The Great Armada (West Europe 1580 - 1640)

[LouLong]

Do you know why it crashed ?
I need to know what error message you got to fix it.

I am afraid I am not a good tester since I have got all kinds of files. The problem is to make sure they are all in the downloads...

 

[LouLong]

oh and everybody, screenies would be nice if you want/can.

 

[mrtn]

Lou; you have two different zips called TGA! That's not really user friendly...

 

[LouLong]

Yes I know. That's why I ask people to install the first one before downloading the patch.

My problem is the file needs to be called TGA as well to actually replace existing artwork. Or can I just change the name of the zip ?

 

[mrtn]

You can have a folder called TGA inside, and tell people to unzip to the scenarios folder.

 

[EPL]

You can name the Zip file as anything you want to.

 

[LouLong]

OK, done. I have changed the patch name to TGApatch1.zip to be more user-friendly !

 

[Rofflecopter]

The patch doesn't fix anything...I can't even get into the game.

Such a shame...this seemed like a good scenario to play, too

 

[LouLong]

?? What do you mean ? There is usually no pb with starting the game. The bugs corrected in the patch are actually minor and quite late in the game (Dutch Musketeer and governor's house are not the kind of bug that would show on start-up).


When you say "I can't even get into the game" it makes me think you cannot actually see it, right ?
Then it might be because you try to load it as a conquest.

Fan-made scenarios are to be loaded from "Civ-content" on the start-up screen.

If you have got an error message, please tell me what it is.

 

[capman]

I played version 1.01 for 15 turns, conquered Ireland, trashed the spanish and league navy ... and stopped.

Before I started as the English though I changed the colours, sorry LouLong. English as blue and Spanish as red wasn't acceptable... brrr

What bothered me more though is that you have taken out the fun of research and terraforming. 9 turns for min research time is too long for a 100 turns game... especially if at the start of the game you already start with 9 turns. Building libraries and universities doesn't have any effect.
And making the worker so expensive is not realistic. You might aswell take that unit out of the game.

The governor house takes too long to build. I think that was mentioned already.

Bombard effect for musketmen with zero range. Didn't know that was possible. Works too. I liked that.

Another point, the map is too big. Gametime is too long.
I admit its not easy to set the average unit move distance in proportion to the landmass. It's already difficult with time.

The problem with Civ III is that you can change so much, but there is no indicator for "playability" when changes have been made.
One change will have an impact on other factors. The butterfly effect

Regards
capman

 

[senturus]

Could the scenario be played with french version?

When i try to launch a game, i have the message "unable to find the file : art/unit/musketman/musketman.ini"

I have followed the instructions for installation and launched the game with "civ contents". I feel that i need the english file .ini, ie "musketman.ini" instead of "mousquetaires.ini"

 

[LouLong]

I played version 1.01 for 15 turns, conquered Ireland, trashed the spanish and league navy ... and stopped.

Before I started as the English though I changed the colours, sorry LouLong. English as blue and Spanish as red wasn't acceptable... brrr

Yep lol I can understand. There are historical reasons for giving these colors to England and Spain but it looks weird. I have changed that too in the latest MP version.

What bothered me more though is that you have taken out the fun of research and terraforming. 9 turns for min research time is too long for a 100 turns game... especially if at the start of the game you already start with 9 turns. Building libraries and universities doesn't have any effect.
And making the worker so expensive is not realistic. You might aswell take that unit out of the game.

Research : I agree partly. I know I have to finetune tech costs. On the other hand I don't consider them too expensive. You have only played 15 turns and I guess you haven't really tried to exchange techs. I have tested all civs at monarch level and I garantee the tech-tree is actually too short. Because you have allies and can exchange techs with them. And for Scotland, they can easily sell their services to one alliance or the other for techs once they have discovered Late XIth century. Many civs have different tech leads so they can easily follow their own path and exchange with others.
But the minimum of 9 turns for most techs looks a bit stupid, I agree. And it prevents libraries and universities from playing their role.
Terraforming : the scenario covers a short period and to be quite accurate, the whole of England did not get perfectly terraformed over that period. Workers have their utility but they won't change dramatically an area within 15 turns because it is a scenario, not an epic. But I will keep workers because they have their use. I hated the Rome Civ2 scenario where you could get musketeers and railroad everything. Mine attempts at recreating a time and special events, not giving you a base to recreate your own epic.

The governor house takes too long to build. I think that was mentioned already.

Sure. It is not really supposed to be built. Spanish start with one but the others must probably use a leader if they want to create one within reasonable time.
Why ? Because most armies could not build new troops in recently conquered cities which is shown here by corruption. To overextend is a pb except if you succeed in getting a leader to rush the governor's house.

Bombard effect for musketmen with zero range. Didn't know that was possible. Works too. I liked that.

Many range units in Conquests have that option (first done by Kal-El in DYP I think).

Another point, the map is too big. Gametime is too long.
I admit its not easy to set the average unit move distance in proportion to the landmass. It's already difficult with time.

That's a point of view. But the map is smaller than for Rise of Rome for instance, albeit "fuller" and not too different from the Napoleonic scenario. The scenario plays fairly fast which is the proof it is not too big. At a larger scale I would lose much interesting detail. But of course the detail is important mostly for people who really enjoy the topic and want to play it, and not just like a beginning of any other epic.

The problem with Civ III is that you can change so much, but there is no indicator for "playability" when changes have been made.
One change will have an impact on other factors. The butterfly effect

Regards
capman

As much as I agree on the "butterfly" effect and acknowledge some things can be wrong, I truly feel your critics are coming from an "epic" player. In which case there is not much I could do to make you like the scenario as they are truly two different things and I was not trying to do that.

What matters more for me is whether luxuries are appropriate, powers balanced, whether Spain tries to bring back its treasuries which leads to pirate attacks or tries to land on England ... because these are the aims of the scenario. And the scenario is mostly about war (in which techs play a large role) and not building up a civilization for supremacy (in which terraforming would play a role).

Are you usually a scenario player ?

And if you kicked the Irish within 15 turns I advise you to go up one level !
BTW v 1.1 with patch is up (albeit it won't answer most of your needs I am afraid).

 

[LouLong]

Could the scenario be played with french version?

When i try to launch a game, i have the message "unable to find the file : art/unit/musketman/musketman.ini"

I have followed the instructions for installation and launched the game with "civ contents". I feel that i need the english file .ini, ie "musketman.ini" instead of "mousquetaires.ini"

Edit : found it.

It is in this thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=73272), albeit you need to look for the French version inside the thread.
Will put a link in my second post.

Let me know if it works (or not !).

 

[TheGaffer44]

The scenario looks great, but not very historically accurate. If you are focusing on the wars of religion, or the 30 Years War, as it is usually called, you need to include Germany, as this is where most of the fighting took place. You should include a side for German Protestants and Catholics, as well as the Danish, the Swedish, and the Austrian Hapsburgs, all of whom played a large role in the conflict. France should not be allied with Spain. In fact, they were mortal enemies. France, a Catholic nation, took the side of the Protestants during the 30 Years War, just to stop Spain from gaining power. As far as religious conflict in France goes, the Huguenots (French Protestants) only made up about five percent of the population, and were mostly settled in some northern cities. There were never enough of them to bring about a full civil war, but there were a large number of religious riots in some of the northern cities. You should also note that Spain controlled Burgundy, a region of eastern France, and many part of Italy.

 

[LouLong]

The scenario is about the wars of religion in Western Europe only so it was a choice not to include the "official" Wars of Religion that divided the HRE from 1618 onwards.
That's why I changed its name to "Great Armada". So it is not historicall inaccurate it is just a different conflict.

As it is NOT about the 30 years' war but the period before, it is quite accurate to have the League allied with Spain as Spain supported it. So much actually that this strengthened the French "national" spirit, even among the Catholics and resulted in a long conflict that was ended by the treaty of the Pyrenees where Spain accepted not not mingle in French internal affairs. But that was real late in the period (1659).
And at that time France had been united for a long time under a French dynasty that was originately protestant (Henry IV of Bourbon and Navarra).

The protestants in France were NOT in the North. Their strongholds were in the South-West and along the Atlantic coast (La Rochelle) and across Southern France to Lyon and Dauphine. I added to them the loyalists (catholics) and the future Henry IV authorized catholic churches (as you said the Protestants made up a very small percentage of the population) so they are represented as "France".

What is inaccurate in this scenario is :

- France : I could have divided it between the last of the Valois (Henry III), the League (Henry de Guise) and protestant-loyalists (Henry of Navara) to represent the war of the 3 Henrys. But since Henry III died fairly soon and the game would be unbalanced I made a choice for gameplay.

- the Moriscos in SOuthern Spain who were actually defeated just a bit before the start of the scenario.

- the length of the the scenario (60 years) that saw some things that cannot be represented in the game (Stuarts from Scotland getting England in 1603, ....).

As in any scenario one has to make arbitrations between gameplay and accuracy and I accept that some people are not happy with all these choices.

Nevertheless, being myself an Historian, I can garantee the accuracy is not too bad as long as you understand this scenario is NOT about the 30 years' war that is

 

[Karl_t_great]

I played It twice, first as the league, and then as english both on emperor. Closed both by VP in about 60 turns.

First time was really "out of the box" (didn't ever read this thread), the early fight with france was exhausting my resources. After discovering how to build the mercenary units I was able to flip the balance, built a lot of artillery + few armies and wiped the french, then bombarding thru the dutch cities the VP limit was reached few turns before domination.

As Enlish i decided to punish the Irish first, and got suprised by a spanish invasion from the noth sea. It took me over a dosen turns to buid enough power to wipe the two elite tertios camped in leicester. This time I knew the name of the game, and bribed the non-allied civ:s to be constantly on my side. Denying the league the mercenaries, made them very fragile, and the game was over in very similar fashion. This time it took me few more turns than on first time, caused by the turns & units wasted on the spanish invasion.

Did't build much, execpt for barracs and walls, economy was rotten for the league early on until capturing the frensh's luxuries in the SW, the english econ was too easy though, was able to keep 50% lux most of the time.

Some observations:
- armies, 2 unit limit is good, but they're still too cheap (and the AI does not produce them).
- mercenaries shoud be available to both parties, now the human player can deny the resource by renewing the alliance all the time.
- VP limit is too low (or turn limit is too high)
- it is impossible to gain science lead (intentional ?), so why bother with the custom tech tree
- most of the city improvments are too expesive to ROI in the cource of the scenario.
- and finally the tertios are too strong, damm - I have to play those spanish once ;-)

As with Civ in general the early fights were even, but if You survive those the game turns into "whack em all", since after losing the start unit bonuses the AI cannot keep up. So any proposal for additional mid/late -game bonuses only avalable to the AI would be wellcome. The "catholic coronation" could be the the mechanism to give the AI some late game bonus, but I cannot figure out how to limit this to AI -civ only.


And finally a great thanks to LouLong, i enjoyed playing the scenario a LOT. It was playable, balanced and included a proper amount of new features to make it intresting and challanging.

 

[Arne]

Before I started as the English though I changed the colours, sorry LouLong. English as blue and Spanish as red wasn't acceptable... brrr

I agree. Well thats an minor point but I also was little surprised when I was first time playing this scenario. I don't know, how it works in the "latest MP version" but IMHO French should be coloured blue, Dutch orange, Spanish yellow, Scotts darkblue and English red. But this is only my opinion.

 

[ironduck]

I agree with Karl about the general cost of city improvements, but I figured it was a conscious choice.. it's really because the land has few mines so shields are mostly limited to forest areas. The low city production naturally causes an almost exclusive focus on millitary units given the full scale warfare.

Many of the issues seen as problematic in single player probably are not relevant in multiplayer. I think the game strongly leans towards multiplayer due to the locked alliances and continuous war, and hopefully it will be fun if our multiplayer effort ever gets past turn one

 

[LouLong]

@ Karl_t_great : Very nice and interesting feedback.

First I am glad you enjoyed it. That's the aim of it.

Second : can I ask you at what level you played, what tech you had reached just before finishing and what version of the "biq" you played ?

Third : about the comments
- armies : too cheap. Possible. AI does not build them --> I will probably have to turn the improvement into a spawning armies one.
- VP limit too low : apparently yes. But I would like to know first what biq version you played.
- science lead : I am not sure I get your point. Do you mean you are late in the tech-tree ? The techs really are important, for units, money, happiness so I don't think it is worth having it.
- Improvements : I can try to lower a bit the cost. But they are usually buildable by using cash-rush once you have the proper government (which was made for realism as most improvements started to be actually financed by the state then). Now they should not just be for decoration and if their cost is too high I need to lower it.
***Remark*** on both techs and improvement costs (and unit costs as well) : the PBEM is actually a full test to check them and make them more balanced.

- Tercios : they sure are. That's the "incentive" to protect one's coasts and develop a navy. For if Spanish lands they can be beaten but it is not like the usual one-two weak unit landings the AI often does.

 

[Karl_t_great]

Second : can I ask you at what level you played, what tech you had reached just before finishing and what version of the "biq" you played ?

- Emperor
- the league: matchclock no artillery,trade, mounted troops; england: all
- the file is TGA v1.01.biq, but missed some files like the govenor's...

- science lead : I am not sure I get your point. Do you mean you are late in the tech-tree ? The techs really are important, for units, money, happiness so I don't think it is worth having it.
- Improvements : I can try to lower a bit the cost. But they are usually buildable by using cash-rush once you have the proper government (which was made for realism as most improvements started to be actually financed by the state then). Now they should not just be for decoration and if their cost is too high I need to lower it.

The point is that if the science is relatively cheap, and tech trades even cheaper (when playing english bought some tech for 50+map), and with 9 turn limit, it makes everyone reach the goal pretty much the same time. Is this Your intention ?
As English turn 18 I was doing 200 gpt (net, corruption+maint+unit excluded) and advanced finance only costs like 400 g, could have done it in 5 turns. It is a 120 turn war -- I build Units and put most of the money in entertaiment, i have very little use for banks, universities, and particulary scientific method. Anoher example is making a mill in 20 spt city takes 10 turns, ROI takes 33 turns -- > it takes 43 turns to get benefit from a mill, so the only reason for me to researh milling is to get artillery.It seems to me tech is only needed for new units, other benefits have no meaning.

My suggestions:
- Try increasing science cost, so that investment in science would give the researching civ some advantage.
- make all the improvmets and wonders more affordable or leave them out

BTW, I also consider changing gowt's a waste of turns in such a short scenario (unless religous). For it's complexity I cannot calculate a ROI time for this, but I doubt the benefits for english at least.

- Tercios : they sure are. That's the "incentive" to protect one's coasts and develop a navy. For if Spanish lands they can be beaten but it is not like the usual one-two weak unit landings the AI often does.

I agree that they are OK, and actually balancing, for the AI, but too strong for the human player to have. Maybe I demostrate this by playing 1 game as spanish.