Guns of August Re-design Question

[Kull]

Here's the situation:

The original scenario design called for 4 active civs; Germans, Belgians, French & British (moving in that order). The first two were AI controlled, while the latter were both Human-controlled civs (ala Nemo's 2nd Front). It quickly became apparent that the Belgians were not going to operate in a fashion even remotely consistent with their historical role, so most of their units were relegated to 0-move status. This was a minor change, since historically they were totally on the defensive and had little interaction with the French and Brits during the time frame of this scenario.

Since the British don't even reach the continent for a while, the first part of the scenario was developed on a purely "France vs. Germany" basis. To minimize editing, at this point the Brits were left as an AI civ, with the intention of later hex-editing them into human-controlled status. Which is what I did last night. Disaster.

A full up test of the first two parts was under way when it became apparent that the order of play was a BIG problem. The British are the last human-controlled civ to move before the Germans, so that means you don't see ANY of the German attacks on the French! For those of you who played 2nd Front, just remember how annoying it was when some of your Air Units were attacked by the Luftwaffe. When it was your turn to move the Air Force again, sometimes your units were damaged or missing, but how it happened was always a mystery. Imagine if the same thing had happened with your land forces!! (And I gather that it DID with the MGE version!) Another example. Do you think Red Front would have been half the success if people never got to see the massive German assault on Russia - as it occurred? Doubtful. So this is a huge problem...almost a show-stopper. At this point there seem to be two options:

1) Rebuild the scenario from scratch with the British moving BEFORE the French.

2) Edit the scenario so that the BEF units are all French-controlled.

There are certainly pluses and minuses to each approach, so lets consider them:

Option 1 (Rebuild):

PLUS - Retains the independence of command that was a critical component of this phase of the war. One of the major reasons for even HAVING two civs was to prevent the French player from distributing the BEF units throughout his army. It also replicates the considerable communication problems that existed between the two sides. Trying to coordinate an offensive (or even a retreat) such that neither army fouls up the other was a real historical challenge, and the use of two civs replicates that nicely.

MINUS - Rebuilding a scenario which is already about as large as 2nd Front, well that's a daunting task to put it mildly. It's doable, but incredibly time consuming. There are also larger issues involving two-human-player games. First, they don't work well in MGE since you never get to see the AI move. Second, you need two different versions for FW and MGE. Third, you can't package the file as a scenario but have to open with a saved game (which is another can of worms, but let's move on). Fourth, even with the order of play reversed, now you'll miss seeing all the German attacks upon the BEF! That's less of a problem simply based on force size, but still an issue.


Option 2 (Edit):

PLUS: This basically returns us to the world of one-human-player Civ. So all the minuses mentioned above effectively won't happen. There are a few other benefits, such as enabling the "British" units to move freely through French cities and even defend them from inside. A major benefit is that performing this edit can occur in a fraction of the time it would take to rebuild the scenario from scratch.

MINUS: All the pluses from Option 1 are pretty much gone. You lose the fun of trying to coordinate a two-civ strategy against an overwhelming AI opponent.

I suppose there are two other options, but neither appeals to me:

3) Leave it as is and hope nobody cares. Great. Work for half a year on a game I don't want to play.

4) Make the British an AI civ and use events to assist them in cooperating as your ally. See above comments about Belgium and multiply by 10.

Not surprisingly, I'm leaning HEAVILY toward Option 2. But maybe I'm missing something. If anyone can make a good case for the alternative (are there some extra Option 1 pluses and Option 2 minuses that I missed), then I'm all ears!

[Exile]

I know how you feel. Again and again we come up against "difficulties" that are built into the game and are thus not amenable to change. The civ2 program and scenario design module is a joy, but there are certainly aspects of it that motivate one to tear out hair. Getting a AI ally to behave as if they are an ally is one of the worst. To be honest, I didn't completely follow your description of the "viewing" problem, though I understand why you want the Schlieffen plan to be seen in all its glory. Starting over from the beginning is frankly too frustrating to contemplate, and even if I thought that it was the best alternative, I wouldn't vote for it because I wouldn't want to be even partly responsible for bringing another designer to that choice. MANY, many times I have lain awake at night trying to come up with a good solution for a problem in a civ2 scenario, and it's usually a problem like this one; a built-in difficulty is making the whole effort questionable.

I was really looking forward to this scenario, and Kull, you may be interested to know that, after seeing your map that you posted a screenshot of several weeks ago, I actually went out, bought a copy of Guns of August, and read it in about 3 sittings. I can certainly see why you want to make a scenario out of it, and I'm anxious to see your solutions to the various problems one encounters with making a scenario like this one.

But don't ask me to vote.

Sorry,
Exile

[techumseh]

Combine the Brits with the Belgians? There was some cooperation, eg. one corps of the BEF was initially landed to defend Antwerp. And the British did declare war to defend Belgium, not France. As to whether it would solve your technical problem, I have no idea.

[Kull]

Here's an example of the viewing problem:

General Bonneau has just taken the city of Mulhouse, and the Germans are preparing a counterattack. At the end of the French turn, you have 8 units in various positions around the city, and there are no Germans in sight.

The next time it's your turn, 4 of your units are dead and 2 heavily damaged. There are also 5 German units immediately viewable. How many enemy units did you kill? Which direction did they come from? Which types of units did the enemy use to kill your infantry? Which ones were you successful against? Did any enemy units ride up to your positions and then back off....or continue around to your rear? You will never know the answer to these questions. To me, it's like playing only half the scenario.

[Case]

Well, you could call it the 'fog of war', and claim that it's a design feature

Seriously, I recomend that you go with option 2. Having rebuilt scenarios from scratch myself, I don't see option one as realistic (unless you enjoy being bored and frustrated )

[RobRoy]

As irritating as it would be not to see enemy moves, I think it would be more unfortunate to lose such a unique feature as having to deal with the separate command structures.

So if a redesign is not feasible, I'd do nothing. I wouldn't combine the civs. "Fog of War" may sound like a copout, but it's a perfectly valid excuse for leaving things as they are, if you need one. We get way too much info in Civ, as it is, anyway.

Couple of other thoughts:

- You might be able to seek assistance, especially from people blithely telling you to redo a scenario from scratch. If you can assign discrete tasks to specific individuals in specific timeframes, it might be worthwhile. I use MGE, though.

- I'm surprised that the hex-editing didn't help out. How disastrous was it? Were you completely unable to make them human controlled? Did the scenario become unloadable? You should not only be able to add a civ, you should also be able to change the civ numbers more easily in the saved game file (i.e., move the 04 cities/units to 05, etc.). Or have you already tried this?

- Does this mean we'll never get to play "Death to Mitani"?

[Henrik]

As a MGE user I vote for a one civ solution.

[H Tower]

i think that option 2 is the best choice
could you have two events.txt files and rules.txt files? in the begining of the war make the british units have zero movement points so they couldn't make it into france. and when you want to make the brits start fighting, tell the player to change the rules.txt file. i admit it isn't perfect but staring over would really be a bore for you.

[Kull]

Thanks to everyone for responding, and I appreciate the comments and observations. Not surprisingly, I've decided to opt for the "One-Civ Solution". To quote from an email I sent to a playtester last night:

I've been reworking the scenario in somewhat desultory fashion over the weekend, and here's the new design decision: Retain the British as an AI Ally (with a VERY limited role) but transfer most of the BEF to French control. The player can now do some non-historical force mixing, but that seems a small price to pay. The "two-player" problem is much worse than I first imagined, especially for players using the MGE version of Civ. Normal scenarios will play easily on both MGE and FW, but multi-human-player games require special versions for each platform. Worse yet, MGE players will NEVER see the AI move, no matter where the French and Brits are slotted. That's just not acceptable.

What this means is that most of the BEF will be controlled by the French, although I plan to include some features that will encourage the player to use the BEF in a more-or-less historical fashion, including fights alongside the AI British at certain times and places. Without giving too much away, here's another quote describing just one of the unlooked for benefits from having an AI Ally:

Paradoxically, this now allows for a more realistic "Marines land at Ostend" option. Historically, this meager attempt to outflank von Kluck involved a few brigades of Royal Marines plus 6000 totally demoralized Belgians. In the hands of a human player, even this tiny force might cause problems, but the AI should be able to fully mimic the historical futility of this sideshow. :-)

Note to RobRoy: "Death to Mitanni" will probably be released as a Civ3 scenario.

[Cal]

Why don't you just give the french and britain civ's the same map? Then won't you be able to see the enemy attacks?
Or, rnake it so the entire world is visible...

[Kull]

Cal: If you play a few turns of "Second Front", you'll see exactly what I mean - the human Civ that moves just before the AI (alied Ground forces) gets to see it move and attack - the other human civ (Air Force) does not. To be honest, that would be aggravating, but not a showstopper. But having to building a second version specifically for MGE (and knowing they'd miss all the AI action), well that's just a no-go.

[H Tower]

Kull: how's the redesign going?

[Kull]

Not real well. The original concept called for a 4 part scenario, the first three of which would parallel the actual events of early-to-mid August. Attack and Counterattack in Alsace, Sordet's Ride, The landing of the BEF and the March to Mons, Plan 17, and the Battle of the Frontiers. Only Part 4 would truly devolve full control back to the human player, giving you 2 weeks to save France.

But getting the AI to pull off the Sclieffen Plan has just been unbelievably difficult. Plus in the back of my mind, there's been a growing certainty that Civ2 players want the opportunity to CHANGE history, not repeat it. What good is it to achieve an AI marvel, if players are frustrated and bored because their options have been severely curtailed by the designer.

Someday I may complete the original version of the scenario (Part 1 is complete and playtested, while Part 2 is very close), but I'm leaning now toward something completely different. A scenario with 4 playable civs (versus one) with the only limitation being the reality of mobilization.....it took almost 2 weeks to gather all the armies, and violating that constraint would turn the scenario into fantasy. But other than that, why not allow for the invasion of Holland....by either side? A pre-emptive move into Belgium by the Allies? An invasion of England by the Germans if the British risk sending all their forces to France?

I suspect the AI will suck, and you'll miss the splendors of the Schlieffen Plan (unless...as the Germans....you decide to use it yourself), but hopefully it will be a little easier to complete the scenario, and a lot more fun to play.