Old project getting started.

[techumseh]

This is a project I started on 20 years ago, but put on the shelf because of what I considered insurmountable design problems. Now, because of the ToT Patch Project and Lua, I think these can be resolved. While my earlier work gives me a head start in some ways - like graphics for instance, I'm really starting again. Normally I like to be quite a bit farther along before making any sort of announcement, but given the sad state of the forum these days, I'm hoping it might spark some interest and discussion.

The first design issue that stopped work years ago, was the inability to return cities that had been captured from an enemy civilization as part of a peace settlement. Following the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, Bismarck insisted on returning all captured Austrian cities, so that Austria would remain neutral in an upcoming war with France. Prussia's political goal of removing Austrian influence in Germany had been achieved. I realized this could be done fairly easily when I played Tootall's "Napoleon" - a real break through scenario.

The second design issue was the primitive diplomacy of vanilla Test of Time. Prussian diplomacy was critical to its military success. What I really want to achieve is a sort of parallel game of diplomatic moves which directly influence the course of the game. Based on preliminary discussions with Prof Garfield, I think this can be realized with the amazing powers of Lua programming. I'd start by taking Bismarck's historical record as a 'perfect' diplomatic game and using it as a benchmark. He diplomatically isolated each of his victims in turn, depriving them of allies. Missteps could have resulted in Austria and France combining against Prussia, Italy remaining neutral in the war against Austria, Bavaria refusing to join the war against France, or even British or Russian military intervention against Prussia. I'm imagining a sort of display where Prussia keeps track of it's diplomatic relations with all the civilizations of the scenario, plus those nations that are not represented by a civ - Britain, Russia and Sweden. Under certain circumstances, units of these countries may appear as reinforcements of a civilization at war with Prussia. Events, some randomized, could be used to vary the diplomatic challenges faced by Prussia in each game.

I'll add more reports as things progress if there is interest. Comments and questions are welcome.

 

[tootall_2012]

I will admit I’m only familiar with this part of history at a very high level and aren’t very knowledgeable about the overall details.

I am curious to know at what scale are you planning to have it, i.e. what’s the size of the map and what regions does it cover (from west to east and north to south). Also what are the unit sizes going to represent (regiments, divisions, corps)?

 

[techumseh]

Each tile is about 34 km across. The map includes southern Denmark in the north down to northern Italy in the south. It goes as far east Prussia and Hungary and all the way to central France. I'll put up some screen shots later. The civs are Prussia, Austria, France, Italy, Denmark, the southern German states (Bavaria, Wurtemburg, Baden) and the northern German states (Hannover, Saxony). Historically, it covers the Danish-German war (1864), the Austro-Prussian War (1866) and the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71), leading to the unification of Germany. I've always wondered why this period is sometimes ignored, as it includes some of the most brilliant military campaigns since Napoleon. Chronologically, it follows right after the US Civil War, with which it shares many features like mass armies, breach loading weapons and large scale use of railways. The political background of this period is interesting too. The main contest was between the Conservative aristocracy and the rising Liberal capitalists, but there was a growing threat from the radical proletarians that they both feared. The Paris Commune was the main example of this. This is also something I want to build into the scenario.

 

[Fairline]

I will admit I’m only familiar with this part of history at a very high level and aren’t very knowledgeable about the overall details.

I am curious to know at what scale are you planning to have it, i.e. what’s the size of the map and what regions does it cover (from west to east and north to south). Also what are the unit sizes going to represent (regiments, divisions, corps)?

In terms of this period of history. this scenario covers a key part of the 1848-71 chunk of the 19th century that shaped modern Europe and set the scene for the two world wars in the 20th century. As Tech says, a fascinating period of history, both in terms of events and the massively changing technology of warfare. Looking forward to what will undoubtedly be a classic (hell, we've been waiting the best part of 20 years for this one! )

 

[Kaiser0985]

Hi techumseh, personally speaking, this is my preferred historical period + I am a huge fan of german history, so I am totally interested. One thing I did not understand, are you creating this for ToT o MGE?

 

[tootall_2012]

Each tile is about 34 km across. The map includes southern Denmark in the north down to northern Italy in the south. It goes as far east Prussia and Hungary and all the way to central France. I'll put up some screen shots later.

So very roughly from Paris to Warsaw (1500 km) and Copenhagen to Venice (1200 km). Does that mean the map is approximately 50 tiles wide by 35 tiles tall?

The civs are Prussia, Austria, France, Italy, Denmark, the southern German states (Bavaria, Wurtemburg, Baden) and the northern German states (Hannover, Saxony). Historically, it covers the Danish-German war (1864), the Austro-Prussian War (1866) and the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71), leading to the unification of Germany.

Did perfidious Albion (aka England ) play any role in these conflicts?

The first design issue that stopped work years ago, was the inability to return cities that had been captured from an enemy civilization as part of a peace settlement. Following the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, Bismarck insisted on returning all captured Austrian cities, so that Austria would remain neutral in an upcoming war with France. Prussia's political goal of removing Austrian influence in Germany had been achieved. I realized this could be done fairly easily when I played Tootall's "Napoleon" - a real break through scenario.

The lua code for transferring the ownership of cities is remarkably simple.

I didn't know it at the time but I could have used the simple 'teleport' code to transport French units out of the cities to be transferred rather then the more clunky manner I used of delaying the transfer by one turn so the player could manually move them (otherwise you lose control of your units when the city changes ownership).

Here is an example from my Battle of Italy scenario where any Allied ground units situated within a predeliminated zone around the city of Trieste will be teleport to a tile NN of the city if the city falls to Tito's communist (I know the Prof. can easily help you adapt the code for any of your specific needs):

    -- IF TRIESTE FELL TO COMMUNISTS TELEPORT ANY ALLIED UNIT OUT OF TRIESTE ZONE
    if unit.owner == object.pAllies and unit.type.domain == 0 and flag.value("Trieste Falls To Communists") == true and gen.inPolygon(unit.location,tables.triestePolygon) then
        civ.teleportUnit(unit, object.lGrassNNTrieste)
        text.simple("Your " ..tostring(unit.type.name).. " unit is located within Marshall Tito's Yugoslavian communist controlled zone and is forced to retreat north (" .. text.coordinates(unit.location) .. ")!","Allied Unit Forced to Retreat!",object.monexone)
    end

 

[civ2units]

This sounds like a very interesting scenario. Especially as you plan to set the focus more on diplomacy than just conquering the world. The period between 1866 and 1871 is one of the most interesting periods in German history.

As for the map, I've found this map of Germany years ago on Apolyton. Actually I don't know who made it but maybe it could be useful for your scenario.
Years ago I was thinking about to make a scenario settled during the Wars of Liberation in Germany between 1813 and 1815 or the Thirty Years War with this map.

 

[techumseh]

Thanks Civ2units. A map is one thing I did get done on my earlier attempt. Here's a screen shot of the B&I map. Sorry about the poor quality. The greyed out areas are neutral countries and are impassible.

 

[techumseh]

Hi techumseh, personally speaking, this is my preferred historical period + I am a huge fan of german history, so I am totally interested. One thing I did not understand, are you creating this for ToT o MGE?

Test of Time, with the addition of the the Nameless One's Patch Project and some Lua programming, courtesy of Prof Garfield. The unit graphics for the scenario were made by Fairline, some of them 20 years ago.

 

[techumseh]

So very roughly from Paris to Warsaw (1500 km) and Copenhagen to Venice (1200 km). Does that mean the map is approximately 50 tiles wide by 35 tiles tall?

40X40 I think. In terms of unit sizes, I'm thinking each unit will be about a brigade in size (~5000 men). A Prussian corps of 2 divisions = 4 infantry (incl. 1 jaeger), 1 artillery and 1 lt. cavalry.

Did perfidious Albion (aka England ) play any role in these conflicts?

England saw France and Russia as it's primary rivals for empire, so they were quite favourable to Prussia and even supportive of German unification - at least until Kaiser Wilhelm II began building a lot of ships. So their intervention in this period would be unlikely. I think I may still include the possibility though, just to keep Bismarck on his toes.

The lua code for transferring the ownership of cities is remarkably simple.

I didn't know it at the time but I could have used the simple 'teleport' code to transport French units out of the cities to be transferred rather then the more clunky manner I used of delaying the transfer by one turn so the player could manually move them (otherwise you lose control of your units when the city changes ownership).

Here is an example from my Battle of Italy scenario where any Allied ground units situated within a predeliminated zone around the city of Trieste will be teleport to a tile NN of the city if the city falls to Tito's communist (I know the Prof. can easily help you adapt the code for any of your specific needs):

    -- IF TRIESTE FELL TO COMMUNISTS TELEPORT ANY ALLIED UNIT OUT OF TRIESTE ZONE
    if unit.owner == object.pAllies and unit.type.domain == 0 and flag.value("Trieste Falls To Communists") == true and gen.inPolygon(unit.location,tables.triestePolygon) then
        civ.teleportUnit(unit, object.lGrassNNTrieste)
        text.simple("Your " ..tostring(unit.type.name).. " unit is located within Marshall Tito's Yugoslavian communist controlled zone and is forced to retreat north (" .. text.coordinates(unit.location) .. ")!","Allied Unit Forced to Retreat!",object.monexone)
    end

Thank you.

 

[Patine]

View attachment 688573

This is a project I started on 20 years ago, but put on the shelf because of what I considered insurmountable design problems. Now, because of the ToT Patch Project and Lua, I think these can be resolved. While my earlier work gives me a head start in some ways - like graphics for instance, I'm really starting again. Normally I like to be quite a bit farther along before making any sort of announcement, but given the sad state of the forum these days, I'm hoping it might spark some interest and discussion.

The first design issue that stopped work years ago, was the inability to return cities that had been captured from an enemy civilization as part of a peace settlement. Following the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, Bismarck insisted on returning all captured Austrian cities, so that Austria would remain neutral in an upcoming war with France. Prussia's political goal of removing Austrian influence in Germany had been achieved. I realized this could be done fairly easily when I played Tootall's "Napoleon" - a real break through scenario.

The second design issue was the primitive diplomacy of vanilla Test of Time. Prussian diplomacy was critical to its military success. What I really want to achieve is a sort of parallel game of diplomatic moves which directly influence the course of the game. Based on preliminary discussions with Prof Garfield, I think this can be realized with the amazing powers of Lua programming. I'd start by taking Bismarck's historical record as a 'perfect' diplomatic game and using it as a benchmark. He diplomatically isolated each of his victims in turn, depriving them of allies. Missteps could have resulted in Austria and France combining against Prussia, Italy remaining neutral in the war against Austria, Bavaria refusing to join the war against France, or even British or Russian military intervention against Prussia. I'm imagining a sort of display where Prussia keeps track of it's diplomatic relations with all the civilizations of the scenario, plus those nations that are not represented by a civ - Britain, Russia and Sweden. Under certain circumstances, units of these countries may appear as reinforcements of a civilization at war with Prussia. Events, some randomized, could be used to vary the diplomatic challenges faced by Prussia in each game.

I'll add more reports as things progress if there is interest. Comments and questions are welcome.

Hurrah! This was one I've truly been hoping would not fade into your deveopment trash can. I also figured the new options and capabilities of ToTPP, LUA, and such would make it possible! I look forward to seeing it!

 

[tootall_2012]

40X40 I think. In terms of unit sizes, I'm thinking each unit will be about a brigade in size (~5000 men). A Prussian corps of 2 divisions = 4 infantry (incl. 1 jaeger), 1 artillery and 1 lt. cavalry.

I don’t know what your final vision for your project is and therefore this is some initial feedback based on the limited information you have provided to date. It’s also based on your expressed desire to see more dialogue on development threads.

I was curious about the map size you were planning on using because I know that would have a direct impact on your ability to represent the ebb and flow of the battles during these various conflicts. After doing a little research, it’s my understanding that like during the Napoleonic wars most of the major battles during the wars of unification were fought out in the open.

I noticed that in the map you posted, assuming this will be your base map, that most of the cities are within 3 to 5 tiles of one another. I believe this will inevitably constrain the movement of armies to narrow fields of movement and mean that the majority of battles will be one city siege after another and therefore not necessarily in line with the historical events.

The map I had originally designed for Napoleon had been smaller (81x65) but after some basic testing I found the cities too close to one another (also many within 3-5 tiles) and felt it would force the player into too many city sieges. Therefore I decided to increase the size of the map to 93x75 and that made a big difference in providing more open space between the cities (now on average between 4 to 6 tiles distances in central Europe and as much as 6-8 tiles in Russia and Spain) and therefore many more opportunities for opposing units to fight in the open.

In Napoleon, I used cities as the main objectives for imposing peace treaties because it was a useful method but with lua you can use numerous other mechanisms or combination of mechanisms (say for example how many Austrian units the Germans kill within a certain timeframe or a unit kill ratio in combination with the capture of a few key locations (doesn’t even necessarily have to be a city but rather a strategic tile like an important rail junction).

As always these are simply my personal observations and meant simply as constructive feedback and therefore you should feel free to use my suggestions, or not, entirely as you see fit (though I felt, given that the map is such a key part of the development process that I should provide my comments early rather than later).

 

[techumseh]

Thanks, I appreciate the feedback. I've generally preferred smaller maps, because I find the AI works better on them. I take your point about avoiding combat based mainly on sieges, although here were quite a few historically, especially in the Franco-Prussian War - Metz and Paris being the most well known. I had a look at the Napoleon map and the B&I map is actually a bit larger scale. The difference is the density of cities, and of terrain. I can delete some of the smaller cities easily enough if testing warrants it.

To keep the campaigns moving, I was planning on having no particular defensive advantage for most cities. I'll use static fortress units as defensive units inside cities that were historically fortresses. I'm considering a number to tactical refinements that could change how armies interact as well. Partial combat losses, morale checks and retreat after combat are all things I'm looking at. At this point, I have no idea what will work and what won't. Lots of work to do before we even get to that point, I'm afraid. Thanks for your comments.

 

[Civinator]

techumseh, good luck to this demanding project!

 

[tootall_2012]

Thanks, I appreciate the feedback. I've generally preferred smaller maps, because I find the AI works better on them.

That is true but don't underestimate the value of the GoTo commands. Though not perfect in their behaviour I was still able to make surprisingly good use of them both in Napoleon and Battle of Italy by breaking the commands up into smaller boxed zones (i.e. units in Box A move to Box B and units in Box B move towards Box C. or any other combination that was appropriate for the situation).

 

[civ2units]

Thanks Civ2units. A map is one thing I did get done on my earlier attempt. Here's a screen shot of the B&I map. Sorry about the poor quality. The greyed out areas are neutral countries and are impassible.


View attachment 688653

I think your map works better then mine. I agree with you, the smaller the map, the better the AI can handle it.

Just one minor comment to the Bavarian cities on your map. I would give Stuttgart, Freiburg and Ulm to the orange civ (I assume this civ shall represent the German small states during that time period). Stuttgart and Ulm were part of the Kingdom of Wurttemberg, Freiburg part of the Grand Duchy of Baden.

Maybe you could add Landau north of Strasbourg as a city controlled by the Bavarians west of the Kingdom of Bavaria.

 

[Patine]

I think your map works better then mine. I agree with you, the smaller the map, the better the AI can handle it.

Just one minor comment to the Bavarian cities on your map. I would give Stuttgart, Freiburg and Ulm to the orange civ (I assume this civ shall represent the German small states during that time period). Stuttgart and Ulm were part of the Kingdom of Wurttemberg, Freiburg part of the Grand Duchy of Baden.

Maybe you could add Landau north of Strasbourg as a city controlled by the Bavarians west of the Kingdom of Bavaria.

Though, I think I can see why techumseh put them where he did. In that period, all three of Bavaria, Baden, and Wurttemburg were posturing themselves as, depending on the intrepation of policy, a neutral bloc, or a third bloc, between Prussia and Austria, but leaning toward Austria right up until the Franco-Prussian War, and never joined the North German Confederation.

 

[techumseh]

I agree that Wurttemburg and Baden aren't part of Bavaria, but later in the scenario it makes sense to group them together. After the Austro-Prussian War, the north German states were either annexed by Prussia or coerced by it into the "North German Confederation". Patine is correct to say that the south German states (Bavaria, Wurttemburg and Baden) retained their independence until the Franco-Prussian War and were enticed (bribed) to join the newly-proclaimed German Empire. So for the workability of the scenario, it makes sense to group them as I have.

 

[civ2units]

I agree that Wurttemburg and Baden aren't part of Bavaria, but later in the scenario it makes sense to group them together. After the Austro-Prussian War, the north German states were either annexed by Prussia or coerced by it into the "North German Confederation". Patine is correct to say that the south German states (Bavaria, Wurttemburg and Baden) retained their independence until the Franco-Prussian War and were enticed (bribed) to join the newly-proclaimed German Empire. So for the workability of the scenario, it makes sense to group them as I have.

I agree, for the scenario design it makes sense to group the southern German states into one group

 

[techumseh]

Here is the draft units file for Blood & Iron. It's a bit disorganized at the moment, but it's still early in the process, so the final version may look somewhat different. Many thanks to Fairline for his yeoman efforts as usual.