The Boer War (TBW)

[LouLong]

I'm currently playing the scenario and it seems rather easy from the Boers side.

Game Evolution
On turn 33 I've eliminated the Zulus and conquered 2 British Cities. All the other remain neutral (even though demand for money once in a while).

Comments

Found no BUG. What kind of a Beta version is this without bugs????
I will make a formal complaint in the "Bug Union"!!!

Militia (unit):
State in the civilopedia that they are immobile, giving them zero movement points. I thought this was a bug!!! But not...

Modern Weapons (Tech):
You can get it (which should allow Gatling) BEFORE military Imports (Tech), but you can only build them if you have European weapons (resource) which only occur with Military Imports (Tech). So maybe Military Imports should be a requirement to search Modern Weapons (Tech) and Overseas Support (Tech)?

European Weapons (resource):
It requires Military Imports (Tech) but in the Civilopedia says Modern Weapons (Tech).

.

Indeed it is a bit easy as the Boers. So since that I actually made the British stronger (7.7) which still allows the Boers to go for their first strike while most British troops are away in Cape Town or even "Europe" but British columns when they arrive are now more deadly.
All troops cost have been increased a lot as in my latest tests, the map became covered with units. While each represent a small body of men, it was still a bit too much. Boer units cost has increased more than average so that replensihments don't come in droves --> you need to be more careful of your starting units.
I usually playtest in debug mod as the Germans to let the Boers/English free to go. Usually the Boers capture 2-3 cities (Ladysmith, Mafeking, Colesburg and sometimes Dundee (which is sometimes razed). But then the British counter-attack and it is bloody, especially in Natal and near Kimberley. And England starts to conquer Orange southern cities methodically. Which seems quite reasonable. But of course this is AI vs AI, a human opponent should fare much better (especially using cannons, howitzers and gatling). Still England has been stregthened. The war was tough and the Boers could have resisted the same way they did during the first war but still it should be a tough job for them, especially on demi-god !!
On 10 playtests I have had the Boers lose about half of the time which is fine for PBEMs albeit less so for a realistic game.
Strangely enough, Zulus usually remain alive quite a long time vs AIs.

Bugs : well, rest now, there are some. If you play a bit more you will probably see the game freeze when a certain tech is discovered.
And as you noted I completely screwed the tech-tree/resources/buildable units.
This is fixed now (and in the pedia too, normally). Just waiting for the last art.
And since there is a patch to install, place-holder art, lack of balance,... I still consider it a beta. The first official version will then be playable easily and completely by non-modders without need for constant updates.

Militias are indeed immobile. They are not supposed to be part of the army except when their city is surrounded. I have tried to limit their use though as in the beta the Boers created really too many. Upped the size-2 limit for that.
But since they share the same gfx as the Boer infantry (sorry, lack of gfx) I know it can be a bit confusing.
Apart from that all other units now have their own gfx, even Kommandos. BTW did you reach their tech ? The AI likes them but not overly so which is good but he is poor at raids deep inside English territory.

Basically it could be best played in MP (especially with special units like Kommandos, Bushveldt carbineers and bunkers).

Thanks for the report anyway ! Always useful. If you can continue a bit, all the better as while witing for art I am trying to finetune the balance and stats.

Hope it was not too annoying with the placeholder art and that the war theme is not too boring. The few (and slow) techs, the other civs and the special abilities units they allow are trying to add more diversity but maybe not enough. What do you think ?

 

[Tank_Guy#3]

Altogether British troops were superior in manpower and therefore firepower and training.

Superiority in manpower, there is no doubt. It was roughly 20,000 to 8,000 in the Battle of Spion Kop alone. Numbers may account for a lot, but they are not by any means everything. Look what happened in the American Civil War, the South had no where near as many men as the Union but it had good leadership, and it made the Union pay dearly. But with less men, you feel the sting of a defeat more harshly than your better numbered adversary. Also, you can lose by having your enemy constantly attacking even at great loss to himself, so long as he inflicts casualties (like Gen. Grants strategy to defeat Lee).

Firepower, I should definitely think not. The Boers were equiped with state-of-the-art Mauser rifles, field guns, and automatic weapons purchased from Krupp and Creusot. The British standard issue at the time was the Lee-Enfield .303. I would have to stick with the Boers in choice of weapons. They were quite a well equiped fighting force.

And training is only as good as the leadership allows. As said above about the American Civil War. The Boer War is a prime example of when the British showed a clear lack in leadership intelligence. As for Spion Kop, I'm reminded of the Battle of Chancellorsville. To order your men to charge a well fortified hilltop, defended by a modern fighting force of the day, with snipers on the surrounding bluffs, you may take the field if you have enough men (which the British did), but the enemy (Boers) will make you pay for it.

Here is a link specifically about the Battle of Spion Kop:

http://www.britishbattles.com/great-boer-war/spion-kop.htm

Anyway this is a great looking scenario. I especially like the small file size, perfect for dial-uppers, I could almost DL this from home !!!

 

[LouLong]

Australians were not hired by the British to fight in this war, the men who went were enthusiastic, at least to begin with, volunteers. They were quite important in the later, guerilla phase of the war. However they were small in number, and also many fought in British units. Its just something to consider, i would, but then again, i am Australian and like to see them in there.

keep those slaves working hard!

Sorry for my wording. I meant "hired" simply in the way they were used by the British. They also were some Canadians. On the other hand some people joined the Boer side.

I don't if it will be enough but I will add an Australian cavalry unit (Boer cavalry look but with Australian as a name) in "India". Would that be OK ?

 

[LouLong]

Superiority in manpower, there is no doubt. It was roughly 20,000 to 8,000 in the Battle of Spion Kop alone. Numbers may account for a lot, but they are not by any means everything. Look what happened in the American Civil War, the South had no where near as many men as the Union but it had good leadership, and it made the Union pay dearly. But with less men, you feel the sting of a defeat more harshly than your better numbered adversary. Also, you can lose by having your enemy constantly attacking even at great loss to himself, so long as he inflicts casualties (like Gen. Grants strategy to defeat Lee).

Firepower, I should definitely think not. The Boers were equiped with state-of-the-art Mauser rifles, field guns, and automatic weapons purchased from Krupp and Creusot. The British standard issue at the time was the Lee-Enfield .303. I would have to stick with the Boers in choice of weapons. They were quite a well equiped fighting force.

And training is only as good as the leadership allows. As said above about the American Civil War. The Boer War is a prime example of when the British showed a clear lack in leadership intelligence. As for Spion Kop, I'm reminded of the Battle of Chancellorsville. To order your men to charge a well fortified hilltop, defended by a modern fighting force of the day, with snipers on the surrounding bluffs, you may take the field if you have enough men (which the British did), but the enemy (Boers) will make you pay for it.

Here is a link specifically about the Battle of Spion Kop:

http://www.britishbattles.com/great-boer-war/spion-kop.htm

Anyway this is a great looking scenario. I especially like the small file size, perfect for dial-uppers, I could almost DL this from home !!!

Well, about the size, the complete soon-to-be-released version will include 2 animated leaderheads and a few more units to replace the existing place-holders so it will be a tad bigger, but not overly so.

About size, man/firepower, I meant the Boer units represent small groups of men while British units represent larger regular formations. But the British sure did mistakes and underestimated the Boers, hence the real (but difficult) possibility for a Boer victory.
To represent their use of fine European weapons I gave them some powerful modern units but they require some resources only the Germans or Portuguese can trade with them to represent the need of importing them and the need for the British of having a real economical blocus/embargo vs the Boers. This playtests quite well.

 

[Tank_Guy#3]

ERROR READING FILE

Missing entry in "text\PediaIcons.txt": ICON_BLDG_Camp​

Any solutions?

 

[LouLong]

Wait for the complete official release ? I only need the tech-tree arrows done now.

Actually that's good (in a "good catch" meaning), I will check that bug.

 

[LouLong]

Here are the screenshots of the tech-tree for Arne.

The first line is just for African civs and only shows for them normally.

Then the other lines are also pretty straightforward. Except maybe Teritorial control that needs both Overseas support and Africanization (arrow is going down).

Thank Arne !

 

[LouLong]

Major upgrade tomorrow (or maybe tonight depending on the speed of 3ddonwloads).

The version 1.0 corrects some remaining bugs, adds more pedia, rebalances artillery units in SP mod (the AI uses them !), adds some more gfx (especially leaderhead for Boers and Small African States, and all in one !

 

[LouLong]

Posted !

You need to download both the main folder and the biqs to play. The former Main folder is obsolete.

Feedback welcome !

 

[LouLong]

Some more screenshots posted !

No feedback ?

 

[Red Door]

I'll try later today.

 

[jamesjkirk]

I'll do the honors then:

I've been playing as the Boers, at Emporer (I think), and I'm currently in Week 13 of 1900.

I started off aggressive, as I've seen suggested, grabbing Kimberley and Colesburg (and soonafter, Middleburg) as early as I could. I also made trade agreements with Germany and Portugal and got them to embargo Britain. As I was consolidating this and contemplating simultanaeous attacks against Cape Colony and Bechunaland, the first counterattacks began. Troops marched up through Cape Colony to grab my new holdings, and attacked in the east with Indian troops as well. These were fairly large groups, but the attacks were repulsed with casualties, but no land was retaken.
After a few more, lighter waves, Britain signed a military alliance with Germany against me. Both then proceded to invade my cities of the northwest, prompting me to sign peace with Germany as quickly as I could, and to invade Bechunaland for real, and cut off the roadways with my new Kommandos.
At this point, I noticed the Zulus were bugging me. So I gathered forces to take out Zululand and then Natal. Ulundi put up a lot of resistance, which I held tenuously until the fall of Dundee, then abandoned rather than lose to an amphibious stack of Brit Colonial Infantry. Which brings us to now.

So, my observations:
It does seem a bit easy as the Boers. But, for CivIII, I think the Brits are putting up a pretty good multifront attack. And using sea landings as much as they can. I'm also helped by the fact that I've stayed at peace with the Independent States. But we'll also see how capturing Natal goes, and what happens from there.

 

[LouLong]

Nice feedback, thanks jamesjkirk.

I might have do different biqs depending on whether you want to play the Boers or the British as if the human plays the Brits he finds them them a tad too easy (and it is the same when humans play the Boers). Other possibility, just change the level (that would be demi-god then).

Main questions :
- did you see the Brits use artillery or gatling gun offensively ?
- did you consider Kommandos to be too strong/too cheap ?
- overall do you think the Boers get too many/too cheap troops which then indeed makes it too easy for them ?
- did you research military imports ? Do you think trading relations are well represented (for instance with the blockade British and Portugal can cause because Boers and landlocked) ?

 

[jamesjkirk]

I actually meant to address all those things, but got caught up in remembering my game

1) I haven't seen the Brits using artillery, other than placing them in cities. Actually they sent a few Gatlings deep into my territory, but I decided to let them attack my cities and die rather than attack them (although after one killed itself by attacking a city, I took out the other).

2)Since they're intended to be used to harrass behind the lines, yes, I think Kommandos are both too strong and too cheap. I've ended up just using them to pick out troops in the field, and as an alternative to Cavalry when going after cities. Maybe the attacks stats could be decreased, or they could move down to one movement with treat all as roads?

3) One problem with unit cost is that only my core cities can really produce anything, as it stands, they're pumping out Cavalry and Boers, my intermediate cities are doing Kommandos, and the peripheral ones just do Militia and Natives after getting Walls. Part of it is that other than Aquaducts and Walls, I don't really see a need to build anything. Maybe you could have a costly building or two that would spawn units like the Kommandos at an appropriate speed? Also, money in this scenario is basically useless. All I used it for was to buy trade, peace or techs.

4)I don't recall if I researched that or bought it. I ended up buying most of my techs, then cranking up my cash and later my luxury rate when I got to the point when I didn't want any more of the techs. I did lose the military hardware resource when the Germans declared war. And right after I posted, I had the Portuguese declare, which cost me trade goods. Maybe you could add some more luxuries that are held by the European powers, since I never felt the pinch of losing them.

In the turns after I posted, I took a bit more of Natal, then the Portuguese declared war on me. I already had some troops nearby that I was moving south toward Natal. I did have to scramble a bit to protect some of my cities. I signed peace after retaking Swazi (which had flipped to me) and a city in the northeast that had flipped to them. Soonafter, the Africans declared war. This had me more worried, since they'd been annoying me by sending hordes of troops west to attack Germany, and my western cities were poorly defended (this is where Kommandos came quite in handy). I stopped all their invasions, and after finishing off Natal took they're three easternmost cities before making peace. Now I have tons of troops and am about to simultanaeously invade Cape Colony from the north and east, but I think i'm also about to win a domination victory due to my population.

EDIT: Silly me, I forgot about the Area aspect of domination....anyway, well it looks like I'd get a cultural victory within several turns, I took out the Africans after another sneak attack, have survived several strong attacks from the British as well (including a brief loss of Port Natal). However, on Week 43 of 1900, after I finish the turn, it cycles through everyone's turn, but freezes right before my next turn....quite the bummer. Any thoughts? I'll see what I can figure out.

 

[The Last Conformist]

@LouLong: So, when are you gonna put up those screenshots for the tech trees?

 

[The Last Conformist]

LouLong, where'dja go?

 

[LouLong]

Loulong is here ! Really sorry for that, especially as I am asking you for your help !

Mentat (cf Reconquista thread) led me to discover Crusader Kings and I haven't had much life out of it for a fes days since then

But here are the files :
- 1 is the picture of the tech-tree for all civs.
- 1 is the biq if you want to check the prerequisites and such.

But to make things easier :
- The first line is for the Africans and is straight and not connected to the others.
- the second line industrialization >Modern Weapons > Military Imports is traight as well. DISREGARD THE FUTURE TECH that won't be here anymore.
- the third line is straight as well Colonization > Settlements > Africanization > Guerilla
- then Overseas Support comes from Colonization, Territorial Control from BOTH Oversea Support AND Africanization
- Population control comes straight from Territorial Control

I will be around (I promise !) if you have any question !

Thank you !

 

[The Last Conformist]

Okay. I'll get started tomorrow - shouldn't take very much time.

 

[The Last Conformist]

I got unexpectedly visited by Germans , and so haven't got started on this yet. Expect it to take a few more days.

 

[The Last Conformist]

Do you want arrows 'tween the African techs? They'll show up for everyone, looking odd on the euros screens ...

On the whole, it probably were easier having the Africans' and Europeans' tech trees in different eras.