Scenario Playtest Report / Feedback: Return of Winter (Orbis)

[Jabie]

I finally got round to playing The Return of Winter Scenario and, seeing as the Doviello have had some extensive work done on them in Orbis I figured I'd use Orbis as my starting point.

The scenario was designed for FfH, not Orbis and, although the systems are part way compatible, the gaps are apparent. This isn't the fault of Orbis or the Scenario - The Scenario was designed using the FfH World Builder, which obviously isn't going to take into account the changes made in Orbis.

On my first attempt a Griffon Nest spawned on top of my starting Settlers, so I didn't have any Settlers. Unsurprisingly I restarted and got lucky second time round.

The scenario ran pretty well, although some of the high-end techs were unavailable. This is much the same in the original scenario, except that different techs were unavailable, specifically the Tier 3 Melee Units. Thankfully, it didn't make much difference - I was playing on Settler for playtesting anyway.

It wasn't immediately apparent that Cottages required a water source. I suspect mouseover help text would assist a lot here.

The ranged attack ability that comes with Javelin Throwers, Archers and other ranged units needs a different action icon, as on several occasions I had both Javelin Throwers and Battering Rams in my stack and found it hard to differentiate the difference between the two.

A similar problem existed with Battering Rams, Potions and other portable equipment. A small "Hand with Up Arrow" icon could be added to the botom right hand corner to indicate the "Take" action. A variant could be used to show the "Drop" action.

In the Orbis tech tree, the Wheel comes after Pottery, meaning that Roads aren't available as a first tech build. If you like at Vanilla, Pottery comes after the Wheel (which makes sense, you need a wheel to cast the pot on), you may want to rethink this aspect of the tech tree.

Other than that everything else semed to work OK without any bugs.

 

[Ahwaric]

I try to make all scenarios compatibile to Orbis. Great someone decided to help me.
Most scenarios should not provide any trouble, but I have yet to play winter campaign to test it.

So, problems one by one:
Griffon nests in 0.22 d are disabled at game creation - will not spawn.

Need to check the tech tree...

Other problems seem more the general Orbis cosmetic things - icons mostly, and your ideas are good.

Regarding wheel, from Wiki (because it is the easies to copy and paste ):
"Most authorities regard the wheel as one of the oldest and most important inventions, which originated in ancient Mesopotamia in the 5th millennium BC (Ubaid period), originally in the function of potter's wheels."

So, pottery should come before roads. It adds some feeling of separated settlements taht have not much in common as trade hardly exists, plus makes rivers more important early game - just as it should be. So I dare say, Orbis corrected Civ IV bug

 

[arkham4269]

I would think a interesting Orbis scenario would be Death to the Gods! or something where either the Grigorri or the Mechanos (or both) work to destroy as much of the works of the Gods as possible. So destroying/defiling certain Unique Features and maybe raising a/some Holy Cites. Gods thrive on belief. If your Holy City gets whacked by a bunch of 'secular' Mechanos, well that doesn't bode well for your worshippers.

On a flip side of that, might be a the God-Driven are told to whack the "Cult of personality" leaders in the Risen Emperor or Alaric of the Illians.

 

[civ_king]

That would be awesome Arkham