A new ancient scenario to come

[SCDARS]

Here I'm presenting a preview of a project I have been working on for about 2 years [at least if you count in all remakes and early tries ]. It is currently being play-tested, and I regret for now it's only available in German, but I hope I will be able to offer an English version a few weeks, but the English as well as the release date might be retarded since my holydays end in two weeks .

The Topic/ historical Background:
The scenario is going to last from the Samnitian capture of the Etruscan Capua in 424 BC until 146 BC, when both Carthage and Corinthos were destroyed by the Romans. That meant they controlled nearly the whole area covered by the map. But it's not a classic "Rise of Rome scenario", as it is mainly concerned with the other tribes, especially focusing on the Etruscans who have somehow been neglected by scenarios yet. In this scenario their towns bear original Etrsucan names (as far as I could retrace them), and at the beginning they are favoured by some wonders - but they shouldn’t rely on them too much, because the wonders could become obsolete or the cities might even get lost… [-> HINT... ]
The Etruscans’ main concern will be the Celtic hordes whose advance will be difficult to stop since they’re using some good attacking forces (their main attacker, the cheap-to-build “plunderer”, is a missile type unit -> in order to prevent them from getting too strong); in field battle their chieftain with his surrounding horde is almost invincible… But the Celts won’t be the only Etruscan enemy – the Carthaginians are their sole allies, the other nations are likely to attack them… They will attempt to take advantage of the Etruscans’ weakness.
The other nations – as well as the Romans (who can de develop techs for three very effective Legion types) - should be quite playable, though. Other Civilizations are the Carthaginians/ Carthage, the Ionians, the Dorians, the Neutrals (not recommended) and the Celts (never play them!)…

I'm still seeking more comments to improve gameplay and rule out possible bugs - if anyone is willing to play-test and understands German, here it is:
(requires Fantastic Worlds or higher)

Main file (Beta 1.28) 466KB

Sounds 1 524 KB
Sounds 2 375 KB
Thanks to the "Largest German Civ2 Site" for beta hosting!

INSTALLATION NOTES:

• Before you start the scenario the first time, you have to generate the *.txt files. The easiest way to perform this is using create_txt.bat delivered in the main zip-file
• In order to save space in the *.zip, I made a set_sound.bat which copies the sound files being used more than once. If you want to hear proper sounds, run it before playing.

NOTE ALSO:
Since the current version includes some major changes, the older !Readme.ger and Info.rtf are not included in the file - some infos are obsolete and might be confusing, so I decided to drop them from the main file as long as I haven't updated them...
I'm planning to add the new versions as far as possible. With Credits.rtf it's likewise: I am dividing the thanks into parts and offering links to relevant homepages, but I haven't finished yet. I hope the contributors can cope with it - it's just a playtest version for now...

The next page is supposed to show some screenshots – for your convenience I wanted to divide it, because it half an MB large, hope you don’t mind...

[SCDARS]

the map:




Unlike the .gifs above, this one is neither a screenshot taken of any “real” game nor starting postition, but rather a demonstration of the artwork [which is predominantly “borrowed” ]



I'm awaiting any comments, suggestions or questions [to avoid this topic from being loaded too long, shifting to a new page might proof useful ]...

[This message has been edited by SCDARS (edited August 03, 2000).]

[Sloth]

GREAT! As BeBro knows all too well (I've pestered him on the subject) I very fond of the Etruscans and, as you said, they've been neglected by scenario developers.
"Unfortunately" I'm leaving in two days for a couple weeks vacation; otherwise I would give the scenario a try immediately even if a can't understand German. But expect me beeing an eager tester (if needed) and player of the English version!
[This message has been edited by Sloth (edited August 03, 2000).]

[SCDARS]

Nice to hear there are others being interested in the Etruscans! Do you know any good Etrsucan online ressources, then?
I collected some relating sites, and Henrik the Great was kind enough to add them to his historical Links at http://members.xoom.com/thalys/Resources.html

Some of the most comprehensive sites I found were http://www.ciaoetruria.it/ita/pagine...inglese/a.html , http://www.agmen.com/etruscans/ and http://www.isa.it/tuscia/english/history/etrusen.htm
Do you know more?
[This message has been edited by SCDARS (edited August 03, 2000).]

[Prometeus]

Hey hey hey, you thief... ( kidding, kidding ).
I put etruscans into my new Cisalpine Gaul scenario version 2.0 ( one week to playtest version, eh eh eh... ).
From maps, it seems to me you forgot "tuscanian" style temples.

[Sloth]

Here we are! http://www.julen.net/etruscan/inet.html
http://www.ualberta.ca/~csmackay/CLA...Etruscans.html
http://members.xoom.com/Pdictus/index.html http://marolaws.iet.unipi.it:31442/urne/urne_e.htm
[This message has been edited by Sloth (edited August 03, 2000).]

[Fiera]

So you've finally used some of my units! Well, that's great!

I'll sure take a look at it!

[Kull]

SCDARS: Great! There's no such thing as "too many" Ancient Scenarios. Welcome to the genre! It looks like you've got lots of neat new art...in particular I like some of the new wildlife resources and the cities. Giving a different texture to the water along the shoreline (it looks "coastal!) and using boats instead of fish is also cool. The map really caught my eye, since it's almost a duplicate of the one I developed for my upcoming scenario. Mine omits Spain and includes the Ionian coast & Crete, but otherwise they're remarkably similar.

If you don't mind a little friendly criticism, here's a couple things you might consider changing:

1) There's a "Horseman" type unit which appears in several of the screen shots, and it's MUCH smaller than the other units. Personally I think a scenario looks better when all the units have a similar scale, so you might consider a larger unit for that slot.

2) Shield Placement: A few of the units have very poor shield placement. The aforementioned "Horseman" almost completely obscures his shield, and several others aren't much better (in particular the Peasant and one of the Galleys). It's an easy fix, and well worth the effort.

I do like the concept, and look forward to the English version. Despite two years in the military in FRG (Baumholder), my linguistic skills centered largely around beer, and never ventured far from that baseline! (with occasional forays into Steinhager, Jaegermeister, and Appelkorn)

[RobRoy]

Nice job!

I did notice a few minor problems. I didn't see an e:mail address, however. So I'll post 'em here.

An event dealing with Alalia is blank (.txt file has "THEM" rather than "THEN"). Two other events award Rome diplomats, but try to place them in Syracuse - is this correct? Also some of the civ-specific techs were trade-able and stealable - wasn't a huge problem, since only some of the units could be built, but is this intentional?

Lots of clever things I like: cheap, type 3, water-walking colonists; static, defensive "dips" that don't cost shields for republics to maintain; sea-trader special resource; and managing to work all the govt types into the game, quite smoothly. Also, both the Pelponesian war and the celtic invasions seem to be adequately represented, so far.

I'm interested enough that I'll keep looking, even though I won't be that useful with the german version. Please post an e:mail address if I have more comments - I try to avoid posting.

BTW, Kull, I suspect the small horse you mention is the "spaher", a scout-type unit. And it appears to be intentionally small. The whole graphic is actually not smaller, but is about half treeish terrain - which makes the horse relatively smaller and more obscured. I really like the effect.

For some reason, though, SCDARS, my Roman spahers can't see the celtic spaher, even when I try to move into their tile (just bounces back from what appears to be an empty tile, like a zone of control).

Kull, looking forward to your next scenario, too. Is it a western med version, similar to your eastern med ancient empires?

[SCDARS]

Thanks for your replies!
Especially the bug reports for the events were very useful!! Sloth's links seem to be worth a closer look, too. I'm going read them as soon as possible, maybe I can find some new detail to improve the scenario further.

Prometeus:

quote: From maps, it seems to me you forgot "tuscanian" style temples

Let me guess, you have some pictures of them - per pure chance...
Perhaps I could need some inspiration for a historically more accurate icon depicting the holy site of Veltue in Volsinii/ Velzna (which is one of the new wonders)

Fiera:

quote: So you've finally used some of my units! Well, that's great!

Your units are great, too. I guess the reason why they have not been used yet is that they are not so widely known - I hope to change this with my scenario


Kull & RobRoy:
Indeed the "Späher" (=Scout) icon is intentionally small. I wanted to avoid that they could be conspicuous, I even gave them "U-boat" flag... I wanted them to be seen only by special units with the "can discover u-boats" ability, but - as RobRoy pointed out and I just tested this ability doesn't check any land sqares at all
The scouts can only be discovered if you directly point another unit to go onto it's field -- and since scouts cannot attack, they can't reveal foreign scouts...

I'll think about better shield placements for the other units in the next version, though. Thanks to your hint, Kull. I'm also interested in your next scenario, what's the topic?

For better & faster translation:
Can anyone send me the English *.txt files for Fantastic Worlds? I just noticed the *.txt files in my Civ2 main directory are the ones from the original release version and were not included in my FW update...

P.S: My e-Mail is scenario_feedback@hotmail.com

[Fiera]

quote: Originally posted by SCDARS on 08-04-2000 05:34 PM Fiera: Your units are great, too. I guess the reason why they have not been used yet is that they are not so widely known - I hope to change this with my scenario

*blushes*

Thanks a lot! I hope so!