Babylon and On - Spoilers and Strategy - Page 5

DeepO · July 23, 2002, 13:22

Quote:

Originally posted by jshelr
This thread is becoming sort of like a VFW meeting for survivors.

VFW? Could you explain this, I'm not familiar with it...

Further, I didn't use nukes (I got nuked, but that's hardly an advantage), so surely it is possible to do without them. But you are right in one thing: without nukes nor armies, turns take extremely long because of the battles and planning of battles... You don't need to be overly efficient, and I made quite a bunch of mistakes (over reaching, or not bringing enough troops was the most common; but this happens in all my games), which is fine as long as you have reinforcements on the ready to do better next turn. And you need those anyhow as there always is a large luck factor in Civ III.

DeepO

Catt · July 23, 2002, 13:55

Alas, I've been to busy to do much civving - haven't played Babylon and On (and still waiting to know the song reference

) and haven't played AU 101. But I have read through the entire thread and kudos to all - great games and great stories. It helps that I learned a bit as well

.

I'm curious re: the lack of armies and the costs associated in attacking fortified MI in hilltop metropoli. Did anyone build and use cruise missles? It's been a long time since I found myself fighting a very powerful AI civ in the "future tech" era, but IIRC correctly cruise missles were a very effective first strike at those tough AI cities when armies were not available. Rather than wheeling up 20+ radar artillery, moving 5 - 8 cruise missles to act as an artillery force can work very well (and if I'm not mistaken [it has been a long time] cruise missles will not destroy city improvements - they will only target units, so no risk of destroying that marketplace you may want to keep).

Any cruise missles used in Babylon?

Catt

jshelr · July 23, 2002, 14:15

VFW -- pre Vietnam, anyway, returning US soldiers formed clubs that met regularly, played pool (billiards), drank beer, complained about the younger generation, etc. Veterans of Foreign Wars was one of them.

I don't think of nukes as an advantage. If you shoot, you will normally get shot. But I did benefit in mini tourney III from the AI civs nuking each other. When I then invaded the other continent in that game the cities were crap and easily taken. I think some of our games saw the same thing happen to the human player's benefit.

In the game we are discussing, nobody did any nuking for me and it was much tougher sledding. The good luck I had was that all the AI civs immediately went to war right at the start of the scenario and left me alone to devlop and get some tech.

Maybe I should express the efficiency argument differently. I was careful not to over extend and I did make very few mistakes of that type. Instead, my mistake was probably not being aggressive enough. For example, I sent no "expeditionary forces" out to take the smaller islands but kept the "main army" intact pretty much all the time. It slowed me down and the clock just barely ran out. To do it the way I did it you would have had to be very precise. See you at the Alamo.

Velociryx · July 23, 2002, 15:01

Heh...just had one other idea for an MT game....the title in my head is "barbarians at the gates" and the player would start with limited money, some troops, but no cities. You'll also start in some really unattractive real estate....tundra, desert, or jungle, so when you finally DO get to take your first city, it won't be all that good, and doing so will automatically put you at war with whomever you take it from....

I'm twisted, I know....I know....

-=Vel=-

FrustratedPoet · July 23, 2002, 15:06

I like that idea very much.

Vel, perhaps you will have to clone a couple of extra versions of yourself if you want to have time to follow through on all these ideas you have?

Velociryx · July 23, 2002, 15:11

Ya....but I'm not sure if the world is quite ready for two of me....

No worries tho....given sufficient amounts of sweet tea, tortilla chips and conqueso dip, I can fortify myself sufficiently to get it all done. I'm thinking the Barbarian scenario should be on a small map, so it won't be QUITE so much work.

But, to give myself more time to work on other stuff, I did decided I pretty much needed to shop for some testing volunteers for the Alamo thing. Just too many ideas buzzing around in my head to do 'em all without a helping hand or three....

-=Vel=-

jshelr · July 23, 2002, 15:20

Catt

Good point on cruise missles. Had some "at home" and I do like their impact on attacking stacks. Found it hard to get them to cross the great waters. They sould be air liftable, don't you think. It's sort of funny that you can airlift MA but not, say, settlers, if I am correct.

Catt · July 23, 2002, 15:33

You're right; on island maps the lack of an airlift capability for CMs makes them tough to use. But, IIRC, they're pretty cheap, and can be rushed fairly cheaply - just was wondering if someone used them (since this scenario struck me as an occasion where someone could plausibly and unashamedly say that CMs were very useful

).

The "airlift or not" regime is a little bit quirky, but I assume that the default settings are there for gameplay reasons - after all, you can easily use the editor to make settlers, workers, etc. airliftable - perhaps it was unbalancing in some way

(to the designers, at least).

I liked the explanation of VFW - I started to write one myself, but wasn't sure if I had it right and/or was being offensive - "clubs that played billiards, drank beer and complained about the younger generation" is an apt summary for someone on the outside looking in (i.e., I'm not a V of FW myself).

DeepO · July 23, 2002, 15:35

Catt, I captured a few cruise missiles, and used them on the cities, but I thought they did little good... maybe because I just used a few of them on each city (3 at most, IIRC). I thought the radars were good, as you don't have to build them again each turn, and can't advance much quicker anyhow. But it might be good tactic, I'll keep it in mind if I ever get in the same situation. One note, though, there was little risk in bombing the marketplace away, it was more of bombing that nuclear plant away... the AIs really were well developed in their cities, or at least they were in my game.

jshelr, thanks for the explanation, and indeed, this looks like becoming a VFW meeting... where's that beer?

In my game too, the AIs formed alliances and were constantly at war, I think it was one of the reason why we saw so many modern units, instead of the usual cavalry, ironclads etc. But in my game, the only nukes fired were by the Americans, and against the Americans. And they were very concentrated on 2 cities only. I destroyed several German, Indian and Chinese ICBMs when taking their cities, and was pleased that they shared my discomfort with the tools of death. Nukes only as retaliation, and to scare enemies away (not that that helped in my case

)

The efficiency remark you're making is a very valid one, over extending happens a lot to me, and sometimes it gets quite bad. But, when being too careful you lose a lot of opportunities as well, I know my problems, and try to counter them by reinforcements. I found that that worked better for me. Indeed, the small islands were always high on my list of targets, and I did not make peace with anyone (some of the players here did). I had the pleasure of finishing 5 civs myself, instead of having to rely on allies to get that last city. Those small islands don't bring much, but my ironworks city Izumo was on one of those smaller islands... just this one city made up for all the little invasion forces, long turns, and general tedium. Besides, you need them for the domination victory.

Re: the Alamo: I'm testing it now, and it sure looks like it's going to be loads of fun!

DeepO

Txurce · July 23, 2002, 18:48

In my win, no nukes were fired by anyone, I didn't use combined arms very often, and I never had that many MA. What made the difference was the GL I got in my second war, which led to an army factory during my GA. It was these multiple armies - frequently rushed, since I wasn't researching - that allowed me to win as quickly as I did. The other factor was geopolitical: attacking the right civ at the right time. What was interesting is that it worked out as well as it did despite my having done by far the worst job of researching of anyone who's posted.

vulture · July 24, 2002, 03:32

Quote:

Originally posted by jshelr
Catt

Good point on cruise missles. Had some "at home" and I do like their impact on attacking stacks. Found it hard to get them to cross the great waters. They sould be air liftable, don't you think. It's sort of funny that you can airlift MA but not, say, settlers, if I am correct.

Cruise missiles can be shipped abroad on transports quite cheerfully, although this appears to be a bug. You can't load them on to a ship in port with the L key, but you can move them into a transport in coastal waters quite happily with the arrow keys. Probably the most efficient way of moving them around.

jshelr · July 24, 2002, 08:24

thanks vulture. now that you mention it (again) i dimmly recall you told us that one before. My bad.

Arrian · July 24, 2002, 09:58

Quote:

Originally posted by Velociryx
Heh...just had one other idea for an MT game....the title in my head is "barbarians at the gates" and the player would start with limited money, some troops, but no cities. You'll also start in some really unattractive real estate....tundra, desert, or jungle, so when you finally DO get to take your first city, it won't be all that good, and doing so will automatically put you at war with whomever you take it from....

I'm twisted, I know....I know....

-=Vel=-

Oooh, I like it. But will you get a palace upon that first city capture? If not, you're in a world of hurt.

-Arrian

Velociryx · July 24, 2002, 10:05

Good question! I'd think so, but in truth, I'm not sure! I've been modelling some of the units for that one....gonna make a series of uniquely named (and in some cases, totally unique, but using regular civ unit graphics) units that you'll start with....representing tribal leaders, elite units of raiders, and the like, that'll get you started. Should have a working prototype of this by tomorrow....

-=Vel=-

Aeson · July 24, 2002, 10:25

Yes you do get a Palace. It was a fix to a bug in 1.16f IIRC. You could take your first city from the AI, not have a Palace at all, and then you had absolutely no corruption anywhere unless you built the Palace later on.

DeepO · July 25, 2002, 06:54

I don't know if it is something for this scenario (maybe not), but I'm stil trying to convince one of the scenario writers to try this out: forbid humans to build settlers. I don't know even if it is modable (as there is no tech for it, is there?), but I'd really like to see a game in which you'll have to conquer every city, and keep it too.

In the late game it would be a avoid-culture-flip game, in the beginning you really have to pay attention you don't auto-raze cities. It sounds like fun to me, but I'm not sure if anybody can use the idea...

DeepO

Velociryx · July 25, 2002, 09:33

Oh! I like that idea! I think it plays VERY well with the Barbarian scenario! Easy to do, as well....I'm diggin' that!

-=Vel=-

Arrian · July 25, 2002, 11:26

Vel,

I wanna pick your brain, since we're discussing barbarians. I was playing around with the editor last night, trying to figure out how to do the Roman scenario I was discussing earlier. I'm gonna have to do the map myself, and I've been having a helluva time figuring out the scale. Remember, I want China in this thing...

But anyway, I was thinking about the barbarian units. I have so far chosen horseman as the "standard" barb, with swordsmen for the "advanced" barb. With barbs on raging and encampments all over the place, do you think this will cut it? Remember, Rome will be strong, with lots of legionaries, fortifications, bombard support, etc. What about a Bab bowman as the standard (with 0 range bombard)?

Also, do you (or anyone else) know if you can set some AI's to chieftain level and others to Regent? Or is it just 1 across-the-board choice for AI level? I want the Germans, Russians and Iroquois (my Mongols) playing on chieftain, but China, Persia & (if they're in it) India playing on regent. The human will be on Emperor.

How do I make Germany a real pain? Thus far, I have been planning on making almost all of Germany forest (lots of game for them to use), and have their cities on hills with multiple vet spears, a catapult, and walls. Part of my problem, however, is that I want to have the area largely unroaded, as it was... but it would be too easy to cripple them by cutting their iron. Should I make swordsmen a no-resource unit?

Man, the map alone is really an effort. I tried a Large map, but found it too small. No I'm using a Huge map, but am worried it's too big. And all I've done is get the general shape of N. Africa, Iberia, Gaul, Britain and Italia down (well, and some cities... I got bored with just making land).

Victory conditions... I'm thinking conquest only.

-Arrian

p.s. If anyone has a good idea of how I can generate a good map for this (from the sahara in the south to Scotland in the north, Portugal in the west to China in the east), let me know.

DeepO · July 25, 2002, 11:35

Vel, glad you like it... I really want to try this out (after Alamo of course).

Arrian, I'm sorry I can't help you with the editor, but about the iron question: is it possible to give them 2 irons, of which one is relatively unaccessable, and both add forts and some defense units on top of them? I don't know if this is true for all games, but so far I saw that all AI that had built forts kept them occupied as well... most of these were on chokepoints, however. It would make it considerably harder for the Romans to take them out.

Other idea: put a large city, possibly Berlin, on top of a iron source. Surely this will stay defended

DeepO

Velociryx · July 25, 2002, 11:36

Hey bud! Kudos on gettin' started on the map for the Roman scenario! That's awesome!

As to the AI play levels...it's my understanding that the editor allows a "one size fits all" approach only....IIRC (at work, and not in front of the editor), you can't set the AI levels individually. Even if that's the case though, you can approximate it by giving extra tech and units to certain civs (another good way would be to make settlers require a tech, give that tech to some civs, and require others to research it)

If you're gonna make swordsmen as the advanced barb (which is a good idea, IMO), I'd consider making an entirely new unit (Barbarian Raider), using the swordsman graphic, no changes, except that it treats all terrain as roads. That way, in addition to being a more advanced attacker and defender, it retains its mobility advantage as well...barring that, maybe use the MW as the advanced unit?

As to germany - rather than making swordsmen no-resources-required, how about chaning the German UU to a Teutonic Raider or something...maybe use the Samurai graphic....and let them build that without resources....3/2/1, ATV, no resources for 3?

IIRC, is there not a mod based on the Med that we can *maybe* get a map seed from?

-=Vel=-

Arrian · July 25, 2002, 13:57

Vel,

There are good Europe/Med maps out there. But my problem is that I want Europe, the Middle East, Northern India, the Central Asian steppes, and China. That's an odd map, and I think it's unlikely that someone would have made it.

I'm not going to use the Mounted Warrior for Barbs because I'm going to use the Iroquois for the Mongols to pressure China. As for the "all terrain as roads" idea... I think that's a little too much mobility. How about a 2/2/2 unit, based on the horseman?

I suppose I could put the two best German cities on iron resources. Hmm...

Question: if you give a civ the ability to build another civ's UU, does the use of that UU result in a GA? For instance, if I gave the Germans the Bab bowman (2/2/1 + 0 range bombard) so they'd build tougher archers in their outlying, non-iron-connected cities, would the use of the unit trigger a German GA? If so, GOOD. That's how I can beef them up.

Should I set the Legionaries to be able to build roads & make forts? It's historical, but is it good for gameplay?

Luxury situation (work in progress, of course):

Rome - wines (italy), incense (egypt)
Germany&Russia - furs
Persia - incense, dyes
India - spices, ivory
China - silks, spices

up for grabs: at the very southern edge of the map in africa, I may put an ivory resource, or even a gems resource. If Rome can spare the resources to get a city down there and protect it and the road connecting it to the empire, cool. But the vast majority of Africa will be unsettled wasteland filled with barbs.

Speaking of unsettled wasteland, I think I'm going to adjust the "optimal cities" number a bit, so the AI doesn't go crazy trying to settle everywhere. Rome and China will already be over the limit, but I will probably give them each a FP. I don't trust the AI to build a FP in the right spot as China, I feel I have to give it to them... and then I feel I have to have Rome's at least partway done in Byzantium - it's not THAT big of an advantage, since it's far from an optimal spot for the FP.

-Arrian

Harovan · July 25, 2002, 14:12

Quote:

Originally posted by Arrian
How do I make Germany a real pain?

What do you mean by "make"? We ARE a real pain!

Arrian · July 25, 2002, 14:55

Velociryx · July 25, 2002, 15:23

Gotcha....yeah, that's prolly not a map that's been made just yet....ARGH! Good luck on it, bro! Wow...that alone will be a pretty big task....Modded Horsies should be fine for the barbs, although if the default player is Rome, then you could prolly get away with using the ol' MW's anyway, since they'd not "see" much of the Mongolian shenanigans, but that's all you, bro. I think the 2.2.2 horsie for barbs will be fine....

The ability of a unit to cause a GA is a definable ability in the editor, actually....one of the attributes you can assign any unit, so you could set pretty much any unit you wanna so it'll cause a GA for civ(s) X (Y, Z, and beyond)....I thought that was one pretty cool feature in the editor...

I'm liking the way it's shaping up already, by the way! Lemme know when you need a tester!

-=Vel=-

Arrian · July 25, 2002, 16:33

Heh, I'm a loooooong way from producing a testable scenario. If I can maintain my enthusiasm long enough to make a map that's at least playable (please don't expect Marla map-like precision), this thing will probably come together.

By the way, you may be interested in this thread: http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...5&pagenumber=2

Cool stuff, huh?

-Arrian

Velociryx · July 25, 2002, 17:00

No worries bro....take your time....I've got a gazillion things to keep my attention till then, but I must say that I am looking forward to seeing it!

-=Vel=-

dawidge · July 28, 2002, 17:06

Whew! Domination in 2044 with 2798 points. I'd sewn up a points victory by 2020.

I was hampered by the AI's nuisance tactics (sabotaging my GL-ready-to-be-built Palace... twice) that delayed a palace bounce until the 21st century. I chose to build neither artillery (since the AI can't use it effectively, I consider it cheating) nor air units (raw #s of MA are much more effective in my book, although some jet fighters might have come in handy against the waves of stealth bombers). I only built 10 warships during the game (2 Bardots and 8 cans) but had about 20 transports (many of which were completely unescorted ferries). Zero tech development once I reached SynFib (so there were an awful lot of RA scrapped as I entered cities).

When last I left, I was trying to decide who to kill next. Well, after wiping out the Chinese, the Americans obliged with yet another sneak attack (for some reason, I never got a declaration of war out of the americans, it was always an unannounced pounce with stealth bombers). So I took America with two landings of 27MA+9MI (and lots of airlifted reinforcements). Then Japan allowed me to seal the points victory, but I was still about 400 sectors shy of domination, so I lit into Germany (and would have wiped them out in 2044).

This save game is a keeper. I'll hope it'll run under 1.29. I'm sure I can better my score with all the pointers here. If they ever fix the AI's use of artillery (hint: you attack TROOPS with them, not just terrain), I may even start using it.