Playtesters Wanted

St Leo · March 11, 2003, 22:11

All right, I am probably retiring from design after this scenario, so I want to go out with a bang.

Nobody seems to like public betas, so this is a closed playtest. If you are interested, either email me at petraziATsympaticoDOTca or post your email in this thread.

Almost all criticisms you make will be fixed, so don't worry about not having enough say.

BTW, "I don't have enough time to playtest" is not an excuse. This whole scenario probably takes less time to complete than a turn of Red Front.

It's for FW and MGE.

P.S. Do I suck at marketing or what? I dare you to playtest.

St Leo · March 11, 2003, 22:12

The lousy Brits are already industrialised.

St Leo · March 11, 2003, 22:17

The City of Men's Desire (whatever its name is in the 19th Century)

DarthVeda · March 11, 2003, 22:18

I'll drop MOAB on your house if you retire...

Iron Chancellor · March 11, 2003, 23:20

You have me curious...

bananarepublik@aol.com

Cool terrain, by the way

fairline · March 12, 2003, 04:01

Quote:

Originally posted by St Leo
The lousy Brits are already industrialised.

The lousy Brits appear to have lost Northern England as well. And moved Birmingham south of the Thames...

Cyrion · March 12, 2003, 04:58

Well, you're not too bad at marketing: you definitely got me interested...

If it's a short scenario, then I would be glad to test it for you!

vfrache@hotmail.com

curtsibling · March 12, 2003, 05:04

Retirement sucks!

Keep going St Leo! You just gotta!

And if you wish, I would be happy to give this interesting new scenario a test!

curtsibling@ntlworld.com

Elok · March 12, 2003, 15:07

Crap...I would, except I gave up electronic entertainment for Lent(designing my own scenario doesn't count, since it's a pain in the arse, thus work, and the net is just communication). Uh, would you be interested in playtesting results about six weeks from now?

WarVoid · March 12, 2003, 21:36

Check your e-mail ya durn coot.

St Leo · March 12, 2003, 21:54

The communist fist has been sent.

ravagon · March 12, 2003, 23:18

Quote:

Originally posted by St Leo
All right, I am probably retiring from design after this scenario, so I want to go out with a bang.

No "Dual Europe" for EU2?

I wanted to see the reactions from some of those EUers when basilisks start appearing and petrify their invincible armies.

Iron Chancellor · March 12, 2003, 23:58

Do you want feedback here?

H Tower · March 13, 2003, 01:27

Quote:

Originally posted by Elok
Crap...I would, except I gave up electronic entertainment for Lent(designing my own scenario doesn't count, since it's a pain in the arse, thus work, and the net is just communication). Uh, would you be interested in playtesting results about six weeks from now?

you're still allowed to do the stuff you gave up on the weekends aren't you?

gah1234567@yahoo.com

St Leo · March 13, 2003, 10:07

Quote:

Originally posted by ravagon
No "Dual Europe" for EU2?

I wanted to see the reactions from some of those EUers when basilisks start appearing and petrify their invincible armies.

Well, I'd have to make the Basilisk into a mere leader with uber-high shock stats because changing unit graphics is a big pain in the EU series.

Quote:

Do you want feedback here?

That will be acceptable.

Iron Chancellor · March 13, 2003, 12:49

Fun, I was a fan of Imperialism, and the units fit well.
I'm still finding the most efficient path to victory, but my best time thus far is 1915 (linked to ever city).

Whenever you conquer a city, the default production is the settler.

The city views are really muddy, and could use some clearing up.

I was able to take over cities with surveyors, which is obviously not your intent.

I hate the swamp right in front of Istanbul, were it not for that I would have finished several years earlier. It's a nasty trap to stumble upon when you are like me and think that you are in the home stretch, then you hit the swamp.

St Leo · March 13, 2003, 18:39

I'm still finding the most efficient path to victory, but my best time thus far is 1915 (linked to ever city).

Congrats.

Whenever you conquer a city, the default production is the settler.

I'll fix that in the next release by moving the Track Layer into the settler spot.

I was able to take over cities with surveyors, which is obviously not your intent.

I could make Local Business ubertough and have every killed surveyor rematerialize in Paris...

I hate the swamp right in front of Istanbul, were it not for that I would have finished several years earlier. It's a nasty trap to stumble upon when you are like me and think that you are in the home stretch, then you hit the swamp.

Muwahahahahaha

Originally, I thought of rewarding the player with more employees for connecting to certain cities. I guess I could still do that.

Also, is there a possible place for a caravan unit in this? I haven't spent too much time on balancing unit costs, but caravans could allow for more rush-building.

WarVoid · March 13, 2003, 19:53

My first and only gripe thus far is the palette, which renders the DLL screens and the city screen totally awful.

I'm trying some of my own tinkering with it in PSP to see if I can figure it out.

So far, very interesting. I must say, I love that title gif. That's just a wicked poster.

St Leo · March 13, 2003, 21:03

My first and only gripe thus far is the palette, which renders the DLL screens and the city screen totally awful.

Well, at least I am the first to follow Allard Hofelt's suggestion and change the palette.

Edit: I've just thought of a possible way to add more colours to the Civ2 palette in a backwards compatible manner...

I must say, I love that title gif. That's just a wicked poster.

It's the cover art from Transarctica. I don't know anything about the game, but the cover art was discussed in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic about two months ago.

My two Transarctica wallpapers and a Cthulhu one.

WarVoid · March 13, 2003, 21:26

Edit: I've just thought of a possible way to add more colours to the Civ2 palette in a backwards compatible manner...

How? I found that simply taking color pics, placing a sepia tone on them, decreasing to grey scale, then revertign to 16m colours and then, finally, importing the Civ2 palette, worked best. At least, that's how I finally got all my new DLL pics to work for my upcoming Dungeon Keepers scenario.

For some reason, placing the sepia tone first tends to make the picture more 3Dish than just directly converting to grey scale.

My two Transarctica wallpapers and a Cthulhu one.

I prefer the colorised version of Cthulhu crawling out of his tomb in R'lyeh.

St Leo · March 13, 2003, 22:21

I'm talking about changing the Civ2 palette.

DarthVeda · March 14, 2003, 01:54

Crap screamer!

H Tower · March 14, 2003, 02:54

/me is still waiting for the game

curtsibling · March 14, 2003, 04:21

Had a shot of the Orient Express, good idea for a scenario!

Here are a few minor points:

1. Yep, a new city screen, I would choose something plain & functional will do...

2. I would edit/change the 'cannot attack air units' message...

3. I know the map of England is kind of SD, but I would rename Birmingham.

4. More units! I would include robber barons, bandits, etc...

5. The scenario announces the Germany is destroyed by barbs at the outset of the scenario, I would edit the wording of the message...

6. I would change the (rather cool) spinning sword during battle, to a hammer or some kind of tool.

7. We need caravans, indeed!

8. It would be cool to have an allied civ, who is your 'financier company'! You could change all the dialogue text to business related messages!
EG: Instead of breaking the alliance, they could-defranchise you! Just a mad idea...

9. I would do some nice flags for the cities!

10. Also I would change the border colours in th icon gif, they play maerry hell with the title screen, etc!

11. Will there be events text to pop up on the first turn to instrsuct you on what each starting unit does?

12. Finally (for now) I would consider making the question marks bigger and more obvious...

Sorry to be a picky bugger, but that is the little items that struck me as I played!

PS
The title gif was also used of Diamond head's 'Am I Evil?' album...it is a famous piece of art, and mucho cool.

St Leo · March 14, 2003, 21:21

Spinning swords, flags, et cetera will be replaced for sure. Keep in mind that I have several unused terrains that I'd gladly use to pretty-up the map if I knew what with.

Crap screamer!

Pardon?

4. More units! I would include robber barons, bandits, etc...

I don't think so. Maybe a lynch mob of some sort that works like a missile.

10. Also I would change the border colours in th icon gif, they play maerry hell with the title screen, etc!

What merry hell?

12. Finally (for now) I would consider making the question marks bigger and more obvious...

That looked bad in the Reveal All Map view, but it might work when playing.

WarVoid · March 15, 2003, 17:11

Ok, since I could'nt get around the extreme (for me at least) graphical and color problems of the scenario, I went to the effort to redo ALL the graphics into the standard Civ2 palette associated with each file (cause each one - icons, terrain, units, etc. - has a different palette).

The new version works perfectly. The city screen shows up perfect, instead of that awful garbled color where you could'nt see anything.

It didn't mess up the original colors that bad either. I even fixed the title gif so it'd show up correct too.

If you want to try this new version, i'll e-mail it to whoever wants it (provided you're already playtesting the old version).

Here's a shot of the corrected graphics.

WarVoid · March 15, 2003, 17:25

Oh, and here's a nice big 3D question mark that you can actually see.

If you wanna use it, that is.

curtsibling · March 16, 2003, 12:35

The new question mark does it for me!

Cyrion · March 24, 2003, 17:12

First of all: great idea to make a short and quick scen: as gorgeous as Red Front might be, it's just too big for me, Real Life gets in the was (hmm, is that a lynch mob I hear under my window after that affirmation??)

And a really original idea (to say the least!) and original graphics: congrats!

And now a big question: what about the british cities? I conquered and linked all the other ones in 1901, but how can I reach Britain?

And a few comments:

- I would replace "road" by "railroad" in the text, so that when you "highlight" a square you've got a correct description (am I nitpicking or what?)

- I would like a few different units

- I would like a few more events: bandits, landslide, ...

- Clearer objectives would be nice: what to do, in how much time...

Anyway, great work you did St-Leo: I had fun!

St Leo · March 24, 2003, 22:16

I conquered and linked all the other ones in 1901, but how can I reach Britain?

I don't think a Chunnel would be realistic in this timeframe. Egypt is also unreachable.

Cheer up. My personal playtesting consisted of a route to Constantinople.

I will release a full version sometime in May.

- I would replace "road" by "railroad" in the text, so that when you "highlight" a square you've got a correct description (am I nitpicking or what?)

Fine. I'm going to have to add an FW2MGE2FW BAT in order to resolve the labels.txt incompatibility.

- I would like a few different units

/me mumbles something about coal mines

- I would like a few more events: bandits, landslide, ...

Bandits are a toughie. The only reasonable way to do them would be to make them into missiles and the AI has odd habits when it comes to missiles.

- Clearer objectives would be nice: what to do, in how much time...

Well, I guess the events file is empty...

The objective is to build a railroad from Paris to two of Istanbul, Rome, and Lisbon in the time alloted (75 turns?). Prospectors eliminate the impassable Question Marks, Track Layers build railroad, and Station Contractors arrive by railroad to clear unconnected cities of Local Business opposition.