Storm Over Europe (SOE)

[Civinator]

Welcome to Storm Over Europe (SOE) and thank you for your interest in this non-commercial scenario. Please don´t forget, that this is a public betatest. Therefore not all of the many new concepts are working perfectly and the civilopedia attached to that mod is far from ready. SOE underwent several massive rebuilts during the creating phase due to the gigantic dimensions of this project, that let us reach many limits of modding in Civ 3 in times when these limits were not known yet.

The last big changes, including a complete rebuilt of the map and a change from weekly turns to monthly turns were done less than one year ago - but this version was not tested very intensively. So please be prepared, that SOE, in spite of the very long time of creating this scenario, is in an early phase of beta and here a lot of things still can happen, due to the lack of intensive prebetatesting of the last version of SOE.

Your experiences and reports are needed for fixing bugs and errors and to find the best conditions for the overall-gameplay.

Requirements:
- Civilization 3: Conquests version 1.22 or Civilization 3: Complete
- 2,25 GB disk space
- NoRaze-Patch


Downloads:

1.) DL the SOE Mainfile (1,24 GB rared) and unzip it with WinRAR (not available yet).

2.) Dl the SOE-biq attached at the bottom of this post . Current version: SOE-Betatest-v1.3


Installation:

1. Download the SOE main file.
2. Download the SOE-biq .
3. Unzip the SOE main file file directly to your Conquests\Conquests folder
4. Unzip the SOE-biq directly to your Conquests\Conquests folder
5.Install the NoRaze-Patch in the Conquests folder (follow the instructions attached to the NoRaze-Patch)

If all is installed properly, your files should look like this:





A special thank you very much for reporting errors, glitches and improvements that allowed the SOE-Patch, the SOE Betatest-biq v1.3 and the next version of SOE to: texastarheel , Sasebo, nexus, Gosnork, King Coltrane, Haddu, kadavrali, Niminator, rwan5, mrdan017, RickFGS, Civ3Monki, AnthonyBoscia and to gugu84.

--------------------------------------------


Credits

Mod design: Recon1591, CaseVW, Adler17, El Justo, W.i.n.t.e.r., Blue Lion/Civinator
Civilopedia: EStrongblade, Yoshi, Blue Lion/Civinator and the Wikipedia
Testers: MarineCorps, AlCosta, tgo1130, GeneralJCL, Josh, Storm Grunt
Units: Wyrmshadow, Ares de Borg, BeBro, Delta Strife, Gary Childress, gwendoline,
Orthanc, rhodie, Ripptide, tom2050, TopGun, vingrjoe, W.i.n.t.e.r., Wotan49
Unitsounds: texastarheel7
Wondersound: "V" for Victory: Jorsalfare
Leaderheads: ccm01, CivArmy s. 1994, jorde, fixes by Vuldacon
Terrain: Ares de Borg, Racc00n
Cities: Sn00py, Smiley, Blue Lion/Civinator
Improvements, Wonders, Wonder Splashes and Flags:
aaglo, Ares de Borg, BadKharma, Bjornlo, CaseVW, Grumbl, Harlan, Heretic_Cata, Lusikka755, mrtn, Plotinus, R8XFT, ronning, Rufus T. Firefly, Spincrus, SWalker, Ukas, Blue Lion / Civinator
Tech Icons: Blue Lion/Civinator
Civ 2 graphics (mainly used for resource-cities and unit32):
BeBro, kobayashi, fairline, jamestout, Curt Sibling, Kyriakos and lots of unknown other artists

If you find a piece of your work in the mod and you are not on the list, please let us know and we'll do our best to fix it.

 

[Civinator]

A. Gamespeed:

In the first turns SOE has very long AI interturn times. With all graphic options enabled, AI turn 1 lasts more than 1 hour (on an i7 CPU/ 860 / 2,8 GHZ). Part of the problem are the tons of immobile units of Italy, France, Britain and some other countries. These units become activated when Italy enters war in June 1940. After that point AI interturn-times are becoming significantly shorter.

Here a hint: After you have finished your turn, disable all graphical settings in the games preferences with the exception of animated battles. So you can see every battle in which one of your units is involved and AI interturn-time is shortened to about 1/2 an hour (what is still very long). When it´s your turn again, enable all graphical settings you want again.

I´m working on a biq where all immobile Italian, French and British units are set to mobile in turn 1 to see how this setting influences the early AI turntimes.


B. New Game Concepts of SOE:

1. New methode of constructing a map:

SOE determines for every single tile of the map if that tile can hold a road or not. This is achieved by the extensive use of landmark-terrain. The normal variant of a terrain is allowed to produce trade and therefore on that tile a road/railroad can be constructed, while the landmark variant of that terrain cannot produce trade and therefore no road/railroad on such a tile can be built (additionally in SOE no roads/railroads can be built on mountain and marsh terrain tiles). The new methode of mapbuilding allows microzones and the controlled use of Industrial Sprawl graphics, an additional new option in modding Civ 3 that allows a new dimension in doing city graphics in fixed maps (more about it below).

So Roads (=Railroads) in SOE are only allowed on certain land tiles of the map. On all other tiles of the map no roads can be built. The SOE roads have railroad graphics and symbolize the main railway routes in Europe (and the North African coastal road). If strategic bombers block the railroad-connection to strategic resources with craters, in most cases it´s not possible to construct a new railroad around that crater. The railroad must be repaired to receive access to the resource again.


Railroads: Railroads (as you are used to them with Civ) in SOE are disabled. The roads in SOE are using railroad graphics and they were set on the map according to the main railroad-connections of that time. So if further on in this article there is spoken about railroads, please don´t forget, that these are the roads you are used from normal Civ.


Resources: In SOE there are only strategic and bonus resources, no more luxury resources. So if you loose improvements that provide happiness by strategic bombing, you can´t ignore this loss as long as you did in a normal Civ game. A lot of strategic resources are cities (cityresources p.e. Middleeuropean, Scandinavian, Russian, Mediterranean, Arabian, UK-cities). But there are also other strategic resources like harbours, supply depots, power plants, factories, headquarters, subpens, synthetic fuel refineries, V-sites and so on, that can be bombed to delay or to hinder the production of units. For reasons of trade, other civs mostly don´t have any use for the strategic resources of the other civs.




Strategic resources in SOE:

Red = Special City (center of a microzone)
Yellow = normal strategic resource cities
Orange = Special limited resources (heavy industry, powerplants, harbours, oil storages)
Blue = Rare strategic resources (8th USAAF, airfield, V-sites, subpens, Synthetic Fuel Refineries)
Grey = Normal strategic resources (coal, iron and so on)
Violet = Headquarter resource (needed in cityradius for barracks, airbases and tankbataillons)
Green = Bonus resources to add graphical flavor (Eiffel Tower, Tower Bridge,Arc de Triomphe and so on)


Microzones: A microzone is an autark region on the map. There is no trade-connection from this zone to other regions of the map. Each of these microzone has a special strategic resource in it, the "Special City", that can´t become part of the normal trading-net of a civ. With this setting (the special strategic resource for microzones in combination with normal strategic resources inside the microzone) the unit-production of certain units can be limited to special regions of the map (what otherwise only would be possible for autoproduction of units by buildings with resources in city radius). So the AI is forced to produce a lot more of different units as it would normally do. On the other side such tactics as to produce Tiger tanks in all cities of your empire, when the technic for this tank is available, now not longer are possible. So you get a more historical mixture of units for your campaign and on the other side you also face a more historical mixture of units by your opponents.






Screenshot 1 shows the Russian microzone of Charkow, and screenshot 2 the German microzones of Kassel and Rostock.
Per example in the German microzone of Kassel (and only here), the AI and the player can produce Tiger tanks, in the microzone of Rostock the player and the AI can produce V-weapons (Peenemünde).

As the only connection to resources are railroads (=roads), the land-border for microzones always is situated along the railway net. In SOE sea-trade and air-trade do not exist for reasons of game speed. The border tile, that isolates the microzone from the rest of the map, is a tile were the building of railroads (=roads) for a worker is restricted. As this tile was mostly part of the historical railway net, it is shown for the player by a railway signal that stops the train on that tile (or at least slows it down, if more movement points were left). The sign is a German railway signal in stop-function. So if you do a railway move, be prepared to have a normal movement on that tile without the road-movement bonus , even if it shows something looking like a railway.

 

[Civinator]

2.The cities: There are only two sizes of cities. City size 3 was eliminated to stop population pollution, which starts with that level. The graphics for size 1 of the city-graphics is set to transparency, which allows a lot more of different city-graphics by resource-cities than the hardcoded 5 culture groups. Additionally these cities are needed as strategic resources for the concept of microzones.

To set city size 1 to tranparency in the city graphics also allows many "strategic locations" in the game that can act like cities where in history there were no cities of that civ. Per example the upbuild of the British BEF in France is done with a transparent city under British control showing an airfield near Reims.




Another example is the starting-location of the German Africacorps, filled with immobile units, beeing upgraded to mobile units with the correct names at the date when the Africacorps did appear in reality.







The sizes of the cities were set to their historical level of that time according to the following pattern:

1000-200.000: 20.000 Pop. is 1 Pop-point (PP) => 200.000 = 10 PP

201.000-500.000: exc. 50.000 Pop. is 1 PP => 500.000 = 10+6= 16 PP

500.001-1.000.000: exc. 100.000 Pop is 1PP=> 1.000.000 = 10+6+5 =21 PP

1.000.001- Inf.: exc. 500.000 PoP is 1 PP=> 4.000.000 = 10+6+5+ 6= 27 PP


SOE uses the No-Raze-Patch, so the AI razing of cities is prevented. If the No-Raze-Patch isn´t used in SOE, this can also trigger strange graphical results when a city is razed, as the destroyed city graphic in SOE is used to hide the land bridges between Great Britain and France. Therefore if a city is razed in SOE (what shouldn´t be done) a lot of land terrain around the razed city would show like water.






3.Use of Industrial Sprawl graphics: The use of these graphics enlarges the size of the resource-cities and also adds a special flavour to the SOE-map. As in the SOE-map it is determined for every single tile on the map, if it can bear a railroad (=road) or not , these graphics allow specific situations of population beside the hardcoded 512 cities in Civ 3.

On the other side the modification of these graphics combined with the controlled building of railroads (=roads) allows unique urban structures around cities. For example the Empire State Building and Chrysler Building in New York are modified Industrial Sprawl graphics with a combination, that is only possible on the map location of New York. If a railroad (=road) around New York is bombed or pillaged, this graphic disappears until all roads are reconstructed again. Remark: The city of New York is not any longer in SOE as the complete US eastcoast was cut out of this scenario. But in future versions of SOE London and Berlin could be other candidates for such special city graphics.



Sometimes these effects are combined with additional bonus resources on the map, showing special buildings of that city. So in the city radius of Paris you have the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe, around Berlin the Brandenburg Gate, around Moscow the Kremlin, around London the Tower Bridge, araound Rome the Vatican and so on.

 

[Civinator]

Here are some more screenshots to give an impression about the possibilities of Industrial Sprawl graphics in enlarging resource cities and the use of "invisible" cities (= transparent cities in combination with different resources on the city tile):















As the cities shown by the graphics of resources are somewhat smaller than normal size 1 cities, it is recommended to deactivate the feature of showing units above the city-graphics.

 

[Civinator]

4. Use of Special terrain:

a) Mountains: Impassable terrain

b) Border Terrain (Jungle with changed graphics, Flood Plain): Not allowed for wheeled units (Start location for Africa Corps, North African border between Italy and the British Empire, tiles at Axis/Russian border)








There are two land connections now between France and Britain marked with resources: The Sea Lion route between Dover and Calais and the D-Day route between Cherbourg and the Isle of Wight. On land it can happen, that the AI uses large forces. Therefore SOE can have a nice D-day invasion. Britain and France are both still able to cross through the Channel via those harbour cities. Other civs (like Germany) have first to conquer some of these cities to pass the Channel.





5. Pollution: Pollution in SOE is eliminated as far as it is possible. Production pollution is minimized as every building in SOE has the flags to minimize every kind of pollution. Population pollution is minimized by not allowing size 3 cities. So there is only fallout-pollution left, which can´t be cleaned up on mountains. But this kind of pollution in SOE is only possible lately in the game, when nukes are available and the pollution effects are set in a way that changes of the terrain are not possible.


B. The Techtree

The techtree in SOE is transformed to a calendar, as the minimum and maximum time of research is set to 1 turn. So each turn has its own "tech". In SOE one turn is one month. To give a little bit of flexibility to that system, symbolizing some kind of research, SOE for each year has 3 completely fixed dates in the calendar (Early..., Mid... and Late... of a year) and 9 dates with limited flexibility, as each of the fixed dates in the calendar has 3 perequisites (Land, Air, Sea) containing the units of each category that were commissioned in these three months. The player can chose, which of the three perequisites for a fixed date in the techtree he wants to research first.

The calendar allows to trigger events in C3C, a feature many civers have always missed in Civ 3. This can simply be achieved by a strategic resource that appears at a certain time in a certain place, or by wonders that give special benefits. Per example, if you look into the calendar of the first phase of WW2, in Land41/I you can see the start of Operation Barbarossa and the Africa Corps, in Mid 1941 you can see the Russian Mobilisation and so on. These great military operations allow the upgrading of units to units that can cross special border terrains or of "range-1-planes" to the full range or give other benefits and therefore a better dating of starting and finishing great military operations is possible.

With this system smaller civs don´t fall back in the tech race. Additionally with these settings an early rush for super-weapons is prohibited. With normal Civ 3 techtrees in early playtests each human player tried to reach his personal super-weapon of the era as soon as possible, bypassing tons of important units that were used in WW 2. This means, most of the many hundreds of units in SOE are superfluous with a normal techtree, and Wyrmshadow´s great work in creating all these wonderful units would have been in vain, as they wouldn´t be used by the players. In SOE the weapons that were used in WW2 should be used in that scenario, too.





C. Timescale:

SOE starts on 1st September 1939, has monthly turns and ends in December 1947.

 

[Civinator]

Reserved1

 

[Civinator]

Reserved2

 

[Civinator]

Reserved3

 

[Wolfshade]

First time first post. HELL YEAH, Civinator! You announced a new level of modding - you did it. Reading the post #2 currently. Already grateful for your work!

 

[Ares de Borg]

The Duke Nukem of Civ has arrived. Yay!

 

[El Justo]

lots of folks are gonna be happy that this hog is finally done looks superb, as usual old buddy.

 

[smirnoff]

The Duke Nukem of Civ has arrived. Yay!

Ditto

 

[Sasebo]

....all I can say is WOW! This is completely different, and using the tech tree as a calendar looks really interesting. I was going to try WW 2 Gold first, but now I'm not sure what to do. Decisions, decisions....

 

[Stazro]

It seems I can no longer trust my eyes. I will go away and return to see if this is still here. It can't be true.

 

[AnthonyBoscia]

Not another WWII scenario...

Congratulations to you and everyone else who worked on this over the years. It's great to see ideas that you have been talking about put into action. The map design is outstanding, both in graphics and gameplay. Been hammering out a game with Germany (who else) and will post some feedback soon.

Quick question...why does the Barbarossa border have gaps at Lvov and Brest? I know that you left the Romanian border open so the Soviet can go for the oil fields, but the open areas further north mean that Germany can attack early (or vice versa). I had assumed that the barrier would extend unbroken to the Baltic. I was surprised to find myself at war with the Baltic states. Just curious.

The set-up for artillery and recon is superb, by the way.

 

[Civinator]

Thank you all very much for your kind words.

Quick question...why does the Barbarossa border have gaps at Lvov and Brest? I know that you left the Romanian border open so the Soviet can go for the oil fields, but the open areas further north mean that Germany can attack early (or vice versa). I had assumed that the barrier would extend unbroken to the Baltic.

I left gaps in the Russian-German border-terrain, because I had the feeling that the punch of the German AI in June 1941 was not heavy enough as the German AI didn´t upgrade as many units to "not-wheeled"-units as I liked to see. So these gaps are a kind of an experiment in the betatest version. May be the gaps at the German-Russian-border (Tarnopol) will be closed in the next version of the biq as it seems, the Baltic States and their terrain passable for wheeled units is enough to trigger a full scale war between Germany and Russia even with wheeled units.

I was surprised to find myself at war with the Baltic states. Just curious.

As the alliances are limited and a triggered war between the Balltic States and Russia was not enough to catch as many terrain as Russia had in 1941, the only possibility was, to set the Baltic States in the same alliance as Poland - and Poland is in war with Germany and Russia since turn 1 of the game.

The Baltics are not such an easy push-over in SOE as one would believe. The Russians only made slow progress against the Baltics in some AI vs. AI testgames. So may be the Baltics could be a good area to transport a full scale war between Russia and Germany in 1941 with (not upgraded) wheeled units.

 

[RickFGS]

What a goodie! Thank you! Downloading!

Now to get some coffee on to play this beauty...

 

[Civinator]

Here is a report from texastarheel (who gave the sound to most units in SOE) at the SOC site about his current SOE game as Italy in 1945. I post it here as a consolation for those of you, who are still in the first, very long AI-turns of the game (until Italy enters WW2):

I have reached the end of June 1945 in my game as Italy, AI turns have been averaging 4-6 minutes since early in the game. Germany is the 800 pound gorilla, Russia is practically finished, only a few cities in North east and south east left. UK is holding out. D-Day did happen, the allies pushed to Paris but the Germans held and pushed them back, the allies only hold cherbourg and Caen. Torch happend as well, but the Italians ( me) held them and I am positioning myself to attack what's left of French North Afrika. I also took out Southern France, Yugoslavia, Greece and tunisia. UK held me in Egypt, but the Germans took Alexandria and Suez. Game play is very nice and fun. My only negative observation at this point is I have not been able to load tank units onto shipping, only semovente and mech Inf, of armored units. Overall great job my friend! Tex

The Italians were not very famous in WW2 for their amphibious tank operations, Tex. Thank you very much for your report.

 

[Gosnork]

Playing as Germany, and I can't load my tanks into Tank Battalions. Also, I can't seem to load anything into my transport ships. Do the later units have the "load" box checked, or am I missing something?

 

[King Coltrane]

yeah ive noticed the load issue as well. playing as britain for a few turns i noticed that sometimes my carrier based aircraft would get stuck in the middle of the sea because i couldnt reload them onto the carriers. similarly, playing as germany, i couldnt load up the Ju-52's with paratroopers, infantry regiments, or infantry divisions.

also, some of the buttons may be off. specifically, airlift is currently the old railroad to button.

sorry to lead with those comments, but now that they are out of the way, i have to say how excited i am about this! as ive said ive played a few turns as GB and Germany, just to look around (though ill keep going with my germany game)

at first i was surprised by the low values for the unit stats (compared with say, paasky's ww2 scenario, where many units have values in the 80s and 90), but ive come to appreciate them. it is very simple and well balanced. every value seems well thought out and it makes a real difference, as opposed to arbitrary increases by 12 or 13 for example, we have stronger units with an extra 1 attack. i like that!

out of curiosity though, why do air units have such high stats when compared to ships, land units etc? i assume it's to help the AI build them, but im just curious.

i need to get some sleep now, but i have 1 more comment for the german game:

i think the NW is too lightly defended at start. granted, Germany shouldnt be steamrolling the netherlands and belgium right off the bat, but as it stands, germany doesnt have enough units in the region to effectively counter an attack by those 2 powers. the german/french border is well fortified, but its tough to hold on in the NW for a turn or 2 until reinforcements arrive, especially with 2 move artillery capable of beating the garrisons.