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Sarsstock
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Well, I have just begun the early stages of city placement and have been hit with quite the predicament. As you all know, this is a game not necessarily of conquest but rather exploration and discovery. My problem is that I'm concerned if I create a large number of cities, say the amount of cities that were in Imperialism: 1870 that there will be so little free space in the gamemap discoveries and exploration will be quick and simple.
I wonder if maybe I should make an effort to limit the number of cities to make exploration more of a challenge. Is it possible to have a large number of cities and make exploration difficult?
Also, I'm contemplating changing the name of the "Anglo Alliance" as they now are an alliance of nations such as France and Russia. How does "Imperial Alliance" sound? If not that feel free to make a suggestion.
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Sarsstock
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Thanks Curt, your right that I shouldn't be too concerned with historical facts when I'm making a game where King Kong can be used to lead an army against the forces of Cleopatra CI in her lost Egyptian city.
Still, I'll try to use some historical facts in placing cities, for instance I want to know just what the extent was of the Boer settlements in South Africa in 1861, this way I can set up a potential conflict between the Boers of South Africa and the colonial Brits.
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Patine
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Edmonton, Canada
Mar 2002
time: 22:16
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The best way to arrange conflict between Britain and the Boers, I think, is to make the Boers (likely focused in Johannesburg) a Continental property.
Also, I had an idea for you concerning including Tarzan. Now obviously, even the King of the Jungle and Lord Over All the Apes can't single-handedly defeat a whole regiment of troops, even Aboriginal ones, so making him a unit might be inappropriate (and it seems you're hurting for unit slots as it is). I think, have a tech, triggered by some event involving African exploration, that signifies Lord Greystoke's discovery. This tech, coupled in research with a diplomatic, civilized tech (possibly the one allowing the building of Universities) will allow the civ with that tech to befriend him (with the resulting tech). He'd then lead that civ to the Source of the Nile, King Solomon's Mines, or other African goodie through an event triggered by that tech being researched.
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Sarsstock
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Hmmm.... it would save me the use of some unit slots and at the same time add an even great challenge to discovering the event trigger units. You see, I was worried about the relative ease of defeating one event trigger unit which then automatically spawns the next even trigger unit, its a process that would go by pretty darn fast. If I applied this idea of yours to all the event trigger units it would force the human player to divert his or her entire science output towards the path of discover if they wanted to make any real progress in exploration.
This means a player would essentially have an option.... the option being using his or her research to build better weapons and conquer the world or use it to uncover the secrets and mysteries in the World of Jules Verne, and that is exactly the kind of choice I want the human player to have to make.
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Sarsstock
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Well I definitely use Edison's Labritory in the wonders. It will be crucial as its contstruction will automatically upgrade all of your naval and armed forces in a single turn. Imagine the potential this holds if your playing as the Aboriginal Confederacy... one turn your armies are made up of spear and arrow wielding warriros from Arizona to the Outback, but the next turn you have divisions of modern rifle bearing soliders capable of going toe to toe with any army on earth.
Now Patine I seem to remember there was another wonder you proposed once.... an actual gigantic outdoor market or bazzar in Morocco that saw scores upon scores of historic relics that rest in Museum's the world over today pass through its vendors hands back in the nineteenth century. I can't remember its name of the top of my head.
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Sarsstock
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Yes the Marrakech Bazaar was the one I had in mind. My goal is to have a new wonder for each of the wonder slots and for most of the wonders to play some sort of pivitol role in the course of the game.
Last edited by Sarsstock on 06-03-2005 at 01:22
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Sarsstock
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Well thats a very good question Patine and the answer is..... I have absolutely no idea how it was done in the old version. Is there any chance you break it down how the whole punch card system worked in the previous installment? I would like to incorperate it as it sounds from what I gather to be a good idea that enhanced gameplay.
Also, as much as I wanted to include Harry Turtledove's works in the scenario in the form of units from "Guns of the South" to the shape of international alliances from "How Few Remain" I might have to abandon the Turtledove influence all together. The "Guns of the South" units never really seemed to fit in with the rest of the game and I couldn't really come up with a reasonable way to include them in the game story. I was determined to use the alliances from How Few Remain (The alliance of the CSA, France and England verus Germany and the USA), however I now see that this means one side will control too large a portion of Asia, with the CSA, French and British side controlling both India and Indochina.
Pretty soon I'm going to post the city placement file so it can be scrutinized for errors and such.
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Patine
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Edmonton, Canada
Mar 2002
time: 22:16
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Fortunately, I had reverse engineered, as it were, the MPS Verne scen early in my Civing days, even before I discovered Apolyton, just to learn how the game worked. As you know, an advance with a 'no' 'no' prerequisite cannot be researched, but can only be the prerequisite of units and governments, not improvements or Wonders. Whereas, an advance with a 'nil' 'nil' prerequisite can be researched by anyone at anytime. Here's the hook. The punched cards had 'nil' and 'no' as their prequisites (one of each), which meant they couldn't be researched, but could be given by event, and could be traded, captured, and stolen (which 'no' 'no' ones cannot, note) and can still be the prerequisite of improvements, Wonders, and other advances ('no'no' ones can't lead to advances either).
Another advance, that was triggered by killing the city of Bala trigger unit lead to Time Machine, also a 'nil' 'no' advance. Each coupling of research between Time Machine and one of the Punched Card advances led to a separate Prepare for Time Travel Advance, each of which granted something like a Recylcling Center, Rocket Car, or some other high-tech goodies. And you see, each Prepare for Time Travel advance, which grant these techo-goodies, had as its research prerequisites Time Machine and a different Punched Card. Thus, each Prepare for Time Travel had to be researched once you had acquired the prerequisite techs by event, trade, capture, or espionage. The Punched Cards were given to the Aborigines on separate random turns, thence to proliferate by trade, capture, and espionage. You see, in the original version, the Aborigines were discouraged as a human player.
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Sarsstock
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Well I'm going to have to change the last aspect of the Time Travel Punch Card system Patine, in that I DO want people to play as the aboriginals. I'm still planning to include an independent civ so I might use them instead as the civ that receives the time travel techs at random. Then again..... I might just use an even more challenging way to force players to acquire these techs.
This leads me to anew questions I have for the forum and I'd like to know your answers before I make any major decisions.
1) As of now I have 14 naval units in the units.bmp detailing the evolution of naval power from the humble gunboat to the dreaded Extinction Class Battleship. At the same time there are a mere 4 air units to represent the evolution of air power. So that means the 4 units cover everything from the first powered fighter airplane to the advanced rocket bomber. Should there be more emphasis on the evolution of air power as its a more cutting edge frontier of warfare or is emphasis on naval power the smart way to go?
2) For this game I want to introduce what I call the "transparent shield graphic", this is meant to be used for generic units that don't have the specific flag of a civ as its own shield. I personally like it but have had both positive and negative feedback for the idea. I'd like to know what the forum thinks of the idea of a transparent shield for naval, air and other generic units as featured in the screenshot below.
3) Behold the diplomat, the single unit that has the potential to change the course of a game with just a few of his mischievous deeds. I really don't like the idea of having a diplomat at all in the game, however if I do decide in the end to allow the independent civ's to get the random time travel punch cards the diplomat would serve as the only way to get them fairly, as I'm even more against the idea of "tech by conquest". I suppose I could include him but control just how many are made, like how in Imperialism they were created via events and even then only once every 100 turns or so.
 Attachment: three question graphic.png
This has been downloaded 138 time(s).
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Sarsstock
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Okay then, the scale of public opinion for question #2 is tipping to the side of "yes". Along with the fact that I like them myself I think I'll be using the transparent shields then.
Now please feel free all to let me know how you feel about questions #1 and #3.
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Patine
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Edmonton, Canada
Mar 2002
time: 22:16
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My opinions on each are thus:
1.)I think more balance between air and naval units may be in order. Try, for instance, 7 air and 11 naval in those slots, but still lean at least a bit to naval, though not as much as above.
2.)Transparent shields are fine by me; I'm using them myself in my EotRS scen.
3.)Diplomats are probably preferrable, ultimately, to 'tech by conquest,' and do make event-granted techs actually acquirable when the computer (or another human player) refuse to trade. Put the unit in the 'diplomat' slot, though, not the 'spy' slot.
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Sarsstock
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Okay, so the answers I'm going with based on your responses are yes to more air units, yes on the transparent shield (with one simple modification) and yes on the diplomat (with several abilities disabled).
Expect the city placement file before the end of the week. I have to budget my time between a slew of contract jobs I'm working in addition to the title screen's I've promised for Eivind, Harry, Tom and Steph.
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Sarsstock
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Again thank you Erika, but I'm affraid I still plan on using the Gattling Gun provided by Fairline exclusivly to Tom and myself for the long abandoned "The Blue and Grey" project. As to my knowledge Tom and I are the only ones in possesion of the Gattling Gun this could be the units official debut when the beta version is released.
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Sarsstock
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Well the point is I'm set for Gattling Guns, thankyou.
In any case, I have a question and I'd like to know the forum's opinion. I had initially wanted to include another civ in gameplay.... a united Latin American civ. Like the Latin American countries of its day, this civ would be rich in natural resources but would suffer from poor infrastructure, they would however have the potential through trade and diplomacy to build effective production and economic centers. Their ultimate goal of course would have been to resist European influence if not out right assimilation as well as contend with the native peoples of South America.
Now unforunatly due to limitations I cannot include a seventh civ and still have an indpendant AI-only civ. Basically, I want the forum's opinion whether or not I should include the Latin American civ at the expense of perhaps the Aboriginals or the Secret Society. I would love to keep all three civ's, but alas such is not even possible with ToT.
Any thoughts?
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02-03-2005 00:58
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