Roger's Scenario Thread

RogerCooper

Scenario Lord of the Rings-Middle Earth
Download Repository/Excellent
Description The War of the Ring from Tolkien's Middle Earth

Good Points

Map evokes the maps from the book
Not just another WW2 games

Bad Points

Hard going for the evil side
Unique creatures from the books become mass-produced items

I know that this is a popular scenario, but if fails to evoke the book at all. Everything can be mass-produced, including Wizards (there were exactly 3 in the book). The book contained decisive battles, the game is WW1 style wars of attrition. In the book, Sauron's forces had military superiority, but the need to attack rapidly to obtain the Ring created a time limit.

Cernel

@RogerCooper said in Roger's Scenario Thread:

I tend fully to agree with your review. The only reasons why I never said so myself is that my memories of the scenario are almost all gone and I gave up playing the map too early into it really to be too bold in judging it. That is kind of inevitable: When you have issues with something, you stop playing it, then you don't really have the experience to suggest changes (talking about myself).

Everything can be mass-produced, including Wizards (there were exactly 3 in the book).

How about unselecting the "Unlimited Unique Units" option? Is that not enough (no idea myself)? By the way, I've never understood why that is enabled as default.

The book contained decisive battles, the game is WW1 style wars of attrition.

Do you think that if TripleA would support the ability for different factions to attack together (instead of only defending together), this may fix most of this issue?

RogerCooper

@Cernel said in Roger's Scenario Thread:

Everything can be mass-produced, including Wizards (there were exactly 3 in the book).

How about unselecting the "Unlimited Unique Units" option? Is that not enough (no idea myself)? By the way, I've never understood why that is enabled as default.

The unique units option is for the Middle Earth: Battle for Arda scenario which has different units & map.

Cernel

@RogerCooper Right, I mixed the two. Though I think the limit of TripleA of being unable to attack together is a major distortion for any such scenario, or any scenario at all in which you would have to represent "epic" battles, as battles in which both sides have more than 1 faction on the field can just never happen.

RogerCooper

@Cernel You could build separately and transfer ownership like UK-Pacific in the Global game. For Middle Earth, most of the battles were fought by alliances on both sides.

I have not tried the Battle for Arda yet.

RogerCooper

Scenario Ultimate World v3 Rules
Description World War 2 on large map
Wikia Entry link text

Good Points

Speed 3 transports make the large map work better
Balanced

Bad Points

Slow, even with Fast AI

RogerCooper

Scenario WW2v3 1942 11 Nations Mod
Description 11 Nations on the AA50 map
Wikia Entry link text

Good Points

Plays fast

Bad Points

Some of the nations are arbitrary and/or have little to do

RogerCooper

Scenario Domination 1914 Blood and Steel
Description World War One on a large world map
Wikia Entry

Good Points

Interesting political rules
Interesting tech rules

Bad Points

No victory conditions
Slow even with Fast AI
Not much happens outside of Europe

Cernel

@RogerCooper said in Roger's Scenario Thread:

Not much happens outside of Europe

Shouldn't this be normal in a ww1 scenario?

RogerCooper

@Cernel said in Roger's Scenario Thread:

@RogerCooper said in Roger's Scenario Thread:

Not much happens outside of Europe

Shouldn't this be normal in a ww1 scenario?

Yes, but what is the point of having a world map unless something meaningful happens outside of Europe. If the game was confined to Europe it would play a lot faster. If you want a world map, than the Central Powers need a meaningful extra-European ally so something can happen outside of Europe.

RogerCooper

Scenario Cold War Asia: 1948 + Japan
Description Chinese Civil War, Korean War, Vietnam War and a hypothetical Japanese Civil War, all on 1 map

Good Points

Interesting situation with conflict all over the map

Bad Points

Odd-looking map

RogerCooper

@RogerCooper
Scenario WW2 NWO 2.0 Neutrals
Description World War II in Europe on the detailed New World Order map with playable neutral nations

Good Points

Nice map

Bad Points

Neutrals are oddly at war with everyone
All nations start at war

RogerCooper

Scenario War of the Lance
Description Game based upon a series of fantasy novels
link

Good Points

Pretty map

**Bad Points

The Good forces have a huge advantage
Hard to see area control on map
There is little to evoke the complex events of the novel

Marc Sarzi

@RogerCooper I recently had my first go at modifying this map and have decided to remove the ability of Elves to buy wizards and to make these unique two-hit and artillery support units instead. I have placed 5 of such boosted Wizards in total. One for Saruman, one for Free Folk starting in Hobbiton (i.e. Gandalf), three for the Elves (in Rivendell & Lorien for the elf-lords Elrond and Galadriel plus one in E. Mirkwood for Radagast). This has been balanced by adding one more Nazgul in Dol Goldur.

I have added archers to replace the Wizard production for the Elves for now, but I am thinking of ditching this entirely in favour of Elk-riders although I have no idea for the stats of this unit (hints?).

Ideally I'd like to add a starting Balrog in Moria as well as finding a way to fit in nine starting Nazguls in...

Any thoughts?

Marc Sarzi

@Marc-Sarzi PS: I would also like to remove Griffins. Totally not Lord-of-the-Rings...

RogerCooper

@Marc-Sarzi said in Roger's Scenario Thread:

@RogerCooper I recently had my first go at modifying this map and have decided to remove the ability of Elves to buy wizards and to make these unique two-hit and artillery support units instead. I have placed 5 of such boosted Wizards in total. One for Saruman, one for Free Folk starting in Hobbiton (i.e. Gandalf), three for the Elves (in Rivendell & Lorien for the elf-lords Elrond and Galadriel plus one in E. Mirkwood for Radagast). This has been balanced by adding one more Nazgul in Dol Goldur.

I have added archers to replace the Wizard production for the Elves for now, but I am thinking of ditching this entirely in favour of Elk-riders although I have no idea for the stats of this unit (hints?).

Ideally I'd like to add a starting Balrog in Moria as well as finding a way to fit in nine starting Nazguls in...

Any thoughts?

There all sound like good ideas. Mordor should not be able to buy Nazgul either.

Cernel

@Marc-Sarzi This sounds very involved. I'd open a specific topic for it (eventually, you would make a variant of the map). Due to the style of the units, that map is easy to modify even at a skin level (as long as you can draw a stickman). Maybe each wizard can even be its own unit, with different abilities.

alkexr

@Cernel said in Roger's Scenario Thread:

(as long as you can draw a stickman)

I'll believe that as soon as you show me how it's done. I'd appreciate a contribution of a spider to Battle for Arda, 40x40 pixels including highlights and shadows, since the current spider image... leaves some room for improvement. Feel free to use any image you find on the internet. Surely you have like, how much would this take, two minutes to spare.

Cernel

@alkexr Actually, he is talking about the other map, but it doesn't really matter, as the unit images share substantially the same style. A few other maps could be added too.

Regardless, I'm not seeing how improving the spider is related in any way to what I said, so I'll have to assume you misunderstood me. I was not saying that the current images need to be improved and, specifically, the spider looks good enough to be (beside the fact that I've no idea how it should look like, besides generally like a spider). What I was saying is that adding additional units should be easy, thanks to the simple style of the images.

To be clear, what I said:

Due to the style of the units, that map is easy to modify even at a skin level

Does not mean:
"the units are so bad that anyone can easily improve any of them"

Means:
"if you add a unit that doesn't have an image for it, it should be easy to draw a decent one for it, matching the style of the existent ones"

So, what I said would be related to a request of adding a missing image, not to any request of improving an existent one.

By the way, I also like the style of such units.

If you believe any image of the other (your) map, like the spider, is in any particular need to be improved (I'm not seeing it for any one), that may be an interesting thing to cosider. Just pointing out that it has actually nothing at all to do with what I intended to say.

alkexr

@Cernel I was trying to point out that it takes me an hour to draw a new unit image even with over a hundred under my belt, and it isn't easy. In some ways, it's actually more difficult than multi-color images. Just look at this flying spaghetti monster / dripping mud golem thing:
It's taken from here following my first instinct (so I wasn't deliberately searching for something that looks this bad). See, colors can overcome the difficulty of interpretation from getting the anatomy totally wrong. And this is 72x72 pixels, which should be super comfortable.

So it's definitely not just drawing stickmen. You are making it seem way too easy.

The main advantage of this stlye isn't the simplicity of making it, but that it's easily adaptable. Multiple maps can use the same images, so especially new map creators / less graphically inclined people don't have to worry about creating their own sets, and can instead just use a custom selection copy-pasted from a wide variety of maps. I have even been thinking about creating a standardized set and uploading it as some map-maker resource.