07-06-2005 02:02									#1
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Link to the download page. It's in the first post.

The information below is a repost from the first post in the CDG thread.

Be sure to read the readme file before starting! Don't forget to add your comments on gameplay, etc.

Also, sounds and an updated Civilopedia will be added when all necessary gameplay tweaks are made.

====================

MALTA!

June 19th, 1984.

Dom Mintoff, Prime Minister of Malta, leader of the Labour Party of Malta, suffered a stroke and died in office at the age of 67. Mintoff would in some ways be remembered as a hero of Malta, but others may remember him as the man who befriended Libya's military dictator Col. Mu'ammar Qadaffi.

After Mintoff's death, a potential successor cannot be found, so Malta's House of Representatives called for a new election to be held the following month, in which two of Malta's veteran politicians step up for a fierce campaign. Coming to the surprise of many, the Maltese Nationalist Party candidate wins with 53 percent of the vote.

On July 27th, 1984, Edward Adami became Prime Minister of Malta. In his first address to the nation, the new Prime Minister had stated that he wished to reconcile ties with the United States and the European Economic Community.

A few weeks have passed since. The soothing waves of seawater crash against the rocks on Valetta's beaches, as to a distance a large freighter sailing from Libya begins to come into range of Malta. Such a sight is not uncommon in Malta, for Prime Minister Mintoff had been supportive of Col. Qadaffi's regime.

This ship, however, is one of many...and it's not carrying oil or goods. Instead, thousands of Libyan soldiers are preparing for an amphibious assault on Malta's southern coastline!

...

Can the Maltese, under your command, expel the invaders?

or

Can you lead the Libyans to a glorious victory?

...

Find out in MALTA!

-----

Historical Background

Dom Mintoff was the Prime Minister of Malta until he resigned in December of 1984. He was a socialist and a friend of Col. Qadaffi's.

And believe it or not, he's still alive at the age of 88.

-----

Gameplay Features

Malta's pro-Western government will be able to enlist the support of the USA, the UK, and more!

Beware! Libya can do the same, and call on their allies! The Cubans, North Koreans, and maybe even more sinister characters will come to Qadaffi's aid...

	07-06-2005 02:13									#2
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Grabbing it right now!



Damned good to see this one at last, rmsharpe!
Looking over the events, you have captured the coldwar tone perfectly!

I will play a game and get back with some feedback!

Last edited by curtsibling on 07-06-2005 at 02:19

	08-06-2005 00:21									#3
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Indeed you are Curt. There's a Cold War party on Malta and everybody's invited it seems. The graphics look great and the scale of the conflict is just perfect for the scenario.

I'll have have more comments upon further playesting.

	08-06-2005 02:28									#4
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Thanks! Both of your kind words really mean a lot, being both well-respected (and deservedly so) members of the Civ2 world.

	08-06-2005 03:44									#5
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Just played through the scenario as Malta. On day 22 I expelled the Libyans from the main island. The AI was pretty dumb, not invading the island in the upper left corner, instead it sent backup to the main island. Anyways, using some pillaging of roads on one place, I could concentrate my counterattacks on another flank. I'm too tired to give you a more detailed report, but I did enjoy the scenario Next time I will try as the Libyans, and with a harder difficulty than Colonel.

	08-06-2005 05:12									#6
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Unfortunately, the AI is very dumb, so the Libyans don't attack the upper island. Does anyone have any good ideas for a remedy of this? I've been thinking of just dumping some units here and not putting any transports up there.

	08-06-2005 06:47									#7
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I'm playing as Field Marshal and have only done a few turns of a scorched earth defensive strategy. A couple of Libyan Inf did land on North Island on Day 2 but haven't done much since. Would a GOTO make transports land units on N. iSLAND?

I'm disappointed by the inactivity of the Libyan air force. You might try changing their role from 3 to 0 (attack) to goose them into action. Case did that very successfully in Raging Dragon.

	08-06-2005 10:20									#8
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Good idea, an attack role would be good for the Libyan planes.

	08-06-2005 17:21									#9
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You may want to do a minor fixup on the units icons. Some of the blue pixels that locate the health bars seem to be slightly off, disabling the bars. The ones that I've changed include the F-4, M-113 and T-72.

I don't know if you are being extra nice to those of us who ruthlessly sell off unneeded city improvements but the 40+ Police Services are of no help whatsoever to the Maltese. Selling them not only saves 80+ £ monthly but has increased the cash strapped Maltese treasury to £ 2600 on Day 2. The Maltese are waiting to use the cash to IRB F-4's when the requisite tech is discovered on Day 4.

If that much cash is not what you intended, you might consider removing all Police Services

BTW, the popup that appeared when I tested if Libyan engineers can build airfields is hilarious.

No question that, at 316 sq km, the country really isn't very big. Some of the "cities" must be hamlets or villages.

	08-06-2005 22:18									#10
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Do'h! Meant to fix those units. Thanks for bringing that back to my attention. I fixed them immediately and they'll be included next time here in the next day or so.

The police services are the courthouse improvement, and I thought some cities needed those. Did they not have a significant impact on city production/commerce?

Yes, Malta is also terribly small and underpopulated to make a good sized scenario, so a lot of those little towns there are hardly a gas station and a couple houses.

I tried to simulate that smallness effect by not having things like factories and superhighway improvements and renaming them as smaller-sounding improvements, as they'd probably by themselves fill up the entire island.

My memory is also terrible, I forgot to include a title image! I'll include one in my next update. Sounds will also be coming. One of the hardest parts of doing this was getting every unit coordinated to the right sound spots. Maybe next time I should just go for TOT, it'd be easier.

	09-06-2005 01:25									#11
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A Courthouse (Police Service) does the following:

Decreases corruption by 50%. Makes city more resistant
to bribery by enemy diplomats and spies. Under Democracy, one content citizen becomes happy.

There are no diplos or spies in the scen and Malta is a Republic. The corruption affects research so it becomes very much a judgement call. The Police Services in the smaller cities can be sold off because the cities produce little research. Cities close to the capital have very low corruption so there is little loss of research if they have no Police Service.

I think that the question boils down to whether a player should be able to start Day 5 or 6 with a dozen or so F-4's or M-48 MBT's. I'm after the F-4's but others may prefer M-48's. My concern is that this early influx of either powerful unit may unbalance the scenario.

Perhaps we should wait until we see how long it takes the Maltese to wipe out the Libyans when playing at the Field Marshal level.

EDIT: Fuzzy thinking.

Last edited by AGRICOLA on 09-06-2005 at 09:16

	09-06-2005 19:59									#12
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This conflict reminds me of the fictional "Casablanca" scenario Case made afew years back, I believe it was Case anyways. It was the same idea, a small local conflict where the larger cold war players became involved and threatened to spark hostilities around the world.

It would be interesting to see other scenario's along these lines, from tiny South Pacific Island nations to small Middle Eastern Kingdoms and Emirates, to the Mediteranian and Caribean, scenarios where small conflicts are fought by the major world powers.

Do you have any other idea's for scenario's such as these rmsharpe?

	10-06-2005 00:28									#13
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I think for now, I'd want to stick to larger-scale conflicts, because getting down to this is getting a little small. I'm tossing a few ideas around in my head, but don't have anything in stone as of yet.

	10-06-2005 09:04									#14
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The game is going along very well. The 15 F-4's that were completed Day 5 have wreaked havoc on Libyan units and smashed their advance.

But I've hit a problem with EVENTS. On discovery of the US Support tech, there is no popup, Malta doesn't get a 5000 cash bonus and doesn't receive any US Inf units. However, it can build US Inf.

To be absolutely sure, I tested this by re-extracting all files from the MaltaB1 zip, ran the malta DOS batch file and started the scen at Colonel level. I selected Consumer Society as the first tech to be researched and put all Maltese units to sleep. Consumer Society was discovered on Day 2 and research switched to US Support. When US Support was discovered on Day 4, none of the expected things happened. I repeated this several times.

The only unusual thing that I can see is that in the Science Advisor's list of discovered techs, US Support is not shown in white letters. Apparently the Maltese are not the first to discover it.

Any ideas or suggestions?

	10-06-2005 10:09									#15
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It shouldn't matter if you discover it first, and I don't know why it shows it as being that way, maybe the barbarians have it already.

But like I said, it shouldn't matter since in the events text it is conditional only to the Maltese and not anyone else. I've ran it twice and it's worked normally.

I can't say I've really got a clue.

	10-06-2005 19:27									#16
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I had a similar problem to AGRICOLA's when I was playing as the Lybians. On Day 6 I received Cuban Support but there was no pop up or troop deployment or a cash influx. It all occured however in the very next turn strangly enough on Day 7.

The Cuban Infantry made little differance at that stage of the campaign, but the Cuban Mig 27's were key in bombarding the final Maltese Republican forces held up San Pawl, Xemxija and Bugibba. Thus, driving the last remants of the Republican forces into St. Paul's Bay at midday on Day 8.

	10-06-2005 20:01									#17
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I would suggest removing the "^" in front of the written texts in Events.txt:

@IF
RECEIVEDTECHNOLOGY
technology=19
receiver=Republic of Malta
@THEN
JUSTONCE
TEXT
^
^^U.S. SENDS AID TO MALTA!
^
^^President Reagan has sent immediate
^^aid and troops to Malta's aid!
^
^^These well-trained men of the USA
^^are going to crush the spirit
^^of Libya's army!
^
^^A note was also sent: "Go out there
^^"and win just one for the Gipper!"
^
ENDTEXT
CHANGEMONEY
receiver=Republic of Malta
amount=5000
CREATEUNIT
unit=U.S. Army
owner=Republic of Malta
veteran=yes
homecity=None
locations
91,63
67,69
31,27
endlocations
JUSTONCE
@ENDIF

	10-06-2005 20:37									#18
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quote: Originally posted by Sarsstock I had a similar problem to AGRICOLA's when I was playing as the Lybians. On Day 6 I received Cuban Support but there was no pop up or troop deployment or a cash influx. It all occured however in the very next turn strangly enough on Day 7.

Sounds logical, as the program browse your techs at the beginning of the turn (in your example, turn 6) and then applies it the event file (at that point, you haven't got the yet, so the event isn't triggered); after that, the turn itself begins, your cities produce beakers, and you get the tech (and nothing happens, as the event have already been handled for that turn). End of turn 6.

Beginning of turn 9: the program sees that you now have the tech, and so the event is triggered

	10-06-2005 21:27									#19
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Makes sense, I wasn't sure how it was supposed to work. Though I honestly seem to remember getting the popup screen in similar situations on the same turn I received the tech in other scenarios.

In any case I can't report any other anomalies.

	10-06-2005 22:52									#20
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quote: Originally posted by Leonidas I would suggest removing the "^" in front of the written texts in Events.txt:

Doesn't the ^ indicate a new line?

I know ^^ does for centering the text.

	11-06-2005 01:05									#21
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quote: Originally posted by Sarsstock I had a similar problem to AGRICOLA's when I was playing as the Lybians. On Day 6 I received Cuban Support but there was no pop up or troop deployment or a cash influx. It all occured however in the very next turn strangly enough on Day 7.

quote: Originally posted by Cyrion Sounds logical, as the program browse your techs at the beginning of the turn (in your example, turn 6) and then applies it the event file (at that point, you haven't got the yet, so the event isn't triggered); after that, the turn itself begins, your cities produce beakers, and you get the tech (and nothing happens, as the event have already been handled for that turn) Beginning of turn 9: the program sees that you now have the tech, and so the event is triggered

Thanks, everybody. That's the source of my problem. The popup, cash and units appear at the beginning of the turn following Maltese acquisition of the US Support tech.

For confirmation, I checked kobayashi's DST scen where the Oil Embargo on Japan comes into force on the turn after a triggering unit is killed and Japan receives the (unwelcome) Oil Embargo tech.

Just to confuse the issue, I know that, at least for some types of events, the event action takes place as soon as the event is triggered. For example, in Red Front 1.4, if a German unit is killed, its replacement unit(s) appear immediately. That's how Capt Nemo fuels the irresistible German advance in '41.

Now it's back to running the valiant Maltese defense of their postage stamp homeland against the evil Libyans.

But I certainly could have used the cash one turn earlier than I'll get it.

	11-06-2005 01:11									#22
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quote: Originally posted by rmsharpe Doesn't the ^ indicate a new line? I know ^^ does for centering the text.

From what I understand those are used in the info text box, but I rarely see them used in Events.txt.

Could they be the source for why the pop-ups aren't appearing?

	11-06-2005 07:27									#23
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Great scenario so far!

I'm on turn 11 as the Maltese. The Libyans are advancing steadily...

Suggestions:

1) I would suggest getting rid of the "police service" improvement from all cities. This is an early exploit by the player and results in getting several F-4s quite early on...

2) I would suggest fortifying at least one infantry in all Maltese cities.

3) I am not really a big fan of the square unit shield. I think it tends to look a bit clunky and would much prefer the regular type shield (which also covers less space).

4) Only two Libyans attacked in the north - otherwise all quiet up there. It could use more Libyan attack forces coming from several directions, perhaps. As a result I have been building F-4s and sending them south. Those Libyans will pay

5) Getting rid of the triangle in front of the text in Events.txt and straightening out the dialogue will free up valuable event space to allow for more units.

6) Maybe it might be fun to add in some small ship types such as gunboats, torpedo boats, and destroyers.

I'm having fun and would like to see more scenarios like this one. Perhaps a Middle East one with an Arab invasion of Israel and/or one centered in Iran with a US invasion of that country...

Nice job

Cheers!

	11-06-2005 08:48									#24
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I should mention that I am playing on "General" level.

It's now day 18 and I have 22 F-4s active with 24 in production.

With all these F-4s I have blunted the Libyan attack, and by day 22 I have re-taken 4 cities. Who needs the USA? haha

Suggestions:

1) All those Maltese cities allows me to build lots of F-4s. I would suggest substantially increasing the cost of these planes from 60 to perhaps 100 or even 120 in shields.

2) I would also make the M-48 tank far more expensive.

3) I was only attacked by 2 Libyan planes. After day 3 there has been no enemy airforce in sight. Far more enemy planes would go long way to balancing the scenario. As it stands I can get air superiority fairly quickly and the Libyan ground forces are doomed.

Perhaps you could give the Libyans mobile SAM missile units as well.

4) As it stands (by turn 22) I pretty well have this scenario wrapped up as the Maltese. I don't need the USA. And I haven't seen any other units other than the Libyans. I'll keep playing and see what turns up.

5) I would also increase tech research time from 50/10 to perhaps 70/10. The Maltese player should really feel in a tight pinch and desperately need America's help.

Cheers!

	11-06-2005 09:03									#25
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Another suggestion:

1) I would add separate EVENTS.txt for both Malta and Libya. You already have separate RULES.txt and you know how to use the bat file.

Having separate EVENTS.txt load for the side played will allow you to toughen-up the scenario against the player very easily, especially by adding in random spawning planes and units.

Cheers!

	11-06-2005 10:04									#26
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I wans't all that crazy about writing more events texts. I will do it tomorrow...I've fixed up a lot of the above problems.

	11-06-2005 10:22									#27
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quote: Originally posted by rmsharpe I wans't all that crazy about writing more events texts. I will do it tomorrow...I've fixed up a lot of the above problems.

heheh

I don't blame you.

Although I think it would just involve cutting and pasting the appropriate events (from the event.txt you have now) into a separte event.txt for the other civ.

Then just copy and paste from another scenario a random spawning event, which would require just some appropriate terrain coordinates.

Having separate events.txts for both civs will give you total control over how hard or easy you want to make things for the player.

This would all give you valuable experience when you create other scenarios. Plus, you will have a set of events already created that you will be able to use over and over again.

Cheers!

	11-06-2005 13:12									#28
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@rmsharpe

Well, it was short but very interesting. Thanks. The three original Libyan cities were captured on Day 10, by the combined efforts of the 4 super US Inf units and a flood of F-4's. With the Maltese scorched earth strategy, the Libyans only managed to capture one Maltese city and that one was razed much earlier by a successful F-4 attack.

Could you please check your PM.


@Leonidas

IMHO, your idea of 2 EVENTS files is the only way to make the scenario tougher and still keep it playable as both Libya and Malta.

BTW, have you tried Exodus, a relatively difficult scen of the initial war between Israel and the Arabs. It has a couple of interesting and innovative features.

	11-06-2005 19:24									#29
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AGRICOLA:

I have a seen a few Middle East scenarios available but haven't had a chance to play them yet.

So, Exodus is a good scenario to play?

I'll have to try it out. What other suggestions would you give regarding some of the other Israeli/Arab scenarios?

Cheers!

	12-06-2005 00:12									#30
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quote: Originally posted by Leonidas So, Exodus is a good scenario to play? I'll have to try it out. What other suggestions would you give regarding some of the other Israeli/Arab scenarios?

I liked it a lot, especially the transition from desperate defense to all-out offense. Also, there was a pretty good Exodus democracy game in progress at the time. It provided a yardstick for how well I was managing to make a mess of things.

Sorry, but that's the only Israeli-Arab scen that I've tried.