Whomp,
i never tried civassist or the mapstat. however, i'd be interested to see if they'd work. i don't see why they wouldn't. what type of info do those programs calculate anyway?
for easy access, here is the link for the large DL:
http://www.3ddownloads.com/Strategy/Civilization%203/Mods/Age of Imperialism/AoI.zip
here is the link for the biq file:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/43728/AoI_v3.0_31civs.zip
both files ought to be in the following directory:
Civilization III/Conquests/Scenarios
lastly, here is the small patch for the errant unit files:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5017121&postcount=2603
follow the short instructions in the above linked post. and i apologize for the need to DL and install the 'patch' as i try to avoid extra DLs. however, it is very small and takes only a hot second
see my notation on luxuries below for a more detailed explanation of how they work in AoI. you'll see that you won't have to worry too much about the clowns/jokers/jesters in the cities. so that part is good i guess.
food is power i guess...to a certain extent. i mean, it certainly helps boost the city sizes which in turn boosts tax revenue, shields, defenisive bonuses granted by citiy and metro sizes, etc. however, pop isn't a part of the victory conditions.
we could feed luxuries only to our neighbors we think ought to grow. i mean, we'll have a few left over in the resource boxes to do so
i also would want to run hot on science - at least in the beginning when our science boosting base is very low (i'll have to check to see what the exact min/max times are for the techs - something tells me it's 6min/16max). once we ramp it up w/ a few Universities and then later, Colonial School Systems, we'll be able to pull off the science throttle a bit and allot our scratch to other endeavors.
i like the name of the thread actually
i mean, it is certainly a flurry of diplomacy and an almost endless game of cat and mouse and trying to keep our rivals off our ass
i'll start up the file tommorow night as i'm not at home right now...but i hope to crank out the first 5 and post the save no later than 5:30 pm EST (US).
and yes! imageshack is your friend! as least Thunderfall would say so!
a few important details not covered thus far:
i will have to open up the file to tell you all exacts as far as how many total turns - but it's something in the neighborhood of
450-500 for the 'FULL' file. and i am almost positive that the VP condition is
4,000 even.
VPs are accumulated 2 ways:
~ one (1) pt awarded each turn for the occupation of a victory location. these locations are pre-placed in each civ's capital. each civ has only one (1) location.
~ two (2) pts awarded for the successful return of each 'raw material' unit to your capital (or another victory location assuming we take an enemy captial). also, 25 gold is awarded for each successful return.
the base amount of HPs for all units is four (4) instead of the standard civ3conquest three (3).
standard worker units, known as Civil Engineers in-game, are not buildable in the scenario. instead, they are autopro'd by the Capital (aka Palace) every 10 turns (i think - it might be a little higher - i'll have to check to be 100% sure - but i ain't at home right now). so guarding our worker units is a must. and capturing enemy worker units is a neat little spoil of war.
there is however a Colonial Conscript Worker unit and it can be built but only in the overseas holdings (or where the 'Colonialism' resource is avaialble). their worker rate capacity is a fraction of the Civil Engineer unit though.
Settler units can not be built or spawned.
regarding the map - it is a 180x180 world map made by Rhye i think. it has an 'oversized Europe' w/ shorter oceans. i did a good deal of small revisions though in certain areas to enhance gameplay and ensure proper food and shield distributions. i also placed all of the cities and resources, too. actually - i did a good bit of research on the resources and found some good sources for RL resource placement. so if there was gold in northern siberia, the ruskies have it. rubber plantations in brazil, tin deposits near Rangoon, coal mines near Philly, etc etc.
there's no scientific GLs nor are there any Golden Ages.
army units are not buildable. instead, they're spawned automatically when we win one of those lucky elite unit battles. so there's no standard GLs either. the purpose of this is to limit the appearance of what i think is a gamebreaker at times: the army units. however, if we pop one of these, it'll be a HUGE asset to us our any potential war plans be it in Europe, Africa, China, or in the Pacific.
Barracks city improvements can only be built in the colonies - and not until the last era. however, the Military Academy sm wonder, which can be built in our capital only, will produce vet ground units. the intent of this is to rely moreso on combat achievements to garner that extra HP as it is very valuable. the second generation infantry units (the WW1 variants and available at the very end of the 2nd era) offer a nice jump in HPs and A/D values. check the CivP for more info if you wish
happiness issues are sort of minimalized in AoI. luxuries certainly play a role in the scenario. however, not to the extent of the default civ3conquests. the key w/ the luxury resources is that cities w/in the radius of them are afforded exclusive city imp's like gold mines, tin mines, copper mines, rubber plantations, etc etc. luxury resources can be traded (air and sea trade is disabled for AoI - it reduces turn times by about 700%*) but only to a civ which we have a road network leading to their capital. so in our case w/ Germany, we have several which we can trade with (all of europe save for Great Britain).
*this large reduction for the in-between-turn times is noticable pretty much throughout the scenario but primarily in the mid and late game stages.
only the Marine units (some UU marines and a generic one for everone else) have the amphibious attack flag. however, there are no 1 tile island cities on the map to encourage AI landings. and to be honest, i've probably seen more 'smart' AI amphibous landings in AoI than in any other civ3 file. so we should be ready for this
all of the pre-placed sea units on the map are named. this means that our ships will be SMS -name- -followed by the class abbreviation-. british ships have the HMS prefix, America has the USS moniker, etc. i propose that we name the ships as they are built or arrange to do so upon initiating sea unit builds
that would be cool.
as for my mgmt style - well, i usually go the route of production/shield enhancment in combination w/ city growth + defensive minded units. and once i feel comfortable w/ my defenses, i'll begin assembling a combined group of offensive type units. by 'combined' i mean that i have a nice mix of infantry, arty pieces (usually 1 for every 3-4 inf [give/take]), cav units, and sometimes workers. one general rule of thumb i usually follow is to keep my cities in the 'white' by drafting citizens when they go 'yellow' or 'red'. of course, i am open to any style really. i mean, that is the intrigue i think about these type of games. but again, i'm open to any MM'ing that is suggested
missed 
will watch from the sidelines. i expect the next 3 months to be heavy school nights
i don't think i've ever got that far in 1 game before!
