Late Bronze Age Play Test

Big Bopper · Nov 7, 2011

Late Bronze Age Scenario (1550 - 1200 BC)
Kingdom of the Hittites

The Greeks

City of Knossos

Go to scenario thread

Big Bopper · Nov 7, 2011

Features

CIVILIZATIONS

Spoiler :

12 Units/Culture (Major Factions)

Spoiler :

WONDERS

Spoiler :

TECH TREES

Spoiler :

6 Strategic Resources
7 Luxury Resources
13 Bonus Resources

Big Bopper · Nov 7, 2011

Graphics to be added...

Big Bopper · Nov 7, 2011

What is left to be done...

Spoiler :

Big Bopper · Nov 7, 2011

Credits (If I left anyone out, let me know)

Spoiler :

7ronin · Nov 7, 2011

I have downloaded and will take a look.

Big Bopper · Nov 26, 2011

I've been working on creating wonder images for the scenario, here are the first two.

View attachment 307952
Colossi of Memnon

View attachment 307953
Temple of Baal

Any tips on how to use editing programs (I'm using gimp) to make these look better.

Big Bopper · Nov 26, 2011

After playtesting I found that the Rebel and Independent factions weren't that fun to play against. I've decided to combined them into a smaller Independent civilization and add several new civilizations to occupy most of their cities and fill in blank areas of the map.

New Civilizations:
Alashiya--Cyprus
Amorites--Bend of Euphrates
Boeotia--Greece
Hayasa--E Anatolia
Kaska--N Anatolia
Kizzuwatna--SE Anatolia
Nairi--Armenia

Rathvilly · Dec 13, 2011

Hi - played 150 turns as the Assyrians - very enjoyable. I stopped when I got invaded by hordes of invisibles .... I see you're making changes and looking forward to having another go. Good stuff.

Big Bopper · Mar 23, 2012

Just uploaded a new version of the scenario

Changes from previous version...

Spoiler :

What's left unfinished...

Spoiler :

Hopefully I'll get around to finishing the scenario in the next few weeks.
Let me know what you think and how it can be improved.

stico · Mar 23, 2012

..............

Big Bopper · Mar 24, 2012

stico said:
How is that possible that I missed your mod? I think the cause is that you didn't upload it in Completed Mod section.

I am downloading it now!

Thanks for downloading. Your city sets worked really well for this scenario and I'll add the newer versions with the next update.

Big Bopper · Apr 18, 2012

I'm nearing the completion of the scenario, everything is complete except for a some map work and a few missing civilopedia entries, regarding historical information. Now that I have reached this point, it is time to start thinking and asking for ideas about adding the Bronze Age Collapse.

New Civilizations
Some ideas I have right now is to add at least two more civs, the Dorians located in northern Greece and the Phrygians (will be using another name) located in Thrace.
Both civs will have a unique swordsman, with an attack and defense that are doubled. The Dorian unit will be marked as 'hidden nationality' and Phrygian will have the ability to airdrop in order to reach Anatolia. The Sea Peoples are to be represented by the Independents, there will be specific buildings (resource within city radius) to generate hidden nationality units, such as Peleset Spearmen and Sherden Swordsmen. The Sea People resources will be based around the Aegean.

Simulating the Collapse
The Dorians being just north of the Greek Civs are set without any tweaking.
The Phrygians will be in a locked war with the Hittites
I'm not sure how I will simulate the Sea Peoples movement east.

Technology
I'm going to use King Coltrane's suggestion, from the previous thread, using tech timers to simulate the collapse. The minor/barbarian civilizations will have their own tech tree where all the advances cost the same to research and cannot be traded.

Let me know what you think about these concepts and how they can be improved.

stico · Apr 19, 2012

............

Maimonides · Apr 19, 2012

Sounds interesting so here comes a playtest:

-Canaanites. Agricultural, Seafaring.
-Just going with the pre-selected Victory conditions Domination & Conquest. I considered selecting the Religion condition, but don't know if it's available to my civ or even what it is, yet, so I left it off.
-Chieftain difficulty for the 1st try. Least aggressive AI.
-Pedia says we build "?????" instead of Heavy Spearman... I can't wait to build ?????. Should be fun to have hordes of ?????s roaming the Levant.
-The intro screen says my name is Labaya. I like the sound of that. Sounds like a brand of Canadian beer. Almost rhymes with "fire." It says my people are skilled in farming, road-building & irrigation. That's good because those es are gonna have to keep their king well fed. It also says Egypt has domination over us... We'll see about that!

1550 BCE (It says "BC," but I'm fed up with having Jesus rammed down my throat for two thousand years so I'm ignoring that.)

Start with a nice kingdom of 6 cities. From north to south: Kadesh, Byblos, Tyre, Megiddo, Jericho & Gaza. Capitol is Megiddo. There appear to be roads connecting Gaza to Egypt & somewhere south in Edom or Arabia, but I won't be sure until I explore. There's a road crossing the Jordan connecting Jericho to Moab. Kadesh appears to be connected to unknown points north via road. All of my cities are connected by road which will help speed the delivery of womens to my harem.

Lots of interesting resources to be seen. Crocodiles east of Jericho in Ammon & Copper west of the Dead Sea are unhistorical. There was a copper mine south of the Dead Sea, but I'll have to explore to see if it's there in this scenario. In my vicinity are also Olive Oil, Dyes, Stones, Wool & Ivory. Some I have, some need to be connected by road. Southeast of Byblos in an unknown neighbor's territory is an unconnected Glass resource.

I can see that I have two unknown neighbors on my border. One in Syria & one in Moab & Ammon. We'll have to get acquainted.

I have 620 Gold & at least 4 units of varying type in each city. Don't see any ?????s, yet. There are several Improvements pre-placed in each city.

Spoiler :

Looking at the Tech Tree, I already have most of the 1st Era which has no name. The 2nd Era is called "Age of Wonders." I wonder why. I select Mathematics to study & turn my slider to 100% science which gets me Math in 13 Turns though I'm losing 41 Gold per Turn. I have no idea how they know how much Gold I'm losing if they don't know how to do Math...

My government is Despotism which is fine because I don't feel like arguing. Provides 2 military police so I'll be keeping 2 Spearmen in each town.

Exploring a bit:

-I find the border of Egypt across the Sinai, but don't meet them, yet.
-I meet Husham of the Arabian States @ Rabbath-Ammon. He has Incense to trade for my Dyes, but I don't do it because he will probably be my 1st target of conquest.
-To the north, I meet Idrimi of The Amorites @ Ugarit. I trade my Dyes for his Wine & 20 Gold. I hope it's 20 Gold. My people don't know Math.

IBT

-Idrimi asks me to get my boat away from Ugarit. He also calls me "arrogant." I call him a snot-faced motherless goat & agree to move my boat.

1548 BCE

-My boat meets Thutmose III of Egypt @ Tanis. I prefer to call him "Titmouse." I trade my Dyes to him for 280 Gold. He has allot more gold then me, but my womens are hotter.
-Exploring north, I find the Amorite capitol @ Alalakh. Not even gonna try to pronounce that.
-Beyond Amor, I meet Pilliya of Kizzuwatna. He says he has a powerful blade. I tell him to mow my lawn with it. He has more Techs & more Gold than I do & doesn't need any of my Resources.
-All of my military is marching to Jericho because it's sterile & they like the way it tastes.

Spoiler :

IBT

-Titmouse asks me to move my boat.
-Idrimi of the Amorites puts an embassy in my capitol. He doesn't whine about the boats I have in his waters.

1546 BCE

-My boat moves west into the Great Sea & finds land meeting Attarsiyya of the Alashiya. We have no trade route, but I buy Code of Laws from him for 660 Gold. He says that I am powerful & generous so we will probably get along just fine.

-I find Mitanni warriors in Amorite territory north of Alalakh & one of them is injured so they must be at war. Their king, Shaushtatar has allot more Gold, Techs & cities than I do...

IBT

-Not much happens.

1544 BCE

-I find the Mizzuwatna city of Tarsus.
-I find the Alashiyan capitol city of Enkomi.
-I find that the Nile is not navigable. Looks like Tanis is Egypt's only city on the coast.

IBT

-Pilliya asks me to move my Boat away from Tarsus.
-Attarsiyya asks me to move my Boat away from Enkomi.
-Titmouse of Egypt puts an embassy in my capitol.

1542 BCE

-I find the Kizzuwatna city of Ora. It has at least 2 sources of Copper.

Big Bopper · Apr 19, 2012

Why not to put Sea People into war with everyone on East?!

There not enough boxes available to do this, but I might have them in a locked war with Egypt and/or have them in a locked alliance with Dorians, Thrace (Phrygia) and the Meshwesh.

The Sea Peoples will have their own civilization by the way.

Sounds interesting so here comes a playtest:

Thanks for trying out and posting, Maimonides.

Just going with the pre-selected Victory conditions Domination & Conquest. I considered selecting the Religion condition, but don't know if it's available to my civ or even what it is, yet, so I left it off.

The Religious victory is available to every civ, but may be impossible with the small civs, like Canaan. The purpose of the religious victory is to construct a pantheon of 10 gods.

1st Era which has no name

If you click over to the last age and return to the first, the name (Bronze Age) should appear.

Pedia says we build "?????" instead of Heavy Spearman... I can't wait to build ?????. Should be fun to have hordes of ?????s roaming the Levant.

The Canaanites have a heavy spearman replacement as a unique unit, but I hadn't come up with an unique name when i posted the play-test. When you get to these they'll have the generic name. This is the case for several other unique units.

Crocodiles east of Jericho in Ammon & Copper west of the Dead Sea are unhistorical.

When researching the extent of the Nile Crocodile i read that it was found in Jordan during ancient times (from wikipedia, so this might be wrong). I'm not sure if the copper was from a resource map or I put it there for game play; either way I'm in the process of relocating the strategic and luxury resources, but I'll keep that in mind.

I find that the Nile is not navigable.

I've thought about allowing the Nile, Euphrates, and Tigris to be navigable; do you or anyone else think this will add to game play or would it be an unnecessary annoyance to the scenario?

Keep me posted on how the play-test works out.

Rathvilly · Apr 19, 2012

Hello, I've finished a couple of games - Egypt on Monarch (a bit easy for me - took a diplomatic victory), and Hittites on Emperor - much more challenging (histograph victory - was neck and neck between myself and Egypt).

This is coming on really well and I'm looking forward to your additions. Noticed a few things:
* you might want to uncheck 'default victory conditions' in scenario properties (to lock in the settings for the scenario)
*Chariot_Eastern requires copper - I'm presuming you mean horses
*TECH_Cosmology_Anatolian ... you need to add the entry for Large in the Pediaicon Text file
*A few civilopedia entries need tweaking - tin is the same as copper. Also the Port doesn't produce veteran naval units.
*I'm just into a game as Elam - you don't seem to have a spearman assigned to them in the editor. Similarly, you have an entry for a swordsman but I can't see the unit file for it in the Art-Units folder.

Game play is working well - though Horses and Tin are a bit sparse. The AI plays Egypt really well and they become a monster in late game. I did wonder why their Heavy Chariot was more powerful (extra HP) than that of the Hittites. I think having Eqypt in a locked war might be good - to slightly tone down their strength. Not in favour of navigable rivers - I think it would just create barriers and the AI wouldn't handle it well. The minor civs do some city razing at the edges of the map - not a big problem though.

My Hittite game was tense - surrounded by enemies and not as easy as I would've expected. Took all Asia Minor and battled Egypt for the Levant. Earlier, everyone had taken down Mitanni. You need to watch Arzawa and Kizzuwatna !

Looking forward to more .....

Big Bopper · Apr 19, 2012

Hello, I've finished a couple of games - Egypt on Monarch (a bit easy for me - took a diplomatic victory), and Hittites on Emperor - much more challenging (histograph victory - was neck and neck between myself and Egypt).

Thank you for testing the scenario, Rathvilly.

* you might want to uncheck 'default victory conditions' in scenario properties (to lock in the settings for the scenario)

Also the Port doesn't produce veteran naval units.

These two are intentional;
1. I'm sure not everyone will want to use the diplomatic or religious victories;
2. I thought having the shipwright produce veteran units made more sense.

*Chariot_Eastern requires copper - I'm presuming you mean horses

*TECH_Cosmology_Anatolian ... you need to add the entry for Large in the Pediaicon Text file

*A few civilopedia entries need tweaking - tin is the same as copper.

*I'm just into a game as Elam - you don't seem to have a spearman assigned to them in the editor. Similarly, you have an entry for a swordsman but I can't see the unit file for it in the Art-Units folder.

Good eye, I hadn't caught these yet.

I added a new biq and pediaicons with these problems fixed. The Elamite Swordsman graphic is the standard Eastern swordsman for now; if you want the intended unit, download Sandris' Persian Units Set; add early persian swordsman to the 'Art/Units' folder and in the pediaicons change...

Spoiler :

(The Civilopedia and Units32 images are already in)

Game play is working well - though Horses and Tin are a bit sparse.

I added more in the new biq (randomly)

I did wonder why (Egypt's) Heavy Chariot was more powerful (extra HP) than that of the Hittites.

You're right about this; it might be better to switch stats on these units.
Stats--A/D/HP
Generic Chariot--4/3/0
Egypt Chariot--4/3/1
Hittite Chariot--5/3/0

The AI plays Egypt really well and they become a monster in late game.

I'm glad to hear this, but how strong do they get? What regions do they usually control?

My Hittite game was tense - surrounded by enemies and not as easy as I would've expected. Took all Asia Minor and battled Egypt for the Levant. Earlier, everyone had taken down Mitanni. You need to watch Arzawa and Kizzuwatna !

I based a lot around the Hittites in the scenario (my favorite to play), this is partly why its tough to play as them. When playing as another country, how do they hold up. Also, how early was Mitanni wiped out?

Maimonides · Apr 19, 2012

Big Bopper said:
Thanks for trying out and posting, Maimonides.

Thanks for making this & sharing it! You're off to a great start with it!

Big Bopper said:
If you click over to the last age and return to the first, the name (Bronze Age) should appear.

Big Bopper said:
When researching the extent of the Nile Crocodile i read that it was found in Jordan during ancient times (from wikipedia, so this might be wrong).

My thinking is that there's no waterway or lake east of the Jordan River that could support crocs. It's a very dry landscape that crocs would stay away from.

Big Bopper said:
I'm not sure if the copper was from a resource map or I put it there for game play; either way I'm in the process of relocating the strategic and luxury resources, but I'll keep that in mind.

Thanks. Here's the copper site I was referring to on Wiki. I'm pretty sure that copper site you have west of the Dead Sea didn't exist.

I do like how you noticed that wild elephants existed in Syria in ancient times & that you noticed that dyes were an important Phoenician commodity.

Big Bopper said:
I've thought about allowing the Nile, Euphrates, and Tigris to be navigable; do you or anyone else think this will add to game play or would it be an unnecessary annoyance to the scenario?

I can't really say as I haven't played the civs in those areas, yet. I did like that Keroro made the Nile navigable in his Alexander scenario, but it could have unintended gameplay consequences here.

Big Bopper said:
Keep me posted on how the play-test works out.

See below. Hope it's helpful.

Rathvilly said:
The minor civs do some city razing at the edges of the map - not a big problem though.

I should have mentioned that I always play with the No-Raze patch now so you won't see any of that in my playtest.

Now back to the show:

IBT

-Megiddo completes a Port & starts building Archives. Now we can import womens from across the sea!

1540 BCE

-I meet Semiramis of the Independent States @ Amathus on Cyprus. He says he is "the Scourge of Rome," but that place doesn't even exist, yet, so I don't know what he's talking about. He is behind in Techs, has very little Gold & no extra Resources to trade.
-My forces have assembled in Jericho & now march off toward Rabbath-Ammon.

IBT

-Nothing much happens.

1538 BCE

-My Worker completes a road that connects the Ivory near Kadesh! We now have 5 Luxury Resources.
-The Boat I had exploring Africa's coast meets Mawasun of Meshwesh @Amunia. He calls me "filth." I call him a two-toed sticky frog. He is far behind in Techs & has no Resources, but he has some Gold. They have Pigs outside their city, but no roads to be seen. Barbarians... We don't have a trade route so I move on.
-I declare war on the Arabian States & move in to attack Rabbath-Ammon. My forces consist of 1 Chariot, 1 Axeman & 7 Bowmen.
-I have to move back my Science slider because I'm going broke. Mathematics in 8 Turns now.

IBT

-Mawasun asks me to move my Boat away from Amunia.

1536 BCE

-Rabbath-Ammon is mine! We lose the Chariot in the attack. They had 3 Spearmen defending the place. The city can't build Spearmen, though, so I set them to produce a Warrior.
-West of Kizzuwatna, I find Pamphylia has no settlements. I do see somebody's borders beyond, though.
-Meshwesh does not seem to be able to build Spearmen. They have common Warriors guarding their cities.
-I have to dial back the Science slider again to keep from going broke. Mathematics in 8 Turns still & breaking even on Gold.

IBT

-Not much happens.

1534 BCE

-Not much happens.

IBT

-Jericho builds Archives. Starts working on a Courthouse.

1532 BCE

-We find Ialysus, the capitol of the Independent States. Could be on the island of Rhodes, but I'm not sure, yet. There is a strange symbol by the city's name. Looks like the Port symbol, but it has a camel on it. What's that?
-We find a Horse Resource west of Meshwesh on the coast.

IBT

-Semiramis calls my generals "blind men, drunkards & children" & asks me to move my boat away from Ialysus.

1530 BCE

-We meet a Minoan Boat @ sea. Minos will only pay 15 Gold for my extra Stones, so I don't agree to it. He is broke, too, but is ahead in Techs.
-My forces leave Rabbath-Ammon marching for Moab.

IBT

-Not much happens.

1528 BCE

-Arab Bowmen appear from Moab looking like a counterattack on Rabbath-Ammon so I turn my forces around & return there to defend it.

IBT

-Three Arab Bowmen move up to Rabbath-Ammon.

1526 BCE

-We destroy the Arab Bowmen @ Rabbath-Ammon taking no casualties. One of our Bowmen becomes a Veteran.
-Far west of Meshwesh, we find Honey in a forest on the coast. The coast of Africa is sparsely settled. Only three cities it looks like.

Big Bopper · Apr 20, 2012

I meet Semiramis of the Independent States @ Amathus on Cyprus. He says he is "the Scourge of Rome," but that place doesn't even exist, yet, so I don't know what he's talking about.

If you see the leaders say anything else that is not part of the time-frame or seem strange let me know.

There is a strange symbol by the city's name. Looks like the Port symbol, but it has a camel on it. What's that?

This is a unique building for the ai civs (independents and arabs), which acts as an airport to allow the incense/camel trade without having roads throughout the arabian desert. You'll need these resources in order to create small wonders and pantheon gods.

I haven't played too far into the scenario myself yet, so a few things that I'm interested in knowing...
1. How's the tech rate?
2. How does the ai handle their civs? (most important:Egypt, Hittite, Mitanni, Assyria, Babylonia, and Elam)
3. Are the unique units over or under powered.?

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