SCENARIO: Age of Imperialism II- 1923-1953

Because it means doing something I am just not comfortable with, messing with the core files. Civ3 is set up to raze cities under certain circumstances. For a scenario like AoI there is a fix, but that requires replacing an exe with another, which could lead to problems later on down the road. I have a more elegant solution, one which does not require messing with the core files.

My solution? Make settlers expensive, both in shields and population. Say 100 shields and four pop. In addition, restrict cities to a certain terrain type. One map for Balancer Reloaded restricts cities to something called an Optimal City Location tile, which looks a lot like a marsh. On the AoI map all such tiles would obviously be taken already, but once a city is razed it could then be built on.

ZD, the No Raze patch bothers me because of what it calls upon me to do. That's how I am, and I also think it could be better handled through limiting where cities can be bulid and how much it costs to build a settler in the first place. If you wish to continue this discussion, please take it to private messages.

 

While we're on the subject of the noraze patch, might I note that it does this to my menu:

Spoiler :

I get similar effects on my preferences and startup screens

 

Or you could just make a copy of the Civ3 icon name if C3C Orig. Then do the no raze patch and there ya go. But yeah I understand what you mean.

 

Double post sorry--
Whoa that is a bit strange!!
It did mess up my graphics a bit but with the AoI 1 it's good as the custom graphics fix it. But not like that. Does it mess the game up at all?

 

In-game, most things are fine, although occasionally the preferences screen screws up. In non-AOI scenarios, I've seen it mess around with colony names and sometimes the date reads as "build airfield"

 

Here's a new development: I tried playing CCM mod a little, with noraze still in place, and a few cities have gotten razed! However, I don't get the option to raze and they're only size 1 villages with nothing in them, so I'm guessing it's a side-effect of government-change population loss or something. So... keep that in mind, anyway.

 

There is no room for settlers because:

1. There is no real need to colonize the Arctic nor was it done in that time historically.

2. There are already so many cities, that the maximum number is reached (big map) resp. there is no real room to settle.

3. This is no settling scenario.

4. There is the no raze patch. It is highly recommended! And you don't need to work with only one exe. You can still have the original one. Then just make a copy of it.

Adler

 

Only allow cities to be built where cities already exist. Then, when a city gets razed, a new city can be built in its place.

 

Spotted what looks like a typo. I got the following error message when I tried loading the mod;



Unless I'm mistaken, I believe it should be "InfantryDeath.wav".

BTW, is it the PediaIcon.txt or the Civilopedia.txt that needs correcting?

 

I have added every destroyer resp. torpedo boat (if not belonging to a bigger navy, otherwise it would have been even more) which was in duty in this time (well, for the German and Austrian navies would have been). I wanted to make it as realistic as possible. Also as sea combat is even more important than in AoI, as there is more traffic (small map) or bigger oceans (big map) you need these units as working horses. Especially as you can't build big ships for a longer time. And then only light cruiser at first. It will last a bit until you have bigger ships. In the meantime you need these vessels. Otherwise you would have to build new ships.

Anyway, if there is the need to reduce the number I will do so. Just now, I don't see it, just in regards to the game play.

Adler

 

That mistake I also had. You need the latest international Patch having installed. With other languages this might happen.

Adler

 

That's not possible. And to prevent razing there is the patch. BTW: Did you install all patches I made?

Adler

 

Have you ever played the Balancer Reloaded INEMONH map? You limit cities to one type of terrain (marsh in our example case) and call it something like "Optimum City Terrain) Place Optimum City Terrain wherever you want cities, then put cities there. A city gets razed by the AI, the AI can later establish a new city in it's place.

BTW, how many different patches are available for the scenario? And when was the version of Lili Marlene you used recorded?

Update: Did some looking around and soon realized something, this is a Windows only scenario; it won't run on a Mac. I have run into another error (see Attachment) and I have learned that the Mac version of Civ3 doesn't use EXEs. So installing the noraze patch would do me no good to begin with. If somebody ports this to the Macintosh I'll give it another look, but until then I'll do without.

Update 2: It could use installation instructions BTW.

 

Okay, I decided to give it another try after installing the various patches. At least those I was reasonably sure were going to work. Only to get another error (see attachment). So I check out the PediaIcons.txt and learn that U156_South_Dakota isn't listed. As a matter of fact the "U"s end with U153_Duster. Something's not right here.

Update: Revised the PediaIcons.txt to include the South Dakota enry, only to have another missing entry make its presence known. So I'm going to re-download and check out the original pediaicons text to see what it includes.

 

Yes, that with the terrain would work. Anyway, that's not a settling scenario.
I don't have any clues about Mac. The patches I meant are the ini files on post #284 and #292 of this thread.
Erm, do you have civ 3 conquest BTW? If not, you can't play it at all. I have no knowledge about Mac!

Adler

 

First thing, I got it to work. Re-downloaded the scenario and this time it loaded. Haven't gotten the files you mention.

Like the music, the turns take a bit of time, like the graphics. I do wonder about your naming scheme for CVs and BCs. An American carrier and an American battle cruiser both named Lexington does not seem likely. As I recall, the planned battle cruisers in World War II were to be named for American territory. So you would have the battle cruisers Alaska, American Samoa, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, Phillippines etc. In your alternate history you could even have battle cruisers like the Cuba, the Hispaniola, and the battle cruiser Panama.

Experienced one bug while trying the scenario out, Rule Brittannnia kept playing over and over. Got annoying after the third or fourth run through. Also had the British plant a destroyer in the strait between Hispaniola and Puerto Rico. The ship moved when I asked the British to move it, but I have to wonder if it would have moved had I not made my demand.

So, to organize my thoughts; the music is nice, but one piece kept repeating. The turns can take a long time to resolve, but that could be due to my meager 1.6 gigahertz and a mere one gig of RAM. I like the graphics and the feel they give the game.

Where Macs are concerned, haven't checked but I don't think EXE files would work on a G5 machine anyway. MacTels are a different matter.

And that's my report this time around. I'm going to try AoI II again and report on how things go.

 

The naming system for the World War 1 US battlecruisers was that they were to be named after famous earlier US warships. The names chosen for the ships were Lexington, Saratoga, Ranger, Constellation, Constitution, and United States. The Lexington and Saratoga were converted under the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 to aircraft carriers, along with the British 3 large light battlecruisers, the Glorious, Courageous, and Furious, and the Japanese ships Akagi and Amagi. The Amagi suffered massive damage while building because of the Tokyo Earthquake of 1923, and was replaced by the battleship Kaga. Having both battlecruisers and aircraft carriers with the same name for these navies is therefore distinctly possible without careful editing. In reality, you should have either a carrier or a capital ship, not both. If you accept the premise of a negotiated settlement to WW1, then it is most likely that the US and Japanese ships would have completed as battlecruisers, while the British ships would have been converted to aircraft carriers.

Following the completion of the third US carrier, and the first designed from the keel up as a carrier, the Ranger, the US Navy determined that future carriers would be named after famous battles or famous earlier ships, hence the WW2 Essex-class of aircraft carriers. There were exceptions to that rule as well, as in the carrier Shangri-La.

The WW2 naming system of US territories was based on the use of state names for battleships. Using the same reasoning, the large cruisers would be named after territories, just below states. The names selected were Alaska, Hawaii, Guam, Puerto Rico, Philippines, and Samoa. Cuba was an independent country, and therefore would not have been used, as was Panama. As about the only remaining US territory was the Virgin Islands, which could have supplied the names of St. Thomas, St. John, and St. Croix, (Virgin Islands just does not cut it as the name for a warship), an additional naming system would have been needed to developed, likely returning to names of previous US ships.

I have not tried installing or running Civ3 on an Intel Mac, but I have encountered mixed results when doing so with other software. Given the lack of an editor for the Mac version, I would likely use Parallels with Windows XP, and run the Windows version to gain the use of the editor.

 

In the alternate history of AoI II Cuba and Panama would be available for battle cruiser names

 

I was not aware of that as I have not played either version, as I was primarily responding to the issue of the ship naming scheme. I do find that to be a fascinating period of history, with a wealth of military history to study. I do have the War: Age of Imperialism board game and tomorrow we will begin to play that in the historical games class that I teach each summer.

 

That Lexington is named twice is a mistake and will be corrected with the next version. It is a minor bug not necessary to change yet.
Also there might be problems with the music. Rule Britannia should generally work. I never had problems with that. It is the same file as used in AoI by El Justo. And there it also made no troubles. However, Civ III is very problematic to use sound files. The game can crash or, like here, run the song again and again. That Rule Britannia makes these problems here might also be a consequence of Mac. Nevertheless: A song might be played several times again if there is a PC turn. Then the program might play it 2 or 3 times before switching to a new song. That is a bug I can't hardly change.

Adler