While We Wait: Writer's Block & Other Lame Excuses

[Lord_Iggy]

I'm running rough tests... thusfar, it turns out that Saskatchewan is utterly destroying everyone. In my first test game, Ontario and Québec got into a war within the first 10 turns or so, permanently crippling the latter. Saskatchewan expanded everywhere, then began to steamroll Manitoba. Northern Québec is rapidly filling up with colonies from all of that province's opportunistic neighbours. Meanwhile, Yukon (me) and BC are falling behind technologicaly and developmentally- the Rocky Mountains are a serious, serious obstacle to development.

Overall, I think I need to put fewer resources in the prairies, more food bonuses in the far west, and continue tweaking things, as further playtesting reveals how things tend to play out.

 

[Radio Noer]

Well, since New NESes, ideas... is currently in a bit of a tiff right now over alternate history, maybe I can get some feedback on my NES idea here. Here is what I have so far.

 

[Eltain]

If only cops and smugglers use cars, wouldn't all non-police cars get pulled over and searched. :0 I am not a story-ist (although I hate to give labels to things), it looks like a good outlet for those who are and do enjoy stories and story-ing. Good luck to you, sir!

 

[Radio Noer]

If only cops and smugglers use cars, wouldn't all non-police cars get pulled over and searched. :0 I am not a story-ist (although I hate to give labels to things), it looks like a good outlet for those who are and do enjoy stories and story-ing. Good luck to you, sir!

I hadn't thought of that, good point. I'll have to revise that a little bit then.

 

[Terrance888]

No way, most Smugglers have fake cop files, and most cops are undercover as smugglers.

There, fixed.

 

[Gem Hound]

lol really? how?

Edit: This post is directed at Lord Iggy.

 

[Lord_Iggy]

Hmm, my first test of my Civ 3 Scenario reveals that I didn't properly remove unique units from the game. NWT's Legions and Ontario's Numidian Mercenaries definitely took me by surprise.

Overall, the first game makes the prairie provinces seem to be very powerful. I'll consider removing a few of their strategic resources, so that they have to push into more marginal areas, such as those of the Rocky Mountains.

I played as Yukon, and gradually fell under a huge dogpile. By the end a web of military alliances had put me at war against Alberta, BC, Nova Scotia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and the NWT. And Ontario. Basically every Civilization I'd met in the game. I'm not sure if this is an indictment of the difficulty of a northern, mountainous position or my own Civ 3 playing skill.

 

[Lord_Iggy]

So I played another test game, as Québec, where Ontario Archer-rushed me just as I was founding my second city. Then I played another game as Newfoundland and Labrador, and Ontario killed Québec again, although somehow Québec managed to establish Montréal on the shores of Great Bear Lake. This might have been a far-reaching scout on a goody hut, or maybe I have Civ respawn turned on by accident. At any rate, I'm very amused by the Wolfe-esque behaviour emerging from Ontario in this scenario, but I think something needs to be done to keep Québec from getting rolled each game. I'll play a few more games before I make a definite decision on what exactly is going wrong.

Also, Ontario keeps on freaking beating me to Philosophy and denying my bids for the Republic Slingshot. >_<

Other things I've done: fix up a few unit bugs so that everyone now has access to all the default units, as they should. I fixed Newfoundland and Labrador, which started with Mysticism instead of Ceremonial burial as its religious tech. In fixing the unit mistake, I accidentally messed up the starting locations, but I've gotten those back to normal as well (no more Fredericton being founded near Baker Lake). I'll have to rename Newfoundland and Labrador to simply 'Newfoundland', because the name is too big and causes the game to develop several unsightly graphical glitches.

 

[Kraznaya]

What difficulty are you playing?

 

[Lord_Iggy]

Monarch. That's the highest difficulty I've ever won at, though I've made several bids at Emperor. I'm not that great at Civ 3, or any version of Civ for that matter.

Other changes: removed a few iron resources, to better match the distribution of iron mines in reality and to make it a bit more of a limiting resource.

 

[Grandkhan]

You should have made everything south of the border a desert, so that nobody will settle there and the US will be a spawning ground for barbarians who surge north to attack and pillage the civilised nations of Canada.

 

[Lord_Iggy]

Given the fact that Canada otherwise lacks desert, desert may be a good terrain to use.

At Kraz's request, here is the current .biq file for the Civ 3 Conquests Scenario. I cannot emphasize enough that the map is still being tweaked, the Civilizations are still very much under ongoing construction and modification, and lots of more things will change. Still, it's playable at this point, although some nations are still very difficult to pull off, and others seem to be easy mode *cough*saskatchewan and ontario*cough*.

EDIT: For aesthetic purposes, however, I'm not crazy about the idea of huge walls of impassable mountains or somesuch. I'll see what I can do with landmark coast, sea and ocean tiles to block off the land territory of the USA, and perhaps place them under a perpetual fog of war.

 

[Daftpanzer]

Trying to finish the NESLife update but barking dogs outside are driving me crazy :/

@Iggy, looking interesting! I would favour some land mass where the USA should be, just so you don't have inappropriate naval schenangians. Also, the grassland in the north looks like it will produce way more food than is actually true of those regions? IMO it was always a quirk of Civilization, having rich farmland adjoining tundra.

 

[erez87]

Trying to finish the NESLife update but barking dogs outside are driving me crazy :/

One life must end for another to continue

 

[Grandkhan]

Don't make it impassable, just unsettleable, so that the barbarians of the lands of Usa will constantly spawn there and go North on a crusade against good Canadian civilisation.

 

[North King]

Keep the Great Lakes open, though -- naval war across them!

 

[North King]

[in response to Internet ~drama~]

 

[Lord_Iggy]

Trying to finish the NESLife update but barking dogs outside are driving me crazy :/

@Iggy, looking interesting! I would favour some land mass where the USA should be, just so you don't have inappropriate naval schenangians. Also, the grassland in the north looks like it will produce way more food than is actually true of those regions? IMO it was always a quirk of Civilization, having rich farmland adjoining tundra.

The north actually is potentially great agricultural land, due to very long growing days. I'd need to mess with terrains a bit to have forests overlap the tundra.

Don't make it impassable, just unsettleable, so that the barbarians of the lands of Usa will constantly spawn there and go North on a crusade against good Canadian civilisation.

We've got more than enough problems with the huge empty areas of the north, from which the Inuit swarm without number.

Still it's a fun idea.

 

[Lord_Iggy]

I've done a map with the USA all as impassable, zero-value desert, but I'm still playing through a game as the Newfoundlanders in the previous version of the map. Thusfar I've smashed the Nova Scotians, taking all of their colonies, before turning against the New Brunswickers (Brunswickians? Braunschweigers?), evicting them from everything except one last toehold in Labrador and a colony on Baffin Island. PEI still hasn't figured out how to put a saddle on a horse, but it's on a one-tile island and will thus be indestructible until the industrial era.

Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba are the tech leaders, with Québec, Northwest Territories and British Columbia lagging two or three techs behind. I'm bouncing between these groups, but with my territory rapidly developing I'm really starting to power up the tech tree. Yukon and Nunavut are half an age behind, and all of the Atlantic provinces but myself are now caught in the tech stagnation inherent in tiny Civ 3 empires.

Anyway, I was just getting into the swing of peacemongering when Ontario decided to demand my one source of saltpetre, to which I objected. Ontario's invading now, which seems like a good chance to kick around Premier Mowat, who due to modder laziness looks exactly like Hannibal of Carthage.

 

[Angst]

Try to play through a game of Nunavik next and win through REXing the area west across the sea... Something the AI doesn't seem to realize is a good idea.