SCENARIO: Age of Imperialism; 1895-1924, Deluxe Version

[El Justo]

i've played with argentina and brazil during test runs (not for v5 but earlier versions) and each present unique challenges, pretty much like you posted. brazil and argentina do get some naval advantages. brazil gets some neat cruiser and destroyer builds iirc and argentina has a beastly BB hull in one of its ports (a british BB). ground roops are lacking and pretty much on par with the neighbors. i seem to remember it being a huge challenge to make any type of headway due to the a/d values. but it could surely be done by a diligent AoI'er

 

[jlvfr]

No, intentional.

Most civilizations have two - the Colonial Military Academy, a Small Wonder buildable in any Colonial city and available early in the second Age; and the Military Academy,

Ok, thanks.

 

[Babylon746]

First of all, I'm looking very much forward to v5.0!

i've played with argentina and brazil during test runs (not for v5 but earlier versions) and each present unique challenges, pretty much like you posted. brazil and argentina do get some naval advantages. brazil gets some neat cruiser and destroyer builds iirc and argentina has a beastly BB hull in one of its ports (a british BB). ground roops are lacking and pretty much on par with the neighbors. i seem to remember it being a huge challenge to make any type of headway due to the a/d values. but it could surely be done by a diligent AoI'er

Will the Brazilian Minas Geraes dreadnought BB be in the new version?
After all, Brazil was the third (!) country in the entire world to commission a dreadnought-class ship (before Germany, Russia, France, Japan etc.), and it apparently caused quite a stir back then: Look at South American dreadnought race and Minas Geraes-class BB. I only know what's in these two articles, but it sounds like this one should definitely be in - whether as a hull (like the Argentine BBs, so they don't build 20 of them), or as a buildable unit, is your decision.

Also, maybe the Chilean Almirante Latorre BB could be moved to be available earlier? Right now the upgrade of the immobile hull is available with Super-Dreadnoughts III, while the Argentinians can upgrade their hull to the Rivadavia BB at Dreadnoughts III already. As the Almirante Latorre BBs were in service from 1915 already (at the Royal Navy, but only re-purchased by Chile in 1920), and the Rivadavia entered service in 1914, I don't think there should be that large a gap between the two. And as AoI is also a what-if scenario, I think Chile should get two hulls for later conversion, just like Argentina. Originally they ordered two Almirante Latorre class BBs, after all. Brazil should maybe even get three, as they planned to order three Minas Geraes class BBs before cancelling the third. Alternatively, Brazil could get a second class of dreadnought BBs (with one hull), as the HMS Agincourt was originally ordered by Brazil.

If all this is too much work, nevermind. But I think it would add something to the South American positions, making the naval power for the ABC countries vastly superior to the other South American positions (as it was), and even giving them a shot at challenging European powers if they want (probably only as a human player, the AI probably wouldn't be able to use these limited resources good enough).

 

[jlvfr]

Wot? V5 is coming? Daaaamn... I dove right in and selected UK. 350 turns to go... managing that large an empire is maddness!!

 

[ChaosArbiter]

Will the Brazilian Minas Geraes dreadnought BB be in the new version?
After all, Brazil was the third (!) country in the entire world to commission a dreadnought-class ship (before Germany, Russia, France, Japan etc.), and it apparently caused quite a stir back then: Look at South American dreadnought race and Minas Geraes-class BB. I only know what's in these two articles, but it sounds like this one should definitely be in - whether as a hull (like the Argentine BBs, so they don't build 20 of them), or as a buildable unit, is your decision.

Actually, the Minas Geraes is already in the game, classified as the Sao Paulo-class (Coastal) BB. Available with SD 1, it's actually quite a nice ship, and are actually buildable. Makes Brazil the strongest naval power in the region, although still quite weak compared to the Industrial nations.

 

[Babylon746]

ChaosArbiter: Didn't realise that.
All is well then.
In my opinion, SD 1 (Super-Dreadnoughts 1) may be a tad late, but that's not my decision to make. I'm sure there's a good reason for it.

 

[El Justo]

i forget the rationale for SD1 but in a lot of cases, it was when they became operational, especially for civs that did not have the personal engineering etc to build the ships. would have to look at it closely. but i know we looked at a bunch of things like launching, commissioning, sea trials, etc.

 

[Babylon746]

Some observations:
Spain can't build the Hotchkiss M1914 MG Btln, although the Civilopedia says they're supposed to, and the Maxim MG Btln Spain upgrades to it. Spain simply isn't marked as "possible nation" (don't know what exactly it's called) in the Editor for the Hotchkiss M1914 MG Btln.

Some destroyers (the generic destroyer, as well as some - but not all - civ-specific destroyers) don't turn before firing. That makes for a weird-looking attack animation, with the ship firing on an entirely different tile than it's supposed to. No big deal, but it would be great if this could be corrected too.

And as you may conclude from this, I'm currently playing a game as Spain.
It's 1905 by now; the Cuban & Filipino rebels are no more (took the Filipinos out in 1902 and the Cubans just now, when they'd shipped half of their army to Jamaica to attack the British...).
Snagged the Danish Antilles early on, and in 1904 I was "forced" to conquer Southern Italy after the French had taken Milan and Bologna.
Meanwhile, the British are busy fighting pretty much everyone (they've been at war with Germany & Austria-Hungary, France, Russia, the United States, Portugal and Hispaniola - not all at the same time though).

The next targets for Spain will be Hispaniola, Central America and Portugal. Eventually "our" former colonies shall be re-united.

 

[Tani Coyote]

Hello! I just figured I'd post a little about the new version since lately I've been playing as Italy - http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=439138

I can definitely see the thrill of a challenge as a minor country - even with a few tweaks(I gave say, the Stock Exchange and Hospital a 1 shield bonus), it is still a challenge to get a good production base going. But once it does, well, I became a mini-America. While they build irrigation, I build mines and artillery. The entire eastern Mediterranean is my oyster! (To heck with Africa)

However, with the rapid pop. growth, Colonial worker spam is very useful! I was quickly able to not only complete my Italian colonies, but make the Mahdists(though they're not in the actual version; they're a fan-tweak of mine to curb the Brits a bit)' territories fully roaded too! Given that I gave all workers 2 movement points, though, it made the task quicker. But even so, I'd definitely suggest Col. Conscript spam. Just keep building and building and building... it takes 6 workers to complete a road tile in one turn(unless I tweaked the worker job for road; not sure if I did).. even so, the Col. Conscript's value is immense, and makes it worth getting just one colony to churn these bad boys out. The immense food value of nearly every city on the map means that your worker-building city never gets depopulated in the meantime.

Whether one likes a slow steady buildup or getting right into the action, I suppose, will determine if one turns on accelerated production in the Editor.

A very nice touch with the pre-placed "King" units, though.

I also approve of your "Overseas Infantry" units... they finally make it possible for a savvy colonial player to build a good empire! It is both possible for all Europeans to build empires, and for all neutral powers to have a "Comeback." Very nice additions indeed. It is a great choice of a reward, units that could easily match the British, German, or American infantry.

One other thing, that may be a bit concerning: as Italy, I was able to tech up to the Great Discovery wonders. By building these and using the bonus to work to the next, I chained their bonuses and now am easily 6-8 techs of all the competition. It is very useful, but possibly something to look into if one wants to make the games more challenging... I suppose one could just pledge not to build them, however.

Though, it's a neat way for a minor to gain an edge on the big ones - I can monopolise all the wonders, pretty much.

Though, I do have an actual question:

Why are the close ties between Germany and Austria symbolised in the editor, but none of the others? Is it meant to prevent Russia from gobbling up Austria or?

 

[Lord Cooper]

.

ive been hoping you'd one day make either a revamped tcw, or like more modern aoi. the way you put together aoi is perfect i would say atleast 75% of the time ive spent on civ since i got it YEARS ago was on aoi and tcw. and trust me thats wayyy more time then i'd like to admit. i cant wait for the new aoi, but if you have any plans or intentions of anything like i named, even a civ4 or civ5 project thatd be awesome. keep up the good work man

 

[jlvfr]

I was playing with Brits when I read that there's a V5 coming, so I stopped. Otoh, I was going to stop anyway, because it's simply too easy to win with the UK, because of the combination of the "VP scoring" and "capture raw materials" rules. The British empire builds hundreds of crates... which means that the brith player pretty much only has to keep these flowing back to London to win. I just built defensive units in the main colonies (Egyt, SA, India), invaded Nepal and Abyssinia, counter-invaded Sian, and that's it. By the time I stopped playing I had 3 massive stacks of crates waiting to be shipped home: 150+ in India and 40+ in SA and Australia. The closest nation in points, France, was over 400 points behind me and I had 300+ turns to go. So... boring.

Is there a way to switch off these 2 rules? Otherwise, in V5, I'll just play with a minor nation for the kicks, and wait for the UK to win

 

[El Justo]

hi all. thanks for the comments. will try and run down some of the questions here and give my updates

would have to look as spanish mg assignments. iirc, it's the flc files that are off on the destroyer units. i would have to double-check that the 'rotate' flag is checked but i know we did all that before. so not sure outside of the actual gfx being out of whack.

germany and austria had a protection treaty and were essentially dragged into the first world war due to austria's intent on squashing out the underground serbian resistance (and obtaining retribution for murdering prince ferdinand). i've read accounts where germany really did not want to go to war since they had so many inter-tangled business with the english. france is another story. it was britain that germany did not want to fight and we all know how the dominoes fell in august 1914. anyhow, the gist is that germany and austria were tied together. and so they shall remain. locking others into alliances has weird and undesirable effects on the shipping/returning of raw materials. this is why there are no others locked together. i thought long and hard about locking tiny belgium with the tommies since this was the justification that the british parliament presented in 1914, ie protect the neutrality of belgium. but again, logistical issues with the AI. don't want to get into the nitty-gritty of it atm. but please trust me on this...that it is not good when too many are locked together (austria has no colonies so this is not an issue for the germanic alliance).

next up for me after the AoI revision is a cleanup of my vietnam scenario. i made promises and i rarely renege unless something catastrophic occurs. not sure after that. but that one will take a little time.

brits are not so easy to play in all games. depends a lot on what difficulty level you're playing at. harder the better for them. and it's no given with 300+ turns left. the wider thje empire, the more difficult it is to defend etc. it may seem boring at time and that's completely understandable. but at the higher levels, the AI has some bonuses that are hard to combat unless you have a crap load of units.

re my update --
been playing this portugal game and now i'm into 1908, about ready to go into the 3rd era. my goal is to push it into the 4th era. so i'm closer. nothing really sexy to report. matter of fact, i have not waged a single war and i've not been at war with anyone, all game long (by design of course). i just want to try and plow through turns, to get deep into the game to look for possible bugs and to observe. all is going exactly as planned which is outstanding. iow, right on course. time to sit and actually play has been limited for me lately with work and real life stuff. but with autumn approaching, i should have a little more time (and more importantly, the energy; it was an exhausting summer but lucrative). so hang in there everyone i'm making progress. as a sidenote, Delta Strife has been filling some much needed gfx gaps for us. look in the Units forum. there's some really nice little units for us to plug in and more work for me

 

[Babylon746]

would have to look as spanish mg assignments. iirc, it's the flc files that are off on the destroyer units. i would have to double-check that the 'rotate' flag is checked but i know we did all that before. so not sure outside of the actual gfx being out of whack.

I looked into it in the editor, and the "rotate" flag is not checked at several destroyers. Don't know about the flc files of course.
I can make a list of the destroyers (and other units, maybe there are some gunboats too with this problem) that need fixing, if that helps.

 

[Bogatyr]

Personally, I find that the game balance improves the higher you go with the difficulty level (I only play on highest). I certainly would not recommend playing any of the top civs on an easier difficulty level.

As for mutual protection pacts, the only other one I could really see working is Russia-Balkans. This would simulate the very strong alliance between Russia and Serbia. After all, just as Germany was dragged into the war by Austria, Russia was dragged in on the other side by Serbia (I'm simplifying things of course).

 

[Tani Coyote]

Since Russia and the Balkans don't have overseas possessions, that one could work. We'll just have to take El Justo's word that wonky things happen when colonial powers have locked alliances.

Though I personally disable any MPPs, since I like free range politics. Then again, I sometimes enable military alliances just to watch the lols ensue.

 

[ChaosArbiter]

Is there a way to switch off these 2 rules? Otherwise, in V5, I'll just play with a minor nation for the kicks, and wait for the UK to win

Actually, the AI *really* starts slowing down its RM Management a good ways through the game. If you're ambitious, you can invade/raid Africa and steal British/French RMs that are just sitting there. Combined with the VP Score, and depending on how good a conqueror you are (and how many RM-Generating Wonders you built), it's entirely possible you could win.

Though I personally disable any MPPs, since I like free range politics. Then again, I sometimes enable military alliances just to watch the lols ensue.

You mean enable them earlier than they are available in-game, right? Because MAs are enabled with Industrialization 2.

 

[Bogatyr]

Well, although I do think that there is some historic basis for a locked alliance between Russia and Serbia (Balkans), it might not actually make the game better. On the plus side, it could lead to realistic wars between historical coalitions: if the Ottomans or Austrians declare war on the Balkans, then they will find themselves at war with Russia too (which of course happened). However, the Russian AI tends to fight a LOT of wars, which could make the Balkans completely unviable if they were obligated to join them all. Conversely, playing as Russia is tough enough and managing an empire of that size is already difficult: a good Russian player needs to pick his/her wars very carefully. If the Balkan AI drags you into a war with Germany/France right off the bat then you could find yourself swarmed long before you have had time to build up your economy and defenses. So, on balance, I'd probably say it might not be a good idea game-wise, even if it makes some sense historically.

 

[Tani Coyote]

Hello again!

Inspired by my own historical knowledge and the movie Contagion, a thought occurred to me:

Have you ever thought of including the Spanish flu of 1918 in AoI as a plague? Killing 3% of the world's population and infecting 25%, it certainly was a memorable part of the time period, right alongside the Great War. It also, as a rare case, killed primarily young adults, doubling the horrible loss of people in 1914-1918.

Given that players will likely have devoured much of the globe by this time, as well, it is a nice little "reward" for their efforts, culling many units.

Of course, programming a plague can go horribly wrong. One time I put the Spanish flu in my own version of AoI, and it ended up killing a fair amount of my units!

You mean enable them earlier than they are available in-game, right? Because MAs are enabled with Industrialization 2.

Ah yes, I've modded my AoI so many times I often forget what's El Justo's and what's mine. I tend to enable/disable alliances on a whim, and MPPs the same.

Alliances, either way, are hilarious because they always tend to result in craziness. "Russia declared war on Central America!" ...what.

 

[El Justo]

alliances can indeed get laughable

re the spanish influenza - i actually tried to get it in there. even tried to time it. but alas, i was not able to get it to the point where i was satisfied with it. as a sidenote, my home metropolis (i grew up a stone's throw from the delaware river on the jersey side), Philadelphia, suffered miserably from the influenza. shut down the whole city, quarantines, mass deaths

back to playtesting!

 

[jlvfr]

I've started a game as Brazil, just to test it, and I've realised something: the lack of the worker actrion "clear jungle" is a serious handicap for countries with large tropical areas. Playing UK, it wasn't a big problem. But Brazil (in game) has cities smack in jungle (or half in it), which provides only 1 food; these cities are crippled, production-wise. Considering that Brazil has only 9 cities...