Desert War for BtS

[Dale]

Hi all, I roughly converted Desert War to BtS.

If anyone remembers, this was one of the original 4 mods to ship with Civ4 vanilla. Desert War is all about the war in North Africa during World War II.

Anyways, I've done a raw convert of the mod to BtS, and it loads and I've played a few turns. However, I need people to test the mod before I call it finished.

I'm not looking for new ideas or such, all I'm looking for is where the mod doesn't work (due to conversion). I can guarentee there will be problems with the python.

For testing purposes, if you can either turn python debugging on and take screenshots of the python msgs, or upload a zip file of your BtS logs folder C:\Documents & Settings\You\My Documents\My Games\Beyond the Sword\Logs\ so I can debug (screenshots MUCH prefered thanks ).

Please post here any bugs found.

File: http://rtw.apolyton.net/files/DesertWarBtS.zip

Install: Unzip to Beyond the Sword Mods folder.

Original Desert War for Civ4 vanilla made by: Locutus, Isak, Dale.

 

[Dale]

Anyone had a look at this? Otherwise I won't bother finishing the conversion.

 

[Jabie]

I appreciate your work, Dale. Considering it's updating an old scenario, maybe Firaxis can put it in their next patch. That and redo the American Revolution mod as a marketting exercise for Colonisation.

I'm not that far in and playing on Settler, cos that's the best way to learn the nuances of any scenario before switching to my normal level (Warlord). The Allied Fleet is mostly sunk because I sucked at Naval combat, but El-Alhemain (sp?) held and I've started the fightback in North Africa with my Crusader tank hordes.

General Notes:

1. The scenario still requires you load from a public map rather than just start straight out.

2. One of the planes was meant to be able bomb terrain improvements, but I couldn't get it to bomb a vital railway line.

3. It'd be great if my battelships could shell gropos instead of cities.

 

[Gooblah]

Oh, thank you Dale!

I LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!! This was my favorite scenario in Vanilla!

Edit: Dammit! As soon as I load it as a Publicmap, a random debug error shuts it down. No message or anything....just "BTS has experienced an error and must be shut down"!

 

[Gooblah]

HGmm. Okay, I tried loading from the Main Menu (Advanced/Load a Mod), and got up to the Desert War Main Menu (the sounds came through), then the debug error. This is really annoying, since the same thing keeps happening with my new scenario...

 

[Dale]

You upgraded to patch 3.17 yet?

I would re-install it anyways. Random crashes like this are common if the patch install stuffed up somehow.

 

[Gooblah]

Patch install didn't work. At all.

The dialog box didnt show up, and nothing really happened. I think I will re-install, but I don't wanna lose my saves...hmmm. Time for massive copy/pasting.

Edit: Tried re-install. Couldn't uninstall. Tried again (dozen times, literally), but the InstallShield Wizard prep dialog box would pop up, fill, then stop responding. I did a hard uninstall (rooted through Registry and C:/, destroyed any traces of BTS) and tried to install. Same problem. I sent a query to Firaxis Support, and am awaiting reply. In the meantime, though, is there anything you can suggest?

 

[Jabie]

Bugs:

Tanks don't get promotions.
Intelligence agency doesn't generate Espionage.
Base of Operations ought to generate 1 ESP and 1 Culture.
Workers can't build forts (which may be useful if you want to cross the gulf for a surprise flank attack.)

 

[Jabie]

Well I finished my scenario on Settler level. (Yes, I suck) By the tail end of 1942 Athens finally fell thanks to an audacious raid. I kicked Vichy France out of North Africa before Bogart could turn up and make *that* classic movie and with Corsica and Sicily under my control, the end of the third Reich was in sight. I enjoyed the scenario a lot.

Most of my bugs are noted above, other observations:

A couple of Barbarian cities appeared in North Africa. With no defence, I quickly took them. You should either look into eliminating any possibility of having Barbarians appear or else look into adding a couple of cities (to prevent Barbarians appearing)

The graphics for work boats looked pretty primitive. You might want to switch to the modern work boat graphic.

Diplomacy with Franco and the Turks was impossible. They never even came close to giving me an Open Borders agreement, despite all my bribery with resources and tech.

Pillaging and air-bombing was annoying, most of the time I wanted to destroy the transport links to slow down any kind of counter-attack, but was forced to destroy mines and farms instead. It would be nice to have better control over what I pillage or bomb.

 

[Gooblah]

Well I finished my scenario on Settler level. (Yes, I suck) By the tail end of 1942 Athens finally fell thanks to an audacious raid. I kicked Vichy France out of North Africa before Bogart could turn up and make *that* classic movie and with Corsica and Sicily under my control, the end of the third Reich was in sight. I enjoyed the scenario a lot.

Most of my bugs are noted above, other observations:

A couple of Barbarian cities appeared in North Africa. With no defence, I quickly took them. You should either look into eliminating any possibility of having Barbarians appear or else look into adding a couple of cities (to prevent Barbarians appearing)

The graphics for work boats looked pretty primitive. You might want to switch to the modern work boat graphic.

Diplomacy with Franco and the Turks was impossible. They never even came close to giving me an Open Borders agreement, despite all my bribery with resources and tech.

Pillaging and air-bombing was annoying, most of the time I wanted to destroy the transport links to slow down any kind of counter-attack, but was forced to destroy mines and farms instead. It would be nice to have better control over what I pillage or bomb.

Hmm. Dale yuo should consider (somehow) adding in your combat mod to this one. And Jable, i think it's historically accurate (or its supposed to be ) for the Allies+Axis not to have much help from the Spaniards or Turks.

 

[Jabie]

And Jable, i think it's historically accurate (or its supposed to be ) for the Allies+Axis not to have much help from the Spaniards or Turks.

I agree, but one of the pre-programmed events (Peral Harbour) specifically stated that I could start making overtures towards them, so I thought I'd try.