Overlord Scenario Playtest Thread

[civ2units]

The crazy Austrian in Nazi Germany asked me for betraying the Allies and marching side on side with him straight into death and destruction.
Of course I immediately declined his offer

 

[CurtSibling]

Sounds like those lousy reds are making life hard for you...!
Hopefully, if Uncle Joe is too succesful in Europe, he might trigger the "unthinkable" event - Spoiler!

 

[civ2units]

I'm working on that Soviet problem, it's only a matter of time until Stalin will sign a peace treaty. My counterattack will be strong and hard.

 

[civ2units]

Hopefully, if Uncle Joe is too succesful in Europe, he might trigger the "unthinkable" event - Spoiler!

Now I'm excited what will happen.

 

[CurtSibling]

I can confirm that Carriers are taking air units onboard. I sunk a Carrier in the Persian gulf and it was ferrying a bomber.

 

[JPetroski]

Just as an update for you - by August, 1941 I've knocked Italy out of the war, have a large army that conquered Marseille, have landed at Brest (although I don't know if I'll hold this one with only 2x paratroopers) and have taken Tirana. I'm researching about 1 tech per turn as lucrative trade is still going strong.


Potential Bugs:
-both the German invasion of Soviet Union and the Russian surprise attack fired?
-The fall of Minsk references a bad day for Ukraine, but Minsk is not in Ukraine.

 

[JPetroski]

The dam has burst by November of '41. I control nearly all of Germany. While I suspect the Japanese will probably become a foe next turn, and while I'm curious what taking Berlin might do to Anglo-Soviet relations, Nazi Germany has been substantially defeated.

Spoiler :

Other thoughts:
-What do the Torch and Overlord techs do? I'm not going to research either as I've already completed both objectives, but just curious.

 

[JPetroski]

So by January 1942, Germany has lost every city except Helsinki, and I shelled it and cleared it of defenders, so I'm sure the Soviets will take it. I accidentally walked into a Japanese unit and started a war, but I figure that I shouldn't have much issue there.

The base game Civ2 is very difficult to balance enormous empires like Britain. Some things that definitely contributed to my swift victory over Germany that you may wish to consider revising:

-I think you should consider disabling incremental rush build. It's extremely powerful for a large empire like Britain.
-Enhance the U-Boats in the Atlantic - I was never attacked by one in the entire game and have no idea where they all went.
-I think you might revisit the trade payoff as I was routinely seeing 5,000+ payouts between England and the U.S.
-You may wish to tone down British strength a bit and increase German strength in Africa either from the start or via an event when the Brits start advancing.

If you'd allow me, I'd say that you have the shell here of what can be a very fun scenario. It certainly has that "one more turn" phenomenon of most of your works. It has all the nice touches that your scenarios typically do, and the balance with art, sound, unit stats, etc. is all there. I just think it's very, very hard to balance a scenario like this with the base game. I know this is probably not feedback everyone is necessarily receptive to, but this would be a great scenario to use the lua template on... You've put an enormous amount of work into building something that is quite fun to play, but a bit easy. Some things that would be relatively easy to achieve with lua:

1. canBuild restrictions. You have units like militia which serve no other purpose than being the first thing rush built in incrementation. They ought to be the only units buildable in the far flung reaches of the Empire. Likewise, restricting tanks, aircraft, artillery and ships to cities with factories, and restricting what cities can build those factories, would prevent me from simply rush building along as I go and assembling forces the AI has no hope to counter.

2. Initiative. Lua allows one to set events "afterProduction" meaning that they will trigger on a particular tribe's turn. Thus, Barbarossa or other offensives wouldn't immediately stagnate. In my game, the Soviets slaughtered the German invasion, as that invasion began with the Soviets being allowed to move first.

3. You could reduce the MP of the neutral units each turn and cut out much of the wait between turns.

Honestly I don't think the scenario would need many more tweaks than this so you could use the events you've already built via the legacyEvents file (maybe moving a select few like Barbarossa to afterProduction in the triggerEvents file), build out an object file and the canBuild files and call it a day. There is a sample for how to do all of this with Boudicca that I would hope would be easy to use. It is achievable, Curt. You can do it and we can help!

Anyway, I had a very fun time rampaging across Europe so far and may well continue to see how fast I can beat Japan. This is all coming from a good place in an attempt to make a fun scenario even more so

 

[civ2units]

I was wondering where the Japanese army was. Now I know where they are. Thanks to air reconnaissance. During that mission I destroyed two Artillery units.

Because of heavy battles in South China, I moved most of my Artillery southwards. Moving to North could be dangerous, as the AI attacks these units with their fighters immediately.

 

[civ2units]

Just as an update for you - by August, 1941 I've knocked Italy out of the war, have a large army that conquered Marseille, have landed at Brest (although I don't know if I'll hold this one with only 2x paratroopers) and have taken Tirana. I'm researching about 1 tech per turn as lucrative trade is still going strong.

If you are building trade units, are you looking what goods are requested or do you simply sending the units to a foreign city?
Unfortunatelly I lost a lot of trade units due to Soviet air raids. Two units survived and are moving to British India.

I'm planning to send them to the biggest cities on the subcontinent.

 

[CurtSibling]

Thanks for the feedback, @JPetroski !

A few edits added to the list, like that Minsk event...It was meant to say Belorussia, I had copied the text from an old Kiev event.

You gave me food for thought, and keep in mind you are playing the non-enemy event-spewing version of the scenario.
I plan to make it much harder when playing the special faction version. This one you guys are testing was intended perhaps for MP.

As for exploits, I will make what changes I can. I guess this is where the Lua considerations come into play...
- It is something definitely for me to think about, and would mean extra planning, but we shall see...!

The Torch/Overlord techs allow the Allies an army spawned in Africa or Europe...Perhaps more useful with tougher AI foes.

Finally the events will be looked at, Germany and Russia both have Barbarossa events that fire when they gain certian techs,
seems they are both gaining them around the same turn...Or unfortunately on the others turn...! I will see what can be done.

Thanks for the playthrough on the Brits, taking the big faction through its paces...Valuable info, sir!

 

[CurtSibling]

If you are building trade units, are you looking what goods are requested or do you simply sending the units to a foreign city?
Unfortunatelly I lost a lot of trade units due to Soviet air raids. Two units survived and are moving to British India.

I'm planning to send them to the biggest cities on the subcontinent.

The British faction is nicely placed for juicy trade with the USA, and more or less rules the Atlantic so can get those liners across the sea.
Some random event-generated U-Boats will make this endeavour a bit more risky, eh?

 

[civ2units]

I would say yes.
Historically the german submarines were a real threat for the Allies until the moment Britain used radar.

 

[civ2units]

I would agree with JPetroski for using LUA scripts on this scenario. The codes JPetroski mentioned would be working very good, but only if you wish.
For me the scenario is very good as it is.

 

[civ2units]

He calls me "a dubious neighbour?"

I signed a peacy treaty for 250 gold after Soviet troops conquered Urumchi. He therefor will grant my independence even if he see China as a local province of the Sovietunion.

Unfortunately I can't fight a war on two fronts until now.

 

[JPetroski]

If you are building trade units, are you looking what goods are requested or do you simply sending the units to a foreign city?
Unfortunatelly I lost a lot of trade units due to Soviet air raids. Two units survived and are moving to British India.

I'm planning to send them to the biggest cities on the subcontinent.

I always attempt to match commodities with cities that demand it, but sometimes it makes sense to dump off a freight in a high yield trade city (like NY) that doesn't demand the commodity rather than go for an adventure finding a city that desires it.

 

[civ2units]

One trade unit is near Delhi with a size of 18. The other one near Calcutta. I hope it will give me some trade income even if the commodities are not the requested.

 

[JPetroski]

As for exploits, I will make what changes I can. I guess this is where the Lua considerations come into play...
- It is something definitely for me to think about, and would mean extra planning, but we shall see...!

The trouble with lua is scope creep because you can do so much with it it's hard to prevent yourself from doing so. It causes certain scenarios to stay unfinished for multiple years

If you did decide to play with it a bit, I'd suggest keeping it pretty simple as stated above. Even something as simple as just a regular events scenario with the power of the canBuild settings would turn Britain from an unstoppable giant who can summon an enormous army at any corner of the globe in 1 turn, into the far-flung empire that might have a lot of trade and resources but certainly didn't have a huge army and had to assemble bits and pieces of it from everywhere.

Case in point, consider this screenshot:

Spoiler :

What this screen shot with the base game indicates, is seven cities each fully capable of rush-building whatever unit I desire to start a brand new offensive against Japan without any need to transfer forces from anywhere. I can rush-build 3 lancasters, 1 mosquito, and 3 paratroopers and be in Kampot next turn. And I can then reinforce it with whatever units I want, built from the same seven cities plus Kampot itself. This is an unstoppable tidal wave for the AI, or any human opponent in an MP game. There's literally no need to keep a garrison in the east to guard against potential Japanese aggression, since I can mobilize so quickly, so I brought most of the stuff I figured could reach Africa fairly soon to Africa as soon as possible.

What this same screenshot in lua would indicate, would be 6 cities that aren't allowed to build much of anything useful - maybe freight and militia. Singapore, and Singapore alone, would be capable (in my mind anyway) of building factories (which could be achieved by requiring a city size limitation such as 8), and then building advanced weaponry (by requiring a factory for that). The game now changes. Now, a sudden Japanese attack is a real concern because it means I have limited resources to bring to bear and hopefully I left enough in the Pacific.

This same situation is found everywhere. Take Africa. I should not be able to build a huge army along this rail line, but that's exactly what I did. In my mind, Cairo and Alexandria are the only cities that ought to be able to produce much of anything useful in this photo, and that's if you're being generous. Others might say only England, Australia, and Canada should.

Spoiler :

Just using lua to make this one tweak, even while keeping the events you wrote exactly as you wrote them, would have an exceptional impact on this scenario. I've attached the object and canbuildsettings from Cold War. Note that Cold War in and of itself is a poor scenario to learn lua from because it is built with a hodge-podge of events. However, these two files do make it into @Prof. Garfield 's template, and they filled out fully for a global scenario, so I thought I'd share them with you so you can see what you would be in store for if you decided to take the plunge. Make sure you review them in an editor like Notepad++, which is free.

Towards the top (line 172), you'll see I define different locations. The coordinates in the { } are the locations of cities. In this case, certain U.S. cities. Here are three things defined from the U.S. All of their home cities, as well as the home cities where Marines will train (San Diego and Charleston) and where the airborne can train (Atlanta). With so few cities capable of fielding these elite units, they won't be everywhere in the game.

--US Specific Locations
local usHomeCities = {{192,44,0},{189,47,0},{190,62,0},{194,70,0},{196,74,0},{198,66,0},{200,72,0},
                        {200,58,0},{205,69,0},{205,61,0},{210,68,0},{209,75,0},{208,78,0},{211,77,0},{216,76,0},{216,68,0},
                        {215,61,0},{211,55,0},{216,54,0},{213,45,0},{220,52,0},{222,56,0},{220,70,0},{223,81,0},{223,71,0},
                        {225,67,0},{226,62,0},{225,51,0},{228,58,0},{229,55,0},{238,94,0},{230,52,0},{175,21,0},{160,92,0},}

local usMarinesBasicTraining = {{223,71,0},{196,74,0}}
local usAirborneBasicTraining = {{220,70,0}}

Further down, at 284, we see the U.S. unit inventory:

--USA UNITS
--Main American infantry can be built anywhere that is U.S. home soil
unitTypeBuild[object.uUSInf.id] = {location=usHomeCities}
-- US Marines can only be built in San Diego and Charleston, SC
unitTypeBuild[object.uUSMarines.id] ={location=usMarinesBasicTraining}
-- US Airborne are only built in Atlanta (Fort Benning)
unitTypeBuild[object.uUSAirborne.id] ={location=usAirborneBasicTraining}
-- US Heavy Equipment (tanks, aircraft, artillery) can only be built in home cities with a military industry.
unitTypeBuild[object.uA7Corsair.id] = {location=usHomeCities,allImprovements=object.iMilitaryIndustry}
unitTypeBuild[object.uA10ThunderboltII.id] = {location=usHomeCities,allImprovements=object.iMilitaryIndustry}
unitTypeBuild[object.uF86Sabre.id] = {location=usHomeCities,allImprovements=object.iMilitaryIndustry}
unitTypeBuild[object.uF100SuperSabre.id] = {location=usHomeCities,allImprovements=object.iMilitaryIndustry}
unitTypeBuild[object.uF4PhantomII.id] = {location=usHomeCities,allImprovements=object.iMilitaryIndustry}
unitTypeBuild[object.uF15Eagle.id] = {location=usHomeCities,allImprovements=object.iMilitaryIndustry}
unitTypeBuild[object.uF16Falcon.id] = {location=usHomeCities,allImprovements=object.iMilitaryIndustry}
unitTypeBuild[object.uF14Tomcat.id] = {location=usHomeCities,allImprovements=object.iMilitaryIndustry}
unitTypeBuild[object.uB52Stratofortress.id] = {location=usHomeCities,allImprovements=object.iMilitaryIndustry}
unitTypeBuild[object.uB1Lancer.id] = {location=usHomeCities,allImprovements=object.iMilitaryIndustry}
unitTypeBuild[object.uBradleyIFV.id] = {location=usHomeCities,allImprovements=object.iMilitaryIndustry}
unitTypeBuild[object.uM26Pershing.id] = {location=usHomeCities,allImprovements=object.iMilitaryIndustry}
unitTypeBuild[object.uM48Patton.id] = {location=usHomeCities,allImprovements=object.iMilitaryIndustry}
unitTypeBuild[object.uM60A1.id] = {location=usHomeCities,allImprovements=object.iMilitaryIndustry}
unitTypeBuild[object.uM60A3.id] = {location=usHomeCities,allImprovements=object.iMilitaryIndustry}
unitTypeBuild[object.uM1Abrams.id] = {location=usHomeCities,allImprovements=object.iMilitaryIndustry}
unitTypeBuild[object.uAH1Cobra.id] = {location=usHomeCities,allImprovements=object.iMilitaryIndustry}

You could achieve something very similar with a little bit of elbow grease. The "toe dip" I'm proposing for you with lua is mainly sitting down and documenting coordinates, and planning which cities should be able to build what. Anyway, it's your scenario and choice, but I think this would make a huge difference to games like this and Imperialism.

Also just as an aside, but I suggest swapping the Typhoon for the Tempest. The Typhoon was a mid-war plane and fairly average when it came to performance, the Tempest was a late war monster, at least at low altitude. As you have it towards the end of the line for research, it would make more sense.

I hope this is helpful and not burdensome to you

 

[CurtSibling]

@JPetroski

Great post, man - You have got my noggin jogging about how to avoid the mass unit waves possible as you describe.
I do agree that Lua would provide the options to tie certain units to improvements, and stop far flung areas being unit
generators until infrastructure has been made. Obviously factories being the key improvement here.

I have been wanting to tackle Lua, but naturally don't have years to develop this scenario, but am willing to explore!
I will have a think about what unit should be built by whom and where. This has to be tackled on a faction by faction basis.
Also I am eager to know what is needed for the average player to implement Lua? Do they need the latest version of ToTPP,
which has the framework to support it - I too am a newb when it comes to making it run.

Naturally, I can see clearly the advantages, but at the same time, I don't want to scare people away with a complex
and fiddly system to run the scenario...That said, I see very exciting potential to make the scenario really fun and
would be happy to listen to any advice, and work with you on adding some simple Lua rules, if you are game.

 

[JPetroski]

I'd be very happy to help you get started once the template is up and running, which should be soon. In the meanwhile, just think about how you'd like to implement this. You would need the latest version of ToTPP (I've been using it for years, it is perfectly stable).

Naturally, I can see clearly the advantages, but at the same time, I don't want to scare people away with a complex
and fiddly system to run the scenario...

This can be as complex or as simple as you want. Even just defining certain "core" cities where the best units come from would be a big improvement. So, Britain might be able to field their full unit roster in the U.K., Canada, Australia, and a few select cities across the globe (Singapore, Alexandria, Cape Town, etc.) and in other cities they'd be relegated to militia and maybe some of the generic types you have in the game. That's pretty intuitive and doesn't require a lot of thinking on the player's part. You could always use the writing function on the map to add a little asterisk or other symbol next to core cities, though I think it's pretty intuitive without it, frankly.

Just because all of us go overboard with lua doesn't mean you can't use a minimalist approach to it to enhance the scenario while still keeping the Civ2 "feel." Who knows, maybe that is the best approach!