Napoléon I 1805 - 1815 ToTPP and Lua scenario updated to v1.3

[tootall_2012]

Hi Robroy3,

Thank you for the kind words, they are very much appreciated. Knighttime and I spent a lot of time on this project and are glad to hear many of our members seem to enjoy the experience.

Of course, I would be remiss if I didn’t thank TheNamelessOne once again for his fabulous ToTPP-Lua project, without which none of this would have been possible.

Perhaps I'm prejudiced by the fact that it's one of my favorite eras (and I've actually played the old War and Peace game - good job capturing that look/feel, btw), but it will surely be among most people's favorites, I suspect.

For those who are familiar with the genre, the Avalon Hill Company released many great board games back in the day of which Mark McLaughlin’s “War and Peace”was one. I recall spending many enjoyable hours playing his game. Of course by its nature my Test of Time computer scenario was going to be different in execution but I tried nonetheless to capture the essence of that game into my design and in that sense I owe Mr. McLaughlin a debt of gratitude for inspiring me in my own version of the Napoleonic wars.

Let me know if you're still looking for feedback. Earlier posts implied you were working on an update. Happy to provide some, if so. Else I'll just heap praise on y'all for a job well done.

In actuality, after reviewing all the feedback provided by the players, I started working on version 1.1 of the scenario with Knighttime about a month ago. I’m now in the testing phase. I’m not certain how long it will take to complete this phase but I expect a least a few weeks.

For those who may be interested, here is a list of the main changes that were implemented and are currently being tested:

• Added unit and wonders descriptions in the Civilopedia
• Replaced the base game images for city improvements and wonders
• Replaced the winter.wav file by one provided by Techumseh
• Added Help key function to allow users to get unit stats in game (press on the TAB key to bring up the HELP screen). The HELP screen also displays if a leader bonus is being applied to a unit’s attack factor or not.
• Added Power Board Relations screen (press on F3 key to see the diplomatic status between France and the other powers)
• Modified the onActivate() function for artillery shells to remain focused on the shell that was just generated
• Removed the Constabulary unit from the game and replaced it with the DO NOT USE unit (if you accidently build any they will automatically get deleted at the end of each turn).

(Note: the Constabulary unit, which occupied the Settler spot in the unit grid, was NEVER intended to be used in the game, but would nevertheless show up as the default item in the production queue of a city that was just captured, even if its prerequisites were set to NO in the rules.txt file. By replacing it with the DO NOT USE unit my goal was to eliminate this problem altogether).

• The Tech Paradigm has been increased from 20 to 30
• Modified the tech tree: Heavy Artillery now requires Warehouses & Supply Logistics
• Modified the tech tree: Siege Warfare now requires Gribeauval System & Warehouses
• Increased France’s starting treasury by 400 francs (from 1350 to 1750)

The first three changes were done to slow down players’ ability to 1) beeline for the heavy artillery/siege mortars advances and 2) complete the French research tree too early, thereby allowing them to ratchet up the income tax rate to unrealistically increase the influx of francs into the treasury.

Though the 12pdr canon already existed prior to the war, they didn’t start showing up in significant numbers in Napoleon’s artillery batteries till after 1809.

As I may have already mentioned, Napoleon struggled throughout the wars to maintain France’s finances afloat. Based on some of the feedback I received from players, I felt an adjustment was required in this area to bring it a little more in line with the historical narrative (the 400 francs added to the initial treasury was done to compensate for the loss of revenue that was a consequence of the increased tech paradigm).

• Replaced the French ‘Sapeurs’ unit icon
• Added messages if Charles or Blucher are killed prior to the war of the 6th Coalition
• Modified Charles initial placement in war of 3rd Coalition (he will no longer generate in northern Italy)
• Added extra Partisans activity in Tyrol (with war of 4th Coalition) and Vendee regions (if British units capture certain French coastal cities)
• Added Minor Forts to the roster of units created as part of the British capture of certain French coastal cities events, so be forewarned should you decide to leave these cities undefended in the future as they won’t be so easy to recapture.
• Fixed issue where winter attrition was happening to units in Temperate Forest and Hill tiles
• Coalition forces now have a 1 in 2 chance of capturing French artillery units if they are defeated in battle, so be wary of leaving your artillery unprotected moving forward if you don’t want to see them turned against you.

• Added Magdeburg to the map and made it a required city to defeat Prussia in war of 4th Coalition
• Removed Brunswick as required city to defeat Prussia in war of 4th Coalition, though it continues to be a recruiting center for troops from the Prussian minor power of Brunswick
• Added extra locations for British Iberian reinforcements to arrive on.
• Removed Riga as a city required to subdue Russia, though it continues to be a Continental Port, in addition to being a location for the Tsar to receive British funded troops when at war with France.

• Added Coastal Fortress improvements to Anvers, Calais and Brest (removed minor fort from Brest).
• Revamped the overall British naval move to commands and added movement orders along the Spanish and French Mediterranean coasts
• Removed the ability of French naval units from generating shells in port (you can now only do so in an ocean tile)
• Modified the Maritime Supremacy rules whereby British naval losses are only counted if an English ship is killed by French naval shells (hence losses due to Shore Bombardment or ships caught in port by ground units no longer count), or if same said vessel loses a naval battle after attacking a French ship.

These changes were implemented, to prevent the French from taking advantage of AI behaviors that a human player would simply not pursue (such as launching repeated suicide shore bombardment attacks, or move his ships into a port that was at risk of being captured by French ground forces).

• Replaced French ‘Naval Shells’ unit by ‘18 pdr Shells’ and ‘24 pdr Shells’ units
• Frégate now fires up to 1 x ‘18 pdr Shells’ unit per turn
• Deux-ponts now fires up to 1 x ‘24 pdr Shells’ unit per turn
• Trois-ponts can now fire up to 2 x ‘24 pdr Shells’ units per turn
• Villeneuve provides leader combat bonus to ‘18 pdr shell’ and ‘24 pdr shell’ units, so his early survival takes on a new significance
• Revisited and modified the units stats for all French and Coalition vessels in the view of making them more balanced
• Removed the “Can spot submarines” flag from the Deux-ponts and Trois-ponts vessel, thereby significantly increasing the value of having Frégate units, and their ability to locate enemy vessels at sea, in your naval order of battle.

(Note: without the flag, the only way a friendly ship can locate an enemy vessels would be when trying to enter their tile, thereby revealing their location).

• Added French invasion of England conditions, that will create an invasion reaction force
• Modified the British reinforcements to the Iberian Peninsula to reroute them to Britain as long as French forces exist on the island and England hasn’t been subdued
• Modified the event file to relocate Wellington to England, should he be located in the Iberian Peninsula and France has invaded England.
• Obsolete the British Navy, British Admiralty and British Trade wonders if France captures London
• Modified the consequences of British surrender to include:
  • Grant a large war indemnity to France
  • Transfer all Spanish cities controlled by England back to Spain
  • Transfer all Portuguese cities controlled by England to France
  • Delete all British and Portuguese troops from the Iberian Peninsula
  • Delete all British Royal Marines, Naval and Swedish units

Numerous other small modifications and additions were done to the events, game, rules and map files hopefully to enrich the player experience and increase the play balance.

I would like to thank Knighttime, once again, who not only coded the HELP key function (redesigned from OTR to work for Napoleon (thanks Prof. Garfield and John for letting us use your idea)), the Power Board Relations, the complex French Invasion of England events but also cleaned up many parts of the code and restructured, not only the whole Diplomatic framework, but the entire lua file in a more logical order.

Once the testing is completed and all the final details sorted out I will release version 1.1, hopefully sooner rather than later.

 

[techumseh]

Those changes sound great. I look forward to them. It started as an outstanding scenario, and this should make it even better.

I'm wondering about Charles. (It seems I obsess about him, I know). Historically, he was in Italy in 1805 during the War of the Third Coalition. So why prevent him from generating there? No big deal, just curious.

 

[tootall_2012]

I'm wondering about Charles. (It seems I obsess about him, I know). Historically, he was in Italy in 1805 during the War of the Third Coalition. So why prevent him from generating there? No big deal, just curious.

Sorry, I can’t help but smile here . The reason I’m preventing Charles from generating in northern Italy is precisely because you and John pointed out, quite correctly, that there was always a chance that he could end up entrenching in Venezia thereby making it difficult for players faced with this situation to overcome Austria in a timely manner.

Because the region of northern Italy is relatively restrained in size it would be difficult to have him generate there, or nearby, without still running the risk of him either entrenching in an inconvenient position or wandering off in a direction away from the battlefield (as I don’t want to enforce a move to command in this particular situation, otherwise the opening Austrian moves for the scenario would become too predictable).

Therefore, I opted for the simple remedy of removing northern Italy as a possible location for his initial deployment.

I hope this makes sense.

 

[techumseh]

Fair enough, though I think his entrenching in Munich was a problem also. Still, a groundbreaking scenario. Well done!

 

[tootall_2012]

It is true he may entrench in Munich or Ratisbon as well. But since that places him on the main French line of advance towards Vienna, you have both more artillery units and Napoléon's superior leadership ability to overcome him.

Besides, I don't want to make it so predictable and easy that the players can always expect the scenario's opening moves to be a cake walk. Whether he entrenches or not should also be seen as the part of the unpredictability of war. With the modified placement, players should still be able to defeat Austria in the war of the 3rd Coalition within 4 to 6 turns.

 

[tootall_2012]

Hi all,

As previously mentioned, Knighttime and myself have been working on version 1.1. of the scenario for the past couple of months and are happy to announce that we have officially released it on the Scenario League website (see post #1 of this thread for the link).

Here is the updated list of the main changes that were implemented:

• Added unit and wonders descriptions in the Civilopedia
• Updated ReadMe file to add the major new changes
• Replaced the base game images for city improvements and wonders
• Replaced the winter.wav file by one provided by Techumseh
• Added Help key function to allow users to get unit stats in game (press on the TAB key to bring up the HELP screen). The HELP screen also displays if a leader bonus is being applied to a unit’s attack factor or not.
• Added Power Board Relations screen (press on F3 key to see the diplomatic status between France and the other powers)
• Added a Leader Death Board that keep tracks of all the leaders that have perished during the scenario (simply press on the ‘d’ key on your keyboard).
• Modified the onActivate() function for artillery shells to remain focused on the shell that was just generated.
• Added an Automatic Decisive Victory condition if France captures 11 objective cities
• Removed the Constabulary unit from the game and replaced it with the DO NOT USE unit (if you accidently build any they will automatically get deleted at the end of each turn).

(Note: the Constabulary unit, which occupied the Settler spot in the unit grid, was NEVER intended to be used in the game, but would nevertheless show up as the default item in the production queue of a city that was just captured, even if its prerequisites were set to NO in the rules.txt file. By replacing it with the DO NOT USE unit my goal was to eliminate this problem altogether).

• The Tech Paradigm has been increased from 20 to 30
• Modified the tech tree: Heavy Artillery now requires Warehouses & Supply Logistics
• Modified the tech tree: Siege Warfare now requires Gribeauval System & Warehouses
• Increased France’s starting treasury by 400 francs (from 1350 to 1750)

The three changes above were done to slow down players’ ability to 1) beeline for the heavy artillery/siege mortars advances and 2) complete the French research tree too early, thereby allowing them to ratchet up the income tax rate to unrealistically increase the influx of francs into the treasury.

Though the 12pdr canon already existed prior to the war, they didn’t start showing up in significant numbers in Napoleon’s artillery batteries till after 1809.

As I may have already mentioned, Napoleon struggled throughout the wars to maintain France’s finances afloat. Based on some of the feedback I received from players, I felt an adjustment was required in this area to bring it a little more in line with the historical narrative (the 400 francs added to the initial treasury was done to compensate for the loss of revenue that was a consequence of the increased tech paradigm).

• Replaced the French ‘Sapeurs’ unit icon
• Added messages if Charles or Blucher are killed prior to the war of the 6th Coalition
• Modified Charles initial placement in war of 3rd Coalition (he will no longer generate in northern Italy)
• Added extra Partisans activity in Tyrol (with war of 4th Coalition) and Vendee regions (if British units capture certain French coastal cities)
• Added Minor Forts to the roster of units created as part of the British capture of certain French coastal cities events, so be forewarned should you decide to leave these cities undefended in the future as they won’t be so easy to recapture.
• Fixed issue where winter attrition was happening to units in Temperate Forest and Hill tiles
• Coalition forces now have a 1 in 2 chance of capturing French artillery units if they are defeated in battle, so be wary of leaving your artillery unprotected moving forward if you don’t want to see them turned against you.

• Added Magdeburg to the map and made it a required city to defeat Prussia in war of 4th Coalition
• Removed Brunswick as required city to defeat Prussia in war of 4th Coalition, though it continues to be a recruiting center for troops from the Prussian minor power of Brunswick
• Upgraded some of the Spanish forts to veteran or fortified status.
• Added extra locations for British Iberian reinforcements to arrive on.
• Contrary to the prior post, Riga will continue to remain as one of the objective cities required for subduing Russia

• Decreased the production cost of Train Militaire units from 300 to 180
• Increased the operating cost of Train Militaire units from 15 to 20 francs per turn each
• Reduced production cost of Sapeurs from 300 to 240
• Fixed issue were Dutch Cavalry unit wasn’t getting created
• Added the Polish General Poniatowski to the French OOB if it invades Russia
• Added a ONETIME administrative bonus that allows Poniatowski to recruit extra troops
• 
  
• Changed the Minor and Major Forts domain to Air to prevent the British Transports from moving them and very slightly modified their defensive stats to take the new domain into account (they defend with the same strength as before)
• Added new silent JETCRASH.wav file to eliminate any sound when a fort unit is destroyed
  
• Added Coastal Fortress improvements to Anvers, Calais and Brest (removed minor fort from Brest).
• Revamped the overall British naval move to commands and added movement orders along the Spanish and French Mediterranean coasts
• Removed the ability of French naval units from generating shells in port (you can now only do so in an ocean tile)
• Modified the Maritime Supremacy rules whereby British naval losses are only counted if an English ship is killed by French naval shells (hence losses due to Shore Bombardment or ships caught in port by ground units no longer count), or if same said vessel loses a naval battle after attacking a French ship.

These changes were implemented, to prevent the French from taking advantage of AI behaviors that a human player would simply not pursue (such as launching repeated suicide shore bombardment attacks, or move his ships into a port that was at risk of being captured by French ground forces).

• Replaced French ‘Naval Shells’ unit by ‘18 pdr Shells’ and ‘24 pdr Shells’ units
• Frégate now fires up to 1 x ‘18 pdr Shells’ unit per turn
• Deux-ponts now fires up to 1 x ‘24 pdr Shells’ unit per turn
• Trois-ponts can now fire up to 2 x ‘24 pdr Shells’ units per turn
• Villeneuve provides 30% leader combat bonus to ‘18 pdr shell’ and ‘24 pdr shell’ units, so his early survival takes on a new significance
• Revisited and modified the units stats for all French and Coalition vessels in the view of making them more balanced
• Increased the defensive strength of naval Transport units and reduced their production cost to 100
• Increased the number of British ships to destroy from 15 to 16 for establishing Maritime Supremacy
• Removed the “Can spot submarines” flag from the Deux-ponts and Trois-ponts vessel, thereby significantly increasing the value of having Frégate units, and their ability to locate enemy vessels at sea, in your naval order of battle.

(Note: without the flag, the only way a friendly ship can locate an enemy vessels would be when trying to enter their tile, thereby revealing their location).

I’ve maintained the British Three Decker naval units shore bombardment abilities but their power to inflict damage has been reduced, particularly against French cities that possess both Coastal Fortress improvements and that are garrisoned at least by one fortified veteran Régiment de Ligne unit. As such, the previous losses inflicted by these naval units should become much more manageable this time around if you have the proper defensive forces in place.

• Added French invasion of England conditions, that will create an invasion reaction force
• Modified the British reinforcements to the Iberian Peninsula to reroute them to Britain as long as French forces exist on the island and England hasn’t been subdued
• Modified the event file to relocate Wellington to England, should he be located in the Iberian Peninsula and France has invaded England.
• Obsolete the British Navy, British Admiralty and British Trade wonders if France captures London
• Modified the consequences of British surrender to include:
  • Grant a large war indemnity to France
  • Transfer all Spanish cities controlled by England back to Spain
  • Transfer all Portuguese cities controlled by England to France
  • Delete all British and Portuguese troops from the Iberian Peninsula
  • Delete all British Royal Marines, Naval and Swedish units

Numerous other small modifications and additions were done to the events, game, rules and map files hopefully to enrich the player experience and increase the play balance.

I hope that all the changes we’ve put in place will make this a better scenario and increase the gamers playing experience.

 

[tootall_2012]

...The Hussar unit will not let me investigate another city, I thought that was supposed to be like a spy unit?

As I was preparing my files for release v1.1, I created a new scenario folder with the modified name 'Napoléon v1.1'. To make sure I didn't forget any files in the new scenario folder, I started the scenario to test that all was working properly.

As soon as I tried to use the Hussars spy ability on Stuggart on turn 1, I saw that it didn't work anymore. Puzzled by why this was happening when it had been working fine in my regular development scenario folder just an hour previously, I decided to rename my new folder to 'Napoléon'. I restarted the scenario and just like that the Hussars spy ability started working again.

It's unclear if this is what might have been preventing you from getting the Hussars to work but if so, make certain that if you reinstall version 1.1 to make sure that the scenario folder is named just 'Napoléon' and that you place it in the root directory of your Test of Time installion.

 

[techumseh]

Interesting. I have the same issue in my update to
Red October. I wonder if your solution will work for me? Stay tuned.

 

[McMonkey]

Fantastic news. It's been a long enough break since my last game that I'm ready to take on the challenge again. Looks like I checked back into the Scenario League at just the right moment.

The issue with the spy units is caused by the '.' punctuation mark. in the folder name. An old bug.

 

[techumseh]

Wow, that's news to me. Thanks!

 

[JPetroski]

Every time I see a post like this, it reenergizes me to keep creating. Thanks for the much needed boost! These changes look great!!!

 

[tootall_2012]

Fantastic news. It's been a long enough break since my last game that I'm ready to take on the challenge again. Looks like I checked back into the Scenario League at just the right moment.

I recommend that anyone who attempts to play the latest version take a quick look at the updated ReadMe. I've identified the new sections with a double red asterisk and the sections that have been simply modified with a single red asterisk.

I also recommend that the players take the time, the first time around, to re-read the ingame text messages, though many are the same as before there are many new such messages and some of the old ones have been tweaked.

Essentially, the core of the game remains the same but there are definitely new additions and twists that should make the game more interesting.

The issue with the spy units is caused by the '.' punctuation mark. in the folder name. An old bug.

I did not know that. Thank you for the information.

Every time I see a post like this, it reenergizes me to keep creating. Thanks for the much needed boost! These changes look great!!!

Is there a new project you are working on at the moment?

 

[JPetroski]

Is there a new project you are working on at the moment?

I have four projects in various stages of development: Over the Reich, Rise of Macedon (with @McMonkey), Boudicca, and Hinge of Fate (WW2 in Europe). I won't hijack your thread talking about them more other than to answer your question and say thanks for helping to get me back on the horse.

 

[tootall_2012]

As I told Knighttime, I'm going to take a little break from designing for a while but my offer to help play test any of your scenarios still stands.

 

[countmc]

The Hussar fix does work, so thanks for that advice.

I got to Feb 1808 and achieved Naval supremacy against the British, was able to sweep them out of Portugal and keep them from getting more than one Spanish city. For the past 4 turns a bulletin of text pops up saying I have kept Spain out of the war and that I get Cadiz as a naval base, but nothing is happening and Lua dialog box keeps popping up. Is this supposed to happen? To be clear I have not had an event happen to hand Cadiz over.

By the way still really enjoying scenario.

Thanks

 

[countmc]

I think that the getting naval supremacy is causing a bug in the scenario. Without having to fight two front war in Spain I was able to easily beat off the initial attack by the Austrian in war of the fifth coalition and then take the objective cities the next turn. I am now two turns beyond that with no prompt to evacuate the cities because the war is over. Also the prompt for changing files for the seasons has quit happening also.

I am going to load my save from before I got naval supremacy and see if the lua prompts still stop. Great scenario, and not having to fight in Spain definitely makes it easier.

 

[Knighttime]

Hi @countmc, would you be willing to send me a couple of saved games so I can investigate this? (@tootall_2012 makes all decisions about releasing updates or fixes, but since I did much of the work on the Lua events, I'd be more than happy to dig into any issues there and pass details on to him.) If you have a save from the point at which you first started to suspect things weren't working correctly, that would be great, as well as a more recent one illustrating the most issues (after supposedly defeating Austria in the Fifth Coalition, and without the prompts for seasons). You can either attach them here or send them to me in a private message, whichever you'd prefer. Thanks!

Glad you are enjoying the scenario, despite this issue!

 

[countmc]

I uploaded the point where I had naval supremacy and then how deep into war of fifth coalition I am.

 

[countmc]

So I played through without purposefully achieving the naval supremacy, therefore had full blown war in Spain. That part seemed to operate correctly, started war of fifth coalition, hit hard by Austrians, but everything still going correctly. However, once I capture Agram, Trieste, Vienna, and Prague same problem as the last campaign. No prompt that peace between Austria and France. Attaching that file also.

Game works great up to around this point in both campaigns, and then in both, can't seem to compel Austria to surrender.

 

[Knighttime]

Thanks very much for providing these files and information. I was able to confirm that there is a syntax bug in the Lua events related to transferring Cadiz, and potentially some other ways in which that event could be improved. The issue regarding the end of the War of the Fifth Coalition is more subtle -- it's not a simple syntax error, apparently, but more a case of the event logic not lining up with the way your specific game happened to develop at an earlier point. Tootall will probably have thoughts about how to address this within the events, and I'll consult with him. Thanks again!