Nowadays PBEM Senario Preview

jim panse · December 1, 2002, 13:06

Good Day my fellow Civ2 Players!

I´ve created this new thread to inform you of 2 important things:

(1) My new scenario "Nowadays" is nearly complete. It kick´s off in the summer of 2002 with 7 mayor civilizations: USA, Europe, Russia, China, India, Islamic League and the Neutral Nations (yes, i was´nt able to get rid of ´em).

(2) In about 1-2 weeks i would need some of you to start playtesting my creation.

During the next days i will post a lot of news on "Nowadays" in this thread.
There you can admire

my city.gif graphics (yeah, they are not really new, i posted them some weeks ago in the Graphics Showcase but they were originally created vor this scenario).

more information coming soon

jim panse · December 1, 2002, 17:04

now i´m going to share some facts about this scenario with you.

it´s made upon a gigamap, showing the world. slightly modified but adapted to our times.

Currently i´m working on the Russian Federation, one of the world´s largest civs. Russia extends from Belarus in Eastern Europe to Petropavlovsk and Vladivistok in the Far East. Special emphasis I´m going to lay on the Chechnya conflict, the expansion issue towards Western Europe (meant are Belarus, Ukraine) and the conflict with the Islamic Countries in Central Asia (some of them are fromer soviet republics).

Russia will have a large army, but not as powerful as the US Armed Forces.

that´s it for mow, maybe later today more of it, if not => tomorrow.

greetings

Pavlov · December 1, 2002, 18:28

I'd love to playtest your scenario when it's done!

There really are too few of these "Current situation"-scenarios.

jim panse · December 2, 2002, 03:56

some more information on "nowadays".

just like said yesterday, it kicks of in mid 2002 and the main topics are the "Axis of Evil" (George W. Bush) and their states (yeah, Iran, Iraq and North Korea will not be included in a civ. until you may conquer it

)

also the problems with Islamists in Cechnya and the "Muslim" terror all over the world will be represented.
(i created a lybian infantry unit to make sure lybia is also on of the rogue states. now i´m thinking to replace it with something else. damn it, i don´t not with which kind of unit i may replace it. any ideas?

)

next topic with emphasis will be the "communist" guerilla in Latin America (FARC, or some kind of bolivian militia) to represent America´s war on drugs.

any new ideas (not only for the Lybian Unit) are highly welcome.

till later

Pap1723 · December 2, 2002, 05:09

This sounds great!
I'll playtest for ya!

Pap

fairline · December 2, 2002, 08:20

Quote:

Originally posted by jim panse
...the main topics are the "Axis of Evil" (George W. Bush) and their states (yeah, Iran, Iraq and North Korea will not be included in a civ. until you may conquer it

)

also the problems with Islamists in Cechnya and the "Muslim" terror all over the world will be represented.

Has anyone ever made a scenario where Muslim states are the goodies for a change. Just wondered...

jim panse · December 2, 2002, 09:07

(1) that´s what i imagine. it´s not up to me to decide if i was able to achieve my goals.

(2) the Muslim World is completely playable.

to Pap: do you know how i may disable this "too many units bug"?

Pap1723 · December 2, 2002, 14:53

Jim Panse, it isn't possible yet, but Choke has been trying to figure out how to get it to work.

Pap

our_man · December 2, 2002, 16:26

Jim, does this mean you've abandoned work on your Philippines project? I was really looking forward to it.

I love the idea of your new scenario, it sounds great; but please work on a better title!

academia · December 2, 2002, 22:24

Mmm... interesting...

I´d like to playtest it. Count me in

jim panse · December 3, 2002, 05:35

yep, you read right. first screenshots of the scenario arriving!

but first something a little bit more important:

(1) the budget is really difficult to stabilize due to the economic crisis we´re in.

(2) any unit that is destroyed in combat will make you lose money to force you to think about risky wars.

(yep, if you´re plyaing with PR China you may lose less money than playing with the US or Europe)
(3) there are some unique units but in this version only for the US. sorry to all others. the units are:
- Nimitz Class Carrier (to represent the unmatched US sea domination),
- Ticonderoga Class AEGIS Cruiser (all other civs will be able to construct only an AEGIS Destroyer (yeah, the name sucks, i know. if you have a better idea just let me know)
- US Marine Corps (the only part of the US´ armed forces guaranteed by the constitution i heard a while ago, and THE quick reaction force deployable anywhere on the earth within a few days. to make this "interventions" or quick reactions (like Lebanon e.g.) possible i made the AEGIS Cruiser able to carry up to 2 units (USMC e.g.) to be not too dependent on the weak Container ships (sure you will need them to make a large-scaled invasion).

now the screenshot: it shows - as you may have guessed - a part of Europe. let me add one thing: the city styles of the "Neutral Nations" (yeah, also this name sucks, i may change it) are not the ones they will be in the release version.

jim panse · December 3, 2002, 06:00

Some other units available in this scenario:

- MRBM (Medium Range Ballistic Missile): shorter-ranged than its "big brother" ICBM, available also to the Muslim World. MRBM stationed near Eruope may terminate any city. watch out your policy towards the Palestinians! This unit was created to represent the threat not only by the "classic" ICBM but also from minor powers.

- Airbase: this is (yeah, you were right again) to have the aircrafts not only in one turn again at 100% health.

the screenshot shows the PR China an its neighbors.
you may see China´s heartland, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, the US Pacific Task Force and the US base at Okinawa.

jim panse · December 3, 2002, 17:47

first of all, now i reckon´d that i´m a chieftain now

whatever, the scenario is nearly complete.

there are (i know you guessed right) 7 civs:
Russia, Neutral Nations, Europe, USA, PR China, Muslim World, India. and the "Axis of Evil" and other threats to liberty-loving people

all of them are playable, also the neutrals. maybe tomorrow or the day after tomorrow i will open a new thread in the PBEM section for the playtest.

academia, pavlov and pap1732 already told me they would like to test with me. anyone else?

till later

academia · December 3, 2002, 18:26

Quote:

all of them are playable, also the neutrals. maybe tomorrow or the day after tomorrow i will open a new thread in the PBEM section for the playtest.

Cool!! Please, do it! I´m very keen on testing this game. You know, i´m actually making a Cold War scenario, so I believe that your scenario could give me great ideas

BTW, i´d like to use CHINA!!!!

St Leo · December 3, 2002, 19:22

Taipeh > Taipei
Strasbourg > Munich (Germany's more powerful than France, right?)

I'd also drop the Yokohama part of Tokyo-Yokohama, unless your Ottawa is called Ottawa-Hull.

jim panse · December 4, 2002, 09:11

(1) to st leo: you´re totally right. Munich (Germany) is much more powerful than France but there is a thing called the European Parliament which ic located in Strasbourg, FRA. for this, and only for this reason, i decided to leave Munich out.
the reason why the city is called Tokyo-Yokohama is that there is a much larger number of people living there than in Hull-Ottawa.

(2) to academia: it´s no problem, you may play as China. better will be you remind me in a few days.

i´m sorry to announce you that i´m quite sure i will be able to start a playtest tomorrow.

till later

Pap1723 · December 5, 2002, 04:48

Want to post a screenshot of the units Jim?

Pap

jim panse · December 5, 2002, 06:35

jep, no problem. i posted the units some weeks ago in the gfx showcase but these down there are the units i´m going to use in the release version.

what do you think?

are there any questions about the units?

LDiCesare · December 5, 2002, 07:18

The way you put Strasbourg, you really should have Munich instead. as Strasbourg is West of the Rhine, and here it really looks like it is in the middel of Germany.
Also, having Paris at 21 and London at size 22 is huge when you compare that to China. China and India by themselves make for half the population of the world. So maybe you should either reduce the size of Paris (and maybe London too but since you don't have that many cities in England, it can bstay big to represent all the nearby towns), or increase the Chinese cities size.

jim panse · December 5, 2002, 15:22

your critics are welcome, i´m thinking about it.

i guess China will get larger population.

and to make waiting easier: there is another screenshot

jim panse · December 5, 2002, 15:31

after long considerations i´m going to rename Strasbourg to Munich.

another screenshot

Pavlov · December 5, 2002, 18:45

OMG! There's a European sneak attack coming up against Quebec.

techumseh · December 6, 2002, 01:31

Perhaps you might want to check your atlas again for Canada. Toronto is the largest city by far. Ottawa, while the capital, is much smaller. Montreal is the 2nd city and again is much larger than Quebec City.

Many of the American cities are also the wrong size or seriously out of place.

Pap1723 · December 6, 2002, 01:46

I'd say you should move Indianapolis to the right 1 tile and rename it to Pittsburgh, because Pittsburgh is a much more important city for proudcution than Indy.

Pap

jim panse · December 6, 2002, 06:38

ok, last changes on the map and in the evnts file are almost done.

Quote:

Perhaps you might want to check your atlas again for Canada. Toronto is the largest city by far. Ottawa, while the capital, is much smaller. Montreal is the 2nd city and again is much larger than Quebec City.

you´re right but as i guess you will understand why. creating sophisticating maps is not that easy. this time i took a giga map i haven´t made up myself. the next time i will create the map myself. to the changes mentioned above: i renamed ottawa to ottawa-montreal to try to satisfy you.

also the wrong size of some of the cities does not satifies me but i tried to give china the largest population in the world, followed by india. also the population of the other civs needs to be represented. the map is not that large that it is possible to distribute the population in their original hometowns.

Quote:

Many of the American cities are also the wrong size or seriously out of place.

i would not say many, but some of them. the same difficulty like mentioned above. i hope you understand my reasons. i also hope we may call this a compromise.
(the same things you should think of looking at the rest of the cities)

Quote:

I'd say you should move Indianapolis to the right 1 tile and rename it to Pittsburgh, because Pittsburgh is a much more important city for proudcution than Indy.

also this refers to the map problem techumseh reminded me of. i renamed indianapolis, now you find it called Cincinnati.´for myself i´m not really content about it but it was nearly the best i could/would do about it.

jim panse · December 9, 2002, 16:34

well actually i wanted to tell you that i finished working on this little scenario but i still have some minor problems with the events.txt file.

i would say that this thursday, latest friday i will start a new thread in the PBEM section to start the playtest.