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

[ChaosArbiter]

There are factors that IF changed would alter the game play

Possibly; then again, considering Human advantages over AI, all those changes might mean is that a 12-hour slog to take a handful of cities only takes 10 hours. No one is arguing for changes that make Britain roll over and die, or that make Cuba curb-stomp the entire world before the first age is through. All I'm curious about, specifically, is if there's a way to make civs besides the Colonial Powers something that is fun and interesting to play. Let me say this, before you read my next sentence:

I am well aware of the amount of time and effort the El Justo and others have put into this mod, and I am not trying to pressure him in any way, shape, or form. I am not trying to take over his mod, and I am not trying to force others to alter their games. What I am trying to do is discuss with other individuals about potential changes I could make to my own game to make some civs more enjoyable to play.

That said. I mean absolutely no disrespect to El Justo or anyone else with the following - it is my own opinion, nothing more.

Too many of the Non-Colonial nations feel ... unfinished. Of course they can't compete with Colonial Powers on their own ground, but in many cases neither can they compete with the Colonial Powers at any time or place. In naval matters, for example, the most powerful ship NCPs can build, the Coastal Battleship, is literally useless in the vast majority of cases, as Colonial Powers had them as their starting line of vessels. The Coastal BB might as well not exist, because its only purpose is to duel with other NCPs, except that the movement restrictions of CBBs means you'd be better off simply dropping off a huge invasion force with (terrible) artillery pieces because the time in the time it takes your CBBs to do anything worthwhile, some podunk cruiser from an established nation has blown them all up because the sociopathic AI has allied half the world against you.

That said, anyone can change the game as they like on a personal basis but to suggest that anyone would take over and try to alter this game for the public is absurd.

And who has been doing that? I mean, I'm looking back at the previous posts and the only way I can see someone coming up with that idea is if they already assumed it. I don't see anyone talking in a fashion that would indicate they were going to release an altered version with or without El Justo's permission.

Anyone who makes Scenarios will tell you that changing any simple factor will radically change the game play factors and create many unforeseen problems and the game will become something other than what it was intended to be.

And that's why we were talking about it. For example, Taniciusfox was recommending weakening the British, but it's been shown that other AIs are capable of dealing with the British on their own, so there isn't any particular need to weaken them. Bogatyr makes a good point with his reasoning for not weakening Pre-WWI US Infantry. No one wants to play a game that's been badly unbalanced because of a simple change they were trying to make, which is why there's discussion going on. I can't speak for the others, but I don't make mods and I don't normally alter them myself (for any of the games of which I've downloaded mods, even the ones I'm confident of modding correctly, and even to fix actual mistakes that had been left in accidentally); this is just brainstorming between interested members as to how certain things might be changed.

 

[Bengal Tiger]

Agreed.

If I may slide back to the previois topic, there are quite a few leftover dummy wonders that could be replaced with 3rd world autoproducing wonders...

 

[Bogatyr]

I find that even weak naval units can be effective if you follow these two rules:

1. Build a lot of 'em.
2. Use their lethal bombard rather than their attack.

Truth be told, I rarely attack with my naval units. Bombarding en masse is so much safer. Coastal Battleships and Destroyers are fine for this purpose.


My main gripe about the non-colonials is actually not about their combat units. The problem for me is the workers. Since they can't build colonial conscript workers, you are limited to the civil engineers you produce naturally. To make matters worse, none of the non-colonials have the industrious trait. I've played games where I've done very well militarily with non-colonial powers (my Persian Empire was HUGE!), but after a certain point you just get too big to develop your land. I wish there was some way to build workers for the non-colonials.

 

[geminisama]

Call it blasphemous or whatever, but does anyone know how I would go about removing the, "raw materials", aspect of the game? After having spent thousands of hours playing this mod, I'd like to try doing a straight conquest type game of AOI without worrying about the raw materials aspect. While it's a fun aspect, in the late game it becomes too much for me to handle. For example, in my current game as Japan, I control the entirety of Asia, Australia, every Pacific Island, almost all of russia, India, the entire middle east, and I'm only getting larger. I have about 450 raw materials scattered across the hemisphere, I can't deal with the current backlog without taking hours devoted entirely to shipping them home. :/ Can anyone help me figure out how to disable them? It could be as simple as a minor rules change, but all I can personally think about doing, is enable the raw materials to be disbanded.

 

[ChaosArbiter]

I find that even weak naval units can be effective if you follow these two rules:

1. Build a lot of 'em.
2. Use their lethal bombard rather than their attack.

And that makes - for example - the Generic Destroyer unit very good, as it's cheap, has a decent Bombard, and good RoF, but your units are still terribly vulnerable to other civs' ships. I've had 10 Espana-class BBs do Bombardment of a single Virginia-class BB (IIRC) and not kill it, and Espanas are much superior to any of the Generics, even if they're inferior to high-end SDs and BCs in the firepower department. And if you don't manage to do enough damage in your alpha strike, you may have to suffer retaliatory strikes.

 

[Bogatyr]

CA: That's true. But I think it's intended to be that way. Argentine/Persian/Siamese/Mexican/etc naval vessels just weren't as good as British/French/Japanese/American/German/etc. Since this is a historical scenario, it reflects that fact. You could add in better naval lines for the non-colonial powers... but then the scenario would start to become something other than what it's intended to be (a reasonably accurate modeling of the period). That said, there's nothing stopping you moding your own personal copy however you like. I've made a few minor changes in mine too.

geminisama: If you really want to do this, one way might be to tweak the Colonial Government Building, as I believe it is the building that auto-produces the raw materials.

 

[ChaosArbiter]

CA: That's true. But I think it's intended to be that way. Argentine/Persian/Siamese/Mexican/etc naval vessels just weren't as good as British/French/Japanese/American/German/etc.

What's bothersome is the level of inferiority. A Coastal Battleship (available at the tail-end of the game with Super Dreadnoughts 1) has 5 HP @ Regular, can Sink in Ocean tiles, has 18 Attack, 12 Defense, 4 Movement, and 15 Bombard RoF 2; it costs 200 Shields. A Russian Petropavlovsk BB (available at the very beginning of the game with Pre-Dreadnoughts 1) has 3 HP @ Regular, has 18 Attack, 16 Defense, 4 Movement, and 15 Bombard RoF 2; it costs 150 Shields. The Coastal Battleship is almost literally Strictly Inferior to a vessel that was laid down before the game begins.

The Generic Light Cruiser is available after SD I (Light Cruiser III), and the GLC is inferior in some way to every Light Cruiser available with Light Cruiser I, although it does have 4 HP and 8 Speed when some of the LCs only have 3 HP or 7 Speed (and one even has 3 Defense like the GLC).

I like that you use Argentina as an example, though, because Argentina actually has saving graces. It gets a King unit Dreadnought with Dreadnought III which is actually pretty damn spiffy, it's allowed to build the Garibaldi Export Cruiser, which gives it some punch at the beginning of the game, and it has its own line of Destroyers which - while not as impressive as top-tier Colonial DDs - actually doesn't suck (it's even better than the Balkan States final Destroyer!).

Brazil has some unique Coastal BBs (which eventually gain the ability to float in the Ocean), a Destroyer with slightly lower Defense but improved Attack compared to a Generic Destroyer, and a very nice Light Cruiser (available with LC I). Chile has a couple nice Destroyers and a fairly powerful but very late Dreadnought King Unit (Super Dreadnoughts III!).

Now I know the game is supposed to be as historically accurate as possible, so you don't want non-Colonials to be strong enough that they could sweep the Royal Navy from the waves, but then again the Royal Navy didn't contain 80 Canopus-class BBs and 40 King Edward VII-class BBs in 1905, either. I highly doubt the French navy in 1909 had more of its newest Battleships (Liberte-class, 26) than it did total Destroyers (19). There sure weren't 33 Virginia-Class BBs in 1909 - there weren't even 33 Virginias built.

 

[El Justo]

easiest way to shut off the raw materials is to edit the spawned units in the editor where it shows the raw materials every 13 turns. simply remove the ability of the Colonial Govt building to autoproduce them. next would be to alter the game modes; you need to remove the reverse capture the flag.

the age-old issue of the crappy non-colonial powers...they are crappy for a reason. altering their stats makes for alternate history.

 

[Sir Sam Vimes]

the age-old issue of the crappy non-colonial powers...they are crappy for a reason. altering their stats makes for alternate history.

...but better gameplay if playing as a non-colonial nation (for those who value that over accuracy, which I don't)

 

[El Justo]

the stats and balance and all that stuff were meticulously designed and they are like that for a reason. shoot, there's even GCON_ entries in there discussing "Historical Realities". what i'm getting at is that there seems to be a sentiment that not enough attention was paid to the non-colonial civs or that they're not playable. and this just isn't true. we spent a lot of time testing it all, probably 18 months or so, every day. and we all rotated civs. so it was not like we were playing with the US or Britain every time. i guess what i'm trying to say is that i would never alter stats to make it 'easier' for a certain position if it is in contrast with the historical realities of the time. history is my guide. plain and simple

 

[Sir Sam Vimes]

the stats and balance and all that stuff were meticulously designed and they are like that for a reason. shoot, there's even GCON_ entries in there discussing "Historical Realities". what i'm getting at is that there seems to be a sentiment that not enough attention was paid to the non-colonial civs or that they're not playable. and this just isn't true. we spent a lot of time testing it all, probably 18 months or so, every day. and we all rotated civs. so it was not like we were playing with the US or Britain every time. i guess what i'm trying to say is that i would never alter stats to make it 'easier' for a certain position if it is in contrast with the historical realities of the time. history is my guide. plain and simple

Speaking as a historian, I couldn't agree more.

Speaking as a gamer, I still couldn't agree more. I've played as Mexico, and sure, it's tough, but that's the point. If you want to win without exerting yourself, play as the British, if you want a challenge, play as a non-Great Power. And its supposed to be a challange, so suck it up! Having said this, a few cheap freedom fighters might have been useful... (see my post on the previous page of this thread)

 

[eazyhasaids]

I made two changes to the Map that i think look good.

Spoiler :

Enlarged South East Asia a bit. Was able to give the Siamese another city in Chiang Mai and also got Mandalay in there for the Brits in Burma. I also like the new look of Macau and Hong Kong

Spoiler :

Shifted Damascus to a more geographically appropriate location which allowed the reshaping of the impassible mountains. Added Adana to the new territory in anatolia and was able to add Smyrna in after shifting Athens over. Opened the Bosporus and kept Constantinople in Asia. My reasoning behind this was to increase the importance of a Russian Black Sea Fleet but also because logistically at this time the only effective way for the Turks to ship soldiers to Europe was by sea.

 

[Bogatyr]

I'm having a lot of difficulty changing the colours of the different civs. I've tried changing it in the civilization section of the editor but it stays the same on the map. Is there something special I need to do? Specifically, I would like to change USA, UK, and Ottomans. Since the UK shares extensive territorial borders with both the US and the Ottomans I kind of want to change it so they aren't all brown.

 

[Wolfshade]

Bogatyr-Богатырь, go to the "Scenario Properties" section -> Pleayers -> color choice. Notice, you can change a color for a "player #", so be careful and don't mess it with the civs order in the "Civilizations" tab in the editor.

 

[Tani Coyote]

Perhaps I was wrong on the Brits - it seems in the newer versions, they're not a complete monster and are actually capable of being worn down. In my Mahdist game, they were curbstomped by France(who I in turn curbstomped as a police action). This was all without weakening them, by the way. The main tweaks that particular game had was workers could move 2 times per turn, and that Britain had lost South Sudan. That still wouldn't be enough to cripple them, however. Whatever was done with V4.0, I congratulate El Justo and his team for breaking the British beast.

Now about them Americans...

While it would never be done with the official mod, I beefed up Canada and Mexico's defenses in my own personal copy. Let's see Festug America develop now!

easiest way to shut off the raw materials is to edit the spawned units in the editor where it shows the raw materials every 13 turns. simply remove the ability of the Colonial Govt building to autoproduce them. next would be to alter the game modes; you need to remove the reverse capture the flag.

the age-old issue of the crappy non-colonial powers...they are crappy for a reason. altering their stats makes for alternate history.

Indeed, but the third world nations do get better unit lines if they manage to seize some Industrial land. Would it be possible to somehow include a better naval line in this? Obviously not British-level quality, but something better than having to wait all the way until Super Dreadnoughts for ships that will be vastly outclassed?

(That said, the Overseas Infantry addition was a great idea and means they're not totally punished beyond salvation)

 

[El Justo]

put in whatever you like into your version. they won't go into mine sorry.

 

[Tani Coyote]

put in whatever you like into your version. they won't go into mine sorry.

It does leave me curious, however. You said history is your primary guide.

What is the basis for the Overseas Infantry units, then? While I suppose it's analogous to how Japan went from being backwards to trumping an established power in the war with Russia, it's entirely ahistorical(from what I can see, anyway).

 

[RickFGS]

Small question: Can artillery units be captured in this scenario .biq v4.1?

 

[TsarNikolai]

Small question: Can artillery units be captured in this scenario .biq v4.1?

No, they can't; they are destroyed.

 

[El Justo]

artillery can be captured only if you can actually build the piece that you're trying to seize. generic arty pieces and german pieces that other civs can build come to mind.

@taniciousfox
getting answers you don't like and still continue to push the envelope. the overseas infantry were added as a carrot. no way would they ever have been able to build large capital ships. never. they did not have the trained crews to operate the ships, the resources, and a host of other issues. but change whatever you like. i don't buy your arguments no matter how much you post here