look as cluttered. Unfortunately, they still exhert ZoC but this can be compensated for--regardless of what you decide to do--by simply placing immobile Japanese units around those sqaures, thus allowing your units to pass through these areas without being blocked.
The one advantage Japanese (P) cities have is that they can re-build their units if destroyed whereas the barb units can't be replaced without an elaborate events structure to do so.
Some more suggestions:
- Organize starting units into stacks (since there's no risk of them bieng attacked first turn.
- Spawn Army Reserve units (home=none) in each city the AI captures. Aside from ensuring that the AI's offensive units keep going rather than garrisoning themselves in the city until defensive units arrive/are built, it also ensures that the AI will adequately defend its conquests. (Suggest reducing Army Reserve H/F.)
(Pearl Harbour shouldn't be that difficult to capture at first except that you have to get your units all the way over there. The practically invinsible Army Reserve garrisoned there makes little sense--Japanese Marines would have slaughtered the ill-prepared reserves at Pearl...had the Japanese actually invaded.)
- Add Troop Transport sea unit (very expensive) and make Merchant Marine coastal (and slower). Former is only buildable when war tech researched. This prevents any long-range amphibious invasions too early in the scen.
- Change Roads to look more rugged. They look too developed in areas where a dirt road would have been a luxury at the time. (Suggest at least removing the white dividing lines.)
- Naval Base improvement should be *much* more expensive considering a) its strategic value in a scen with this level of naval activity and b) because hisotrically, a naval base woudl have taken at least a year, if not more.
- Destroying US Battleship Row (Pearl Harbour attack) should have a visible negative effect on the US fleet (e.g. loss of shields to support naval units homed to Pearl Harbour).
- Give Infantry Japan ADM=6.4.2 and Marines Japan ADM=7.3.2 so that the former is the primary defensive unit. Otherwise there's no point to building more Infantry when you can build Marines for 10 more shields.
BTW, are you interested in including some kind of effect when the AI loses/gains resources? (Not sure if historically relevant, since most weren't exclusively dependent on a particular area like Japan was...AFAIK.)
Then there's the thing with getting the AI to make amphibious assaults: you have some good stuff like when the Japanese get tech, US Marines spawn at points ranging from the US to Australia to Japanese islands (depending on which of those the Japanese owns at the time). It's difficult to know what the AI will do with amphibious units; having amphibious and transport units in the same city doesn't necessarily mean that the AI won't just move the transport elsewhere and leave the land units behind. The MoveUnit action doesn't help because it will only result in the transport moving where you wnat it to but the land units will still get left behind. The only way of forcing 'landings' thatI can think of is to temporarily change the terrina next to the island to land, spawn the marines there and change it back again next turn (i.e. once the marines have attacked the city or moved into that square). You could also use 0-range air units (e.g. Airborne) but then you have the problem that the AI ignores the coastal flag and you then get these units patrolling all over the Pacific!
Some questions:
Why does the Civil Defense unit have the settle role?
What's the point of the 'Listening Post' cities?
Why don't all large coastal cities have Fishing Wharf?
What's with the Emissary speech (i.e. "I would like to present to you...")?
P.S. Spelling: Culcutta should be Calcutta.
)
