Scenario Idea

CornMaster · July 24, 2000, 20:13

I've had the idea of a scenario between the great Spanish Armada and the English Navy in the 1500's. The 197 English ships and their light cannons and fast ships against 140 the Spanish heavy guns and cannons. I'm wondering if anyone would be interested in playing it. It would just be one big naval fight. The Spanish have to destory/take London and the English has to destroy the Spanish fleet. The ships will carry cannon balls which will act like missiles and have a basic attack but nothing compared to the cannon balls. I could also use the fire ships. They could act like nukes. Anyway would you be interested in trying when I'm done? Anyway and suggestions?

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Allard HS · July 24, 2000, 21:06

sounds nice, but don't forget to include the Dutch!!!

CornMaster · July 24, 2000, 21:15

quote:

but don't forget to include the Dutch!!!

What does the Dutch have to do with it? I was only planning on it being one battle between the English ships and the Spanish ships. This battle could last like 30 turns or more. Depending on how the AI handles it. Probably best if played 2 player multiplayer. Anyway. Tell me how the Dutch would be involved so I don't leave anything out.

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"I'm too out of shape for a long fight so I'll have to kill you fast"
"If the great Emperors of Rome, Egypt and Greece were alive today, do you think they would prefer Coke or Pepsi?"

Ted Bundy's Volkswagon · July 25, 2000, 04:54

quote:

Originally posted by Allard HS on 07-24-2000 09:06 PM
sounds nice, but don't forget to include the Dutch!!!

Don't forget to include the Australians!

Allard HS · July 26, 2000, 06:03

I'm serious. The Dutch played a very important part, often overlooked my comtemporary historians but at that time greatly appreciated by our allies the english.
I don't have any books to quote from, and don't know too much of it by heart, but we sunk quite a few ships from the Armada, that I know for sure.

Australia!! Phah! You mean New Holland.

Mao · July 28, 2000, 23:31

Let me be the first to wish you luck on getting the AI to use its navy correctly. This may turn out to be a multiplayer-only scenario. Also remember that the AI makes an unlimited supply of missiles.

CornMaster · July 29, 2000, 00:40

Got most of the scenario figured out. Now I just need a map of the English Channel and surrounding areas. Anyone have one to offer? Or know where I can get one?

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"I'm too out of shape for a long fight so I'll have to kill you fast"
"If the great Emperors of Rome, Egypt and Greece were alive today, do you think they would prefer Coke or Pepsi?"
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Cam · July 29, 2000, 11:43

Try the Bitmap-2-Map program at civ.cx/maps/bmp2map_main.html or ask William Keenan nicely as per apolyton.net/forums/Forum18/HTML/000998.html .

Mao · July 30, 2000, 02:34

Have you figured out how to get the AI to use their vessels correctly instead of just stacking them? You could put forts on water, but otherwise, how do you get them to use the tactics right? They'll just bombard the coast whenever they can.

CornMaster · July 30, 2000, 11:23

I haven't really thought about the AI yet. I'm still waiting to make a map. I got the units values, etc.. figured out. Haven't really started the scenario yet.

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"I'm too out of shape for a long fight so I'll have to kill you fast"
"If the great Emperors of Rome, Egypt and Greece were alive today, do you think they would prefer Coke or Pepsi?"
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Mao · July 31, 2000, 00:49

I frankly don't think the AI is smart enough to use a navy, but this scenario would be interesting played on MP.

Hasdrubal · July 31, 2000, 08:52

No Dutch, no Hasdrubal playing this scenario!

I would love a good naval scen. I don't think that I have ever played a scen with an emphasis on naval warfare. I'm afraid that Mao may be right though. The AI totally lacks any tactical sense. Hope you can overcome this problem.

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CornMaster · July 31, 2000, 15:34

quote:

Originally posted by Hasdrubal on 07-31-2000 08:52 AM
I would love a good naval scen. I don't think that I have ever played a scen with an emphasis on naval warfare. I'm afraid that Mao may be right though. The AI totally lacks any tactical sense. Hope you can overcome this problem.

AHHHHH!!! There is so much pressure. I'm not a scenario genius. I feel like I'm going to disappoint everyone if this scenario isn't what they hoped. Ahhhh!!! I better get working as fast as I can.

Still haven't made a good map yet.

tolstoy · July 31, 2000, 22:12

sounds cool - but what about the storm?

You of course know that it was a huge storm
that broke up and destroyed the Spanish
Armada and not the English Navy. Which were
basically Dutch ships because the English
got all their naval tech from the Dutch
and Dutch investment companies payed for them.

Mao · July 31, 2000, 23:04

...you can make them barabarian units right?

SandMonkey · August 4, 2000, 16:21

I saw a special on this on the History Channel before. Wasn't there a giant land army waiting for the Armada to pick them up to finish the invasion of England? Also, you should give the Armada ships a low attack, or firepower, since it's been found on their ships that they had the wrong cannonballs for the cannons they had! This meant that it took them forever to find the right cannonballs to use and fire. And I thought the English were outnumbered in their number of ships? I'm not too sure about that one, the show was never clear about that part. If I'm totally wrong in this, blame the History Channel!

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DarkCloud · August 29, 2000, 21:55

To simulate the storm, merely use barbarian units which will destroy both English and Spanish, but hopefully to simulate real history, the Spanish ships, however since Civ is alternate-history it would be interesting to see an equal amount of ships on each side to be dashed to pieces.

An idea: create special unit types.

Another idea: make each ship represent 5 or so, otherwise the turns will take too long (of course you probably have determined this already but just in case...)

Stefan Härtel · August 30, 2000, 05:25

quote:

Wasn't there a giant land army waiting
for the Armada to pick them up to finish the invasion of England?

Ah yes, I believe it was the Duke of Alba (or Parma?) waiting on the Dutch shore.
Why don't you simply give the Spanish ships trireme abilities? More later, I'm short on time!

sluggo · September 25, 2000, 09:32

CornMaster –

It’s a neat idea but I see one big problem – the wind.

The major tactical advantages the English held were that their ships were more weatherly than the Spanish, and hence could attack or not depending upon circumstances, and that their cannon were better. Spanish tactics depended on closing with the enemy and boarding – gunnery was secondary – whereas the English tended to stay at a distance and bang away.

But in the Age of Sail, the wind was all – a change in wind direction could completely alter the logic of a battle – and without some mechanism for simulating its effects, a central aspect of the battle would be lost. (In the battle of the Armada, for instance, the prevailing winds forced the Spanish to retreat north around Ireland rather than just heading back down to Spain.)

Same caveat applies to fire ships, which were essentially unguided missiles – you set them on course and jumped overboard. In practice, their main advantage was to force a fleet to scatter in order to avoid them – as long as you could maneuver you could usually get out of their way, but your line of battle was disrupted.

As for boarders, it might be possible to modify Diplomats or Spies to be able to “attack” from ship to ship, and you could give the Spanish an edge in this aspect.

In general, seems to me that tactical naval battles work best in the steam era – the battle of Manila Bay, Tsushima, Jutland, etc. are some of the relatively unusual possibilities.

I do think your idea of “cannonballs” is a very good one; I’ve been trying to work out a similar idea for a kind of “Big Bertha” for late-19th/20th c. war – the “gun” would actually be a city, and the “shells” would be units as in your idea. But my notion is still sort of half-baked.

Thinking about the wind leads me to weather as well; I wonder if there couldn’t be some way to modify ALL terrain on a map to allow for seasons – i.e. in “winter” all movement except on RR drops to 1, etc. I can see how event triggers could tell the game what season it was, but I suppose the actual (temporary) modification of movement factors (and maybe even food production) would involve some major hacking.

Sluggo