Scenario: 1860 on GEM

[Adhesive86]

I think you should compromise slightly as I don't think these are any more of a compromise than those you have made to have a scenario where for instance Holland has to own Belgium or Hungary owns Romania.

To have Japan, Prussia, Italy unified is less of a stretch and indeed it would be ahistorical if this doesn't happen after a few years in the game. What's the alternative? Minor nations? If this was the case then all nations not strictly accurately represented should be minor, such as Romania in the WW2 scenario, so I think the logic is fine for you to make some sensible adjustments to the historical snapshot, given the benefit of history.

Ps Great news on this scenario, it looks really good!!

 

[Genghis_Kai]

Yes. Quite true. May be I can keep just one or two cities for minor nations and make Prussia, Italy and Japan to start with a larger army to much sure they take over these remaining cities.

 

[Bastian-Bux]

Can events be used for such unifications? Europa Universalis makes heavy use of events, though I don't know how flexible Civ4s event engine is.

 

[Adhesive86]

Haven't played that since EU2. Good game though!

I seem to remember something about python scripts, but even if it can be done i don't think many people how to do this. I remember Traiano put in a request for someone to work to trigger a Mongol invasion, but apparently the queue was months long? If anyone can do this though, it might be a good idea, although I must say that playing Europa Universalis it was at times a little annoying to know that the game engine would do certain things to your nation/civ regardless.

Edit: see 1205 Scenario, post 63, pg 4

 

[Genghis_Kai]

It is certainly possible to add python scripts for events. Many mods are doing that. But it is not something I am familiar with nor something I wish to spent time working on.

And by the way, do we wish to see "Prussia" or "Germany" in this scenario? Prussia is probably more historical (still a few more years before Germany is unified), but I can see Germany will be a better name in the long run.

 

[Agent327]

I'd go with Prussia, though. Germany until 1945 was a Prussia-dominated Germany at best: it was the largest state and they dominated the army (and certainly the officer corps). It was only in 1949 that (West-) Germany became a truly federal state, which wouldn't have been possible without the destruction of Prussia in 1945 by the Allies (the name Prussia was de facto erased from the map). So, although "Germany" is the better known name, Prussia is the more accurate one. (And prior to 1870-'71 there never was any "Germany", despite what German nationalists would like to believe.)

 

[Bastian-Bux]

Very hard to say Kai.

1860 the german issue wasn't decided yet. Sure Prussia was clearly on the way to dominate Germany. BUT: Austria was still strong.

The real decision about Germanies future was made in 1862: Bismarck was made chancellor of Prussia.

He was the one who stimulated the three most important events that lead to the german unification: the german-danish war 1864, the austrian-prussian war 1866 and the prussian/german-french war 1871.

So for 1860 I'd suggest one of the following setups:

- Prussia and Austria in the borders of 1860, some buffer states inbetween, first come, first conquer

- Germany and Austria in the borders of 1871 (so 11 years early)

Prussia should be on the way to become one of the strongest economical powers of the world, with the south german buffer states as well as Austria lagging behind.

 

[Genghis_Kai]

I have been working quite hard on this scenario lately.

The more I read about the history during this age, the more interesting it is I found. I would say playing most of the nations in this scenario will have quite a unique experience. I shall write some description of the nations here before I forget what I have encompassed :

Britain: ~70 cities. Greatest naval power on Earth, yet there are many challenges. You have Canada and Australia yet to be populated. Your colonies are everywhere on earth meaning your problems are also everywhere. Indian rebellions, Boers, Zulus and many other "barbarians" are all enemies of yours. You are also at war with China.

France: ~25 cities. Second to Britain. Have the largest army. You are about to invade Mexico and are expanding your colonies in Africa and Indochina. You are also at war with China.

Russia: ~50 cities. Invading Turkestan. Still possess Alaska. Technology is relatively behind.

Austria: 8 cities. One of the great powers. Technology is relatively behind.

Prussia: 7 cities. Unifying Germany. In the north, Hamburg is under the control of Denmark; in the south, Stuttgart and Munich are still independent.

Italy: 4 cities. Unifying Italy. In the north, Venice is under the control of Austria; in the south, Nepal and Palermo are still independent.

Spain: ~20 cities. Still possess Philippines, Cuba and quite a few islands around the globe. Technology is relatively behind.

Portugal: 14 cities. Have a lot of fragmented colonies. Technology is relatively behind.

Netherlands: 13 cities. Mainly colonizing Indonesia.

Denmark: 7 cities. The smallest colonial powers. Yet, it still possess a city in west Africa and another in Caribbeans.

Ottoman: ~25 cities. Have Egypt as a vassal. Some trouble arises from Arab as a rebellion force. Technology is behind the west.

China: ~45 cities. If including the cities under rebellion, you are the most populous nation on Earth. You also have Joseon as a vassal. Most of your time and effort will be fighting the Taiping and many other rebellions from all around your territories. Britain and France have also declared war on you (Second Opium War). Technology is way behind the west.

Japan: ~6 cities. Meiji reformation has just started. Two cities in the north are still independent. Technology is way behind the west.

United States: ~15 cities. Fighting the Civil Wars with the Confederacy and at the same time, the Sioux in the wild west. Adopted Emancipation, Free Speech and Free Religion.

Confederate States: ~8 cities. Adopted Slavery.

Morocco, Arabia, Siam, Sokoto, Abyssinia, Zulu and Sioux: 3-5 cities. Technology is way way behind the west. Almost hopelessly waiting for slaughter. Yet, if you are looking for challenges, this will be it. They will start out with a significant number of army so that they won't be destroyed too easily at the beginning.


To be continue...

 

[Adhesive86]

Kai,

I think you're about to ruin my final year at university!

 

[Clonefusion]

Hi,

where can i download this scenario ?

 

[Genghis_Kai]

Is in progress.

 

[Fish dude]

Hi Genghis,

I'm new at this forum, but have been playing and reading your scenario's and threads for a while now. My favorite is the 1500AD scenario, but i am very interested in this one. I hope it is nearly finished so we can start testplaying. Sadly, i'm kind of addicted to GEM...

 

[Genghis_Kai]

The scenario is about 80% completed. I've been distracted by other things lately and I wil also traveling in the coming Christmas/NY break. Most likely, a playable version would be no earlier than Mid Jan.

 

[ijnavy]

Sounds great, can't wait to play it.
80 cities!!! That's going to be hard to control. I think that you make Canada and Australia and they should be very friendly and vassals of Great Britain. Deciding what to build in 80 different cities will be very hard and almost impossible to play.
I think that even 45 cities is a little too much.

 

[Adhesive86]

Sounds great, can't wait to play it.
80 cities!!! That's going to be hard to control. I think that you make Canada and Australia and they should be very friendly and vassals of Great Britain. Deciding what to build in 80 different cities will be very hard and almost impossible to play.
I think that even 45 cities is a little too much.

Excellent point, but then you're faced with this anyway if you're trying for a domination/conquest victory. I suppose it is personal choice, one might say that if you don't want to control so many cities then pick one of the other civs. Certainly I generally don't play Russia or USA in the 1940 scenario for this reason and rather pick someone like Spain, Finland or Greece as a better challenge.

One thing that might help provide the choice of how to play UK would be to have spare slots for vassals so that the UK could choose to give independence to Australia or Canada. I noticed when playing 1940 with Spain (I had taken French Africa and UK mainland) that whilst the vassal option was available it initiated a crash, I guess as the maximum civs were still in play. (pretty hard to eliminate all of France or UK when they're all over the world and Brazil keeps annoyingly commencing seaborne invasions into Dakar!)

 

[Genghis_Kai]

Excellent point, but then you're faced with this anyway if you're trying for a domination/conquest victory. I suppose it is personal choice, one might say that if you don't want to control so many cities then pick one of the other civs. Certainly I generally don't play Russia or USA in the 1940 scenario for this reason and rather pick someone like Spain, Finland or Greece as a better challenge.

One thing that might help provide the choice of how to play UK would be to have spare slots for vassals so that the UK could choose to give independence to Australia or Canada. I noticed when playing 1940 with Spain (I had taken French Africa and UK mainland) that whilst the vassal option was available it initiated a crash, I guess as the maximum civs were still in play. (pretty hard to eliminate all of France or UK when they're all over the world and Brazil keeps annoyingly commencing seaborne invasions into Dakar!)

While I totally agree with Adhesive on the point about controlling a large number of cities (this is why we play GEM is it not?), the number of cities for the British Empire has been reduced to 68 for other reasons.

I have removed quite a lot of cities in Canada and Australia mainly because there are a lot of places still haven't developed yet in 1860. It would therefore make Britain a lot more busy in colonizing and not trying to invade any other European powers. This is something difficult to simulate initially because given the size of Britain, it would make it easy to take over the entire Europe! But I thought this didn't happen in history and there must be a reason. I think it is because Britain already has too many to digest.

 

[Agent327]

It would therefore make Britain a lot more busy in colonizing and not trying to invade any other European powers. This is something difficult to simulate initially because given the size of Britain, it would make it easy to take over the entire Europe! But I thought this didn't happen in history and there must be a reason. I think it is because Britain already has too many to digest.

A more direct reason would be that Britain's army never was as impressive as its navy; the British were defeated by a forme colony in the late 18th century and the late 19th century South African Boer Wars were only won by the ruthless use of concentration camps and the inpour of additional military after initial defeats. Lack of military manpower was still an issue in 1940, with the threat of invasion by the Third Reich.

 

[Adhesive86]

A more direct reason would be that Britain's army never was as impressive as its navy; the British were defeated by a forme colony in the late 18th century and the late 19th century South African Boer Wars were only won by the ruthless use of concentration camps and the inpour of additional military after initial defeats. Lack of military manpower was still an issue in 1940, with the threat of invasion by the Third Reich.

Exactly. Britain's defence and imperial strategy was based on sea power. As an island it wasn't necessary for us to have the same land forces as say France or Prussia. All we needed was to stop them ever being able to get across the channel, which we did very well. This leant itself very nicely to forming a wide seafaring empire, enabling us to steal and sever colonies off from our European rivals as well as servicing our own colonies very well.

Major land wars (with industrialised enemies) were a weak point and eventually the UK's undoing. The UK's strategic reliance on naval power allowed Germany to quickly get the upper hand on us out of nowhere in less than a decade prior to WW2 as the rise of aircraft reduced the importance of naval power. Accordingly Britain for all its empire could do next to nothing to stop a German land offensive in Europe and indeed the same thing happened with the quick rise of Napoleon, only defeated as was Hitler by a large coalition.

As to how naval superiority plays out in the scenario? Could be interesting as it's quite easy to load into a galleon, travel the channel and unload in one turn from France. It will be hard to leverage the UK's naval power in the same manner in civ and so I guess more attention will have to be paid to European neighbours at home if playing as the UK.

 

[Genghis_Kai]

I agree with both of you. Having superior navy and not so strong army is the 'direct' reason for Britain not choosing to take over Continental Europe but colonizing the rest of the world. But I would also consider this as the 'surface' reason.

Why didn't Britain develop a better army? Is it because it can't, or is it because it doesn't willing to? I think we all agree it is the later. Given that in the Victorian age Britain is the only true superpower, it is not hard to imagine that if Britain wish to put it's resources in developing a better army, it wouldn't be too hard to do so. Alternatively, Britain put it's resources on navy because it is more profitable to further develop the colonies, as compared to conquer land from Europe. And to protect these long distanced colonies, have a better navy is far more important than a better army. Given also the island situation of British Isles, Britain is able to choose this option.

Going back to Civ, what I would like to simulate is exactly this incentive for Britain. If Britain has already controlled all of Australia, India, Canada and the British colonies in Africa, I as the player would definitely spend all my resources to develop a much better army and go for Europe! Why waiting for my rivalries to develop if I can destroy them early? Only because I am not able to and/or that I have better potential than my rivalries.

Moreover, when I read more closer to the history of the colonies, the more I realize that sometimes the so called territories are just lands that are claimed by Britain. There could be indigenous people living there and the Britain haven't developed anything there yet.

So my conclusion is that it is imbalanced and not historical to give all of the land claimed by Britain with full of cities. Instead, Britain will need to continue to place settlers to expand the colonies and at the same time, fighting with various indigenous civs. Only this setting can divert the attention of a human or a AI Britain in this scenario.

 

[Adhesive86]

Going back to Civ, what I would like to simulate is exactly this incentive for Britain. If Britain has already controlled all of Australia, India, Canada and the British colonies in Africa, I as the player would definitely spend all my resources to develop a much better army and go for Europe! Why waiting for my rivalries to develop if I can destroy them early? Only because I am not able to and/or that I have better potential than my rivalries.

Moreover, when I read more closer to the history of the colonies, the more I realize that sometimes the so called territories are just lands that are claimed by Britain. There could be indigenous people living there and the Britain haven't developed anything there yet.

So my conclusion is that it is imbalanced and not historical to give all of the land claimed by Britain with full of cities. Instead, Britain will need to continue to place settlers to expand the colonies and at the same time, fighting with various indigenous civs. Only this setting can divert the attention of a human or a AI Britain in this scenario.

Sounds like a very good plan. Looking forward to it.

It will be interesting to see how viable it is to launch an offensive INTO the UK from Europe, as I might expect that in the age before flight and transports that this might be relatively easy.