BATTLESUB - A scenario by Peter Corbett

This is my nice file which contains lots of information about Battlesub.
It is in 3 sections:

1: Gameplay Details
2: The World Of Hydros
3: The Making Of Battlesub

PART ONE - GAMEPLAY DETAILS

The three main changes are these: the units, the technology tree and the
wonders of the world. Firstly, I'll discuss the tech tree.

All of the techs that can be researched are new (as are some of the ones
every civ gets at the start). The names are a sort of hybrid between
modern tech and sci-fi. I won't mention them all, but a few need to be
discussed

Optronics represents the use of optical systems for computation and
communications. This allows several tecnologies to be developed - however
it is useless in itself.

One use of Optronics is Advanced Tactics (working out battle plans and
training regimes by computer). This allows the new Marine unit, which is
essential if you seriously want to capture any cities.
The spy unit is availible with Remote Hacking - logging onto enemy 
computers from a distance.

Airbases functions like Radio in the original, allowing airbases (surprise!)
and airports, and also aircraft carriers.

The Mfg. Plant needs Auto Production. Ecology allows you to use Recycling
Centres and Mass Transits, and Advanced Ecology allows the Solar Plant.
Before you get these, it is worth having a few engineers on hand to clean
up the large amounts of polution the cities churn out.

The three new submarines are under three new techs, thus:
The Transport Submarine is availible with Servos.
The Sealance is availible with Advanced Subs.
The Battlesub is availible with Battlesubs.

I will leave you to discover what the other ones do for yourself (more fun
that way). Clever users of Conflicts in Civilisation can put the pedia.txt
file (from the main Civ2 folder) in the Batsub folder and use it to find out
about the new techs - for others, trial and error will have to do.

All Civs start with the same tech, except for the Placidites who also posess
Ecology.

The units next. Most of these have been tweaked quite a bit. For a start, all
of the sea units are faster. There are other changes.

Most of the military land units have been scrapped, leaving just three units.
The Infantry unit (availible from the start) is like a paratrooper without
the paradrops. The Marine unit is souped up - not only can it attack from
ships, it can slip through city walls, ignoring them completely, and can also
evade zones of control. These elite units are more expensive than the Civ2
marines. The Thedeans can also make Fanatics. These cheap units are useful
as defenders and have not been tampered with.

The air units all remain the same. Missiles have slightly shorter ranges.
The Cruise Missile is less powerful. For some reason no-one seems to go for
the Manhattan Project the build nukes - is this because I have only been
playtesting on King level?

As I said, the sea units have been speeded up. The transport is slightly
tougher, to give it a better chance of withstanding attacks from Destroyers
and Fighters. The Submarine is cheaper and availible from the start - this
is to encourage its widespread use. Cruisers lack the ability to spot subs,
but the Advanced Cruisers (ie AEGIS - I just changed the name) can.
Finally, there are three new submarines.

The Transport Sub is a stealthy way of carrying a pair of land units around
the oceans. However, it is slower, more expensive and worse defended than
the standard Transport. It looks like a fattened sub with an access hatch
on the top.

The Sealance looks like a Submarine that has spent a few weeks with
Weightwatchers. It is faster than the original submarine, and can use its
additional mobility in defense - making it SLIGHTLY harder to kill. It also
posesses a cunning Sonar devise that can scan for enemy subs without betraying
its own location. However, these new abilities are bought at the expense of
a slightly reduced attack strength.

The Battlesub looks like a fat Sub with guns on it - in gameplay terms it is
the nearest thing to an underwater fortress. It has the same Sonar unit as
a Sealance (can spot enemy subs). It has as much armour as a Battleship, and
even more firepower. It has high Attack and Defense ratings - and its use
of SSAM/Ts (Sub-Surface to Air Missile/Torpedos) means that it can repel air
attacks. It is not invincible though, and is slow and expensive.

Finaly, wonders of the world. Most have been removed. The Lighthouse is now
the MagDrive Project, and doesn't go obsolete (even though its icon is).
Magellan's Expedition has been replaced by the very expensive Ionic Drive
Project, and the Manhattan Project remains the same.

There may be other tweaks that I have forgotten about - but they don't change
things TOO much (I hope!).

PART TWO - THE WORLD OF HYDROS

HYDROS is a watery planet that is in many ways similar to our Earth - it just
has different continents and a different history. It is divided up into 7
major nations.

The THEDEANS are a highly religious race. All of those mountains and deserts
are fertile breeding grounds for prophets (and little else - except maybe
goats) and as such the Thedean religion has a long history and is horribly
complicated. As such, it is often misunderstood (many scholars from other
nations think that at least three conflicting interpretations can be drawn
from the sacred writings), especially by the Thedeans themselves who tend
to take it as a license to kill lots of people. The current leader, the High
Preist Theandron, belongs to this school of thought and has already declared
war on the Estrians in protest against their anti-religious government.
However, they are also eyeing up other possible conquests and may soon launch
wars against many of the other nations on Hydros. On the other hand, the
Thedeans are not stupid, and are looking for allies. Perhaps they could
be a good customer for the Aquilarian arms dealers?

The THEDEANS are a powerful race (top of the powergraph at the start) and
those who play as them should use their power to engage in wars of conquest.
They will soon find themselves fighting against the whole of the rest of the
world - except perhaps the Aquilarians - so they should be prepared to build
lots of units. They have serious problems with science though, so the use
of a few diplomats to steal tech may be in order. No matter how techs are
gained, the top priority for the Thedeans is definitely Advanced Tactics.

The ISALAS have enjoyed a left-of-centre democracy for quite a while, and as
such are allied with the like-minded Jangalians. They occupy a chain of 
islands and are quite good seafarers. They also make good scientists.
Recenlty, they have become concerened about the anti-democratic forces in the
two Communist nations, which has led to a deterioration of relations with the
Atolites and outright war with the Estrians.

The INSALAS are the most powerful of the democratic races, and are well placed
to develop their naval power. They can be expected to develop high-tech 
weapons quite quickly. As with most of the other races, they could produce
a good navy quite fast - or develop their cities. In the big war, they will
be a major part of the democratic forces, fighting against the communists.

The JANGALIANS have a similar political system to the Insalas, and as such,
they have become close allies. However, the Jangalians are in may respects
quite different from the Insalas. They occupy a single landmass, much of
which is rainforest. To cope with the changing times in Hydros, President
Masidro has decided to develop the rainforest. The Jangalian faith is little
more than a formalisation and modernisation of the various tribal beliefs
that abound in the rainforests, and as such contrasts greatly with the
Thedeans faith. As a result, the two nations are highly suspicious of each
other. Also, the Jangalians are proud of their politcal system, and this has
led to suspicion of the Estrians and war with the Atolites.

The JANGALIANS are smaller than the Isalas, but are in a similar situation.
They could try to develop their rainforest, or try to settle more of their
landmass if they want to. In the big war they will fight alongside the
Insalas against the communists and the Thedeans.

The ATOLITES occupy a ring of islands. By some freak of geology, the more
habitable parts of the islands face inward. As such, the Atolites are an
inward-looking people who are suspicious of many of the other nations - this
has led to war with the Jangalians and the Aquilarians. Internal squabbling
between the islands was stopped by the coming to power of a communist
regime, led by the ruthless dictator Isslette. After uniting the islands, she
looked for an ally to protect her lands from the many outsiders. Not finding
a government to aid her, she instead sponsored a communist revolution among
the Estrians - the two have been allied ever since.

The ATOLITES are not as powerful as the Estrians, but are well placed to
develop a good navy and as such are quite agressive. They will fight against
most of the other nations. To avoid the problems associated with their
government type, they should trade techs with the Estrians.

The ESTRIANS occupy a large landmass. On Hydros, most contact between other
nations is at sea - and so the Estrians have become suspicious and inward-
looking. Until recently they were ruled by a backward feudal nobility. This
was swept away by by an Atolite-sponsored communist revolution, led by
the capable leaded Terrios. The communists have sucessfully modernised the
land, and now seek to spread their revolution all over the world - to the
great concern of all, epsecially the Insalas and Aquilarians. The
communistic insitence on atheism has upset the Thedeans, who have used this
as and excuse to start a wild and bloody jihad against them.

The ESTRIANS are powerful - but aren't that well placed for building a good
navy. They could follow through quite well with a lot of troops if handled
correctly.

The AQUILARIANS occupy a chain of small islands. As such, they have developed
a strong seafaring tradition. This seafaring obsession has made them good
traders - and so, their current government, though democratic, emphasises
commercial freedom over individual rights. The Aquilarians are not averse
to a little bribery or corruption. On the political front, their free-market
instincts clash with the strict communism of the Atolites and Estrians - this
has lead to war. The dominant politcal force is not the president, but the
leader of the military coporation - the Director Nolana. She faces a hard
descision - whether to ally with the democrats, or to secure a good arms deal
with the warlike Thedeans.

The AQUILARIANS often get quite involved in the war situation - as they are
well placed to build good navies. They have some goods to trade at the start,
and so should be carefull of attacking too early.

The PLACIDITES are a small democracy on an island towards the south of the
map. As they posess only one city, they need to be careful - so they start
off at peace with everyone. However, it makes good sense to have someone to
protect you - so they have forged an alliance with the Jangalians. They are
also the first nation on Hydros to realise that pollution can be dangerous -
and so they have developed their knowledge of Ecology to deal with it.

Unless you want an impossible challenge, don't play as the PLACIDITES and
expect to do well - they are far too small.

PART THREE - THE MAKING OF BATTLESUB

Battlesub is my first successful scenario and I am very proud of it. However,
there were a few unsucessful predescesors.

The first scenario I ever made was one where three civs were on a world.
Each civ had ten 1x1 islands, each with a city on, modern technology, and a
fairly large fleet. A little playtesting told me that the scenario was no
fun at all.

My interests in scenario design then stopped until I got the rather nice
Evolution CD - with lots of scenarios. Some of them were even quite good.
The main thing that the CD taught me was the use of edited Rules etc. files
to give special units etc. to the scenario. Soon, I was thinking up a range
of ideas for scenarios. I even drafted one out on paper - I gave it the
provisional title of Sealance.

The Sealance scenario design featured a heavily pruned tech tree - to limit
the players ability. It was intended that the only military units that the
civs could make were subs and marines - but they also started off with a
few destroyers and cruisers. However, the scenario never left the paper
stage.

The idea of Submarines was still interesting, though, and I had recently
worked out how to edit the graphics - so I made a few graphics of submarines.
One was a thin sub - this was meant to be a 'scout' sub to help find the
enemy subs - this later became the Sealance. Another was a transport sub,
and the final custom sub was heavily armed - it became the battlesub. Shortly
after that, I bought the rather excellent Conflicts in Civilisation CD. This
featured 12 excellent scenarios from MPS, and an update to Civ II itself.
Part of the update was the scenarios-in-folders idea - very helpful it you
don't want to mess around every time you want to play a new scenario.

A few days later I drafted out a tech tree for the game, and decided on the
stats for the units. I added the Infantry graphic - modified from the Para
on the WW2 scenario on the Evolution CD. I put it all into a nice rules file,
and experimented on a random map (small land mass, archipelago), slightly
edited to reduce the land mass sizes. That seemed OK, but I needed to
give the civs some character.

Walking home from school (I'm 18, and about to do my A-Levels. In October
1997, I shall be going to university), I thought up some interesting civs.
I wanted one to occupy a landmass. The latin for the whole land/earth etc.
concept is Terra (or something like it), so I thought Terrestrians. However,
it seems too much like what for a lack of a better phrase I shall call a
'Crisis Soapscum' style name. So, I corrupted it by cutting off the front,
getting Estrians - great! Another example - the old Sanskrit word from which
we get jungle - Jangala (ironically, this meant DESSERT in Sanskrit) - could
be easily turned into a race name.

Having thought up the six civs (no Placidites at that stage), I designed a
map for them from scratch. I then put on lots of 1x1 islands (for airbases).
I then decided that a) it looked horrible and b) the landmasses are too
small and too 'stereotyped' for my liking. I started again, with a random
world, and I tweaked it to match my design. Perfect - its the one used it
the scenario (oh, by the way, if you run the scenario, save the game, load
the save into the map editor and save it as a map, you can use the map for
your standard Civ games). That was that, I just needed lots of city/leader
names.

The city names were done by taking a theme - like religion for the Thedeans -
and thinking of lots of words from that theme. Then, I corrupted the words -
by chopping of the start, altering letters etc. and then added Romanesque
endings (the Roman-style endings are the easiest to use) to turn them into
city names. Easy! Leader names used a similar process.

Finally, I started to build my secnario. I had some trouble getting the right
civs into the game, so I invented the Placidites to make the numbers up to
seven - and everything worked. I used the cheat mode as the tool for scenario
design, and after a while I had my seven civs. I then did a little
playtesting.

After playtesting, I notice three things. 1, the Estrians didn't have enough
cities - so I added some more. 2, the Cathedrals had no effect - so I gave
everyone the Monotheism tech and altered the rules slighlty. 3, the Thedeans
didn't do any science.

After a lot of fiddling, I found the problem. The rules.txt on older versions
of civ (like the one I started with) lacked the 'Max effective sci rate for
fundamentalism' line in the cosmic parameters - that effect was not included.
Newer versions - like the update that came with C-in-C - had the line. Having
noticed this, I put the line in - problem gone.

After that, it worked fine. All that was left was to write the documentation,
and redo the graphics file that I managed to erase by accident. It took a
long time to get around to finishing the info.txt file - but it is now
(early april '97) almost complete and just needs a few final lines to
complete.

So, enjoy my scenario, and I hope my little chapter on the making may have
helped someone to make their own. Oh, one last thing: have you seen these
smilies? 

8-)    I'm wearing sunglasses
+-(:-) I'm the pope
[:]    I'm a robot

Bye!