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[MOD] Khartoum Sudan Wars 1883-85 (mod for C3C)

Thrust123

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Apr 21, 2004
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Khartoum, Sudan Wars 1883-85
VERSION 1.0

By Thrust123

abu_kla.jpg

******

Gladstone says goodbye to Gordon, shortly before Gordon leaves for Khartoum to never return...

Spoiler Gladstone's goodbye to Gordon :
Gladstone_goodbye_to_Gordon.jpg


******

BACKGROUND:
Sudan, 1883. The Mahdi, self-proclaimed as "The chosen one", has started a revolution against Egyptian control of the country.
The Egyptian garrisons are ill-prepared and lacking morale to prevent this uprising. The main city, Khartoum, still is safe but there are many Europeans and Egyptians trapped there.
The British governtment, then in control and overseeing things in Egypt, doesn't want to get involved with troops on the ground, nor are they especially interested in helping Egypt maintain their corrupt dominion over Sudan. Notwithstanding a gesture is required and of course the evacutation of the Europeans is necessary.
General Charles Gordon, aka "Chinese Gordon", is sent to Khartoum as Governor of the Sudan, his mission to evacuate as many Europeans and Egyptians out of Sudan before the Mahdist uprising overruns them.
But things get worse as gradually outposts and cities begin to fall or are besieged. The General Hicks Expedition, an Egyptian force but under the leadership of an English Officer (Hicks) is destroyed. Later another Egyptian army, but again under the leadership of an English officer -General Baker- is also destroyed. Another gesture is required to reinstate British prestige in the eyes of the world. Under direct pressures from Queen Victoria Gladstone is finally forced to send British troops to Suakim (Graham's 1st Suakim Expedition) with an unclear mission consisting of kicking some Mahdists butts to recover British prestige.
With time Khartoum itself, with General Gordon in it, comes under prolonged siege. Once more Gladstone, against his will, is forced to do something to at least try and save Gordon. The Gordon Relief Expedition is sent off...
***
MOD FEATURES:
==== >Important WARNING: Before starting to play you need to read the sections in the Civilopedia
-House_Rules_Read_Very_Important (self-imposed rules you need to follow)
-Scenario_NeedtoKnowsI and II (how to get your reinforcements, etc.)
These sections are MUST READS before starting to play. If you don't the game won't work as intended or not at all.
- Scenario to play solo as the British Player (controls British and Egyptian units) against the Madhist AI player. 86 weekly turns from around July 1883 to February 1885.
- Map covering from Wadi Halfa in the North to the South of Sudan.
- Many new units: Egyptian, British and Mahdists (the unit graphics are all borrowed from other modders mentioned in ackowledgements).
- New resources.
- Three new techs (Gordon Relief Expedition, Jihad and Total Jihad).
- Several dummy type city improvements to auto-produce units for both sides.
- Victory conditions: Conquest, Mass Regicide, Victory Points with Victory Point locations included.
- System to time arrival of the two British Expeditions reinforcements, using "cadre" type units that can only be upgraded to fully functioning units after researching the appropiate Tech.

***
LAST MINUTE WARNING:
House Rule: One of the Victory conditions settings is Capture the Flag. Since the game engine doesn't seem to have an option to disallow the owning player of the Flag unit from capturing and getting points for it himself, you should NOT capture your own flag unit (there's only one flag -or princess type unit-), starting at Khartoum named "Civilians".
 
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***
Khartoum, Sudan Wars 1883-85 VERSION 1.0
DOWNLOAD:
In two parts (host limits maximum 50 Mb per upload file):
Khartoum Sudan Wars 1883-85 v1 (1)
Khartoum Sudan Wars 1883-85 v1 (2)

***
INSTALLATION: (Read Carefully)

1) Unzip ONLY the first Khartoum Sudan Wars v1.zip.01 file. It automatically triggers unzipping the second one. The third, sixth and eight characters of my user name in this forum is the key. Extraction results in this folder and file:
Folder: Khartoum Sudan Wars 1883-85
File: Khartoum Sudan Wars 1883-85.biq
2) Place both inside your \Conquests\Scenarios folder.
4) To play start Civilization III Conquests Edition updated to last version 1.22, select Civ Content and then the scenario.

***

What are the ISSUES with this VERSION 1.0 ?

- Military balance between British and Madhists. Have not been able to do as much playtesting as I would have liked; every time I playtest I come up with another idea -inspired by my perfectionism- and have to start all over.
- Civilopedia information: Most of the new unit's Civilopedia entries are incomplete; might do so in the future. Game Concepts is quite complete so please take a good look.
- Crash: I some times get a Civilization Game error, which I think is due to the custom music included, even though it's in the mp3 128-44 format. Maybe it's my system; but if you should get a Crash look into the details to see if it mentions mp3dec.asi or sound.dll because if it does then you will have to play without the custom music. To do this, remove the following:
a) SOUNDS FOLDER that´s inside the Khartoum Sudan Wars 1883-85 folder.
b) Music.txt FILE that´s inside the TEXT folder in the same folder mentioned in a).
You will then have the vanilla music as background only.
While playing, save often so as not to lose too many turns if you get this sort of error.

***

Note that the scenario presented here won't work well except for playing solo as the British because the Mahdist has a large amount of units at start and, in the hands of a clever human player, would mean concentrating on and taking Khartoum early on, which means eliminating Gordon who is the British King unit and winning.
***************************************
 
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Inspiration: The Dervish Wars by Robin Neilland, Osprey's Campaign #23 Khartoum 1885 - General Gordon's Last Stand- and the film Khartoum (1966).

Scenario Concept & Design, new Techs, special sounds for Highlander (attack, death) and Colonial Regiments (fortify), text label type resources: Thrust123

*Firstly I wish to express my gratitude to Vuldacon who gave of his time and work to reply to all my questions, give me ideas and solutions, as well as resources such as his Terrain pack. Without his assistance this mod would have not been possible.
**REINFORCEMENT SYSTEM GORDON RELIEF EXPEDITION: Idea by Vuldacon. Also he taught me all about auto-production of units, among so many other things.
**TERRAIN: Thanks to Vuldacon.
**RESOURCES:
Alligators (Crocodiles), Date Palms, Camels: From Rise & Rule Mod.
Sunken ship (Stewart's Abbas): From Hegemon Mod.
Game (Gazelle), Native Huts: From Worldwide Mod.
**CITIES: From Rise & Rule Mod.
**UNITS: None are new made by me. They are borrowed from many modders and mods. I downloaded them all from the Civfanatics CIV III website.
*Mahdist Units: Almost all of the fighting units (Ansar, Mahdi, Hadendowa, Taaishi) by Balam-Agab from his Armies of Africa-Mahdist Sudan and bonus units packs. Aren't they the best units?
*British/Egyptian type units:
Egyptian army units and Bashi Bouzuk: Most of them, if not all, thanks to the several packs of Ottoman and Egyptian Units by Imperator 1961. Just perfect !
Land Mine: Vuldacon, from his Escape from Zombie Island mod.
British Explorer/Adventurer: Marc Angstadt Kinboat.
British Colonial Infantry/Zulu War Rifleman and British Colonial Regiment/Colonial Trooper: Created by Wyrmshadow and Sounds by Ares De Borg.
Voyageur: Daniel Lisboa Rennó, with nickname CivArmy.
Sudan Fusiliers/Senegalese Riflemen: Wyrmshadow, AOI mod.
Highlander/1812 Highlander Line Infantry, British Hussar and Cadre units: Sandris.
Leader British/Royal Dragoon Late 19th: From the British part V Unit Pack.Steph ?
Captain Thrust: Turkrifle blue by Imperator 1961.
Captain Vuldacon: US Marine from the AOI mod.
Royal Artillery / Italian Art. Late 19th: From the Europe Late19th it6171895 unit pack. Steph?
Civilians/Khmer Settler by Shirokobbure.
Nile Steamers/Paddlewheel: Aki Neuvonen.
Warrior/Mbuti Spearman: Balam-Agab
*Thanks to the Rise and Rule mod for the following:
General Gordon/Bedouin Raider.
River Intercept Force/Bombard.
Water Supply/Supply Shipment1.
Whaling Canoe Flotilla/Canoe.
Hadendowa Camel/Camel Raider.
Dhow/Dhow Cannons.
*Thanks to the Age of Imperialism Deluxe mod for the following:
Egyptian Worker/Industrial Worker.
Gatling/Gatling and British Gatling
**INTERFACE:
Scenario set-up screen,top left menu buttons in-game, and smallheads: From AOI mod.

* Game Engine & all else - Firaxis

Probably forgot to mention someone as some of the sounds/icons of the units mentioned -that didn't come with them- are taken from other units. Let me know so as to include them please.

CONCEPT:
This mod, dedicated to the brave Mahdist warriors, as well as General Gordon, is the result of a life long interest/obsession for those Sudan Wars, which started when I first saw the Film Khartoum (1966) at an eary age.
Since CIV III isn't really a "wargame" as for example board wargames are, there are limits as to how well the historical aspects of the campaigns can be implemented. The design guiding principle has been foremost "Playability" (concept borrowed from the board wargame world). Represent as well as possible the historical events but making the game entertaining.
This made me sacrifice and adapt several historical aspects including location placement of cities, terrain features (hills and mountains, i.e.) and mainly arrival of the two British Expeditions, Suakim 1st and Gordon Relief Expeditions, which arrive much earlier than historically to avoid boring the British player for too many turns. Most units have the best possible flcs, but for some I couldn't find one for that part of history so I took the best I could find; i.e. Hussars are actually Napoleonic type units.

If you have an interest in the Sudan Wars of that period I think you will enjoy this mod

SPECIAL FEATURES:
The main ones are explained in the Civilopedia GAME CONCEPTS sections:

-House_Rules_Read_Very_Important
-Scenario_NeedtoKnowsI
-Scenario_NeedtoKnowsII
These sections -I must insist- are MUST READS before starting to play. If you don't the game won't work as intended or not at all.
 
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Images / Video:

Spoiler [B]Patch 1 will include these new units by Balam Agab[/B] :
Dongola Expidition_zps4np1injj.jpg




Short clip on game play to see some of the units (turn of arrival given for reinforcements at the end is incorrect):
Spoiler :

Spoiler In-game opening screen :
In_game_opening.jpg


Map used to make scenario:
Sudan_Modelo.jpg
 
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Congratulations on your New Game Upload Thrust123.

I am sure players will check out your game and post their feedback.

You will probably find many things to improve, change and add as you continue to address what you discover and want to do with your game.

Best of Luck with your game endeavors.
 
Congratulations on your New Game Upload Thrust123.

I am sure players will check out your game and post their feedback.

You will probably find many things to improve, change and add as you continue to address what you discover and want to do with your game.

Best of Luck with your game endeavors.

Thanks Vuldacon. I could have continued developing and testing for a few months more, but I am confident that this version is good enough for now. It's been an interesting experience and have acquired many new skills; but really I didn't know what I was getting into when I started....it's taken so many more weeks and hours of hard work to complete than I had originally imagined.

Anyway, maybe we can collaborate sometime in the future, who knows? Meantime I wish that Captain Vuldacon survives the adventure depicted in this mod !:smoke::lol:
 
Most Mods start out simple then are expanded as time goes on. If one knew everything involved and the extent of time and effort that will be required to complete a Good Mod, they probably would not endeavor to do it.

Extended development is personal and to a great extent, depends on the level of motivation as well as the Time and Effort that one has already expended developing a game.

Give Captain Vuldacon a shot of Good Single Malt Scotch Whisky and he should survive :lol:
 
Hello Thrust123 - played a couple of games on the weekend.

First a couple of errors need fixing:
  • you need a _LARGE added to the entries in the pediaicons for the no research techs.
  • GRE1 and GRE2 don't spawn because you have the requirements Steam Power + Democracy. (I changed the requirement to Monarchy in my second game, but two of each spawned - I deleted the extras to keep in the spirit of the game)
  • not a biggie, but my iron source ran out in my second game (only required for some units), but still a nuisance. Maybe set to never expires ...
These aside, really enjoyed the look and feel of the scenario - you really captured the war quite well. My first game was on Emperor - initially difficult but when you get your reinforcements you dominate the game. Won on points but had to take out most of the Sudan to catch up. For my second game I jumped up to Deity for more of a challenge - won again on points but much more of a challenge, the AI defends cities better at this level. Lost both GRE armies through foolishly pushing attacks against the city holding the second king (no spoilers!).

It's a really good piece of work and I'll play again, but does need a bit more tinkering here and there. The AI attacks well initially but large armies and the AI don't mix - they usually just load one unit into them and leave them in their cities (in my games they filled two armies at most). You might consider auto-generated armies for them that hold only one unit (and have high hit points). The AI uses these well. If you set the armies to 'loads only tactical missiles' its easy to set their cavalry etc as tactical missiles which they will load). I do like the British having 5-unit armies though, which you probably need to win (think you can have different-capacity armies but can't quite remember the mechanism to set these up - its in one of the threads).

You might consider allowing some victorious Mahdist units to generate units (representing tribes who joined the Mahdi after his initial successes).

Not sure what to do here, but I noticed the AI didn't really attack or go for Khartoum, even though they usually make a beeline for the capital. Their preferred attack path was up the eastern side of the Nile. Maybe they think its too strongly defended with the mines ?

I think the key is to play around with this when you get time - I felt I needed slightly more of a challenge, but I wouldn't want you to make it too ahistorical - ie its great fun trying to 'relieve Khartoum' and getting there before time runs out.

Unit and terrain choices were brilliant - really good. I saw on another thread you're planning a patch and going to add Balaam's new units - I'll definitely play again and thanks for your work on this ...
 
Big thanks for your report. Noted the errors which will include in the first patch coming soon !

Didn't know a resource such as iron you mention could "run out". I have to look into this, I though resources were infinite, unless you didn't have a connection to them by road, or if they were occupied by enemy....

The armies issue is something I will work on too, otherwise the Mahdist are at a great disadvantage against the human player British 5 unit armies.

A bit surprized you won relatively easily; the Mahdist does have a lot of units, and more that are later auto-produced with the Jihad techs. Then again perhaps the scenario turn length is too long and it gives the human player too much time to destroy the Mahdists piecemeal.

Am not sure how to go about the victorious Mahdist units to "generate units", can you expand on this?

As for attacks on Khartoum in my testing I was attacked twice , the second one around turn 40, but only by one or few units. The British king, flag unit and a Victory Point Location are all there in Khartoum; what else could I do so that the AI makes a real effort to take the city ? Because really that's the point for the Mahdist if they want to win the game ! I'll have to remove the mines or in any case lower their combat value. Will be adding more movement points to Gordon because I noticed it is an extra micromanagement pain to have him lay mines just one per turn.

Around what turn did you win both times? Was it much before the last 86th turn?

Thanks again and appreciate any help and comments on my questions here, and anything else you want to add.
 
Thrust123... In the Biq, under "Natural Resources", you can set the "Appearance Ratio" and "Disappearance Probability" under "Strategic and Luxury Resources". Set the Disappearance Probability for Iron to 0 to keep the resource constant.

You can set the victorious Mahdist units to Enslave a Unit when they win in battle. This is set under "Special Actions" in Units in the Biq and the Unit that is gained is set under "Enslave Results In:" also in Units in the Biq.
 
The Mahdist units have the enslave ability and they can actually capture british player's artillery units.
Rathvilly was referring to Enslaved Units in his Post #10. Your call on what Units are Enslaved.

Some thoughts regarding Khartoum and the AI going after it:
You might consider adding a pre-placed Wonder at Khartoum for the AI. Set the Wonder to Auto-produce a strong Unit for the AI every so often. You can set it as Obsolete for the Player. You can also set more Food and Gold production... always something the AI wants. If the mines are causing a problem, set them to cause Damage but not usually Kill.
 
You are right. I had enslavement to workers. Now I have changed the enslavement of all the Mahdist units to enslave a unit to their same type, i.e. a Mahdist spearman would enslave a defeated enemy unit to become a Mahdist spearman. Only exception is the Mahdists Heavy Cavalry enslaves deafeated units to normal Mahdi Cavalry.This is a great idea that surely will boost the Mahdist side and it is quite realistic as the uprising did grow in this way; they even made the captured Egyptian units fight on their side especially the captured Egyptian artillery and such.

I will do a few tests making the changes to Khartoum as you say Vuldacon and see if mines can remain or have to be discarded.

Patch 1 is almost finished. In addition to the ideas given in the thread, I have made several more changes, including decreasing amount of VP for VPL for example. The Biq file is done, now all that remains is adding the new unit types and some tweaks to the Civilopedia. Also I'd like to shorten the turn length but first have to analyze how this relates to the auto produced units arrival turns. Hope to upload in the next few days.
 
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Rathvilly
Re
  • GRE1 and GRE2 don't spawn because you have the requirements Steam Power + Democracy. (I changed the requirement to Monarchy in my second game, but two of each spawned - I deleted the extras to keep in the spirit of the game)
I checked and the British government type IS democracy. Wonder why you had to change to Monarchy...
 
Hi Thrust123. I looked back at the biq. While you have Democracy as the favourite government under rules, in Scenario Properties under the Players tab you have England (player 2) starting with Monarchy.

I see Vuldacon has answered your questions on enslavement (thanks Vuldacon), but yes - when you set to enslave in the editor you have to specify what unit will be the result of a victorious combat (I think from memory its a 33% chance this will happen). I'll just add that enslavement is different from capture (eg of workers and artillery).

In both my games I played to the end (attempting for style reasons to take out the Mahdist's second King - which I wasn't able to do before time ended). The length of the game is fine - in terms of points I was only 2-3 thousand ahead both times, so if you want to win you can't sit around and defend. I wouldn't say my victories were easy, but as the British you do have strong units at your disposal which is probably right (for historical and game-play reasons), as you have to make up for the losses you suffer at start with just the Egyptian forces.

Yes - do play around with the biq, especially Khartoum, and if something doesn't work experiment some more. As it is its quite good and you've really put some good ideas to work.
 
Thrust123... If you want to gain stronger Units, you can set a Wonder to increase the chance of gaining a Great Leader. That is a flag you set in the biq under "Improvements and Wonders" in the "Wonders and Small Wonders" section.
Then you can have special Stronger Units that the Great Leaders can Upgrade to. You can set the Upgrade path so each CIV can gain their Own Special Unit from Great Leaders, each with a Different Unit and Name. This is like the Champions in EFZI2 Complete that are upgrades for the Great Leaders. You can provide Names for the Upgrade Units in the Biq under "Civilizations" in the section "Military Leaders". When you place the names, do Not have any Spaces between each Name in the list and I recommend providing 50 to 75 names so each Unit has a different name. Otherwise the Unit names will be repeated.

If you Pre-place a Wonder in Khartoum and set it to Auto-produce a Unit for the AI, it will start Auto-producing the Unit when the AI captures the City. Simply set a Strategic or Luxury resource that only the AI has as a Requirement for the Wonder.
Any flags you set as benefits from the Wonder will be there for everyone but only the AI will be able to gain the Auto-produced Units.

One other point concerning Pre-placed Wonders... The Advisor pop up will state that the pre-placed Wonder is being Built when the Game starts because Wonders were only programed to be Built, Not Pre-placed. In EFZI2 Complete, all Pre-placed Wonders are set to require 10 Armies. This prevents the Advisor from stating that they are being built. There are NO Armies at all in EFZI2 Complete. Even if you had Armies, the Wonder cannot be built because it already exists.

When a Unit has Elite Stats and they Win in Battle, they can gain a Great Leader.
 
"LAST MINUTE WARNING:
House Rule: One of the Victory conditions settings is Capture the Flag. Since the game engine doesn't seem to have an option to disallow the owning player of the Flag unit from capturing and getting points for it himself, you should NOT capture your own flag unit (there's only one flag -or princess type unit-), starting at Khartoum named "Civilians"."

Go to the Scenario Properties window, then to the Victory Points Limits tab and uncheck the box "Allow Anyone to Capture Any Flag"

This should make it so that the two sides can only capture each others' flags. :)
 
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