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

[El Justo]

maybe i'll try and pair them together in a later test run. there'd be no stat revisions or anything. so yeah, it's a pretty easy thing to plug-and-try.

update 2/24
i managed to get almost 3 era's worth of songs into the Build folder. all went well until i would get to track #39. it played...and played...and played in a continuous loop, track 39 (Lullaby by George Gershwin). i was finally able to pinpoint this after running a few trials. so, with that said, i won't have any type of cap on songs...why should i? i can merge tracks together and chop away at the overall track count. this lead me to merge a bunch together, based off of the year each track was written. this makes it real easy to line up in the folder and also the text file.this also means that there will be a track for each year (1895 through 1924) of the scenario (at minimum). some years have multiple tracks merged onto one mp3 file. there are a bunch that have only one track per year. i've gotten up to 1918 on the 'merging' of files.

of course, it's not easy picking the right tracks...listening through many, many songs before deciding. i've even branched slightly outside of the Tin Pan Alley genre, although still well within the so-called "Popular Music" of the day. tinkering with the sound settings lets me do a little more. and in-game, they sound really nice, better than v4.0, more ambient which is exactly what i'm aiming for.

 

[El Justo]

update 2/24 cont'd

i've been testing the new Build folder through the belgium game. all was quiet for nearly a decade until Jerry declared war on me in late 1904. i had been giving in to all tributes all along. so everyone thought i was just swell, except for the Germans. they picked off 2 of my col cav units that were stationed along my road net. that was about it in the Congo. they launched a half-ass alt on two of my VP spots that i'm entrenched in. they lost (although they did nick down a few of my units, no losses for me on the continent though). they really did me in though when they destroyed almost my entire navy while anchored on the shores of the north sea down went 6 protected cruisers and a half dozen TRs. there was nothing i could do...as the german battleships pasted my tiny little ships fortunately for me, i did not have any units aboard the TRs when they went down. they were (and still are) stationed in brussells, only a turn or two away from embarking for the Colonies in Africa. a pile of infantry, cav, some engineers, and some newer arty pieces. i counter-attacked the next turn against some german units in holland and popped an alite infantry. very next turn i did the same thing with the elite and popped an army. they are so dead i may try and dislodge them from some french VPs that they took earlier. we'll see. eventually though, i want to send the army to the colonies to kick some ass down there. but i dare not move on the open waters until a cease fire is reached with Jerry. they continue to refuse to negotiate. so be it then...i'll continue to pick off their stray RMs in my territories in Africa. i finally got a fair shake from the british and french for RoPs (free of charge). so this freed me up to pursue Jerry past my boundaries. i've captured something like 40 RMs. this'll go a long way in the VP race for me. i need to get that cease fire, rebuild my navy (only 2 ships still floating, some pre-1895 torpedo boats outside of Leopoldville), and then haul that army out of brussells.

the germans would have absolutely smoked me if they weren't so distracted with other wars. i mean, their man power is clearly diluted and they haven't been able to generate any kind of real push against me (outside of the sneaky first turn stuff). they would have to channel their forces to dislodge me from either of my locales; plus, i'm using arty to red-line them as they wander through my territory. once red-lined, i attack and generated a bunch of vets in the colonies. vet units go a long way abroad, don't they ??

i'll be honest : i forgot how much fun this game is to play and how nicely everything is presented. i'm gonna keep goin' with this belgium test. i want to get to the point where i can lay some wood on someone and try to stay top5 in VPs.

 

[Tani Coyote]

Basic recap of my French game, continued; I need to get a formal AAR going. So far I’ve just been taking notes of anything important in the hopes of making a more history book-esque story.

Shortly after the British War ended with a stalemate, I was just working on getting improvements rolling with minimal unit production… and then I about to wet myself when I see this:



Knowing all too well what the AI was planning, I got a rep hit-free DoW by asking Russia to leave. I immediately realized I had to strike fast and strike hard; they had a stack of Cossacks guarded by only 2 Infantry. Knocking those out made the defense feasible, but it was still a desperate battle since I had yet to build up a large artillery stockpile.

Spoiler :

As you can see, they had virtually no end to their manpower for several turns. The only reason I probably held on so well was my “funnel” strategy. By leaving the French rear underdefended and the frontier cities heavily-guarded, the Russians opted to try and go around… this almost turned lethal for me, since I didn’t have the number of units necessary to destroy what went past Nancy and Paris.

In the end, we came out ahead. We killed about 60 Russian units and lost only 1 or 2 of our own. Gotta love that arty (and the fact the almighty Russian Cossack becomes a sitting duck if you hit it before it hits you). A useful tactic I found was using raw materials as bait to draw the enemy into the countryside, where artillery could concentrate on the smaller stacks to wipe them out. I could then fortify all my units in one or two cities to provide an adequate defense.

Like with Britain, I just barely scraped by due to a lot of loans and rushing (not to mention the quick shipping of a relief column in from Africa). War debt wasn’t as high as a percent of GDP as with the British invasion, but it was still a pretty dire conflict.

In the end though, we definitely came out ahead… lots of veteran/elite units. Getting a Corps in Europe was a huge plus to the war, as it put me at ease about defending the three points of entry (Nancy, Paris, Marseilles). Our culture war with Italy and Spain went well enough prior to the war that now only Cavalry can attack Paris and Marseilles in a single turn; Nancy is the most vulnerable by far and so gets the most defenses.

Once Russia was bested, we resumed France’s peaceful rise… though I made sure to rush units here or there to deter another European war. All the while, my main priority was bolstering Chad’s defenses – there was no way I was going to cede any more land to the Brits or anyone else.

As news arrived that Germany was slowly losing ground in Africa while the Americans marched across Canada, I decided it was time to get the vengeance I had promised the French people.

In the end, we took Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Gibraltar, Hong Kong, Burma, and Malaya. I’d say our humiliation in the past was more than avenged.



The main time Britain had my hairs standing on end was when they launched a clever counterattack. While my boys were out on campaign in Malay, they landed a doomstack of 12 Cavalry on the hills outside Burma. At the same time, the weakly-guarded West African coast saw a dozen units landed outside there as well. While in Africa it was no problem getting troops and artillery to demolish the British before going back to re-fortify the border (our strategy was to absorb British counterattacks and then advance further against them once they showed depleted manpower), in southeast Asia most of my forces were on the offensive in Malaya and would be of no use in a Burmese defense. Luckily I was able to crack Kuala Lumpur and send a few spare units to fortify Burma while using artillery to make the Cavalry less imposing. In the end, both invasions were a failure, and the Brits never again posed such a threat.

Spoiler :

In the end, Britain lost, and lost hard. I wiped out their West African presence (Nigeria in particular has some potent production centers), held off their offensives against Djibouti and Madagascar (the latter was especially desperate given I had no artillery there, but their small attacks were easily absorbed), and also eliminated much of their presence in Southeast Asia.

Back in Europe, I hit the Brits especially hard. My artillery stacks tore through countless ships, with all the sunken transports sending dozens of units to the bottom. Following that, my small but potent Liberte-class BBs gained the upper hand and were able to ravage the whole southern coastline. When the Brits attempted to repair the damage, I sent Home Guardsmen on suicide missions across the Channel to kill any Engineers who were on the coast. The Kriegsmarine and French Navy clearly ruled the European waters by the time I dropped out of the war; I had 28 capital ships, most of them modern and new, and Britain had only 20, most of them prior generations and a lot of them not even in Europe.

Overall, I seem to be going for a more “Machiavellian” game. I’m more interested in being able to control and respond to any situation rather than just gobbling up everyone around me. I do intend to eventually invade Germany, Italy and the Lowlands purely to seize Brussels, Strasbourg and Milan (Napoleon’s legacy is calling us, after all), but I’m quite enjoying balance of power politics over pure conquest.

Which raises the question of what to do about the American acquisition of Canada…

 

[El Justo]

nice report. and impressive actions against the British. they are not easy to dislodge.

you could also look to India as well, now that you have a better foothold in SE Asia.

 

[Tani Coyote]

Thank you!

I owe a lot to their war with Germany in Africa, and a lot to Tibet in Asia. That single mountain pass between India and China is a life or death holding, as a neutral Tibet is all that keeps Britain from conquering all of East Asia. In my experience though, the Turks always seem to end up conquering a good chunk of India.

Even despite these distractions though, my spies reporting the British had 400 or so Colonial Cavalry was pretty terrifying. Fortunately my rail system was developed enough I was able to attack any units they sent into my territory before they could really be used. The only real success Britain had was wiping out a 4-unit stack that was on the border and out of moves. Other than that, myself and the other co-belligerents knocked them down to 250 or so cavalry.

Another major component is the fact the AI is incompetent with raw material collection. Based on how the British numbers were dropping, they were using Cavalry units to escort raw materials home, so as I sunk those transports, they lost copious amounts of manpower that could have been used against me or Germany.

With regards to future moves...

Once Britain was humbled, I desired to consolidate my position in SE Asia.



Siam had been my little buddy for a few years, but now that I had finished a railway through their territory, they had no more use. Every offensive unit and artillery piece I had in the region was thrown at them. I didn't take their capital at first because they had so many units.

As luck would have it, though, next turn they sent almost all their healthy units out on campaigns against my cities, leaving Bangkok's garrison skeletonized. I quickly crushed what was left of that, then used my artillery and railways to deadly effect to vaporize what they had in my territory. After that it was a quick march to Nakhon, and that was that for the Siamese. Minimal losses on my end, and a consolidated position in Siam. With Bangkok, I gained a valuable production center that I am currently using to finally rebuild the French Pacific fleet (which was absolutely curbstomped by Britain at the start of the game).

With Madagascar secure and Africa/Indochina pretty consolidated, where was I to strike? I still had use for good relations with Germany, the Lowlands and Italy, and planned to keep it that way until a European war broke out that would reduce their unit strength.

The Americas would be a fine location... but ah, that pesky Monroe Doctrine...



I decided to sneak several dozen units in to Cuba to help the Spanish suppress their rebellion in exchange for a base there...

Uncle Sam being busy invading the British Caribbean (having just finished off Canada), he paid me no mind.



His mistake. My Naval Infantry aren't superb, but Tampa was so weakly-defended we forced a landing and fortified the city in a single turn.

Since the USN has gained 3 more port cities since the fall of Canada, they can easily overpower any single European power if they are allowed to realize their full economic potential. All the men they lost taking Canada will likewise soon be replenished.

I won't let that happen. We French gave the US its independence... and we will be taking it back now.

 

[El Justo]

i can't wait to see how the try to roll on you down there. nice!

 

[big_papa50]

Not sure if anyone else has had this issue, but it could be unique to me due to editing. My issue is that once I get about 40-60 turns into the game, my cities stop producing units. Everything is normal except that the unit does not show up. The production pop up appears and says I produced a unit, but the unit does not show up. certain cities will continue to produce units, but many do not. Any ideas about what the cause could be?

 

[El Justo]

Hi there. Do you get crashes? Could you elaborate on the edits that you made? Knowing what you changed could help me fix it

 

[big_papa50]

Thanks for responding. I edited mostly units (additional movement points, increased attack, reduced defense) and also added shields to many of the resources. I expanded a few of the Pacific islands with extra land tiles and resources. I removed corruption completely. I lowered some of the defensive bonuses for terrain etc and I increased the spawn rate of some of the wonders that produce units. The only other thing I changed was to remove some of the governmental requirements for building certain wonders.

I have not had any crashed at all. Is it possible that there is a limit to the overall number of units on the map? This is my favorite mod so I am really hoping to get it working. Thanks for your time.

 

[Civinator]

I have not had any crashed at all. Is it possible that there is a limit to the overall number of units on the map?

Hi big_papa50, it seems you run inti the MUA (Maximum Units Allowed) The map in C3C can not hold more than 8192 units (4096 in Civ 3 PTW).

 

[big_papa50]

Alright so I am thinking you are correct about the unit limit. That makes the most sense to me. So instead of re-editing everything, I deleted all the files related to AoI and downloaded everything again. Now I am having issues getting it to work properly. I have Civ3 Complete and I extracted the files and the map to the conquests/scenarios file. All the files seem to be in the correct place, but when I open the game and try to find the AoI file in the civ-content there is no AoI. Also, when I open the map in the map editor program, it does not appear to be correct because the map is the base civ3 terrain and everything. In other words, I don't think the map and the AoI files are linked up correctly. Any idea what I did wrong?

 

[El Justo]

The AoI folder isn't in the right directory if it's not showing the terrain in the editor. I was going to post yesterday that you could simply plug in the patched exe file that eliminates the max unit allowed thing. We would hit that often during testing. If you saved the biq you had been using, you can patch in that exe file and pick up where u left off...

 

[big_papa50]

Nevermind I figured it out.

 

[big_papa50]

Ok so at the risk of becoming an annoyance, I have another issue. Just had a load error that says file not found, Art\Units\Belgian Cavalry\..\US Cavalry\CavalryDefault.flc

Any ideas what is causing that? Thanks for answering all my questions!

 

[kadavrali]

Hİ EL Justo
great news for v5.0
when can we get v5.0?

 

[El Justo]

Ok so at the risk of becoming an annoyance, I have another issue. Just had a load error that says file not found, Art\Units\Belgian Cavalry\..\US Cavalry\CavalryDefault.flc

Any ideas what is causing that? Thanks for answering all my questions!

you're going to have to go into the Belgian Cav folder and fix the ...\ directories. i don't have it in front of me atm. however, it's pretty simple to do. you just need to line up the unit animations for the US Cavalry unit inside the Belgian Cavalry unit folder, specifically in the ini text file. or...you could just copy the US Cavalry unit folder, rename it to Belgian Cavalry and also rename the ini file inside of the folder. you can resume where you left off. no need to re-start a new game.

 

[El Justo]

Hİ EL Justo
great news for v5.0
when can we get v5.0?

hi not sure exactly when. but i have been making some progress. i am about to merge together the last two 'years' of the soundtrack (1914 and 1921 to be exact). this new soundtrack will be available very soon. i mean, i see no reason why i can't release it ahead of any new v5.0, right ??

with that said, on to the other development stuff: i've done a little map work with the Belgian Congo. very slight alterations to the terrain.

i've also been brain-storming new ideas or wrinkles for the top-tier civs. i already have a few ideas, nothing earth-shattering or any major renovations to game-play. just wrinkles.

for example, i am thinking of adding in some battle points in the Sudan for the British. i also want to beef up Canada's defenses a little bit and also India (both inevitably get overrun in most games).

i'll write it again : i would love to read other ideas for my AoI'ers i'm think along the lines of fluffy additions, civ-specific stuff that could add another element or layer to the immersion. of course, no guarantees on inclusion. but i like discussion! let me know what you guys think...thanks.

 

[El Justo]

good day AoI-ites First Day of Spring

i've been sort of silent lately although i have been working at this stuff. finished is the new/updated soundtrack. it sounds real nice imo. so i can cross that off the 'list'.

now i am onto updating some of the gfx, the static gfx, that is. i've started with the 5 advisors we see all game long. there will be a new 'cabinet' for this new version. i never was fully happy with the v4.0 advisors, save for the Science and Military, of course (that is me as the science guy and Vuldacon is the military advisor). the other 3 are well crafted pcx files but they just don't fit, if you know what i mean. so swapping in new advisors was always at the top of the list when i opened up these files again.

i hereby introduce our new Domestic Advisor, J. Eloise who comes to us from the private sector where she ran a small business school. she is a mother and wife and she is imho more period-specific than the previous Domestic Advisor

Spoiler :

i have the other 4 picked out but i need to finish them off in the gimp. lots of work to colorize these old photos...

 

[El Justo]

hello all. i've been quiet here but busy nonetheless. been working in the gimp as often as i can. i've made a lot of headway with this program and some advice from Vuldacon. it takes me forever to finish these large sheets. anyway, i have all the new advisors finished, a redone city screen (not quite done but mostly) and also a preferences background.

of course, the prevailing theme for all of the interface, mostly, is an art nouveau mode.

here are some screens:

new city background (i need to fix the queue box & some transparency issues with the black wavy designs on the flanks)

Spoiler :

new preferences background (1902 Philadelphia A's). of course, the full boxes aren't showing in the image below. and when they are showing, they will obscure the photo some. no worries. it's meant to be a background. i hand-colored this old b&w pic. it took me about 30 hours over 8 or 9 days. this is what i mean by 'it takes me a while'. i'm pleased with how it shrunk down, too. it was real large. those are some gnarly old tyme ball players.

Spoiler :

my pc at home is down and being worked on. so i have not tested these in-game (although Vuldacon did and they looked alright after some slight adjustments). hope to have the rig back soon, within the week. no lost data. just some power issues.

 

[Wolfhart]

That's true dedication! BTW, I LOVE the Art Nouveau style, excellent choice!!!
I look forward to leaving 1989 and go back a hundred years for my next gaming bout