Napoleonic Europe

[LaCiencia]

OK, I tried twice the last version (1.2) and everything went smooth, no strange errors, except that sometimes the combat odds doesn't reflect the reality, but I understand why, could be confused for others guys not very involved, but I think you ain't be able to change that (do you?)

I agree with gripes from Ambreville, and again I think that this is core programming, not very easy to change, so the best is to focus in what could be changed.

I have been playing in the month version game in order to go faster with the tests. I tried first Ottomans. Well, to be a power in those times, they were really backward in techs, but they could recover just because the techs are rather cheap. Surprisingly I couldn't train line infantry, only Janisary at the capitol , I don't understand why, at the end of the story I found out that apart of the Janysary they can only train militia, only in the islam cities, and that is it regarding gunpowder units . By the way just for testing purpose I declare the war against Austria (already in war with France and Russia) and Austria kicked my butt easily . Janysary couldn't resist cannon attack, and they are a lot more weaker than any of their counterpart soldiers. Sorry but I don't buy that, with more reason that they can't produce any other gunpowder unit but militia and very few Janyssary.

The same happens regarding mounting units. Only the capitol can produce Sipahi, and only a few units, apart the Ottoman Cavalry that really sucks, you need 12 units against one militia to be defeated, then Ottomans can only counts with Sipahi. It's worthless to produce Ottoman Cavalry as they can defeat ONLY cannons.

I don't know exactly the role of Ottomans during that period, but for sure they were a serious menace in the area. For the moment they are only a second class major civ (just not to say a clown in a branch). Could you reanalyze this? I think that giving these guys a little more punch could make either the other major players to be more careful launching attacks, and in my opinion can change the balance of the game for better.

I was boring at the end, as with these Ottomans the best is to bulk massively and to pray not to be noted by the major players

I will come back with more remarks about my game as Britain.

 

[sokar]

Playing as Russia

Did a number on Austria and Holland; negotiated peace, after taking territory from France and Ottomans.

Questions: Are there limits on number of Grenadiers and other elite units?

Will have several cities producing grenadiers sudenly there are no longer an option. Later they are offered again. What gives?

 

[KrakenRouge]

Playing as Russia

Did a number on Austria and Holland; negotiated peace, after taking territory from France and Ottomans.

Questions: Are there limits on number of Grenadiers and other elite units?

Will have several cities producing grenadiers sudenly there are no longer an option. Later they are offered again. What gives?

There are quotas place don how many you can make, all you have to do is check next to the name.

They probably stopped producing them because another city had made the 20th one.

I think its a smart way to try and balance the armies, and make productivity, not mass of armies, more of a factor in winning a war.

 

[KrakenRouge]

Its probably been mentioned before but the flags tend to fade out after the first turn.

The first turn I load, move my troops around and such, and then after that, in the second turn, all the flags turn to their base colors.

For example: Russia's turns Dark Green, Bavaria, Hannover, Saxony, The German States, and Denmark all lose their flags on the unit level.

Flags are unaffected in the diplomacy screen however, which was a relief.

Also, I had a bit of a bone to pick in this otherwise AWESOME!! mod:

Being boggled with the many alliances between the AI, I decided to check the Foreign Advisors screen. Much to my dismay there are a bunch of Napoleon faces everywhere, and the text is hard to read, but understandable still, bunched up in the bottom portion.

I dont understand why If you're using flags on their diplo screen, you cant just put their flags on the Foreign Affairs screen.

Also, have you ever thought of just replacing the flags as diplo screens, and using a notable leader from each country during that time period? I remember seeing this in the Vanilla Mod for WWD North Africa, they use pictures of Graziani, Franco, and others.

Just a thought.

This mod has amazing replay value by the way, I'm hooked on this more than I am on Rhye's and Fall, which was hard to do because I love Rhye's and Fall.

Congrats on your workmanship

 

[Paasky]

I've done my best for the AI, but as it still hates the human player (for example: russia & prussia vassalize many of the small countries, but no-one would accept it when I was prussia)

So, unless someone who's a leet hax SDK coder wants to help, nothing can be done about that

Last time I played as the Ottomans I did fine against the Austrians, and since then I've raised the strength of Ottoman units with 1 and added the -10% strength for the Austrians. You just don't have the skills But seriously, the AI Ottoman is very bad, so I think I'll raise the strengths by 1 again, and see what happens.
AFAIK, the Ottomans of the early 1800's were very backwards in war tactics & weaponry. Maybe they could defend themselves, but they never had a major war against the european powers. The closest thing was the war in Egypt vs French troops, and they didn't do that well... ut we'll see what happens after the +1 strengthening of the Ottoman Army & Navy. If that doesn't work, I could give them a +25% or +30% defensive bonus.
The Janissary & Sipahi were both Elite units (like the Guard Units), and even they weren't that good. Sure they were feared in the 1600's, but that's a long time


I'll fix the unitflags in the next patch, as well as the vaious mini-images that currently are all napoleons. Also, I believe that the flags look better than the leaders portraits, and I've done that with every scenario I have done (since civ3). I think they're also easier to remember than heads which basically look the same


I'm happy that all complaints this far have been about the AI (which I've edited as much as the xml's let me) and graphics (which don't affect game mechanics). I'll play a game as the Ottomans next to see just how bad LaCiencia is at this game After changing the units of course

 

[LaCiencia]

I've done my best for the AI, but as it still hates the human player (for example: russia & prussia vassalize many of the small countries, but no-one would accept it when I was prussia)

So, unless someone who's a leet hax SDK coder wants to help, nothing can be done about that

Last time I played as the Ottomans I did fine against the Austrians, and since then I've raised the strength of Ottoman units with 1 and added the -10% strength for the Austrians. You just don't have the skills But seriously, the AI Ottoman is very bad, so I think I'll raise the strengths by 1 again, and see what happens.
AFAIK, the Ottomans of the early 1800's were very backwards in war tactics & weaponry. Maybe they could defend themselves, but they never had a major war against the european powers. The closest thing was the war in Egypt vs French troops, and they didn't do that well... ut we'll see what happens after the +1 strengthening of the Ottoman Army & Navy. If that doesn't work, I could give them a +25% or +30% defensive bonus.
The Janissary & Sipahi were both Elite units (like the Guard Units), and even they weren't that good. Sure they were feared in the 1600's, but that's a long time


I'll fix the unitflags in the next patch, as well as the vaious mini-images that currently are all napoleons. Also, I believe that the flags look better than the leaders portraits, and I've done that with every scenario I have done (since civ3). I think they're also easier to remember than heads which basically look the same


I'm happy that all complaints this far have been about the AI (which I've edited as much as the xml's let me) and graphics (which don't affect game mechanics). I'll play a game as the Ottomans next to see just how bad LaCiencia is at this game After changing the units of course

Definitely I am bad at this game , now as Britain I have defeated France but in the meantime Russia had taken an advantage of 3000 points in score nothing to do about it, but to declare the war to Russia . Still year 1804 at the beginning so, once I finish the frenchies I will go for the big prize but more probably I will have to make my way via Austria not to fight at the same time with Prusia and her vassals. I will keep you posted.

BTW could you recalculate the amount of units vavailable to produce depending not only of the country but of the quantity of cities in your power? i think that would be fearer.

It's official I dropped Ottomans for ever

I will try to make new missions for the spies, will you introduce them if I make them work smoothly?

 

[sokar]

Have no problem with limits on the number of elite units but they should be proportional to the countries size or something.

When I played Britain, the French DID invade England and take one city. Slipped right through badly positioned British Naval units.

I love this mod will go back to finishing off the Ottomans and Austrians.

 

[KrakenRouge]

I've done my best for the AI, but as it still hates the human player (for example: russia & prussia vassalize many of the small countries, but no-one would accept it when I was prussia)

So, unless someone who's a leet hax SDK coder wants to help, nothing can be done about that

Last time I played as the Ottomans I did fine against the Austrians, and since then I've raised the strength of Ottoman units with 1 and added the -10% strength for the Austrians. You just don't have the skills But seriously, the AI Ottoman is very bad, so I think I'll raise the strengths by 1 again, and see what happens.
AFAIK, the Ottomans of the early 1800's were very backwards in war tactics & weaponry. Maybe they could defend themselves, but they never had a major war against the european powers. The closest thing was the war in Egypt vs French troops, and they didn't do that well... ut we'll see what happens after the +1 strengthening of the Ottoman Army & Navy. If that doesn't work, I could give them a +25% or +30% defensive bonus.
The Janissary & Sipahi were both Elite units (like the Guard Units), and even they weren't that good. Sure they were feared in the 1600's, but that's a long time


I'll fix the unitflags in the next patch, as well as the vaious mini-images that currently are all napoleons. Also, I believe that the flags look better than the leaders portraits, and I've done that with every scenario I have done (since civ3). I think they're also easier to remember than heads which basically look the same


I'm happy that all complaints this far have been about the AI (which I've edited as much as the xml's let me) and graphics (which don't affect game mechanics). I'll play a game as the Ottomans next to see just how bad LaCiencia is at this game After changing the units of course

Paasky, this is still one of the best repplayable mods I've ever seen, perhaps I dont have much authority, but this Mod is very fun. Sure the hostility is a pain in the ass, but I consider it very challenging and exciting to hold back thier armies. Eventually all of them get tired, and you get left with an Uber-Strong army if you survive the ordeal.

I love the 10-man formations, when I first fought with them I was like WOW haha. Seriously, wonderful. I also like that the multitude of units make conquering a matter of taking the right units, and using them in the right order, to take out your foe, instead of just spamming two units and killing everyone. This adds more of a thought process when producing new troops.

But to make the game perfect you would need that SDK coder.

Dont fret though

 

[Ambreville]

I've done my best for the AI, but as it still hates the human player (for example: russia & prussia vassalize many of the small countries, but no-one would accept it when I was prussia)

Figures. I tried Prussia as well. Another pointless experience. Here's the pattern of CIV4's diplomacy between a player-controlled minor CIV (or a semi-minor one) and a major AI-controlled CIV:

Rule #1: I don't like you!
Rule #2: I don't care what you say or do, I still don't like you.
Rule #3: Sooner or later, I will crush you.
Rule #4: I don't care what you say or do, I still will crush you.
Rule #5: If rule #4 doesn't apply, then follow Rule #1.

I mean, really... Here's how one (so far typical in my experience) game plays out:

Prologue -- Load up one of the minors, Prussia for instance, in this scenario.

ACT I -- As Prussia, I was invaded early on by Russia regardless of my best attempts at diplomacy. Russia pointlessly lost gobs of troops before Konigsberg and Warsaw, and I finally managed to grab one of its cities near Warsaw after a long, protracted fight. At that point I managed to get Russia to accept peace. Phew...

ACT II -- I managed to set-up a defense treaty with Austria and Denmark. Great. But on the very next turn, Austria declares war on the Ottomans and my defense treaty with them is cancelled. That's idiotic (OK, that's how CIV4 works, but still). Defense treaties should not get cancelled that way! So I went knocking on Sweden's door, paid them like 3500 gold to get them to quit their own little war against the Ottomans. Then, Sweden gladly accepted a defense treaty with me. Sheesh...

ACT III -- France declares war on Prussia. Denmark and Sweden declare war on France... and immediately cancel their defense treaty with me. More nonsense. The treaty should still hold because...

ACT IV -- Two or three turns down the muddy trail, Russia decides they should join the fun* and declares war on Prussia as well. Denmark and Sweden look the other way. Hello? Defense Treaty? Never mind... it's CIV4, the new, improved game of perpetual absurdity, version 4. So much for diplomacy mechanics.

Epilogue -- delete @#!&## scenario and quit playing minors.

(*) Fun: a concept that is not always associated with clunky, one-sided game mechanics or bloated graphics, and whose final purpose is to generate pleasure and entertainment to the HUMAN user. Diplomacy in CIV4 is totally devoid of any such thing.

It's a shame that this otherwise excellent scenario -- which ought of course to be diplomacy-driven to at least some degree -- still manages to soldier on, despite a pathetic set of mechanics to work from. Diplomacy in CIV4 does not lend itself to clever maneuvers of any sort or immagination. It is a straightjacket designed to hinder and frustrate game play, totally biased toward the AI. The other result is that it renders minor CIVs in this scenario hopelessly unplayable for more than 2-4 years (using the week-based time scale).

As a result of the less-than-satisfactory "diplomacy", one cannot trade goods in most cases -- only give away important resources (from the point of view of a minor CIV) in hopes to improving relations. Perhaps because of the time scale of the scenario (I used the week-based format), diplomatic influence seems very slow to materialize in anything meaningful. (???) The other question after my long-winded rant (mea culpa), is about the reason for not allowing tech trades at all?

 

[Paasky]

sokar: The problem is I can't create python code (only edit it), so for the moment the 10 & 20 max's stay.

Ambreville:
As for the question: Because I have so few techs, and if I enable trading everyone (except for the human maybe ) will invent everything too fast.

 

[Ambreville]

Because I have so few techs, and if I enable trading everyone (except for the human maybe ) will invent everything too fast.

Yes, that is true if trading remained unrestricted between major CIVs. I wonder if open trading were possible only between friendly minors, whether it would make up for the problem of the techs being really expensive for them. Just a thought.

Another diplomatic hiccup in the scenario -- France and England cannot set up defense treaties with anyone else because they are permanently locked in war. This isn't historical obviously. In the present version of Warlords, is it still possible to create permament alliances while at war? I've never done it personnally and I don't know if the game allows this (??)

 

[KrakenRouge]

Yes, that is true if trading remained unrestricted between major CIVs. I wonder if open trading were possible only between friendly minors, whether it would make up for the problem of the techs being really expensive for them. Just a thought.

Another diplomatic hiccup in the scenario -- France and England cannot set up defense treaties with anyone else because they are permanently locked in war. This isn't historical obviously. In the present version of Warlords, is it still possible to create permament alliances while at war? I've never done it personnally and I don't know if the game allows this (??)

Permanent Allainces yes, Defensive Pact no.

 

[Paasky]

I was thinking of removing the permanent war between France & Britain, if that would make France more aggressive towards the European powers.

Any SDK or python coders reading this thread? Because I have a few ideas about international politics, but I have no idea how to do them.

 

[Jean Lannes]

I don't like civ 4 that much and don't play it, but if you do want to add civilopedia entries for your units (and know how to, because I don't lol) I could help you. I'm a huge fan of the Napoleonic Wars and could do some more research too. Also, Bavaria became an ally of France in 1805, when Napoleon invaded Austria. Before that I'm pretty sure they were allies of Austria. Seemed like you guys were having a bit of trouble figuring that out. I'd start Bavaria as a French ally, simply because they fought with france for most of the war. (the war I mean is 1805-1815).
Don't you have "flavors" in civ 4 editor or something like that which would make the nations more aggressive towards each other?

 

[Blake4000]

France needs to be more aggressive towards others, they should invade. But otherwise this is a very entertaining scenario. great work!

 

[AlazkanAssassin]

An idea I have had was to make France and Britain able to make peace but to script many occurrences that would cause war between them.
Such as: Whenever France declares war on anyone, England declares war on France (if England is AI controlled)
Such rules as these are easily scriptable in python.

 

[Wilhelm zu wied]

Great scenario, i have started a game as Russia.
The Ottoman-Swedish war
I invaded The Ottoman empire because there weren't many Ottoman troops on my border, at the same time i also launched an invasion of Finland (ruled by Sweden). However altrough outnumbering and outclassing the ottoman forces my army was completly destroyed
Since i diden't had a back-up force i quickly made peace with the Ottomans.
Meanwyle i took all 3 Finish cities from Sweden while my vassel Hannover captured Stralsund(I had Hannover Saksen Portugal, German states and napels as my vassels) and Sweden offert peace, because Swedish resistance was tough and my army was driven in a stalemate i accepted it.

The downfall of Austria
Next i turned my attention on Austria, in war with France i saw an oppertunity to stab the Empire in the back
Now i shall describe the war front by front

Germany
Germany, my ally, conquered all of Bavaria

Italy
Sardinia (vasal of Austria) was conquered by Portugal and all off Austrian Italy was captured by France

Russian front
I captured Cluy, Krokow and budapest and then after Austria had made peace with France i made them my vassel

Troubles
Germany and Portugal left my alliance, ironickly quickly afterwarts Portugal was conquered by Spain(that shall teach them)
Denmark was attacked by Sweden and lost all of Norway.
I decided to support Denmark and after they became my vassel i attacked Sweden taking 2 of their cities and completely destroying their fleet.
Meanwille Denmark recaptured Bergen and Kristiansand. Then Sweden was made my Vassel.

The great Ottoman war
Meanwile Prussia, neutral in all of the above wars attacked the Ottomans and captured Sarajevo. Seeking revenge i attacked them and took Bukarest,Belgrado and Constanta while the Prussians captured Sofia.
To prevent that to much territory would fall in Prussian hands i made them my vassel.

Now i have 53% of the terretory but not yet the 44% of the population, i think Prussia can expect some combat.....
current alliances

Russia/Napels
Master of
Ottomans
Austria
Denmark
Sweden
Hannover
Saksen

Prussia
Master of
Rome
Germany

France
Master of
Holland

 

[Wilhelm zu wied]

About diplomacy,

There should be an option to create a puppet state instead of annexing all captured territory

Example: If france would capture krakow, Warschau, Bialstok, Koningsberg etc
I should be able to create Poland as an independent state that is Friendly to France.

 

[Blake4000]

In my current game as Britain, I have surrounded all of the French ports to stop any ships leaving the city. I after much fighting captured 4 French cities near the coast. I finished Holland off and took it's only city a vassal of France. I'm still so far currently engaged in warfare with the French. It seems to be a lengthy process as the French resistance is tough. But my plan is to take all of France. I can't make peace with France so it'll fall eventually.
Problems were the city of caen swapped hands afew times because I didn't have the right troops stationed there. Culture boarder with Germany is causing Amsterdam to revolt and attempt to join Germany. I cant declare war on Germany because it is allied with many other nations and can't deal with a war with several nations.

 

[Paasky]

Jean: Civ4 has another thing: i can change the attitude between any nations from +100 to -100. -100 is a LOT, as -5 is already furious.
Bavaria was a vassal of Austria in 1800, and if it changes sides to the French at some point, that's completely accurate.

Alazkan: I have no idea how to create python, I do know how to edit it though

Wilhelm: That would mean having more than 18 civs, which can be done though. But with someone who knows python/SDK willing to help, I could do lot's-o-stuff.

Blake: I've edited the amount of revolts needed from the default 2 to 10, so they won't be changing sides anytime soon. Again, with python we could have retain culture on capture...