Europe-1871

[Crayton]

If You extend the timeline of the scenario to 1939 or 1945 you could include Fascism. The Russian Revolution, and the dissolution of the A-H and Ottoman Empire would be prime to include.

Again, expanding to a World Map might require the inclusion of more civs. I don't know how much you have done yet, but my vote is for a Europe map with Imperialist Wonders.

Wonders:
Conquer Abysinnia
Colonize Afghanistan
Establish Opium Trade
etc...

I'll agree with most of the "Religion" suggestions
Nationalism
Marxism
Monarchism(better name? Conservatism?)
Fascism
Communism?(After Russian Revolution there was disagreement amongst Red Russians: Marxism & Lenenism)

Even you do expand to a world map, in interest of keeping the Civ count low:
1. USA
2. Latin America
3. Tribal Africa
4. Central Asia
5. China
6. Japan

EDIT: I actually started to make an 1871 Europe Scenario for Civ3. It was a little fun. I locked Alliances: England&Russians&France and Germany&Austrians&Ottomans. It eventually led to a timely WWI! I don't know how aplicable this would be to your scenario...

 

[jbfballrb]

maybe....

it might be applicable, but not the alliances. there were no formal alliances in 1871, the Austro-German one was formed in 1887(?), the Franco Russian in 1890, and Italy was added to Germany in the 1890s. the Entente itself was not drawn up until after 1900, although by then Britain was scared of Germany and its naval program.

what might work best would be to make one for Europe, and later on go back and add to it to make a world 1871. and is there a limit on minor civs?

 

[Dom Pedro II]

maybe....

it might be applicable, but not the alliances. there were no formal alliances in 1871, the Austro-German one was formed in 1887(?), the Franco Russian in 1890, and Italy was added to Germany in the 1890s. the Entente itself was not drawn up until after 1900, although by then Britain was scared of Germany and its naval program.

Well, that was largely due to Civ3's rather rigid and unsophisticated diplomacy for scenarios. Civ4 opens up the possibility a lot more. I don't think he was suggesting that you put them in alliances from the get go.

However, I think it'd be good to make alliances a lot easier to form than they are in the standard game.

what might work best would be to make one for Europe, and later on go back and add to it to make a world 1871. and is there a limit on minor civs?

There is a limit on civs in general... there is no such thing as a "minor" civ as distinct from just a regular civilization. That said, Barbarian cities can work well in this capacity.

My advice is to not simply make Tribal Africa, Central Asia, Latin America etc. since a lot of these areas were in their own internal conflict (which was partly why it was so easy to carve the areas up for the Europeans). So possibly create a tribal African civilization but then disperse Barbarian cities in with them to keep them fighting with each other.

Also, I would recommend utilizing Barbarian UU's as a means to make different Barbarian cities distinct from one another. I'd suggest putting a number of African-looking units in Africa, a number of Latin units in Latin America... etc. These units could make for some interesting obstacles... designed to require a certain level of cunning on the part of the player to overcome them.

As a final thought, maybe place resources directly under the city that will allow the Barbs to continue constructing these units and also to allow the player, upon capturing the city, to start churning out "mercenaries" of those units that they can then start using for defense of the area or on other fronts if necessary.


I mean, really, if you wanted to start fiddling with the game engine, I'm sure you could start creating some really interesting stuff that would make this scenario truly unique and emmersive.

 

[jbfballrb]

i cant fiddle with the game engine...i dont even get the Python. but in the WBS, you can check if the civ is a "minor civ"

 

[Dom Pedro II]

Really? Huh... I've never fiddled with the WBS before. What does "minor civ" do??

 

[jbfballrb]

when i asked about that, i didnt get the best answer, but it would seem that they cant interact diplomatically. ill have to fiddle, or ask someone else.

addit: you cant interact diplomatically with them (theyre not on the score thing)

i can choose to play as Italy. my comp will take too long to load Earth w/18 civs (19, if it works) for me to test that, though

 

[Jon Shafer]

Diplomacy can be changed much easier in Civ 4 than in 3. In a scenario I've finished I've done quite a bit with diplomacy. Basically you can 'store' the alignment for each civ and then have that number modified by certain factors like units lost, events and other civs declaring war. When that number passes a certain threshold you can make it add one civ to another's team, have that civ declare war on someone or other stuff of that sort.

Coming up with a complex event system to handle the forming of alliances in the late 19th century is certainly possible - I expect to see such a thing before too long.

when i asked about that, i didnt get the best answer, but it would seem that they cant interact diplomatically. ill have to fiddle, or ask someone else.

That's my understanding. Rhye used it for Greek World I believe.

 

[jbfballrb]

how? i dont want to hammer people into forming an alliance with a certain nation in a certain year....id rather see a "what-if". like what if Germany hadnt pursued an aggressive naval program? what if Austria-Hungary had gotten friendly with the Entente powers?

also, is it possible to code in new diplomacy options (and have em work, and the AI use em?)

what id really like is for England to react when players build a large navy. they could demand you stop, and get nervous (- pts) when you build a certain amount, like >1/2, thus wrecking their two power idea.

 

[Jon Shafer]

You certainly don't have to hardcode war or alliance at a particular date. You can have that sort of thing based on different events, such as building up a large navy.

You can also alter the AI's attitude towards other players with the AI_changeAttitudeExtra() or AI_setAttitudeExtra() functions for CyPlayer. This is what the WorldBuilder Saves use when you set an initial attitude for different players.

Thus you can easily do something like:

if (iNumGermanShips > 10):
        gc.getPlayer(self.iBritainID).AI_changeAttitudeExtra(self.iGermanyID, -1)

 

[jbfballrb]

some event ideas:

Balkan Rebellions--some cities rebel
Krakatoa--owner of Indonesia loses some money
Boer War--Britain unhappy with Germany
Panama Canal built--End of chance for someone to build Panama Canal wonder
Russo-Japanese War--opinions of Russia down
Spanish American War--opinions of Spain down
Russian Revolution of 1905--unhappiness in Russia, some rebels maybe

 

[Crayton]

The idea of mixing barbarian civs within the underdeveloped part of the world is a good idea to keep them busy.

Suggestion for alliance: Germany builds too many Drednaughts and Entant forms? I definatively need to reed up on my late 19th century history.

Event: Assasination of Austrian Arch Duke...

 

[jbfballrb]

the scenario is supposed to end around the assasination. or maybe it should be extended...

 

[Crayton]

Actually, I would think WWI is much more a part of the 50 years of intense Imperialism which preceded it than the interwar period that followed.

Versailles Treaty triggers diplomatic victory?

Spacerace to complete 10 different Imperialist acts (conquer an African country, establish a trade-port in China, railroad your empire, etc...

Domination victory over 1/3 of Europe.

These are merely suggestions to encourage the AI to act as it should. Suggested time frame: 1871-(1917-1921).

Do minor civs suffer from distance to capital? If not you could have 1 more or less universal minor civ to represent all Tribal Africa, Nationalist Balkans, Scandinavia, etc...

 

[jbfballrb]

it could be more interesting if it encompassed WWI....

only problem, is some of the cool stuff i had thought about for WWI would be hard to do without forcing players into a war.

 

[Dom Pedro II]

Actually, I would think WWI is much more a part of the 50 years of intense Imperialism which preceded it than the interwar period that followed.

Agreed. At least the beginning of the war.

Versailles Treaty triggers diplomatic victory?

What would Versailles Treaty be?? A wonder?

Spacerace to complete 10 different Imperialist acts (conquer an African country, establish a trade-port in China, railroad your empire, etc...

I think that rather than traditional wonders, these should be sort of money sinks... Basically, you'd have to commit troops to fight on other fronts that wouldn't be available on the European front... so you'd send them somewhere and they'd basically be removed from the map and you'd get points toward a goal.

Domination victory over 1/3 of Europe.

Another possibility would be to create a new diplomatic state and/or organization (requires some game mechanics fiddling) to basically create something such as the Zollverein customs union extended to smaller countries like Belgium, Netherlands, etc. Similar to how France created a customs union to bind the German states it occupied after the war to France.

An organization would basically be a group of civilizations bound by the same diplomatic conditions rather than maintaining a series of diplomatic states with different countries. So rather than France making an alliance with Britain and an alliance with Russia, there would be the Triple Entente and all countries who join would be bound by its conditions... and then you could invite other civs to join like Belgium, Sweden, Italy, Spain... etc. etc. etc.

Gives new possibility for domination/diplomatic victory without actually having to conquer... after all, when I think "domination" I think of more indirect control than physical (and forced) annexation.

Do minor civs suffer from distance to capital? If not you could have 1 more or less universal minor civ to represent all Tribal Africa, Nationalist Balkans, Scandinavia, etc...

Reminds me of the 1979 scenario of Civ2... since you could only have 7 civs, South Africa, Israel, Japan, Taiwan and a couple other countries were all one civ... I played as them actually. It was hard

 

[Crayton]

The "money sink" idea sounds good. Similar to Victory Points? Sacrafice your military in return for Victory Points, like Treasure in Civ3 Conquests.

I was thinking of the Versailles Treaty like the UN in Civ3 but the UN in Civ4 has different functions...

So, jfballrb, anything else we need discuss for you? Any more questions?

 

[jbfballrb]

not really, at least that i can think of.

 

[Paasky]

Call me blind, but where's the mindmap?

I like the whole 1700-1900 time (actually 1000-2000, but that's too long a time), good old musket(rifle) tactics

Hopefully the map will be small(ish) though...

You can't have more than 18 civs playing, but you can have oo amount of civs to choose from, I believe.

 

[Aeon221]

You certainly don't have to hardcode war or alliance at a particular date. You can have that sort of thing based on different events, such as building up a large navy.

You can also alter the AI's attitude towards other players with the AI_changeAttitudeExtra() or AI_setAttitudeExtra() functions for CyPlayer. This is what the WorldBuilder Saves use when you set an initial attitude for different players.

Thus you can easily do something like:

if (iNumGermanShips > 10):
        gc.getPlayer(self.iBritainID).AI_changeAttitudeExtra(self.iGermanyID, -1)

Does this quick little blip not make anyone else want to dance with joy!

HAAAAAAAAAALELUJAH!

 

[jbfballrb]

ooh, havent got it up yet. cant do it now, will put up in afternoon. and i plan on making it smallish, depends on what the Europe maps turn out as.