04-03-2004 20:24									#31
	Tired of ads?

Please, more screenshots for those of us who don't have TOT

Baldrick from Black Adder I recon

Baldrick: My lord, I have a cunning plan!
Edmund: Baldrick, you couldn't see a cunning plan if it painted itself red and danced on your nose

Last edited by Eivind IV on 05-03-2004 at 04:46

	05-03-2004 00:06									#32
	Remove this text

Black Adder?

Don't tell me you mean that old medieval comedy show with Attkison?

That was back in 80s!

	05-03-2004 00:42									#33
	Suffering from ads?

Still hilerious

	05-03-2004 06:06									#34
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Palaiologos it seems I did something bone-headed. I think I overwrote a file containing good mappings but obsolete text with a one having bad mappings but good text. I'll get on it.

quote: I found the scenario EXTREMELY INTRIGUING AND CHALLENGING. It took me some time to realize you had to iriggate in order to advance deep in the desert and then i had to ship in egyptians to protect the engineers from Arab raids.

I need help determining how many clues to provide. The trick of tying an army's advance to the pace of railway construction was lifted straight out of Allard's River War. As you have found, RE/Labourer's (RELs) first 'irrigate' impassable desert tracks (Darb) into passable road terrain (Raah).

[Hints]

• It takes 2 RELs to convert Darb to Raah in 1 turn
  
• 1 REL to build a fort in a Raah square
  
• 1 REL to build a Light Railway in a Raah square
  
• 1 REL to build a Broad Gge RR in a Raah square
  

	05-03-2004 06:20									#35
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

quote: Originally posted by Boco [/list] Egyptians and other light desert-capable troops can protect RELs in Sinai Darb squares, but they're too weak to withstand the counterattacking forces the AI typically musters after Romani. By then you'll need to have 3-5 RELs working on the RR to advance it one square in a turn. That way you can protect the RELs with British Inf in a square with fieldworks. Typically the AI will throw >100 Asiret Gönüllü at the Allies in Sinai before their source dries up. They're weak, but they can overwhelm a single British Infantry, especially when they're not in a fieldworks. The AI will also attack with the Pascha Abt missile units with regularity. The odds are, one will eliminate a British Inf. So, take a look at the stats for LAMB (AA).

That is exactly what happened in my games. After taking Romani my advance bogged down. I used two engineers to irrigate protected by 10 infantry units(british and Egyptian) just to be sure and repel the Asiret Gönüllü. Sadly no matter how many times i reloaded a single Pascha Abt(airborn batalion?) took out the whole unit stack. Never even noticed that the LAMB was suited for AA role.I just used it to counter attack in the west towards El Alamein.

	05-03-2004 07:06									#36
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

Ouch! Fieldworks will prevent stack death. It's more important than building rail. Pascha Abteilungen were fighter (pursuit?) sections (sub-Staffeln?) with German pilots. Remember from the GL library, that the AEGIS flag is x5 against missiles (i.e. Pascha Abt'n).

Egyptians are good for holding Oases against the Sanusi. They can get out there on turn 2. In fact you can pretty much hold all but Siwa and Dakhla. Even Dakhla is possible, but risky.

Although you can charge ahead with the Sinai route on turn 2, it really doesn't benefit you to do so before you get a critical mass of RELs. Like it says in the Guide, you'll likely lose a unit against Katya unless you attack it with vet R Field/Horse Arty. So, use your arty against any targets you can to get vet status. In RL, the Turk vets from Gallipoli ambushed and pretty much destroyed a regiment of Yeomanry near Katya.

Also in RL the Egyptian army wasn't the most reliable. Still, they did the job against Darfur and a little against the Sanusis. For fun, let Matruh go into revolt one turn (assuming you're using the EA DLL's).

Are these tips revealing too much?

Last edited by Boco on 08-03-2004 at 06:30

	05-03-2004 07:11									#37
	For Kobra and the Bullbuggerer Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

EA's Palace Improvement.

Attachment: 01imp.bmp
This has been downloaded 10 time(s).

	05-03-2004 17:39									#38
	Got spare money?

quote: And the Gendarme/caravan idea truly rocks.It adds a lot of colour in the scenario.

"I concur, excellency"
I like the use of bedouins as spys, too.

quote: Found some wrong civilopaedia entries: Tayyare Bolugu and Depo Alay. Actually i am not sure they are wrong but the Bolugu has a monoplane as its gfx while the texts mentions its an armored car. And the alay texts mentions its a camel corps stiffened by Egyptian conscripts but as its name says it is a Turk engineer.

In addition the following civilopedia texts seem to refer to the false units:
8nce Ordu -> Garnizon
Adwar -> Pascha Abt
Arab Camelry -> 8nce Ordu
Artillerie -> Süvari
Atli Mustahfiz -> double for Bedouins (remarkable the entry for Bedouins is correct)
Coastal Patrol -> Landing Party
Depo Alay -> see quote
Landing Party -> Minefield
Minefield -> Depol Aly
PzKw MG Zug -> Sand Strom (?)
Sand Storm -> ?
Süvari -> ?
Training Cadre -> Atli Mustahfiz

	05-03-2004 20:15									#39
	Remove this text

Thanks for the details. I'll try to post the fix in about 14 hours.

	06-03-2004 10:42									#40
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

Okay, here's an Interim Patch (040305), containing these fixes:

• Pedia Unit links now work (Describe.txt). Minor text changes, too.
  
• Commented out @DEBUG in Events.txt.
  
• Renamed unused techs in Rules.txt.
  
• Removed casualties from El Aurens.SCN (thanks Catfish).
  
• Game now actually ends Jan 1919.
  
• Indicated that MF entry for units in pedia isn't reliable (Labels.txt).
  

Future plans:

• Correct upgrade text errors in Advice.txt. Proofread the file again.
  
• New installation procedure that gives the option of using Catfish's excellent terrain graphics. While I'm tasteless and colorblind enough to prefer Kestrel's, I can't justify inflicting my preferences on you.
  
• A webpage guide to units like the one for techs. Would anyone actually use this?
  
• Replace the DLL pic that pops up at the end of the scenario.
  
• Providing a sounds zip. Need to bug Catfish for the camel.wav and send a list to Curt 'did I actually volunteer for that?' Sibling
  
• Editing the 'Tips' section in the guide based on feedback.
  
• Possibly rewriting the guide using a frames version generated by Powerpoint.
  

Gratuitous screenshot (he really did twist my arm! )


Thanks for the feedback!

	06-03-2004 14:16									#41
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Still needing those sound FX, Boco?

Just send a camel rider with an email to me!

	06-03-2004 16:00									#42
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quote: Originally posted by Boco New installation procedure that gives the option of using Catfish's excellent terrain graphics. While I'm tasteless and colorblind enough to prefer Kestrel's, I can't justify inflicting my preferences on you.

They're not all mine, BTW. For example, the mountains are just recoloured Microprose ones. Being experiments, they're not necessarily final versions either. I take no responsibility for that jhebel terrain – it's just a recolour of that one you love so much.

quote: Originally posted by Boco Need to bug Catfish for the camel.wav

Here are the camel sounds: 3 from Age of Kings (numbered files), 5 from Age of Mythology. You'll have to mix them with other sounds, such as gunfire, Arabic yells, galloping, etc. I threw in an example (charge.wav) created using my own primitive mixing methods – and found myself laughing at the result. The original sounds were 16-bit, mono, 22 kHz, PCM and quite clean. Some hiss crept in following conversion to 8-bit. If anyone has any freeware/shareware capable of filtering it out, let me know.

When you've finished bugging me, I'll get back to that other scenario.

	07-03-2004 07:27									#43
	That buggertalk reminded me..... Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

Wasn't Laurens buggered by a Turk?
I remember seeing it in the movie...

	07-03-2004 08:22									#44
	Bugger my thread, but keep playing! Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

Most likely he was. On the other hand he fabricated some of his more personal exploits. He was probably homosexual to some extent. The lover's poem that forms the dedication of 7 Pillars has a double entendre. He addresses both his Arab (presumed) lover and the Arab nation as a whole. By all accounts his sex drive was either nonexistent or well-hidden.

@Catfish, good point. The choice will be something like 'matched terrains (quick and dirty job)' vs 'garish terrains (slow and dirty job)', but with somewhat more diplomatic descriptions.

quote: A webpage guide to units like the one for techs. Would anyone actually use this?

Does anyone use the techtree page that's already made?

	07-03-2004 20:34									#45
	Re: Bugger my thread, but keep playing! Inflate your Upload Space

quote: Originally posted by Boco Does anyone use the techtree page that's already made?

Actually I first missed the javascript-interaction since it doesn't work with Mozilla Firefox 0.8. I was suprised when I opened it in IE. So please give a hint that it might not work in other browsers.

Furthermore, a chart or summary with the terrains (especially impassable/passable) would have accelerated the start. Now I wouldn't need it any more, but I think anyone beginning the scenario would use it. For a units view I think the override impassable/passable property (which is NOT mentioned in F2 screen) would be most important, too.

	08-03-2004 01:35									#46
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Just replayed all the way through again D. - I had forgotten how superb this scenario truly is The new terrain is excellent, BTW; for what it's worth, i like the existing 'koh' graphic.

Couple of things cropped up: I transferred a bedouin to the western desert via the Dera gap and used one to bribe a Mujahid - this was promptly upgraded to a gunboat next turn which looked a bit incongruous in the middle of the desert Also, didn't you used to have a trigger on the destruction of the Dar El Hamra bridge to give more bedouin? These nitpicks aside, this has got to be my favourite civ scenario

	08-03-2004 02:07									#47
	Put an end to popups!

Your virtual money's in the mail

Haven't you heard of HMS Cunning Desert Plan?



Oops! That 'upgrade' is debris from some unit slot swaps made long ago!

Dar El Hamra worked the last time I tried. After a short random delay, the Bedouins appear in Bir Jaydah or Wejh only. They also will not appear if Larry or Faysal has been eliminated. If you have a save file, send it over.

	08-03-2004 02:26									#48
	Don't forget St. Leo Inflate your Upload Space

I failed to mention that I've used St. Leo's cities and minerals. Both can be seen in this gratuitous screenshot. St. Leo, your rocks terrain! Break the rules and build a city to find another St. Leo contribution.



@SCDARS. I'm building up a big IOU to you. That xml code was generated by MS Visio. While I can make a few minor changes to it, I don't know how to make it accessible to other browsers (it doesn't work in Opera v7 either). Trust Microsoft to generate code specific for MS products. Despite that shortcoming, I think I'll stick with the Visio-generated chart. It's light years beyond anything else I can make. I'll update the Guide and readme to mention the browser requirement.

I'm working to add terrain and unit pages to that file. Unfortunately, it'll be several days before that's complete.

	08-03-2004 03:11									#49
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

I probably won't post another patch for several days. Meanwhile, if you want, make the following substitution in @UNITS of Rules.txt.

Original:

code:
Gunboats,       CA,  2, 4.,0, 4a, 6d, 3h,2f, 18,1, 1, Amp, 000000000000001

code:
Gunboats,       CA,  2, 4.,0, 4a, 6d, 3h,2f, 18,1, 3, Amp, 000000000000001

	08-03-2004 09:00									#50
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

quote: Originally posted by SCDARS Furthermore, a chart or summary with the terrains (especially impassable/passable) would have accelerated the start. Now I wouldn't need it any more, but I think anyone beginning the scenario would use it. For a units view I think the override impassable/passable property (which is NOT mentioned in F2 screen) would be most important, too.

In the scenario I'm working on, I'm putting this type of information at the end of the describe.txt entries as a series of bulleted points. Would this be too much of a pain to reference? I've also considered creating some kind of units chart in the documentation.

quote: Originally posted by Boco Btw, how do you make strikeout text in a poly post?

<strike>
</strike>

I thought I was done with the EA terrain until someone saw it on my monitor. It produced the following exchange:

"What's all that snow doing in the desert?"
"It's not snow, it's cloud!"
"Then what's all that cloud doing over the Sahara? They'd love it."
"It's unexplored."
"Isn't unexplored usually black?"


What about some kind of Middle-Eastern mosaic? Or have you already tried something like this? The gratuitous screenshot, below, shows a tile converted from Bernd Brosing's Cross and Crescent scenario used as unexplored terrain.

	08-03-2004 14:53									#51
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

Tried more things than I'll admit, including a calligraphic design. Got tired of most. Yours looks good, though I might play with the white border around the design.

In the end, my favorite is a 10-15% darkened version of the desert. Virtually all of the unexplored in EA is desert. To Western eyes, the unexploted desert was a featureless sea of sand. I guess we're too stubborn to stick with black.

Pedia entries under "Game Concepts" or "Governments" is an excellent idea! In your scenario does it fit on one screen?

	08-03-2004 22:49									#52
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

quote: Originally posted by Boco In the end, my favorite is a 10-15% darkened version of the desert.

How about greyscaling that? Ocean and desert are both rather wavy, so that would probably look OK for both land and water. Then again, that will start to look an awful lot like the regular black.

	09-03-2004 07:15									#53
	Tired of ads?

Whoops DL

	09-03-2004 07:20									#54
	Increase the size of your Attachments

quote: Originally posted by Boco Pedia entries under "Game Concepts" or "Governments" is an excellent idea! In your scenario does it fit on one screen?

I actually meant at the end of each entry in describe.txt (nothing flash about that), not at the end of the file. You can add new entries to Game Concepts, but you'll run into a number of problems if you try altering the Governments screen - either changing government names or adding new entries. Anyway, is this what you mean? Or are we doing our level best to confuse each other?

quote: Originally posted by Boco In the end, my favorite is a 10-15% darkened version of the desert.

Yeah, well that's what I've decided to go with. Back to square one, eh? This gratuitous screenshot (the last, I swear ) shows the unexplored desert at -10 brightness. The zoomed map shows the NW corner with some of the unexplored area removed. That region doesn't look quite as odd now - and this helped change my mind. Would revealing those tiles affect gameplay?

	09-03-2004 10:10									#55
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Geographically, some bits of Anatolia and Cyprus should be on the map, but it's only Aab. Since I took the trireme flag off the naval units, I figure its only a matter of time before some d**n fool creative player goes up there to wreak havoc. Most of the Impassable Terrain is homed to El Ottok and Bir Es Gu'ud, which lie in that neck of the woods. Mosul's also there along a Turk engineer to prevent the destruction of the Ottoman and Iraki Turk civs. I can use Kobayashi's trick to make them invisible invincible sea cities, and protect the engineer with a Terrain unit.

quote: Or are we doing our level best to confuse each other?

Huh?

In this case I'm thinking of concise summary entries covering multiple units. E.g. units that can enter impassable terrain. When I have some time, I'll experiment with placing extra entries under Unit Types in the Civilopedia. If they won't fit there, I'll sub them for one of the less useful entries under Game Concepts. On the other hand, the Visio-derived player aid charts for terrain and units is coming along, so I may just put a reference to the html file in the Civilopedia. Too bad I can't hyperlink it.

Btw, I've wondered about creating a two map version in which the second map simply holds reinforcements, but my experience is strictly 2D. If I put a ton of Sanusi units 'under' Matruh, surrounded by ocean with an appropriately configured transport site and Matruh falls to the Sanusis, could they enter the primary map? Would the AI have the sense to send them there? It seems like you could save a lot of event space by stashing armies offmap.

	09-03-2004 15:40									#56
	Increase the size of your Attachments

quote: Originally posted by Boco If they won't fit there, I'll sub them for one of the less useful entries under Game Concepts.

You shouldn't need to substitute any of them. Just add more.

quote: Originally posted by Boco Btw, I've wondered about creating a two map version in which the second map simply holds reinforcements, but my experience is strictly 2D. If I put a ton of Sanusi units 'under' Matruh, surrounded by ocean with an appropriately configured transport site and Matruh falls to the Sanusis, could they enter the primary map? Would the AI have the sense to send them there? It seems like you could save a lot of event space by stashing armies offmap.

This sounds strangely familiar. Actually, I've implemented stuff like this, but have yet tested its effectiveness. Are you referring to transporters (the city improvement) or transport sites (the terrain improvement) or whatever?

You could change unit transport relationships when the city is captured, but this would apply to unit type, irrespective of owner. If the human player gains access to any of those types of units, they will also gain access to the 2nd map. As far as I remember, the AI uses transport sites freely. One problem with using transport sites that are detrimental to the human player's cause, is that he/she has the sense to pillage them (and the less house rules, the better). Alternatively, you could change native transport settings, in which case they can spring up all over the joint - or at least within the area of the "island" on map 2.

A further alternative would be to place a transporter in the map 2 cities and one in Matruh. When in possession of the Sanusi, the transporter in Matruh would allow access to and from map 2. Immediately, I see two problems here: firstly, I don't know how well the AI makes use of such sites (and you only get one use per turn) and secondly, when the city is in the human player's hands, they'd be sure to sell it off.

	09-03-2004 16:11									#57
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

I think about 3 links in Describe.txt appear to be hard-coded. I'll post examples later. Have no idea about whether there's a limit on numbers of entries in each link list. I'd guess there's none or its 128.

I didn't think that this would be a complete fantasy to you, Catfish. Matruh is in 28,46. I was thinking of putting many Sanusis on 28,46 in map 2, where it is a 1 square island that contains a transport site. No Transporter in Matruh or anywhere else on map 1.

1. Could the Sanusis move into Matruh once it was liberated from the Allies?
   
2. Did I overlook something basic?
   
3. Would the AI have sense to do so?
   
4. Would it need/heed a MoveUnit goad?
   

	09-03-2004 16:43									#58
	Full PM-box? Change here!

quote: Originally posted by Boco I think about 3 links in Describe.txt appear to be hard-coded. I'll post examples later. Have no idea about whether there's a limit on numbers of entries in each link list. I'd guess there's none or its 128.

I haven't had any problems adding new entries to Game Concepts. My guess for the maximum would be 128 as well.

quote: Originally posted by Boco Could the Sanusis move into Matruh once it was liberated from the Allies? Did I overlook something basic? Would the AI have sense to do so? Would it need/heed a MoveUnit goad?

Answers:

1. Under normal circumstances, no, but technically, yes. When you create a transport site, it is placed on both maps. You can't place them on cities. However, you could disband the city first. Create the link (cheat menu). Delete the site on map 1. Replace the city and you have one of those fancy one-way transporters I described over at CFC. Edit: The one-way factor would also eliminate the problem of changing initial transport relationships and unit type ownership (see above).
   
2. No, as far as I'm aware, this type of stuff hasn't been tried before.
   
3. Good question, but I believe so. I'm gonna find out soon enough, anyway.
   
4. That all depends on the answer to 3.

	09-03-2004 20:54									#59
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

quote: When you create a transport site, it is placed on both maps.

That was the missing link in my mind.

quote: Good question, but I believe so. I'm gonna find out soon enough, anyway.

And post? I won't be able to test this myself before the weekend.

	10-03-2004 04:32									#60
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

quote: Originally posted by Boco And post? I won't be able to test this myself before the weekend.

That'll probably be the case for me, too. Until you asked these questions, I didn't actually think of using a one-way transport site underneath a city (which changes hands). So . It's the best solution, because it eliminates all of the problems I listed earlier - I'm pretty confident that the AI will use them correctly (it's just the transporters I have my doubts about). The concept of all these Arabs waiting patiently in their holes, only to come pouring out when the city is captured is hilarious.