This is beginning to freak me out

[Morten Blaabjerg]

* caravans that can go into barb cities, even if the cities are built in the sea, even though other units cannot
* invisibility flag incompatible with barb missile units
* invisible barb cities with range one missile units that caravans can go *bump* into and deliver their goods (did I mention that one?)
* "the weather forecast" -watching barb thunderstorms and mosquito swarms roam about each and every turn, monitoring their every movement
* how on earth to reasonably set up unusual encounters within the limitations of this hard-to-please lady of the civ2 engine. I'll be grey haired before I get 30.

Any input?

 

[kobayashi]

Originally posted by Morten Blaabjerg

how on earth to reasonably set up unusual encounters within the limitations of this hard-to-please lady of the civ2 engine... Any input?

Can you be more specific what exactly you want to do?

 

[Case]

Originally posted by Morten Blaabjerg
* how on earth to reasonably set up unusual encounters within the limitations of this hard-to-please lady of the civ2 engine. I'll be grey haired before I get 30.

Have you had a look atthat well regarded scenario where you travel through the jungle while the elements pick off your force? (and whose name I've completly forgotten )

 

[Henrik]

Mortten, ther must surely be a native civ or something like that in your scenario, give them these units, the sub flag, etc are going to work for real civs.
(not quite sure about what you mean with the caravan, barb city thingie though )

 

[Morten Blaabjerg]

What I wish to do is use barbs and invisible barb cities as obstacles to the player, as he travels along the map. The basic idea was, that the player could hurry along, losing more forces but getting to the rescue faster, or play safe, and hunt down the barb cities, empty them and move on.

But I may have to abandon this idea and go back to placing the barb cities outside player range, since caravans for one can go *bump* into them and deliver their goods (which seems infinitely strange, since the cities are invisble). -And this, even if these places are in the sea!

-OR, I could abandon the caravan idea, which loses an important aspect of the scenario, because the gold rewarded for each porter coming through is a reasonable way to measure the success of the expedition, and allow the player to equip/buy new troops.

Case : You're thinking about Jay bee's El Dorado, which was quite excellent in many ways. But he used events to create units on set turns. Thats a way to do it of course, but the downside is that it makes the scenario more predictable, since units appear a the same spot all the time. And even though you can make them random, I can't think of a way to stop them being produced. Any ideas? -Events is still an option, but I'd really like to save as much event space as possible, if I can. Barb cities seemed like a much smoother way of doing it.

I don't want barbs roaming all over the place like other units. I want them to be things that are mostly not seen before they are met with. So if the player leaves an area, barb activity should seize there. Should he go back, they should pick up again. I can't think of a better way to do that than range-1 barb missiles, but it seems I'll have to scrap that one and compromise again.

 

[duke o' york]

I know nothing about scenarios I'm afraid, but would there be some way to make the bearers of supplies military units, and not caravans, so that they don't deliver into cities? You could give them an attack of 0 and a defense of 1 (or 2 if you're feeling generous), but then have an event that gives the player money based on the number of surviving units when the goal is reached? Alternatively, you could make it so that they don't give you any money at all, but are worth loads of shields, so that when you get to the city that is your destination, you can then disband these troops and get loads of new shields towards building better ones. For example: You have a unit that is bearer 1 (imaginitive huh? ). The unit picture shows him carrying guns or ammunition. When this unit arrives at the target city, you get half his shield cost when you disband him. If you make this unit require twice the number of shields that it would need to build a rifleman, then you can disband the bearer and "convert" him into a rifleman, or half the city walls or whatever. This would still reward the player for getting as many bearers throught the jungle as possible, and also give more freedom of choice when you get the bearers to the other end. Basically what I propose is that the bearers have stats like: 150 shields, 0 attack, 1 defense, 1 movement, and no special abilities. What does anyone think?

 

[Morten Blaabjerg]

Its a good workaround. I'll have to pay some attention to that. Maybe it could be coupled with a givetech event (providing the tech for the riflemen) to make sure that disbanding the units before reaching the goal won't bring any great advantages.

As for gold, I came up with an idea. Instead of rewarding, I could simply punish the player for losing the porters, i.e. take gold each time a porter is kiled or lost. In combination with making them assets of production, this might do the trick. It will really mean a world of difference, then, losing just a few of them. On the other hand, this means that the player can spend the gold in a hurry, and won't lose anything when the porters go.

 

[Boco]

These may not be practical, but I'll blurt them anyway.

If you still want a direct reward with gold, maybe you could create a caravan adjacent to an Equatorial city when Stanley's group conquers it. The arms shipment unit (powerful missile?, diplomat?) could be essential for a successful attack on the city. Make them indispensible for this purpose -- the player could use them elsewhere, but at the cost of signifcantly reducing the chance of winning. Something akin to Harlan's role for the ring in his LOTR scenario, though not necessarily with a nuke.

Alternately, if the encounters with barb cities can be separated by time or other events from the 'relief' phase in Equatoria, then perhaps you could try changing Rules.Txt during the scenario. Initially, the ammo porters could have a defensive role, while later they could have the trade role.