Scenarios, Good and Bad Things

Seeker · December 24, 1999, 15:19

I have finally played enough scenarios to know what I like. This is just a few warnings/suggestions from one of your consumers:

1. units can be copied of course, but should be same style. nothing is worse than seeing Verne units next to units copies from Imperialism or Warlords or Panzer General.

2. Always keep in mind that the AI gets numerous hidden advantages, so that for instance the walls improvement, if available, will quickly be built everywhere.

3. Try to reduce the amount of unnecessary "trimming" that has to be done, ie selling of improvements that won't be useful like sewer systems, disbanding of hordes of crap units.

4. Allow more than one good offensive unit.

5. Remember that Civ 2 is weighted heavily to the defence. It's no fun trying to get dozens of units together to capture 1 city. Try to keep D ratings low and ATT high.

6. Remember that certain slots have intrinsic characteristics even if everything in them has been changed, ie cruise missile slot units if ground will not get vet bonus, horseman slot is ALWAYS a "horse type".

7. Resist the temptation for sprawl, especially hordes of units. This is especially true in the countless ww2 scens, i mean it's very nice to see u put in so much effort, but if I can't sit through the first turn...

8. Remember when trying to build a formidable AI opponent: giving the AI lots of units just doesn't work, especially of certain kinds. How many ww2 scens have I played where u have to sit through 10 minutes of destroyers...

Djugashvili · December 25, 1999, 16:52

Seeker, I agree w/ most of your points, but sometimes the greatest scenarios require long turns. Take Red Front by Komrade Nemo. The first turn is probably ten minutes long! If you can sit through that (its pretty boring, though), you just sat through the worst part. What I'm saying is usually the first computer turn is the longest, and subsequent turns are not really half what the first one was. Take it from ol' Djugashvili: Sometimes, its worth the wait.

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"When You Kill One, It Is A Tragedy. When You Kill 10 Million, It Is A Statistic"
-Comrade Stalin

December 26, 1999, 02:55

#6, is that true????

If it is than I have to go and redo my ENITIRE master units list for the cold war scenario that I'm about to restart work on.....

argh, just when I though I had some free time to work on the actual scenario....

Michael Daumen · December 28, 1999, 22:44

Screw that Eddie, just load it up and let it fly. We haven't corresponded for a while so I assumed things were in limbo.

Seeker · December 29, 1999, 08:07

Interesting scenario a friend made, don't know if he posted it anywhere. It was 1948 scenario, soviets invade western europe. It was an experiment to create a really tough AI. Basically, the AI is a fundy (of course) and can build only engineers, barracks, and city walls. They have 1 military unit they can build, a cost 1 tank with the same statistics as the default tank. They're were garrison infantry and a lot of NON unbuildable units. Fighters and bombers showed up randomly. The human player was intended to be NATO. The idea was to keep the AI constantly in it's aggressive-attack routine, and eliminate the things the AI builds to much of or doesn't know how to use like riflemen and destroyers.

Tony Braim · January 1, 2000, 22:23

That's a good list, but there's one thing I *hate* that you kind of skirted around.

I can't stand opening the "Tax Rate" menu on the first turn and seeing "Income: 100 Expense: 700"

Then, inevitably, I find that every city with a size of 2 has a cathederal, coluseum, sewer system, airport...

Maybe I'm not supposed to understand it...

January 2, 2000, 20:08

Mike

My computer in Omaha was completely and royally ****ed up. So I just moved out to San Francisco and I brought all the files I made with me. I have about a month of freetime coming up, so I'll probably be working on that a lot! Perhaps I should move up the old thread in the Scenario League?

Sten Sture · January 3, 2000, 16:46

F_E - welcome to SF, hope you were out and about on New Year's eve. One of these days it will cloud up and rain for a month, so enjoy the great weather while we have it.

January 3, 2000, 19:45

Well, I went and hung out with a couple of people I knew up at Belvedere (sp?) Island. So I kinda drank champagne and watched the crappy fireworks from one of the porches.

So I'd better watch out for that, eh? Got the warning...