Crises amendments

Panda · November 6, 2000, 19:42

quote:

Now let's put it all together

Having just played my first "proper" game for twenty turns, I've seen a few errors which need correcting, and areas where tweaking is definately called for. I'll detail them here:

corrections
Map corrections: All minor cities now stackable; airbases now veterans to compensate for their low defence. Minor terrain corrections.

Nuclear units
The technology "Test Ban Treaty" is now renamed "Nuclear Disarmament" to distinguish from the wonder "Test Ban Treaty". Nuclear disarmament still makes nuclear missiles obsolete both is less valuable to the AI, and is now a prerequisite for Moral Intervention. This amendment means you will have more control over whether to allow nuclear units in the game, as Nuclear Proliferation is a low priority wonder, and by giving the Nuclear Disarmament technology to the AI means they cannot build them. Nuclear missiles now require Nuclear Weapons technology (as it should be), and cost 20% extra to build.

Tech correction
In addition, Da Vinci workshop is now obsolete. I was pleasently surprised when my helicopter carriers were upgraded for free, though this was not planned. Also there were two corrections needed to the Game.txt (one for a string).

Rogue units
There were two problems with the Rogue infantry units: 1. They were created as "green" units and not very effective in defence. 2. The 250m bonus of destroying a Rogue infantry unit was too high, and has now been set at 100m. The unit stats have been beefed up making them more potent, so the Rogues should truly be seen as a destabilizing threat rather than a cash cow.

other unit tweaks
Howitzer, Airbase and APC units now have anti-Tank ability. This makes the APCs a vital defensive unit to have in conjunction with the infantry units and SAM units. Infantry units are stronger on defence, mainly to avoid the SAM launcher being the choice defence unit. Tanks are slightly lower on defence.

Naval units have their defence stats tweaked: Frigates are higher, Carriers are lower. In addition the Submarines, Frigates and Cruisers are more expensive. Passenger ships can now only carry two units, making the choice between them and Container ships harder. A Container ship has three times the capacity, costs less to build and is slightly better on defence; Passenger ships are faster, but the maths are it would cost 480 against 120 to build enough ships to carry 12 units, and 6 shields against 2 to support them.

Cruiser missiles are now just missiles, though now they are dual-purpose SSMs and SAMs. As they have the fighter flag they will scramble (now launch) against strike jets. The maths are (approx), a 40% chance of damaging the plane when defending, a 20% chance of destroying the plane when defending, and a 33% chance of hitting the plane when attacking. As the missiles have a high firepower they might kill a unit they successfully hit, though the lower attack strength reduces the odds of a hit.

I reviewed Orbital Weapons Platforms (as if you'll ever use them) to make them cost 25% extra, halve the attack value, though give them trememdous firepower, and lower the defence value slightly. This improves combat odds against attacking units behind a Force shield, and intercepting advanced fighters. Plus one Veteran advanced fighter should be able to kill a "green" OWP. This is simply to balance combat when using these beasts.

If anybody has any comments or ideas, could you please do it before the weekend. Also do the MGE users want me to update the Game.txt to MGE standard in case you want multiplayer?

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The Historical Civ2 Site
http://members.nbci.com/HistCiv2/index.htm

"The man who can smile when things go wrong has thought of someone he can blame it on" - anon

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed" - President Eisenhower

techumseh · November 6, 2000, 20:39

Andrew, I've been trying to download this from your site for a week. When I click on the scenario title, I just get a page with that grey, cloudy background you use - and nothing else. Same with the scenario review. The other scenarios on your site work fine. Do you have any idea why I seem to be the only one to have this problem? And what I can do about it?

Panda · November 7, 2000, 04:00

If this is the same problem with Netscape that Gothmog had then I'm not acutally sure what caused it. If you can open http://members.nbci.com/HistCiv2/ww2apl.htm then you should be able to open this as they both have the same coding. They both use Javascript. It might be that the nbci frame is interfering, in which case you could try http://members.nbci.com/_XMCM/HistCiv2/index.htm
You could also simply use IE to solve your problem

You could try my own web space: http://www.btinternet.com/~aplivings...rio/crises.htm
Alternatively, download the files directly:
http://members.nbci.com/HistCiv2/crises1.zip - the main files (627Kb) http://members.nbci.com/HistCiv2/crises2.zip - the City sound files (711Kb) http://members.nbci.com/HistCiv2/crises3.zip - the unit sounds (1388Kb) http://members.nbci.com/HistCiv2/crises4.zip - the diplomacy sounds (1308Kb) http://members.nbci.com/HistCiv2/crises5.zip - the MGE scenario file.

Now back to the amendments...

[This message has been edited by Andrew Livings (edited November 07, 2000).]

Mao · November 9, 2000, 00:43

I have a question about Harriers: Why? They're basically the same as F-16s, same range, price, a/d/hp/f, etc. Can that be used for something else?

techumseh · November 9, 2000, 10:40

Thanks Andrew. It looks good!

Mao · November 10, 2000, 10:58

Hmmmmmmmm....Russian events apprently need to be debugged or something...was there an announcement about this already?

Panda · November 10, 2000, 18:02

Mao, no one mentioned it to me.

I've fixed it now, and the chinese events: they both had problems with the turn=x events because I didn't do it properly.

I've also found that adding the justonce line to the event forbiding talks between the Europeans and Americans will display the text just once, and thereafter continue to forbid negotiations. This saves that message becoming so annoying popping up ten times a turn. I thought it would be harder to sort out

As this is a total conversion I'm going to play around with the tutorial files to see if they can be used to make life any easier. I'll propably post the update on sunday night (1900-2300 GMT).

The Harriers stay because I like them, and it adds diversity.

------------------
The Historical Civ2 Site
http://members.nbci.com/HistCiv2/index.htm

"The man who can smile when things go wrong has thought of someone he can blame it on" - anon

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed" - President Eisenhower

Panda · November 13, 2000, 18:14

The update is done and posted. http://members.nbci.com/HistCiv2/crises.htm

Enjoy

Kull · November 14, 2000, 01:47

Very interesting. I'm still in the way early stage, but a few things seemed worthy of comment:

1) North Korea: What happened to THE Rogue State?!?

2) San Juan: This probably should be a US city. Puerto Ricans are US citizens in every sense of the word except one....no federal voting rights.

3) Minor City: A good idea, but you might want to remove them from all River terrains. The resulting fragmentation looks kind of messy. There is another alternative IF you only use fortresses on minor city squares. Use the minor city graphic instead of a blank to represnt fortresses.

4) Dairy, not Diary

Panda · November 14, 2000, 17:22

1. I originally had North Korea; the problem comes when China starts attacking them, which is not only unrealistic, but with the events.txt set-up the way they are, the Allied and Russians also attack North Korea and the city is quickly captured.

2. San Juan as American? Well I included an American airbase to represent military interests.

3. That's what I wanted to do. The problem with the Fortress terrain is that it obscures all the units on the same square. For infantry units you just see their heads sticking out of these buildings.

4.

echopapa · November 15, 2000, 16:53

Andrew, you may want to set up the events files so that the Americans and the Europeans can't negotiate with anyone when they're computer-controlled, since the scenario looks great except for the EU invading Poland and the Americans dropping nukes on Toronto...

echopapa · November 17, 2000, 01:35

The U.S. is also bound by treaty to defend Taiwan from a hostile third-party invasion. If you don't make the American-Allied alliance unbreakable, it would be a good idea to trigger a war with the U.S. if anyone invades Taiwan.

Panda · February 11, 2001, 20:03

Another update, just completed after playing through it a few times. Now I've got nothing to do anymore.

Basically:

New oversized map: still good for FW, and a redistribution of cities. Also, rewriting from scratch seemed to solve some diplomacy problems. I messed around with the original a lot and must have done something irrevocable. The AI still goes to war far too often, but I can live with it.

New icons: New F-22 icon, new Security Forces (spies) unit, some new improvement icons, and terrain graphics improved.

Corrections: some more spelling errors

, fixed string problems in the game.txt, and sorted out a tech bug which I hadn't noticed. Also quietened the mchnguns.wav so it doesn't blast your eardrums out.
http://members.nbci.com/histciv2/crises.htm
or http://www.btinternet.com/~aplivings...rio/crises.htm

Please don't say there's anything else I missed

[This message has been edited by Andrew Livings (edited February 11, 2001).]

February 12, 2001, 15:21

Speaking of your site, it looks good, but not only do I have the same blank page problem (which I fixed by using IE) but I get a 404 when I try and download most of your other scenarios, like Cuban Missile Crisis or US Civil War.

echopapa · February 12, 2001, 21:24

As much as I love the scenario, there are still a few things to take care of...

Spelling:
"Toyko" should be "Tokyo".
"Manilla" should be "Manila".
"Kalingrad" should be "Kaliningrad".
"Launda" should be "Luanda".

Nitpicky City Things:
"Arkhangel" is a non-existant hybrid. The English is "Archangel", the Russian is "Arkhangel'sk".
"Davao City" should probably just be "Davao".
"Taiwan" should probably be "Taipei".
"Bombay" should probably be "Mumbai".
The placement of cities in Central Russia is rather inaccurate. Try renaming Chelyabinsk and Yekaterinburg to Magnitogorsk and Chelyabinsk, then adding Yekaterinburg if you like.
Pretoria isn't a very big city, that should probably be Johannesburg.
Likewise with Dijon, replace it with Lyon.

Other Things:
Terrorists appear randomly in many places, but, oddly enough, not in Israel.
You may want Kabul to start as Rebel, the government never really controlled the country.
When Rebels take Monrovia, maybe it should trigger the creation of rebels near Freetown, since Charles Taylor sponsors Foday Sankoh's rebels in Sierra Leone.
Perhaps members of NATO's "Partnership for Peace" in Eastern Europe should count as Allies- they'd be a nice buffer between the Europeans and the Russians.
In the US events, shouldn't the citizens demand greater protection for the "defenseless" people of the world, rather than the "defenceless" ones?

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EchoPapa's scenarios are available at the ACS Mac Site
and
Visit the Institute for Naming Children Humanely at inch.stormpages.com

Mao · February 12, 2001, 22:11

Which reminds me...

Andrew, did you ever get my e-mail reply about your next project?

Panda · February 13, 2001, 14:50

Ooh lovely: interest.

GS, I think the Netscape problem is caused by the Nbci frame at the top of the page conflicting with the frame for my site, creating a frame within a frame. This is why I've also uploaded the files to my personal space as a mirror.

The other two aren't there; I'm just too lazy to remove the links. Trust me: these scenarios are not very good (comparatively). Very ill-thought out conceptually, though I have been tinkering with them I really don't think they're salvageable.

Echopapa: great feedback.

I wish I had you as a playtester. Maybe next time? Good points generally, esp the spelling ones. "Toyko" . I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Though I thought "Bombay" was a very recent name change (there was a thread about Indian cities in the general forum), not 1992.

Thinking about it there are events I can do with the Chinese and Taiwan, and Liberia, now that I've abandoned the Algerian events. Ditto with more terrorists. The trouble is I only wanted to recreate the world broadly, but still leave lots of choice for the player. So you can choose between peaceful development or warlike conquest. You can choose who to pick a fight with (except the EU-US link) because treaties last only while they last, and certainly not forever. So any other binding alliance is a bad idea. If you were playing as America you could have an alliance with both the Chinese and Allies, even though they might later be at war with each other. Why then have an automatic declaration of war if the Chinese capture Taipei? Similarly having PfP countires interferes with the EU expansion into Central and Eastern Europe (and don't forget that Russia is a PfP country itself, and not automatically "the enemy"). I don't think a scenario like this should force my preconceptions upon the player past a basic premise.

Yes, the American spelling for American events might be a nice little touch. I bet you everyone plays their own side. I always play as the EU, though I'm questioning the Jacques Santer as default leader. More evidence of my initial uncertainty for the starting date. For 1992 it should be Jacques Delors, the arch-Federalist.

Mao: no I'm afraid I didn't. The last message I had from you was 13 Dec. I'd be interested in your views (pick a number between 1 and 4).

echopapa · February 13, 2001, 15:42

Another spelling mistake I just noticed - "Jeursalem".

It might be a nice touch to give the Neutral and Allied leaders names. Since this is 1992, you could go with M. Brian Mulroney of Canada or Miyazawa Kiichi of Japan for the Allies, and Suharto of Indonesia for the Neutrals.
http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/20centry.htm is a great resource for recent history. From their "Governments" page, I find that in 1992, there was "No government" in Afghanistan, Tajikstan, or Sudan.

If you want to include North Korea, but make it somewhat realistic, put large forts on its borders, and have its fall trigger a war with China.

Was Eritrea really fully independent in 1992?

Would Fujimori's Peru count as a rogue state? Or Myanmar?

There was still a civil war going on in El Salvador in 1992.

If Fujimori doesn't count as rogue, the Shining Path certainly would. You may want to add some Shining Path events.

Another interesting idea - hosting the Olympics! Perhaps as a tech, that allows Wonders or better Traders to be built.

Not everybody plays their own side... I like to play as Russia. (And the Chinese army, IMHO, overpowers us far too easily.)

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EchoPapa's scenarios are available at the ACS Mac Site
and
Visit the Institute for Naming Children Humanely at inch.stormpages.com

Panda · February 14, 2001, 16:46

If you're asking me what I define as a rogue state, you're asking a very awkward question. The truth is of course that the scenario cannot be 100% accurate for multiple reasons. The problem with North Korea is outlined above; there are a finite number of unit slots available for regenerating units, and a finite amount of event space for the regeneration and new generations; finite space on the map, leading to compromises in city placement (though you're right about those tow russian ones).

I've been scouting around the web myself, and http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPl...22000-idx.html and http://worldnews.about.com/newsissue.../aa062200a.htm seem to stand out on Rogue states.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/wor...000/705482.stm on Fujimori. I assume you'd assume it should be Rogue because of the dissolution of Congress?
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/ina...a/overview.htm on Eritrea. Formal independence occurred in April 1993, though you could argue that de facto autonomy had been around a bit longer.

Love the Olympics idea

I'll have a think about that, and the Shining Path idea is also a good one.

I think that for the expanded TOT version I'm working on I can do a hell of lot more for the unit generation mentioned above, and reinstate the arms sales I had in mind originally, and have extra units for regeneration. Crises deluxe

E-mail me about playing Russia v China. If you have any savegames you can send those to me as well.

Yes, Myanmar. The trouble is that it's the text that takes up so much space in the events. How much do you get for the Mac? I try and aim for FW standards, which is ~16K

Case · February 14, 2001, 23:36

Great scenario Andrew! I especially love all the new contemporary units.

Just one correction: the railway line connecting Darwin to the rest of Australia goes through central Australia to Adelaide, not down the west coast as you placed it (to be fully realistic you may want to have the railway line stop at Alice Springs - work on the section between Darwin and Alice Springs only started last year!)

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If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error
-John Kenneth Galbraith

echopapa · February 15, 2001, 12:54

On Macs, we get whatever the MGE standard size is. About 16K sounds right.

A good way to skimp on text descriptions for events (and save precious K) is to write description texts as newspaper headlines. For example, the Taliban capture of Kabul text could be written as:

(London Times)
TALIBAN SEIZES KABUL
Foreign Powers Outraged by Human Rights Violations

The Russian Far East is not very well defended. Remember that the Soviets built a long stretch of forts along their Chinese border in the 60s and 70s, and the Chinese did likewise. Perhaps you could build Airbases along the Russo-Chinese border, and Neutral airbases in Central Asia.

Democracy was restored in Yemen, so I'm not sure if events for Yemen are warranted. Likewise, although the US certainly considers Cuba a rebel state, Castro gets foreign aid from many Western nations (i. e. most of Scandinavia).

I know this was mentioned before, but San Juan _really_ should be a US city. The US is responsible for its foreign policy, so while a US-Canada war is unlikely, a US-Puerto Rico war is impossible.

I'm surprised that there aren't any Wonders in Russia. The Kremlin? St. Basil's Cathedral? The Russian literary canon? Romanov Burial? "Motherland"? "Boris Godunov"? Lenin's Mausoleum? Perestroika? Glasnost? The Russian Mafia?

How about putting a US airbase at Guantanamo Bay?

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EchoPapa's scenarios are available at the ACS Mac Site
and
Visit the Institute for Naming Children Humanely at inch.stormpages.com

Panda · February 26, 2001, 18:20

I was hoping to get to answer your points before the thread dropped off the end of the front page, but it just shows you how much life there is here.

Case and echopapa: I'm aware of my eurocentrism. The Australia thing was easy to sort out - I must have gotten confused dealing with railways and major roads.

Ok, I've been working on the scenario file: transplanted Yekaterinburg and
Chelyabinsk to their correct locations (one square north for each was the best compromise); transplanted Chittagong to Rangoon (renamed to Yangon) as a rebel city; made Khartoum rebel, and San Juan American.

Events wise I've edited all the texts - which was a great idea and freed up a surprising amount of space. I've made extra insurgents events for Peru, and terrorist events for Israel, plus more specific insurgent/terrorist events for the side specific part. I'm also working on a Indian events file, but my inspiration is rock bottom.

I don't have an accurate enough map, or the resources on hand to find out about the Russian Far East. Again: eurocentric maps. As you have a Mac version you couldn't amend the map yourself and send it to me, but you could give me a list of coordinates for locations for forts, airbases, and infantry.

I don't really want to get dragged into discussing the various merits of inclusion as this attacks the concept of the scenario rather than the technical execution. I'm quite satisfied with the concept.

The wonders however are different, and I didn't explain in the documentation. All my wonders are designed to be functional (with the exception of Leo's), and modern (20th century - with the exception of Tian An Men Square). Plus you have 18 out of 28 wonders still to build, which is quite a high proportion for a scenario. I can't think of a good reason to have a Russian wonder at the begining, and one that fits my criteria.

Michael, I'm sending you my latest work if you could just approve that and suggest further revisions.

Thanks all

Kull · March 1, 2001, 05:51

Well, this scenario has turned into the biggest nuke-fest I've ever seen! Which may not be saying much, since I mostly play Ancient or WWII era scenarios...... Nevertheless it's awfully depressing to be nuked turn after turn by the Indians of all people. And now that the Chinese have joined in, it's Rubble-bouncing time (LA has been hit 3 times). The only saving grace is that nukes cost NEGATIVE dollars to rush buy, so I've been building up quite a stockpile! Oh yes, and getting even!! The Indian subcontinent is a slag heap, and China isn't much better. Best of all, it's usually possible to nuke a unit standing next to two (or even three!) of the enemy cities, so they are definitely suffering.

As for a "peaceful" strategy? Not likely! I've been a really good neighbor, but even so the Indians, Chinese, and even the Canadians sneak attacked me! I lost the allince with the Allies because they went to war with the Europeans and insisted I join. Talk about a no-win situation. Meanwhile the Russians, Allies, Neutrals and Europeans have been blasting away at each other for almost the whole game. Thank God the real "New World Order" hasn't been so violent!

There's probably not much you can do about that, but I do have a few other suggestions:

1) The US and Europeans should be on non-speaking terms with the Allies to prevent wars amongst the three of them.

2) Seriously consider creating a new kind of short-range nuke, reserved for the Indians, Neutrals, and Allies. A nuclear exchange with the Russians or Chinese may not be pleasant, but at least it's technically possible. There is NO WAY the Indians or Neutrals can develop the missile technology required to reach North America (at least until 2020 or thereabouts).

3) It seemed kind of strange that Russia and the US start off with ZERO nukes! Maybe the AI wouldn't be so quick to push the button if they were facing a nuke-armed foe.

4) Consider placing a few more of those "Urban Stackable" fortifications in North America, where they could represent the military bases in the Desert Southwest, North Plains, and West Coast. In the modern era you don't usually find big concentrations of troops inside cities, and removing most of them to "bases" might make the cities less tempting as First Strike targets.

echopapa · March 1, 2001, 10:39

One reason that there's so much sneak-attacking in this scenario is that nearly every civ starts out with blots on their reputation. The US starts at 1, and the Chinese and Neutrals have a whopping 3. To prevent such nuke-fests, it would be better if all the civs had a 0 reputation (except maybe the Chinese, at 1).

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EchoPapa's scenarios are available at the ACS Mac Site
and
Visit the Institute for Naming Children Humanely at inch.stormpages.com

Panda · March 2, 2001, 16:41

Let me reassure you gentlemen that I am always looking for ways to try and control the AI dumb aggression. Of course if I wanted a really peaceful scenario about the New World Order I'd simply make everyone have unbreakable alliances. You'd agree this wouldn't be any fun, and that compromises should be made. Certainly I'd never want to make such a rigid and predetermined scenario - I simply like the random factor. I'm sorry that obviously others don't share my philosophy.

So nukes at start as a deterrent would be good if it works; bad if it doesn't. I'll test and see. I should have before now...

It should be theorectically possible to keep nukes out of the game altogether, and certainly to control when they do come into play. It works like this:

1. Don't build Nuclear Proliferation (Manhattan) first, until you're ready to handle the consequences. Even if the computer starts to build it, that doesn't mean it will finish it. Many times I've had someone else start this, then change after a couple of turns. Don't panic. The wonder itself is never a high AI priority.

2. The technology Nuclear Disarmament makes nuclear units and the wonder obsolete. Obviously making the wonder obsolete doesn't change its effect, but it makes it more unlikely that the AI will choose to build it.

3. Nuclear Disarmament is not a high value technology per se, but it is a vital prerequisite to the more advaned social technologies. Therefore the AI will choose to research this of its own accord, even before you do because it can then build the Test Ban Treaty wonder (happiness - high priority).

4. If you have Nuclear Disarmament you can then force other nations to disarm by giving them this technology. Admitidly for some less developed nations you might have to give more away, but that should be seen as a price worth paying.

I think I know my own creation too well for manipulating gameplay. I can also tell you that the AI never has more than 2 nukes in production, and never has more than 4 in play at any time.

Sorry you had a bad game Kull. Please don't pre-judge it until you've worked out the best strategy, eh? Another thing you can do is not talk to anyone. Amazing how well that can work in the short term. Good point about the negative cost. I knew there must be a good reason why they cautioned against a cost >16! So this can be fixed fairly easily by taking a leaf out of Kobayashi's book and increasing the number of shields in the box, then reducing the number of rows in proportion to keep (roughly) the same costs.

Thanks

Kull · March 2, 2001, 22:54

Andrew: Please don't misinterpret. This really is an impressive scenario in MANY ways. It's just that from your initial comments (conquering the world is NOT the object) I assumed there was some kind of inhibition against typical Civ2 aggression. Clearly I was mistaken! But I can see that if the human player puts a premium on researching "disarmament" and then giving it away, that would make life a lot simpler.

As to "short-range nukes", it seems that would be more realistic than giving full intercontinental ballstic missile capability to anyone who discovers Nukes. A good analogy would be giving the M-1 Abrams to the first country that discovered "Armored Vehicles". One or more intermediate steps just seems more realistic, IMHO.

SCDARS · March 9, 2001, 16:22

I already played the very first version of your scenario until the point the Europeans (me) got that much ahead and earned a steady flow of cash from "Rogue crop" in Libya and elsewhere that it had become somehow tedious. But I think the problem (e.g. the overwhelming financial income from intervening in Rogue states) has been corrected in the later versions.
Despite of this it is one scenario (of only two) depicting any post wwii-topic that I think is generally excellent. Don't misunderstand my comments - if I wasn't somehow intrigued by your scenario, I wouldn’t bother criticizing anything

Again: Congratulations for this scenario!

However, I still have some suggestions/remarks after I installed the patch recently - if you don't mind, of course

Firstly, I don't see any reason why one shouldn't be able to see the city names. Why don't you "reveal the whole map" before saving the scenario the next time?

Another aspect I would mention is the lack of pollution. Is it really intended that one doesn't have to care for environment at all? I think environmentalism is still a very topical issue...
Or do you have bad experience after some tests? (Maybe assigning more Engineers would be in order to help the human player...)

Otherwise I also don't see any point in "upgrading" one's power plants to newer versions which would be on the agenda if pollution was active.

This brings me to another question: Why are there no nuclear power plants in Russia?
It would be "nice" to see some cities having a nuclear meltdown (-sp?), if there was civil unrest in any town when playing Russia or China

Panda · March 10, 2001, 08:45

I'd just to thank everyone for posting ideas and corrections in this thread. This scenario is now guite different to original concept, which is part of the problem.

For a start, if you could only play as the EU or US, then the similar shield colour isn't so much of a problem because if a unit wasn't yours it must be the other's. If playing as one of the other major sides then it can be headache. I'm fixing this now.

The no pollution thing is basically because of a fear of global warming As the industrial squares are more productive than "normal" civ2, you're going to have a lot more pollution, which means that you're going to need engineers to clean it up, and I though that would be distracting. I take your point about the lack of environmental incentive, and agree with it. Since discovering that Solar Plants completely eliminate industrial pollution (no, I really didn't know that before), it might be a good idea to re-introduce it like I re-introduced double irrigation. If people want that.

Would you get meltdowns if the city was AI controlled at the time? Doesn't sound likely, so again, no objection there.

Hmm...the "reveal map" thing. I'm wary about this because to do so at this late stage would also reveal the other players units, and you'd be forced to watch them all move around, every turn. My way you only see the combats, which is tedious enough. I usually reveal the map at the begining before any cities are founded so you know what the world looks like, you just don't have specific intelligence about other countries, which acts as an incentive to reconnoitre and gives a definite bonus to building Spy Satallites (Apollo's). I think it might be possible to delay revaealing the map until the cities have all been founded, but before any units are placed. I can certainly experiment.

There's going to be another version anyway. Either just a patch with all the corrections and some updates, or a complete rewrite if I take advantage of the seperate body counter from the other thread. You should wait and see what I've discovered you can do with batch files