New "War of the Worlds" Scenario: Civil Disorder help

NeilM · July 11, 1999, 02:52

Hi!

I'm working on a scenario based on the original HG Wells novel "The War of the Worlds", set in the UK in 1898. I know there's a scenario based on the Orson Welles broadcast of 1938, but it wasn't as helpful as I had hoped it would be.

Anyway, I'm using the lovely generic map of the UK that's floating around the Net (anyone who knows the designer of that map, please let me know so I can include their name in the credits), and I have placed about 30 British cities on it and have started irrigating around them, etc. I am designing in Deity mode, as has been suggested in several design guides, but I am having trouble getting the cities settled out of Civil Disorder. Every time I start working on the scenario, 95% of the cities riot. I have created trade routes between the cities and put some units in each one. It seems unrealistic to crowd each of Britain's cities with scores of riflemen, so I only have one in each of the smaller cities and 4 in London.

Each city has at least a temple, a marketplace, and a granary. Bigger cities have libraries, universities (I've tried to place these where they would historically have been located) and banks. Hisorical port cities like Liverpool and Southampton have Port Facilities and an ironclad.

What other ways are there to calm the cities down without making the scenario too historically unrealistic?

Anyone interested in helping out with this scenario will be gratefully acknowledged.

Thanks in advance.

-N

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Neil Marsh
Lepus MediaNet

July 11, 1999, 03:24

Give every city a cathedral and colosseum. Rename them to something more appropriate. (Even something as simple as Town Square or Radio Center would work) Then, give them the following techs:

Monotheism
Mysticism
Ceremonial Burial
Theology
Electronics

Or, you could rename fundementalism and give it to the British and increase its science rate.

Saint Marcus · July 11, 1999, 11:47

There is one thing you can edit in the rules.txt. you can change to amount of cities needed for aditional unhappiness. I think it's 14 normally, but you just change that to whatever you want. As long as you have less cities then that number you will have less unhappines. Or you can change the luxeries rate and cut down on science.

St Leo · July 11, 1999, 13:48

7 ; City size for first unhappiness at Chieftain level
20 ; Riot factor based on # cities (higher factor lessens the effect)

Change those two values.:-)

mindseye · July 14, 1999, 03:03

Neil -

Glad to hear of your project - I re-read the novel recently, and was reminded of its genius.

Will the alien forces be modeled closely on those of the novel? How are you handling the graphics?

- Tim Smith
yoohootim@hotmail.com

July 14, 1999, 03:06

Yeah, H.G. Wells was a superb author

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G: "If we do happen to step on a mine, Sir, what do we do?"
EB: "Normal procedure, Lieutenant, is to jump 200 feet in the air and scatter oneself
over a wide area."
Cheers,
Dracon
E-mail- dracon@strategicgaming.com
ICQ- 14879467
Future Labor Prime Minister of Australia.

Please Check out my Whian Whian State Forest (where I live) page at http://members.xoom.com/true_blue_99/

USEFUL LINKS
http://www.infidels.org

http://triplej.abc.net.au

http://www.alp.com.au

NeilM · July 14, 1999, 06:25

I am using the book as my guide for the most part, though I will be borrowing some elements from the 1953 movie (primarily sounds) and the 1978 Jeff Wayne album/1999 video game (unit design). Despite Wells' description of the Fighting Machines in the book, the design from Jeff Wayne's album cover will always be my favorite.

So far I am planning to use the Fighting Machine, the Handling Machine (described in the book as it pursued people for capture -- I also plan to use it as the Martian equivalent of the Engineers unit), and the Flying Machine (brief appearance in the book, but should prove devastating in this scenario -- once the Martians develop it).

I am leaving the graphics alone for now, but I will need some help with them when the time comes. I am getting a little outside help/support for various things, but I'm always looking for more!

BTW, all, I made the rules.txt changes regarding the riot factors and they worked like a charm. Obviously, I don't want to rule Civil Disorder out entirely for this scenario, so I will need to tweak the numbers at some point, but for now they are leaving me alone.

Thanks!

-Neil

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Neil Marsh
Lepus MediaNet

July 14, 1999, 08:57

you know how they all die from bacteria in the end? (sorry to people who haven't read it) Well, make it so that if they don't achieve a certain advance or objective by the end of the scenario, they die from bacteria.

------------------
G: "If we do happen to step on a mine, Sir, what do we do?"
EB: "Normal procedure, Lieutenant, is to jump 200 feet in the air and scatter oneself
over a wide area."
Cheers,
Dracon
E-mail- dracon@strategicgaming.com
ICQ- 14879467
Future Labor Prime Minister of Australia.

Please Check out my Whian Whian State Forest (where I live) page at http://members.xoom.com/true_blue_99/

USEFUL LINKS
http://www.infidels.org

http://triplej.abc.net.au

http://www.alp.com.au

NeilM · July 14, 1999, 14:40

Thanks for reminding me. When I'm laying in bed at night, my mind races with ideas for this project and wanting to include something about the bacteria was one of them.

I'll have to include an advance, like Immunity or XenoImmunity, that will counteract the bacteria. Perhaps I can base it on turn number of landing site size (like with Sewer System). Something that will begin to affect their population after a while if they don't research it.

As a counter, perhaps I can incorporate the Martian red weed and have it affect human crop production so they have to develop a way to counter that.

Thanks!

-Neil

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Neil Marsh
Lepus MediaNet

DieHardGamer · July 20, 1999, 03:02

Did you give England a government? Under despotism the greater the number of cities, the more they riot. Try Democracy.

NeilM · July 20, 1999, 23:29

Well, to be historically accurate, the UK in 1898 was a Constitutional Monarchy (though I am finding that that definition really follows better for Republic than Monarchy, since the Queen is more of a figurehead these days -- but perhaps it wasn't quite so then). So I'm working on it under Monarchy for right now.

But I resolved the rioting problem by changing the rules.txt file to reduce the rioting factor for now. Once I have the cities the way I want them, then I will tweak the rules.txt file to allow rioting again -- well, rioting when the time is right, anyway.

The real trick was deciding what governmental form the Martians should have! I ended up giving them Fundamentalism and cutting out the halving of scientific research. It made the most sense to me (thinking of Science as their religion). They are single-minded about their conquest of Earth -- it is their rightful destiny -- and they will stop an nothing to conquer and enslave us.

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Neil Marsh
Lepus MediaNet