MT V - Last Stand at the Alamo

Velociryx · July 19, 2002, 16:06

....or, as it is also sometimes called: Remember Los Alamos!

(Kudos for the name, Daw!)

****

Didn't *see* a MT V posted yet, so I figured I'd go ahead and make a thread for our next venture. Will be porting the details from the Babylon and On thread to here in preparation.

Oh...and, extra cool points to anybody who correctly guesses the origins of the Babylon challenge's title....

EDIT: See page two for the save file!
-v

-=Vel=-

Velociryx · July 19, 2002, 16:11

The setup:

You are the United States of America, a proud, powerful nation in the southern portion of the world's main continent (standard sized world, with five civs on it).

Sadly, it is said that pride goeth before the fall, and this certainly seems to be the case. You have made enemies of all your world-power rivals (China, Russia, Germany, and Japan), and they're all out for blood. America has a navy that is stronger than any of her rivals individually, but which is dwarfed by the combined might of her enemies. She has stoutly fortified and defended strongholds on her frontiers, and troops watching all ways onto her shores. A strong airforce of quality planes (fighters and bombers) but probably fewer in number than is truly needed.

Her enemies want blood....nothing less than to destroy the great nation, and by degrees, they are doing just that. After a bitter nuclear exchange, a global ban was put on the weapons of mass destruction, and everyone's stockpiles were eliminated. This is a ban that none would forsake, save a desperate America.

In secret, she hid away a small arsenal of missiles, knowing that the day may come when they might be needed.

Fearing the ultimate destruction of the nation, the leadership of the Americans drew up plans to build a mighty ship and flee to the stars, leaving the world to its own devices, and perhaps finally to escape the clutches of her tireless enemies. Sadly, those plans leaked out or were stolen, and now America's enemies are also racing for the stars. If they beat America into space, all is truly lost, and there will be no escaping. With enemies approaching on all fronts, and in overwhelming number, it is the nation's darkest hour.

Only one small hope remains....an American ship must launch into the vastness of space, and it must launch first.

The proud armed forces of the nation stand ready to fight the hopeless battle that will surely follow, in a desperate gamble to buy her men of science enough time to complete the massive ship so that at least some might survive.

The clock is ticking....

-=Vel=-

Arrian · July 19, 2002, 16:14

Quote:

Oh...and, extra cool points to anybody who correctly guesses the origins of the Babylon challenge's title

Err... I always assumed you were just babbling, Vel. On and on and on...

-Arrian

Velociryx · July 19, 2002, 16:19

Scenario Goals and Rules
The goal of the scenario is to create an essentially unwinnable situation and turn the space race into a real nail-biting experience. To that end, the following conditions apply:

1) America begins the game at war with everyone and under a Democratic government. America may ONLY opt for Democratic or Republican governments. All other choices will be made unavailable to the American player.

2) No peace. This is a deathmatch. There must be no peace deals with any of your rivals.

3) The only victory condition enabled is the Space Race.

To those ends (and especially the end of creating an essentially hopeless battle), here are the starting forces for all nations:

The Armed Forces of the United States of America:
Mechanized Infantry: 42 (16 cities, 2 in each city, the rest on the fronteir)
Modern Armor: 20
Artillery: 10

Fighters (F-15): 20
Bombers: 4
Stealth Fighters: 6
Stealth Bombers: 2

BB: 4
CV: 3
DD: 24
TRAN: 0
AEGIS: 4
SUB: 6

**America also has a small stockpile of five (5) ICBM's. These are irreplacable, as nukes have been disabled in this scenario.

****

The Armed Forces of The Rus

Mechanized Infantry:230
Modern Armor: 60
Artillery: 42

Fighters: 16
Bombers: 4
Stealth Fighters: 0
Stealth Bombers: 0

BB: 2
CV: 1
DD: 14
TRAN: 6
AEGIS: 0
SUB: 8

****

The Armed forces of China
Mechanized Infantry:320
Modern Armor: 100
Artillery: 26

Fighters: 32
Bombers: 6
Stealth Fighters: 0
Stealth Bombers: 0

BB: 1
CV: 0
DD: 14
TRAN: 6
AEGIS: 0
SUB: 3

The Armed Forces of Japan

Mechanized Infantry:170
Modern Armor: 65
Artillery: 36

Fighters: 12
Bombers: 12
Stealth Fighters: 0
Stealth Bombers: 0

BB: 1
CV: 0
DD: 18
TRAN: 8
AEGIS: 0
SUB:4

*****
The Armed Forces of Germany
Mechanized Infantry: 175
Modern Armor: 130
Artillery: 56

Fighters: 22
Bombers: 8
Stealth Fighters: 0
Stealth Bombers: 0

BB: 3
CV: 1
DD: 20
TRAN: 4
AEGIS: 0
SUB: 10

Yeah....that should make for a decent scrap!

****

Tactical and Strategic considerations:
1) The first strategic choice takes place before you even start the game. You're currently a democracy, and this is gonna be a long war. Your goverment WILL fall. When to take the Anarchy hit? Touchy question indeed.....

2) One of America's two choke points has just been overrun. The first tactical decision to be made then, is whether or not you have sufficient manpower to recapture the choke point, or if it would be better to simply retreat back a step and dig in anew.

3) You have five nukes, and when they're gone, they're gone. Each one's use must be carefully measured for maximum effect. They're about the only ace you've got.

4) The inland sea. You have, or can get, at game start, firm control of the inland sea. To do so, will require a combination of air strikes and most, if not all of your naval units in the inland sea. Another tough strategic choice right off the bat then. Sweep the inland sea clean to have one less front to worry over, or wait, and possibly lose control of the area? And of course, making use of your air units here means fewer sorties against the forces approaching your choke points, one of which you've already lost control of.....

More to come as the map nears completion....

-=Vel=-

vee4473 · July 19, 2002, 19:49

wow

DeepO · July 20, 2002, 12:09

Vel, did the Americans had their GA already? That might be the second ace...

Further, I was wondering whether it would be good, on top of the enemy forces now, that you'd throw in some outdated units for easy upgrading, for instance some horsies or so. That would make it possible for us to draft MIs, and easily train them so they are of some use. Somehow I don't think that conscript MIs will do any good to stacks of a few hundred MIs and MAs

One idea might be (if this is possible in the editor, I heard diplomatic relations were still not included) to avoid having the different AI civs to have RoP with each other. This way, the onslaught would be a little spread out, instead of all of those troops flooding your borders in one turn.

Last question: what difficulty? Emperor (please)?

DeepO

Velociryx · July 21, 2002, 01:01

Just up for some air from designing the map for the Alamo scenario...OMG....guys....I dunno....it's one thing to look at the numbers sitting on the page, but it took me the better part of the day to get to where I am right now (USA and Germany are completely done). My GOD....endless ranks of troops....gave me the willies just looking at them all, and Germany has a medium sized force....

I've been doing some guesstimating about what the AI will do when the sh*t hits the fan, and have been counting squares very carefully when placing enemy troops so that they don't all arrive en mass. There are staggered waves 1-2 turns apart (if the AI behaves like I think it will) which should give the human player at least a smidgeon of time to brace for the next impact.

As to conscripting units....not to worry...toss a conscript into the mountains and if he survives, he'll be elite in no time flat!

Ahhh, and yes...the USA has NOT had her golden age yet, but with scads of elite f-15's hovering about, it's not unreasonable to expect one pretty shortly after the game begins!

-=Vel=-

Velociryx · July 21, 2002, 01:17

Oh....LOL...and you're even more masochistic than I am, but if you want it set to Emperor....can do!

-=Vel=-

Velociryx · July 21, 2002, 14:13

Closing in on completing the map, and had to make some minor force total adjustments. Here's some stats to give you an idea of the size of the economies arrayed against the stalwart Americans:

America - 16 Cities
Germany - 29 Cities (land access to America)
Russia - 25 Cities (land access to America)
Japan - 33 Cities (many spread onto various islands) - No land access to America without a ROP from Russia
China - 28 Cities (separate continent, no land access to anyone)

China has a comparitively weak navy and cannot effectively project her power. Because of that, I saw no point in totally paralyzing the Chinese economy by giving them such an obscene number of MI's (the original total was 320, I have reduced it to 128). This will give China a chance to build up her navy without getting totally reamed on support costs, and it still gives her 100 MI's and 100 MA's to terrorize America with in the interim....not a number to scoff at in any case.

China will also have significantly more cash than the other AI's, which should give her (if the AI will do it) plenty of cash to rush her navy to completion and get firmly in the game.

I have no idea whether or not the AI's will declare war on each other, but the way I've got it structured is that Germany and Russia will provide most of the initial punch against the Americans. Japan is set up to be something of a sleeping giant. More difficult for them to reach the USA forces, but with their greater number of cities, and abundant natural resources, they should get progressively stronger and more threatening as the game grinds on....I see them as being the biggest threat in the game, long term.

China should be a constant low-grade menace throughout the course of the entire game. She's isolated, and has a really weak navy, positioned poorly for rapid response to America starting the festivities off with a nuke. Should take them a number of turns to even put in a significant appearance. The hope is, though, that just when you think you've got things under control for a moment or two and have some breathing room, here come a wave of Chinese to muck things up for you.

China *could* become a threat in another way too....given her isolation, she may be the biggest contender in the Space Race. Don't know, but it'll be interesting to see how that developes.

Got some errands to run this afternoon, but should be back by early evening. With luck, I'll have China and Japan completed by mid-evening, and be able to give the scenario a test run to make sure nothing implodes, and see how the early combats look.

More later....

-=Vel=-

DeepO · July 21, 2002, 17:31

This looks to become an instant classic, a game that years from now will be fondly remembered by everyone who've tried it... I really have to finish the last MT soon, I can't wait to get my hands on this one!

Keep up the good work, Vel

DeepO

Velociryx · July 21, 2002, 21:40

Last update for the evening....map's finished and I'm chugging right along into the testing phase. Ohhhh boy does the AI need some help!

They won't #$%&%^*% use the damned artillery!

I put it right on the front lines, in range of some American forces, and what does the AI do? Send it home. They never even fired a shot.

But....the AI *does* seem to know how to use bombers. Er....sorta. At least they bomb stuff with them, even if its often silly, nonsensical stuff. So....I'm off to rip out most or all of the artillery I gave to the AI, and replace them with an even mix of fighters and bombers. Least that way they'll be DOING something with their equipment....::sigh::

Other than that though, I'm happy to report that the scenario works. Nothing has blown up on me yet....so, if I can get the AI to be at least a smidgeon aggressive, I think we'll have a winner on our hands, that'll be available for play before much longer!

-=Vel=-

Theseus · July 21, 2002, 22:51

You are an eeeeeveell genius.

Coracle · July 22, 2002, 05:27

Quote:

Originally posted by Velociryx
. . .They won't #$%&%^*% use the damned artillery!

I put it right on the front lines, in range of some American forces, and what does the AI do? Send it home. They never even fired a shot. . .

This is AFTER 1.29? That's very disappointing.

DeepO · July 22, 2002, 09:32

Vel, did you assign the artillery as offensive units? I heard that that was one of the improvements of the updated editor... unit roles. It's hard to imagine that when offensive they aren't used, that sounds like a bug.

But, it could be that the AIs think: Oh well, we have 10 times the units as those poor American bastards, we can't be bothered with dragging those artilleries along

DeepO

Harovan · July 22, 2002, 09:45

Can bombard units have the "offensive" flag?

DeepO · July 22, 2002, 09:47

I don't know, I'm not familiar with the editor. But they should have... AI artillery is too much used on defense...

DeepO

Velociryx · July 22, 2002, 10:02

Nope....checked in the editor last night. Offensive flag is greyed out for all forms of artillery.....no way I can coax the AI to use it like humans do....

But, since tripling and quadrupling the air forces of our enemies, I'm happy to report that they are at least bombing the hell out of us, and in one of my tests, they actually managed to shoot down an f-15 I had set to an air superiority mission, so that was way cool (this was after the f-15 had gunned down...oh....fifteen of his buddies though, so we had a loss coming....)

-=Vel=-

DeepO · July 22, 2002, 10:11

Quote:

Originally posted by Velociryx
(...)they actually managed to shoot down an f-15 I had set to an air superiority mission, so that was way cool

What world do we live in, when it's cool to lose units

I agree though.

Too bad about the artillery, but bombers are fine as well.

DeepO

DeepO · July 22, 2002, 10:18

oh, BTW, did they use a bomber, or a fighter to shoot a F-15 down? In MT IV I shot down quite a few F-15s with jets, I finally found out why you sometimes have to use these to bombard resources. Bombers have no chance of winning an air superiority mission (on defense), fighters have...

DeepO

Velociryx · July 22, 2002, 10:27

Good point....but yeah, it's been coolio running these tests so far....22 American F-15's spread over four cities to provide air cover....some 80 incoming fighters and bombers on the bad guys' first turn....wow, what a show! It was impressive to say the least!

If there's interest in helping me test and balance it, I will post the bic file and the first turn "script" to make sure that all games are the same at start. Or, if you'd rather wait till that part's done to get your hands on it, that's cool too...

Some really tight battles in places....in my last test, the Russians did *really* well with their bombing....after they exhausted the F-15's and started slipping through, they cut my choke points off by blasting out the roads, and hammered one of them HARD. Had one defender left, with one hp left....*almost* got overrun, and had two Radar Artillery captured. Yowza! That was good stuff!

-=Vel=-

Velociryx · July 22, 2002, 10:28

Believe it or not, it was a Russian bomber that got me! Of course, my Elite F-15 had already shot down about a dozen other bombers and fighters....only had one hp left, but went up anyway to try and block one more. A good, valiant death....

-=Vel=-

jshelr · July 22, 2002, 10:30

I may have skimmed over it, but what's the scoop on leaders and armies at the start of the scenario??

My hope would be that, if they share borders and if you can last long enough, the AI will start fighting with each other.

DeepO · July 22, 2002, 10:36

Vel, surely I want to help out in testing it, however I'm currently playing the last few turns of MT IV... I want to have that one finished so that I can install the last patch. Tonight, perhaps?

DeepO

Velociryx · July 22, 2002, 11:07

Nobody has any leaders, though everybody has at least some armies. I gave America two armies at game start. Both near cities, and both sitting empty for user configuration ("The Iron Brigade" and....awww shoot....woulnd't you know it, but I forget what I called the other one...LOL). Anyway, Germany as 4 Armies, and Russia 6...IIRC, I gave Japan and China 2 each....will need to double check that tho....can't remember off the top of my head.

DeepO, I'll take you up on that offer to help with testing and balancing.....can't post the bic til tonight anyway, since I don't have a copy at work with me ( a very good thing...I'd never get anything done at work if I did...lol), but I can post the first turn script that starts the ball rolling....it's pretty cool so far....

-=Vel=-

FrustratedPoet · July 22, 2002, 11:29

/me raises his hand to volunteer for testing.

Velociryx · July 22, 2002, 11:35

Outstanding! Will post the bic and first turn instructions in a separate thread when I get home, so as not to unduly tempt those who wanna wait till we're done tweaking....

-=Vel=-

phunny_pharmer · July 22, 2002, 11:39

How long will the first turn take

Velociryx · July 22, 2002, 12:31

I've only played out the first turn so far (got it in playable shape late last evening) and it took me about fifteen minutes to get everything sorted out....LOL...pretty intense fighting, too!

-=Vel=-

phunny_pharmer · July 22, 2002, 15:28

phun!

Dimension · July 22, 2002, 15:59

Quote:

Originally posted by Velociryx
Oh...and, extra cool points to anybody who correctly guesses the origins of the Babylon challenge's title....

I don't even know what the MT in this thread means, but "Babylon and On" sounds a lot like "Halcyon + On + On," a song off Orbital's 1992 album Orbital 2 that was used in the final scene of Mortal Kombat and the opening credits of Hackers.