Interesting Screenshots

Yeah it's a WW2 mod I've been working on for quite a while. And I just use resources as geographic labels.
Some more information about this interesting scenario would be highly appreciated. :) I am working on a next version of the WW2 scenario SOE, what seems to be quite similar to your scenario, but at present the work on this scenario is stopped, as I want to finish the next version of my mod CCM 2 first, and this still needs tons of time and work.
Except there's definitely NOT an airfield/fortress on that tile. Just a straight, honest-to-god bug. :crazyeye:
The bomber was rebased to the city of Reykjavik - for me a case of a city with transparent city graphics and a resource looking like a fortress placed into the tile that holds that city. One can see that it is a city, as the screenshot shows that information below the tile of that city: Reykjavik, size 6, building Water Supply.
On another note, I am toying with the idea of using transparent city graphics myself. Kind of annoying to see cities change their graphics when captured.
In my eyes the biggest advantage of this modding concept is to create special military starting points in scenarios (per example a city that looks like the Africa Corps or some starting locations for Operation Torch and so on).
 
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Some more information about this interesting scenario would be highly appreciated.
It was inspired by the Hearts of Iron 3: Black Ice mod. It's very very close to an initial release, or at least it was until Flintlock released his latest C3X updates which has me scrambling to implement them. I'm actively playtesting and polishing right now.

The goal is to make it as much of a 'sandbox' scenario as possible, so any civ can be played and so it's relatively easy to create sub-scenarios on the scaffold. Currently, there's subscenarios for a 1938, 1939, and 1941 start. Eventually also want a 1936 and 1944 start.
One can see that it is a city, as the screenshot shows that information below the tile of that city: Reykjavik, size 6, building Water Supply.
Aye, except the bomber is on the tile just south of the city and not the city itself!
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It was inspired by the Hearts of Iron 3: Black Ice mod.
I never played HOI3 and that mod, as it is no turn based game. I am curious how you managed to transform it into a turn based game. Having a look at the minimap of your screenshot and on the very old SOE screenshot, both scenarios showed a similar map. Gametests of SOE long ago showed, that the parts of the US east coast were only interesting for human players playing the US. When the US was played by the AI, this part of the map only triggered big delays in the turn times and the AI mostly was not able to show a notable performance. In a first step I combined Britain and the US so the performance became a little bit better and traffic problems between both civs were solved. In a second step I cut out the US east coast completely, as this speeded up the game significantly.

Another big problem was to operate such a scenario with normal techtrees. Each testplayer wanted to reach the ultimate units of a civ as soon as possible, making hundreds of nice units, at that time created by Wyrmshadow, in the game completely superfluos. I transformed the normal techtree Civ 3 players are used to, into a calendar. Now the units entered the game as it was in history with a small chance for the players to have some influence on the appearance of those units by speeding it up for three months. Aditionally the calendar offered the possibility in combination with transparent cities to work like the in Civ 3 missing events, allowing to start military operations like Operation Barbarossa, The DAK, Operation Torch, D-Day and many others at historical dates and by somewhat historical units.

Aye, except the bomber is on the tile just south of the city and not the city itself!
In that case I have no idea what triggered this behaviour, when that tile doesn´t hold a transparent airfield.
 
I am curious how you managed to transform it into a turn based game.
Well, I didn't. I just said "inspired by." Basically I love the sandbox nature of HoI3 and wanted to recreate that in the civ engine the best I could.
So, my design philosophy is a bit different than what you're doing with SoE. Instead of trying to recreate history for the player, essentially railroading events, I went in the opposite direction to allow as much alternate-history play as one likes.

Gametests of SOE long ago showed, that the parts of the US east coast were only interesting for human players playing the US. When the US was played by the AI, this part of the map only triggered big delays in the turn times and the AI mostly was not able to show a notable performance. In a first step I combined Britain and the US so the performance became a little bit better and traffic problems between both civs were solved. In a second step I cut out the US east coast completely, as this speeded up the game significantly.
One thing I really enjoy about paradox games like HoI3 is that they encompass the entire planet. In a WW2 game, what this means is that after all the fun is to be had in Europe, there's an entire world outside to expand & conquer into as an end-game treat. You're correct in that the larger the map & more units, the slower the turn times. Also there are limits to the number of civilization, buildings, resources, etc. I simply couldn't do a world scenario. So I picked a middle-ground between just Europe & the world and settled on including the United States: specifically up to the Great Plains as in the Cold War scenario. This way, as an Axis, Comintern or neutral player in Europe, you have the USA to look forward to defeat as an end-game foe.

In play-testing, turn times haven't seemed to be too bad. Also, with Flintlock's patch the AI seems more adept at naval invasions. In the most recent version of Overlord, I've also increased the transport capacity of naval transports, as I read this is an easy way to make AI naval invasions much more dangerous (they don't seem to have a problem filling transports - it's multiple at a time that are a problem). I also gave the US player a base in the UK (and might expand this to more bases).

Another big problem was to operate such a scenario with normal techtrees. Each testplayer wanted to reach the ultimate units of a civ as soon as possible, making hundreds of nice units, at that time created by Wyrmshadow, in the game completely superfluos. I transformed the normal techtree Civ 3 players are used to, into a calendar. Now the units entered the game as it was in history with a small chance for the players to have some influence on the appearance of those units by speeding it up for three months.
So, I basically tried to port the HoI3 techtree into Civ3. It's the one bit of the mod that takes directly from the HoI3 Black Ice mod (besides the unit symbols).

It's the exact opposite of a calendar-like tech tree. It's the ultimate encapsulation of what it means to be a sandbox mod. A civ can choose to a large extent what it researches and when, as long as the prerequisites for the tech are met.

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The progression is designed in such a way that late-game techs are locked behind long prereq chains. For example, Heavy Bombers II is the tech that enables the building of Atom Bombs, but that tech requires most of the techs in the AIR section to be researched prior, as well as techs in the STATE section under Atomic Research, which in turn requires late-game industrial techs.

So there's a rough historical tech progression that also allows great flexibility in what one wants to research.

The AI appears to deal with this somewhat adequately. There are a lot of techs, a lot of different paths to go down, and it seems to average out overall where they end up. Right now the Allies get "Great Library" wonders, but this appears like it's too fast of a tech progression. Still working on balancing this. Tech trading is off-limits to improve turn times.

Hopefully soon Flintlock will come out with an update to C3X that allows us to perfume techs!
 
Meteor Man, thank you very much for those explanations. :) It seems, that your scenario (do you have a name for it ?) and SOE will become really very different in game play. I remember long time ago an attempt by Cimbri to transform the HoI 1 techs into a WW 2 scenario for Civ 3, but at that time the Quintillus editor, which allows to connect the techs of different eras, was not available yet. The icons format of HoI 1 had the same format as the icons of Civ 3.

I wish you good luck with your scenario and I will surely try to start a game with it. :thumbsup:
 

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but at that time the Quintillus editor, which allows to connect the techs of different eras, was not available yet.
The way I connect the tech tree is through secondary requirements. Eg. the Atom Bomb requires Heavy Bombers II in the AIR section, but also Uranium and the Atomic Program and Test wonders from the STATE section.

And, thank you! :D Can't wait to show it off. Unfortunately this current playtest is resulting in a veritable laundry list of things to fix. :crazyeye: It grows more complex by the day.

the working title is "Overlord." Unsure if that will remain or if it'll be renamed.
 
Outside the city walls? ;)

It does seem as if it were *joined* to them, at least.
 
Outside the city walls? ;)

It does seem as if it were *joined* to them, at least.
That is where the city view in Play the World always puts the Hanging Gardens. If you build Wonders, either Great or Small, the city view always puts them in the same spot. A lot of Wonders in a city makes the view a bit cluttered.
 
surely a geothermal hot spot . Put the place under glass and there you are .
 
I like the city walls, to protect your city from... you know, the incoming armies from over yonder.
 
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I know most people play modded games, but I'm still amazed that anyone could build a wonder in a city in the tundra.
 
using a leader for territorial expansion as mentioned . It is good to have leaders .
 
I don't know what I am looking at.
 
I have been doing some research into the game's selection of starting positions for players. The maps are 300 X 240, 70% water Archipelago, Cold climate. There are 31 possible players, with one starting position set aside for the civilization that I am playing. I am only allowing 7 other civilizations so as to see what positions are chosen. The computer doe show a preference for some positions over other. However, the chosen positions are quite interesting. The following images come from about 7 starts, using the same custom map. The Aztecs must have made the computer mad at them.
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On the last map, with the Turks, a total of 5 of the 7 other civilizations were in the tundra for starting.
 

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When wonder addiction kicks back in for the sole purpose to bring science in the capital over the screen :p

Spoiler :



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And foreign workers serving as coast guard:

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Rofl. And posting a screenshot here and you notice you forgot to recolonice the gems since ~30 turns from recently conquered Vikings :crazyeye:
 
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