Hows this for you

[Civfan]

Hi everyone. I'm doing a test of a scenario about the fall of the Roman empire. This scenario focuses on the financial difficulties the empire faced in the third century A.D after the emperor Marcus Aurulius and the barbarian hordes from the German highlands. It will also focus on civil wars and the Parthian/Sassadian empire in the east.

Game from 180 AD - 500 AD

Idea of scenario.

- Try to survival by advancing your technology to get stronger units to fight and defend the empire as well as improve its economy.

- Build up your small cities. Defend the rich cities.

- Manage the economy.

- Defeat your ememy generals.

- Find new resources to exploit. - Founding new cities

[winterfritz]

Originally posted by Civfan
I'm doing a test of a scenario about the fall of the Roman empire.

I don't understand; does this mean you're seeing whether people would like such a scenario before starting work on it?

My own Roman scen (which has been 95% complete for about 3 months now ) has a similar topic. If some competition emerges, I may actually get motivated and finish mine

[techumseh]

Sounds great, Civfan! Finish it. (You too, winterfritz)

[Cyrion]

Civfan and Winterfritz: please finish your scen, I'm already eager to play them!!

[Civfan]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by winterfritz

I don't understand; does this mean you're seeing whether people would like such a scenario before starting work on it?


Hello, actually I was playing around with the idea of how to depict an economic decline in this game. So from this idea I guess I'll do a scenario. Yes I wanted to know if anyone is interested in this idea too. If not I'll just keep testing for future games.


95 % finished sounds good. Complete it my friend. I'm at 1%. Map, idea of implitication is done. No units or tech tree or cities yet. Give some time.

Civfan...

[Case]

Fritz, hurry up and do that remaining 5%

[winterfritz]

nnnnggguuuh.... must... try and finish... scen.... UNGGGGHURHRHRH....

*collapses into spams*

[winterfritz]

... Make that 98% finished, now

2 questions for the professionals out there: What are some more ways to make two civs hate each other? The AI Germanic tribes have a disturbing tendency to sign cease fires with the Romans right after an event makes them declare war on them.

And, is there any way to change the pictures that appear with the 'city in disorder' and 'we love the King day' messages?

[winterfritz]

And one more question: If you have two different units with the same name (to be used by different civs) and you have events which call for the creation of a unit by this name, which unit will be created in-game? Will any units be created at all, or will this cause the game to crash?

[techumseh]

Originally posted by winterfritz
... Make that 98% finished, now

2 questions for the professionals out there: What are some more ways to make two civs hate each other? The AI Germanic tribes have a disturbing tendency to sign cease fires with the Romans right after an event makes them declare war on them.

Use a Negotiation event to prevent them communicating, then a Make Agression event to put them at war.

And, is there any way to change the pictures that appear with the 'city in disorder' and 'we love the King day' messages?

Yes, use Rune Berg's GifX program to change the gifs in the 'Tiles .dll' file. This file has to stay in the main Civ directory.

If you have two different units with the same name (to be used by different civs) and you have events which call for the creation of a unit by this name, which unit will be created in-game? Will any units be created at all, or will this cause the game to crash?

I haven't tried this. Perhaps you'll need to experiment a bit. I'd like to know the results.

[winterfritz]

Originally posted by techumseh
Yes, use Rune Berg's GifX program to change the gifs in the 'Tiles .dll' file. This file has to stay in the main Civ directory.

Where can I get this program?

I haven't tried this. Perhaps you'll need to experiment a bit. I'd like to know the results.

According to Henrik the unit that comes first in the rules file order is the one that is created. I haven't checked this myself though.

[techumseh]

At the Cradle: http://coc.apolyton.net/

[WarVoid]

Why not give the units an abbreviated name for each civ? Such as R Legion for Roman Legions or G Legion for German Legions and so on. This would prevent any bugs from occuring when using events to create units.

And IIRC, bugs DO occur when you have multiple units using the same name.

[winterfritz]

I don't like using abbreviations because when in game, the owner of a unit is displayed above that unit's name. 'Roman R Legion' and 'German G Legion' is a bit redundant - and messy.

At the moment I'm using plurals to differentiate the units - eg one civ has 'Archers', another has 'Archer' units. This flies in the face of my pedantic neatness tendencies however and I wanted to know what the effects would be if a called them both the same thing.

Tech: thanks for the site

[Henrik]

What about "Archers" and " Archers"?

EDIT:
Or for that matter "Archers" and "Archers "!

[winterfritz]

Nice one Henrik

[Cyrion]

Originally posted by winterfritz
This flies in the face of my pedantic neatness tendencies

Are you really like that?? My God, your life must be sooo enjoyable...

98% finished?? sounds great !!

Are you thinking of doing a pbem test of it?? or would you like some SP playtesters?? In both cases, you know where to find me...

[winterfritz]

Cyrion: it'd be a lot more enjoyable if I could actually work up the will do more pedantic neat things, like clean my room

Make that 99% finished btw (I feel like one of the guys running the clock that counts down to nuclear apocalypse. Should I post when this creeps up to 95.5%, 99.75%, 99.95%... )

[BeBro]

Originally posted by winterfritz
And one more question: If you have two different units with the same name (to be used by different civs) and you have events which call for the creation of a unit by this name, which unit will be created in-game? Will any units be created at all, or will this cause the game to crash?

According to my experiences, the unit in the "first" slot will be always created. Let´s say you have a unit named "Legion" in the Warrior slot, and one unit with the same name in the Phalanx slot, only Legions from the Warrior slot will appear via events.

[winterfritz]

Well, the scenario is largely finished now; all that needs to be done is some more playtesting and cosmetic changes (spell and grammar check events text, maybe fiddle with some trade routes, etc.)

Cyrion, I don't know whether this would play so well in MP; it was largely designed to be played by the Romans SP. But you're more than welcome to playtest

[Cyrion]

At your service, Sir!!!

[Civfan]

winterfritz good for ya, can't wait to try this out. I'm making my scenario a multiplayer scenario.

Its starts with a civil war.
Starts in 193 AD
You have an army of 10 Legions and auxueries and so far. Your goal is Rome. Take it and defeat remaining rivals. Establish yourself master of the Roman world and then the world.

Civs

Severus Family
Pescennius Family
Albinus Family
Parthian-Sassanids
Germans
Goths
Vandals

[winterfritz]

Nice work! I always thought the Severan civil wars would make an excellent scenario even standing alone. Did you ever play that 69 AD scenario, btw? A similar idea, but not too great in execution (IIRC it was mostly original units and graphics and the rules.txt had been hardly touched).

My own scen starts with the empire divided in three in 268, just after the death of Gallienus. It ends on 395, because I didn't know of a good way to simulate the split of the Empire into East and West halves, given the limitations of the civ2 engine. I'd be most interested to hear on how you're planning on dealing with this problem.

[LDiCesare]

Winterfritz, I am no history expert, but I tend to think the way we moderns see the split is a bit exaggerated. The Eastern Empire was still the Roman Empire, and controlled lands in norhtwestern Africa that were under western rule before the fall of Rome, without need for conquest. The split was more a matter of ease of administration. The best way to represent the split would probably be to move the Roman capital to Byzantium, thus causing major corruption in Italy. Barbarians tearing teh West to pieces did the rest. Eastern armies were too busy in the east to defend Rome, and they had to wait for Justinian to retake it, but was there effectively a Western and an Eastern Empire? Western emperors were so pitiful at taht time they are hardly worth noticing. Furthermore, the Empire had been split between several rulers several times, and the Eastern Empire has been ruled by more than one basileus at a time, without ceasing to be one. Why don't you setup events that help the fall of Rome (move capital, maybe even create a new city there - change terrain can be used to erase previous city? - , make sure the east is under pressure but more worthy of defense), so the player will be too busy on the East front to defend Rome until the age of Justinian?

[winterfritz]

Its true that there were many similarities between the two Empires, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that the split can be simulated in the way you outline. The two empires were not just seperate administratively. Both areas had large differences in wealth, customs and social structure, with the East being highly Hellenized and retaining many 'oriental' customs, while the West was more Latin. Given these important differences on every level the tendencies towards division existed long before 395 and, as you say, the Empire was halved between co-emperors many times in the fourth century.

And they were pretty far from operating coherently together, especially after the formal division of 395; though there are examples of co-operation, such as the join compilation of the Theodisian Code in the 440s, most of the time the emperors just argued and refused to help each other out of sticky military situations. So the barbarians overran the west while Constantinople looked on largely indifferently. Whether the west was ruled by a strong emperor or the weak puppet of barbarian mercenary generals doesn't matter; whoever ruled the west, it was a seperate entity from the east. In some ways this split of the empire into Greek and Latin halves was inevitable, so I don't want to eliminate it altogether; however, knowing of no way to effectively translate this into civ2 terms I'm ending the scen at 395.

But hey, thats just my opinion. I'm no historian either I have done my best to simulate the east being far more populated and prosperous than the west, and to provide sufficient incentive for the player to move his capitol to Byzantium as soon as he can. Abandoning the west (temporarily; the objective is to keep the empire together after all ) and ruling from the Golden Horn may be an excellent idea for a hard pressed player.

[Civfan]

Originally posted by winterfritz
Its true that there were many similarities between the two Empires, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that the split can be simulated in the way you outline. The two empires were not just seperate administratively. Both areas had large differences in wealth, customs and social structure, with the East being highly Hellenized and retaining many 'oriental' customs, while the West was more Latin. Given these important differences on every level the tendencies towards division existed long before 395 and, as you say, the Empire was halved between co-emperors many times in the fourth century.

And they were pretty far from operating coherently together, especially after the formal division of 395; though there are examples of co-operation, such as the join compilation of the Theodisian Code in the 440s, most of the time the emperors just argued and refused to help each other out of sticky military situations. So the barbarians overran the west while Constantinople looked on largely indifferently. Whether the west was ruled by a strong emperor or the weak puppet of barbarian mercenary generals doesn't matter; whoever ruled the west, it was a seperate entity from the east. In some ways this split of the empire into Greek and Latin halves was inevitable, so I don't want to eliminate it altogether; however, knowing of no way to effectively translate this into civ2 terms I'm ending the scen at 395.

But hey, thats just my opinion. I'm no historian either I have done my best to simulate the east being far more populated and prosperous than the west, and to provide sufficient incentive for the player to move his capitol to Byzantium as soon as he can. Abandoning the west (temporarily; the objective is to keep the empire together after all ) and ruling from the Golden Horn may be an excellent idea for a hard pressed player.

Is there any special generals, the invasion of the East by the Sassadians, giving techs to the Vandals for there conquest of the Western Roman emperor Valens, aka Mounted Calvary?

It sounds good. Can't wait till its release.

[winterfritz]

Originally posted by Civfan
Is there any special generals, the invasion of the East by the Sassadians, giving techs to the Vandals for there conquest of the Western Roman emperor Valens, aka Mounted Calvary?

There are no special generals, and the Vandals/Goths don't get any techs for winning Adrianople... this could well be subject to change before release, however.

The Sassanid Persian invasions are simulated via events. The scen is rather events heavy at the moment, which is the main reason why this will probably only work SP (along with the fact that all the barb and Persian units are very strong, to compensate for AI stupidity.)

It sounds good. Can't wait till its release.

I'm flattered I'd very much like to see yours as well.

[Civfan]

A tiny update on progress of the scenario

Concepts have been developed. Its slowly moving on.
Events are under way as well as units, techs etc.
I've playtested an ideal for about a week.
Heres a small preview.

[Thoddy]

Originally posted by Civfan
winterfritz good for ya, can't wait to try this out. I'm making my scenario a multiplayer scenario.

Its starts with a civil war.
Starts in 193 AD
You have an army of 10 Legions and auxueries and so far. Your goal is Rome. Take it and defeat remaining rivals. Establish yourself master of the Roman world and then the world.

Civs

Severus Family
Pescennius Family
Albinus Family
Parthian-Sassanids
Germans
Goths
Vandals

At the 2nd century A.D. a German tribe doesnt exist , but there where lots of germanic tribes in Central and East Europe (for instance Goths and Vandals). And often they stay at war. A lot of them has borders at the rivers Rhine and Danube to the Romans.

[Civfan]

Originally posted by Thoddy


At the 2nd century A.D. a German tribe doesnt exist , but there where lots of germanic tribes in Central and East Europe (for instance Goths and Vandals). And often they stay at war. A lot of them has borders at the rivers Rhine and Danube to the Romans.

Well with regard to the german civ. Civ 2 has many limits and only 7 + (barbarians) civs is very limited. I could use a civ the franks tho they weren't around at that time ( they consisted of several tribes which would unite later next century or so to become the franks) or i could use the Marcomanni tribe. I'm thinking of using the Marcomanni tribe and then use maybe some cities as barbarians to represent other germanic tribes.
One last idea is to just create a tribe called germanic.
hmm..