RtW: Add-On Pack 3 BETA for 3.17

[VeteranLurker]

Downloaded the most-recent version on July 30 to see if anything had changed, and here is what I found playing as (Nationalist) China, Global Scenario, Open Mode:

1. Open Mode, yet Nationalist and Communist China start out at war?

2. Took Bangkok, yet the culture/border surge FOR FRANCE (which was not involved in the war) kicked my units back to mainland China. It appears that culture is not quite turned off and still needs some kind of tweaking.

3. I suppose this is just an annoyance, but: the AI nations always ask for open borders even when I switch to whichever civic shuts down foreign trade. I know there are other reasons to have open borders, still you'd think they might be less inclined to ask me every turn if there is no trade benefit for them.

4. Why can my entire surface navy sail into every nation's coastal waters, including transports loaded with troops, yet my work boats cannot go there without open borders? Doesn't seem consistent (though it did help me discover that Churchill hates me... I think he might be plotting against us all!).

5. Other Stuff: in the list of nations, it would be helpful to list these as Nationalist China and Communist China, not China and China respectively. I concur with the color-issue raised for Persia and USSR. I also agree with the comments about Brazil -- without Brazilia and Manaus, Brazil is not a near-major power and that would likely be more accurate. Certainly, at least in Open Mode, Brazil could drop some settlers there and use workers to get to that point in relatively short order anyway. But Mongolia? Hardly seems worth it for this scenario. (then again, for Global, Austria and Czechoslovakia are even less viable than Mongolia would be)

Playing as China is an interesting counterpoint to playing as one of the major powers. I had to wait until I had accumulated enough artillery to take out Mao, since our infantry were evenly-matched and I didn't want to throw away half of my army just to dislodge him. But the inferior units and lack of production capacity (at least in contrast to my last game as USSR) will make this much more challenging.

 

[Dale]

I love this and can't stop playing it. But a few things are really frustrating.

1. I see you scaled the great artist's power down. I say just get rid of them altogether. In Europe it's still strong enough to just ruin a game. If the French use one--and occasionally they get one as their first great person--in Strasbourg, then Germany is instantly handicapped, and it's absolutely no fair, AI or non-AI, because it's almost impossible to get that territory back quickly, especially if you're playing with accurate historical events. I just had the AI use one in Prague in early 1937, and AI Berlin is crushed now.

What's everyone's thoughts on this?

2. Finland is often devastated and destroyed in the winter war. In fact I haven't had a game where the USSR just didn't roar through Finland before the time limit's up. This is historically unrealistic, and something should be done to give Finland a better chance at defending itself.

This is where it gets tricky. In the Europe scenarios, Finland survives the Winter War. But in the Global scenarios, Finland cumples. Make Finland more powerful and in the Europe scenarios they'll be too powerful.

3. Why are anti-air guns attacking land units? I thought those supposed to just attack air units?

The German 108 was the most versitile anti-air/anti-infantry unit in the war.

4. I personally think Japan is having it way too easy in China. I once had Japanese conquering all the way to Lhasa before even Pearl harbor, and I don't think the communist chinese ever made an impact--they're usually destroyed within a few years of the war starting.

Fixed.

5. Why does Vichy France always start with absolutely no defending troops?

Fixed.

6. I am not sure if it's just me, but the color of Persia and Russia are the same color, thus making it impossible to see the borders. I at first thought Russia was given all of that territory, which confused me, because that made no sense, until I realized it was Persian.

Fixed.

7. Where's Mongolia?

Between northern China and southern Siberia.

Had to reduce the number of Civs. Mongolia was one. Xinjiang was another.

8. Where's Beiping?

Too squashy and not the capital at the time.

9. And finally, central Brazil shouldn't be as highly populated and strong as it is here. Brasília didn't even EXIST in WW2--it was founded in 1960--so what it is doing there, and so heavily populated at that? Rio de Janeiro should be the capitol, as it was then, with central Brazil still thickly forested and sparsely populated. I also find it funny that Manaus has more people in it then New York.

Will be fixed.

10. Turn off global warming. This point should be self explanatory.

Why? If you pollute you should suffer it in the 1940's same as we're suffering it now. Just cuz it's 1940 doesn't make global warming any less a threat.

 

[Dale]

Downloaded the most-recent version on July 30 to see if anything had changed, and here is what I found playing as (Nationalist) China, Global Scenario, Open Mode:

1. Open Mode, yet Nationalist and Communist China start out at war?

Yeah, the war started before the timeline.

2. Took Bangkok, yet the culture/border surge FOR FRANCE (which was not involved in the war) kicked my units back to mainland China. It appears that culture is not quite turned off and still needs some kind of tweaking.

During the inital anarchy after taking a city, you know in Civ4 the city has ZERO culture for that period, right? Nothing I can do about that.

3. I suppose this is just an annoyance, but: the AI nations always ask for open borders even when I switch to whichever civic shuts down foreign trade. I know there are other reasons to have open borders, still you'd think they might be less inclined to ask me every turn if there is no trade benefit for them.

I won't be changing that. I'd rather an overly diplomatic AI than no AI diplomacy at all.

4. Why can my entire surface navy sail into every nation's coastal waters, including transports loaded with troops, yet my work boats cannot go there without open borders? Doesn't seem consistent (though it did help me discover that Churchill hates me... I think he might be plotting against us all!).

To stop the AI using fishing boats as scouts. And you I see.

5. Other Stuff: in the list of nations, it would be helpful to list these as Nationalist China and Communist China, not China and China respectively. I concur with the color-issue raised for Persia and USSR. I also agree with the comments about Brazil -- without Brazilia and Manaus, Brazil is not a near-major power and that would likely be more accurate. Certainly, at least in Open Mode, Brazil could drop some settlers there and use workers to get to that point in relatively short order anyway. But Mongolia? Hardly seems worth it for this scenario. (then again, for Global, Austria and Czechoslovakia are even less viable than Mongolia would be)

Two Chinas renamed. Brazil will be fixed. Austria and Czech are important to World War II as they are an important component of the "Road to War" in Europe.

 

[VeteranLurker]

Actually, no -- I have planes and subs and spies for scouting. I was trying to get my workboat from Bangkok to the fishies on the western side of the Malay Penn., and it can't get out of Bangkok through British borders. I could send a workboat from the Philippines I suppose, or wait until UK declares war and I can take Singapore.

About the culture/border thing, I can understand border-collapse during the anarchy phase -- but this is instantaneous upon taking the city. So, one moment my stack sits outside Bangkok, then the city falls, the next moment my stack is back in China (except of course for the one victorious unit). Too bad this can't be delayed until the next turn. It must be a proximity/cultural-strength thing, or maybe a civ-has-been-destroyed feature, since my campaign in the Dutch East Indies did not result in any major land-grabs by the uninvolved neighbors (the Dutch were not eliminated from the game yet either).

How are the Global and European/Pacific scenarios 'connected' game-wise (the historic connection is obvious)? In an earlier version I played the European Scenario as Finland and had the USSR completely on the run. I cannot imagine playing Finland in the Global Scenario, as they simply do not have enough units/production to make a go of it (at least not without external help, which of course the AI would be unlikely to be effective at). Since they are separate scenarios, why can't say a few units be added to Finland-Global without affecting Finland-Euro-Scenario?

 

[sk8er AG]

Somethings i've noticed playing global assault-
1. Vichy france does not appear after france is conquered by Germany
2.Asia, India, and Africa are capable of producing vast amounts of armor, aircraft and artillery.
As Italy my allies and I were beatn after declaring war on russia, who had massive stacks of T34s.
There seems to be a similar prob. w/ warships as battleships can be produced in 4-5 turns.
Couldnt this be solved by increasing the amount of hammers required to build factories and the units they produce. Most Western cities could contian vehicle factories, aircraft factories ect. and leave those out in parts of asia and africa.
3.Capitals and religions can be changed at anytime. britian moved its capital to the Seuz. and france moved theres to Africa as well.
4.Nationalist Spain does not appear, there is only unhappiness in cities supposed to be under Franco.
5.Italy does not declare war on greece until 1941 this leaves Italy to focus on Africa and capture Egypt.
couldnt Greece be strengthnd and allow have italy declare war in 1940.
6.japanese infantry seems weak compared to chinas. also japan has almost no way of obtaining armor tho china does. shouldtnt japan start with some armoured force.

 

[deanej]

@VereranLurker: I think Dale thought you meant something like giving their units a boost (which would affect the Europe maps as they use the same mod) instead of simply having them start with more units.

 

[Dale]

Somethings i've noticed playing global assault-
1. Vichy france does not appear after france is conquered by Germany
2.Asia, India, and Africa are capable of producing vast amounts of armor, aircraft and artillery.
As Italy my allies and I were beatn after declaring war on russia, who had massive stacks of T34s.
There seems to be a similar prob. w/ warships as battleships can be produced in 4-5 turns.
Couldnt this be solved by increasing the amount of hammers required to build factories and the units they produce. Most Western cities could contian vehicle factories, aircraft factories ect. and leave those out in parts of asia and africa.
3.Capitals and religions can be changed at anytime. britian moved its capital to the Seuz. and france moved theres to Africa as well.
4.Nationalist Spain does not appear, there is only unhappiness in cities supposed to be under Franco.
5.Italy does not declare war on greece until 1941 this leaves Italy to focus on Africa and capture Egypt.
couldnt Greece be strengthnd and allow have italy declare war in 1940.
6.japanese infantry seems weak compared to chinas. also japan has almost no way of obtaining armor tho china does. shouldtnt japan start with some armoured force.

Always use the latest version. The points you raise refer to any earlier version.

 

[Dale]

Actually, no -- I have planes and subs and spies for scouting. I was trying to get my workboat from Bangkok to the fishies on the western side of the Malay Penn., and it can't get out of Bangkok through British borders. I could send a workboat from the Philippines I suppose, or wait until UK declares war and I can take Singapore.

About the culture/border thing, I can understand border-collapse during the anarchy phase -- but this is instantaneous upon taking the city. So, one moment my stack sits outside Bangkok, then the city falls, the next moment my stack is back in China (except of course for the one victorious unit). Too bad this can't be delayed until the next turn. It must be a proximity/cultural-strength thing, or maybe a civ-has-been-destroyed feature, since my campaign in the Dutch East Indies did not result in any major land-grabs by the uninvolved neighbors (the Dutch were not eliminated from the game yet either).

How are the Global and European/Pacific scenarios 'connected' game-wise (the historic connection is obvious)? In an earlier version I played the European Scenario as Finland and had the USSR completely on the run. I cannot imagine playing Finland in the Global Scenario, as they simply do not have enough units/production to make a go of it (at least not without external help, which of course the AI would be unlikely to be effective at). Since they are separate scenarios, why can't say a few units be added to Finland-Global without affecting Finland-Euro-Scenario?

The scenarios are all "linked" as they use the same unit infos file. With everyone's strong push to have everything so "historically accurate" this puts me in the dilema of Finland needing way more units that it actually had (accuracy is reflected now by the number of units).

The reason Global is so hard for Finland is due to the massive prod capabilities of USSR. Remember in Civ, territory is key to production. The more territory, the more production. That's a fundamental of Civ though, and nothing I can change.

So what would you do? Keep it historically accurate, or move away from historical accuracy for the sake of fun gameplay?

 

[Fanaza]

Why? If you pollute you should suffer it in the 1940's same as we're suffering it now. Just cuz it's 1940 doesn't make global warming any less a threat.

Well the main reason is that Global Warming's impact hasn't been near solid enough to validate turning entire plots of land into deserts until a few decades after the 2nd world war. I'm not saying it was nonexistent during WW2--temperature models do show a jump in temperature during the 1940's, though this was mostly due to solar activity, not CO2--it was just not impacting the world near as strongly as it is in this mod. And I agree with everything else you said. I just found it unusual that Beiping was mentioned in one of the movies, yet nonexistent on the map.

 

[notque]

Nationalist Spain, or North Spain starts with no Infantry. At least one infantry per city makes sense (especially when they have navel units, and subs, but no men.)

 

[danny_knox07]

hey i love civ beyond the sword road to war and i just discovered this beta test thing, but which one do i download ? beta 1 , 2, or 3 ?

Soz im a complete noob lol

 

[sk8er AG]

hey i love civ beyond the sword road to war and i just discovered this beta test thing, but which one do i download ? beta 1 , 2, or 3 ?

Soz im a complete noob lol

try downloading 3

 

[Dale]

hey i love civ beyond the sword road to war and i just discovered this beta test thing, but which one do i download ? beta 1 , 2, or 3 ?

Soz im a complete noob lol

Hey Danny nice to see you.

If you have unlimited downloads, get Beta3 and then the next version next week, otherwise wait a couple of days for the next version which I'll be uploading on the weekend.

 

[Dale]

Nationalist Spain, or North Spain starts with no Infantry. At least one infantry per city makes sense (especially when they have navel units, and subs, but no men.)

I'm sorry, you are mistaken. This has been since the first inclusion of SCW that any units in Nationalist cities convert to Nationalist.

 

[sk8er AG]

i downloaded beta 3 (im guessing the most modern) and scw in global assualt for some reason still dosent occur though the page about its begining does. i havent gont far enough to see if vichy france does appear

 

[Chamboozer]

I'm sorry, you are mistaken. This has been since the first inclusion of SCW that any units in Nationalist cities convert to Nationalist.

Wow, I hadnt realized the extreme size differences between the three maps (Global, Europe, Huge Europe) untill looking at those screenshots.

 

[Omathaar]

The reason Global is so hard for Finland is due to the massive prod capabilities of USSR. Remember in Civ, territory is key to production. The more territory, the more production. That's a fundamental of Civ though, and nothing I can change.

So what would you do? Keep it historically accurate, or move away from historical accuracy for the sake of fun gameplay?

I say give Finland more troops in the Global scen - I think we care more about historically accurate results than historically accurate setup, cause we just can't have exactly historically accurate setup, cause Russia's territory wasn't as powerful in real life as it is in RTW. But as long as we feel reasonably like "If I had made these choices in WWII, then this would probably really have happened," I think that'll satisfy a lot of the historical wants.

 

[Dale]

I say give Finland more troops in the Global scen - I think we care more about historically accurate results than historically accurate setup, cause we just can't have exactly historically accurate setup, cause Russia's territory wasn't as powerful in real life as it is in RTW. But as long as we feel reasonably like "If I had made these choices in WWII, then this would probably really have happened," I think that'll satisfy a lot of the historical wants.

The only problem I have with that theory (matching history) is that I didn't want RtW to match history. If I wanted to play scripted history, I'd play certain other mods which script history and force the play to follow history.

 

[notque]

I'm sorry, you are mistaken. This has been since the first inclusion of SCW that any units in Nationalist cities convert to Nationalist.

I am saying that the Nationalist cities start out with no infantry, but with navel units.

I.E. before the war even begins there are no infantry in their cities, but there is infantry in the Republican cities.

 

[notque]

To say it again. When you load the game from the beginning, there are no infantry in the Nationalist cities (I think one city had infantry)