Star Trek: DOMINION WAR (version 1.1)

By kobayashi a.k.a. Patrick Choo

For those who played version 1.0, 1.1 is essentially the same 
scenario. The difficulty level is a bit higher now. The Klingons, 
Breen and Dominion are slightly stronger while the Federation
is not so energy-rich. More events havebeen added or adjusted. 
See section 8 (spoilers).


1.01 INTRODUCTION
-----------------
This scenario requires MGE (FW users can play version 1.0). 
To use it, after unzipping, move the folder "dominion" into the 
civ2/scenario folder. If the sound folder comes in a seperate zip 
file, it must be moved into the "dominion" folder.

There is an optional planetary screen, city.gif, which should
replace the same file in the main civ directory. Make sure you
rename the original city.gif (like to Ocity.gif) or move it to
a safe place.

Star Trek and all things to do with Star Trek are copyrighted 
by Paramount so this scenario is not to be used for commercial 
purposes as I don't want to be sued.

From now on the scenario will be referred to as ST:DW. 

There is a section below, Section 9 where I ramble on about
different aspects of this rendering of the DS9 story. It
contains spoilers so don't read it until after you've finished
the scenario (assuming you are still interested).


1.02 BRIEFING AND OBJECTIVES
----------------------------
The scenario is a space based epic with both quests and major
battles. In short...... After suffering a humiliating defeat 
at the hands of the KLINGONs in a war secretly instigated by 
the DOMINION, the CARDASSIANs were forced into an alliance 
with a huge Dominion fleet that came across through the 
wormhole at Bajor. Since then, the Dominion/Cardassian 
Alliance has conquered several unaligned worlds. With the 
freedom of the Alpha Quadrant at stake, the FEDERATION has had
no choice but to declare war. Althought reluctant, the 
ROMULANS and Klingons will soon join you in the war effort.

The Objective - Play as the United Federation of Planets and
eliminate every other race except the Klingons and Romulans.
If you are familiar with DS9, this scenario is quite faithful
to the events in the series albiet with some twists. 

The entire scenario is portrayed in terms of five acts with 
different scenes. Trekies please note: The titles of each 
scene are episode names but the events of each scene do not 
neccesarily match what happens in the corresponding episodes.

The scenario is not meant to be not easy since you can only 
play it once before you know where everything is. You are 
meant to do the wrong thing occasionally. As a last resort, 
there should be a strategy guide posted at the ART OF WAR
website (also written by me):

     http://aow.apolyton.net/

After you have completed the scenario, you can also have a 
peek at the 'textbook' approach to ST:DW and compare it with
what you did.


1.03 HOUSE RULES
----------------
Do not rename any cities as some of them are required for
events to occur.

There are three ways to save the game according to levels of 
difficulty:

Recommended - save only at the beginning of each scene and 
when you quit. At anytime, you may give up and load from the
beginning of the last scene. Disable autosave mode.

Hard - play ironman style. Save when you quit and pick up 
where you left off. Disable autosave mode.

Easy - save and load anytime. eg. everytime your Defiant is 
destroyed, you can load back the autosave or any other saved
game.

When the message windows pop up, I suggest that you follow 
their advice as it will make playing the scenario more 
enjoyable. There is nothing to stop you from massing a fleet
at the begining for an all out attack on the Gamma Quadrant
but remember how the joint Obsidian-Tal'shair Fleet got 
decimated in the Omarion Nebula.


2.01 PLAYER TRIBES - FEDERATION
-------------------------------
The FEDERATION uses a Democracy (Republic in Civ2 terms)
government. As the Federation is the player's race, it has the 
biggest number of starship designs and every starship you have 
at the onset can eventually be upgraded to a better design.
   
Advantages:    

Ability to generate the most energy credits (i.e. gold)

Fastest Research, maybe a discovery every 5 turns.

Upgrades on all starships

Federation has a super unit-the Defiant.

The UFP starts with three wonders: The Vulcan Academy, 
Mount Seleya and Utopia Planatia.


Disadvantages: 

Units support take up production capability.
              
Units in space cause lots of unhappiness.

There is a moderate level of corruption and waste.


2.02 ALLY TRIBES - KLINGONS
---------------------------
The KLINGONs use an Imperial (Monarchy in Civ2) government
and hate the Cardassians to no end as their invasion of 
Cardassia ended in tears after the intervention of the 
Dominion. You should consider the Klingons your primary 
allies and offer help if needed.

Advantages:    

Klingon eventually get a special kamikazi unit which has the
highest attack stats of any ST:DW units.

Klingons start with the Nimbus III, Khitomer Conference and
Black Fleet Wonders.


Disadvantages: 

Corruption, Corruption, Corruption.


2.03 ALLY TRIBES - ROMULANS
---------------------------
The ROMULANS have the Imperialsim (Communism in Civ2) type of 
government. They hate the Dominion more than anyone as they
lost a huge fleet in their joint attack (ironically with the
Cardassians) on the Dominion Homeworld. In the series, the
Romulans did not join in Federation/Klingon operations much 
and you can consider them less reliable than the Klingons. 

Advantages:    

The D'deridex is marginally the most powerful ship when the
game begins.
              
The Tal'Shair (Romulan Intelligence Service) and the Mirror
Universe are both Romulan wonders.

All Romulan starships are considered SMALL(ignore Zone of 
Control) even when they are big to represent the cloaking 
ability.

              
Disadvantages: 
              
Romulans have no escourts or planetary defense ships at the
start.

Their research is slow and they have no spies to take 
advantage of their special government.


2.04 ENEMY TRIBES - CARDASSIANS
-------------------------------
The Cardassians are naturally poor in resources and years of
war have made them poorer still. Thus they are limited to the
Authoritarian (Despotism) form of government.

Advantages:    

They have three wonders, Abolishment of Money, the Obsidian
Order and Metagen One.

Only the Cardassians will eventually be able to build the
dreaded Metagenic (nuclear) Weapons.
              
Cardassian territory is well protected by fortifications and
terrain features.

They get free ships on a regular basis.
  
            
Disadvantages: 
              
Low Energy, Low research, High Corruption and Waste. You name
it and its plaguing the Cardassians.


2.05 ENEMY TRIBES - DOMINION
----------------------------
The Dominion have a god worshipping government where the 
Founders lead sub-races which are cloned for different roles
and obedience. So its only befitting that their government is
Creatorism the equivalent of Fundamentalism in Civ2. 

Advantages:    

They have two wonders, Quadrotriticale and Vorta/Jem'Hadar
Cloning.
              
The main Dominion territory can only be accessed through the
wormhole and in that sense is even better protected than the
Cardassian area.

They have the most powerful starship design.

They are the only empire who have a chance of building
(limited to a few designs) Federation starships.

They have the strongest infantry unit.

They are the only tribe to have fast attack craft (aircraft)

They are the only race to have spies.

They get free ships on a regular basis.

There is no corruption, plenty of free support.
      
        
Disadvantages: 
              
No escourts or planetary defense ships.

Low research rate

The wormhole is a double-sided sword as their forces can be 
split into two.


3.01 TERRAIN
------------
There is nothing much to mention about terrain since there are
no settler units and and no land improvement. Typically, 
anamolies like singularities and nebulae will have movement 
penalties but defense bonuses (except the green dust cloud
and asteroid fields).

One other thing to note is that space is broken up into 
charted space three spaces from each inhaited planet (roads 
with x2 movement) and uncharted space. 

The entire map is a 'land' map. 'Sea' squares are called
spatial rifts and are generally impassable.


4.01 ADVANCES
-------------
ST:DW uses a modified ST:BAQ tech tree and generally conforms 
to canon Trek tech. Research is not a main theme of the 
scenario although new starship designs always require a design
specific advance. You should use the goal and help buttons 
often as some techs are of little use to your tribe.

Although you are forbidden to negotiate, not all tribes have
this restriction. Don't be surprised to see the Klingons
fielding D'deridex ships in the latter stages.

Unlike Civ2, there are no epochs. The tech icons come in five 
flavours:

Weapons - an armour clad figure firing a weapon on an orange
background

Infotech - represented by ones and zeros on a rich blue 
background

Space Travel - represented by the Apollo Capsule on a black 
background
  
Academic and Science - represented by the atomic symbol on a
green background

Social - represented by the man/woman symbols on a weak blue 
background


5.01 UNITS
----------
Units are defined by their special abilities and intended 
roles. Your firepower and survivability is maximized when
you use your ships in formations of different types. In 
general, there are 8 main types of units:

Garrison: Planet bound infantry. Cheap but useful for imposing 
martial law to reduce unahppiness.

Escourt : expendable starships meant to defend capital ships
against the likes of Fast Attack Ships and to act as a
destroyer screen against sudden attacks.

Planetary Defense: medium starships which pack some firepower
but are small enough to manuever in orbit.

Naval Engagement: Cruisers which have extensive firepower but 
lack speed and heavy defensive features.

Command: The Biggest and Best Cruisers but very expensive.

Recon: Ships used to scan for hidden objects and to scout 
ahead of your armadas.

Suicide: these would be the Photon Torpedoes.

Fast Attack: Small ships of limited range that depend on their
speed to evade enemy firepower. Essentially Bombers in Civ2 terms. 
Only available to Dominion. 

There are other types of units of course and for a fuller
picture of what different units special abilities, you should

***** REFER TO THE FILE ABILITY.GIF *****

One way to get info on your units and improvements is to

***** USE THE CIVILPEDIA and CLICK HELP REGULARLY *****



5.02 CODES UNDER MILITARY ADVISOR (F2)
--------------------------------------

Fast     = Fast Attack (Air)
Escourt  = Can Target Fast Attack
Sensors  = Powerful Sensor Array (See 2 spaces)
Small    = Ignore Zone of Control
Assault  = Can Ignore Bunkers (Howitzer)
Hidden   = Submarines type units
Base     = Deploy Fast Attack and Torpedoes (Carrier)
Morph    = Supprise Attacks (Paradrop)
Deflect  = Wideband Deflectors (Max Warp for all Space)
Tact     = Tactical Hit & Run (1.5x Defence vs Starships)
Agile    = 1.5x Defence vs Fast Attack/Torpedoes
Clone    = Free Support under Creatorism (Fanatic)
Scan     = High Res Scanners (Can See Hidden)


5.03 STARBASES AND SHIELDS
--------------------------
Starbases in ST:DW are not units. They are simply fortress
squares as shown by a little "F". What makes them starbases
is the addition of the photon artillery unit and shields.
Both these additional units cannot move so any starbase that
is overrun essentially becomes a derelict.

The photon artillery unit is a land based carrier that 
represents the defenses of a starbase. It can refuel photon 
torpedoes and fast attack craft. Torpedoes and attack ships 
at starbases are always 'hot'. To keep torpeodes stationed at 
a starbase, simply use the space bar to skip their turn.

There is a blue shield unit which is thicker than the fortify
icon - a light brown shield. One is a unit while the other 
indicates that a unit is fortified. In fact, the shieled unit
itself can be fortified, in which case you'll see a thin brown
shield super-imposed on a thick blue shield.

There is one other thing to take note of with regard to the 
shield unit. As they have zero movement, they will not have a 
turn like your other units. This makes it easy to forget to 
you are building it and you may end up building many at the
same place if you don't keep track.



6.01 KNOWN BUGS AND OTHER DIFFICIENCIES
---------------------------------------
I can't find where to change some menu items, so for example
you still have to choose airlift or press 'L' to use the 
null-space catapult.

A asterisk may appear next to some wonders in the build menu 
indicating that they have expired. No wonders become obsolete
in this scenario so you can build any wonder you come across.

You may come across useless advances left over from ST:BAQ as
your allies discover them. There are also two useless planet
improvements and one wonder that does nothing at all. These
could easily be taken out but they are there to force you to 
use the civpedia. In any case, the AI isn't as smart as you 
so its to your advantage.

The MGE version will say you finished off the Romans or 
something when a civilisation is killed. It is a left-over
from the the FW version and can't be fixed.


7.01 CREDITS
------------
Special thanks to my chief tester, CHRIS POULOS who played
time and again only to discover that the scenario was not
winnable because the Dominion was simply too powerful. He
also offered many useful suggestions as to how the scenario 
could be rebalanced or improved. I don't think the scenario
would have turned out as good without his help.

More on credits in section 9 but read the warning first....

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EVERYTHING BELOW CONTAINS SPOILERS AND IS NOT MEANT TO BE READ
BEFORE YOU PLAY THE GAME. IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN HOW THE GAME
WAS RENDERED AND WHAT CRITERIA WAS USED TO DETERMINE THE SHAPE
AND FORM OF THE GAME COME BACK LATER AFTER YOU FINISH THE GAME.

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8.01 VERSION 1.1 UPDATES
------------
1. Fuller event file to take advantage of MGE.
2. It is possible to disable most of the ODP network.
3. Certain planets have more minerals to make them useful.
4. Norway has weaker defence.
5. Dominion will no longer build excelsior and clydedale
   even when they steal the right techs.
6. Klingons get a few free Vor'chas, K'vort and Klingon 
   Infantry have a stronger defence.
7. The Orb does not appear till the right moment so you
   can't go get it before the Valiant message.
8. There is now a second access section to the Breen area so
   they can emerge more easily.
9. Breen Shield-cutters are more powerful.
10.Improvement maintainence has been increased.
11.Some Romulan ships have a new look from BAQ 3.1.
12.Some new icons from BAQ 3.1.
13.Shield unit is created at Bajor when either the Dominion
   or Cardassians take it.
14.Metagenic Weapon now has the same defence as shields.
15.Quantum Torpedoes are cheaper so the AI will use them.
16.Breen get Quantum Torpedo tech automatically when activated.
17.A few more Dominion ships will come through the wormhole 
   before it is sealed.
18.Increased defence of energy bases, shipyards and facility.
19.Added the Dukat-Fire caves sequence.
20.Cardassians not destroyed when Cardassia falls.
21.Bug with advice file fixed.

9.01 MY THOUGHTS
----------------
ST:DW is very different from ST:BAQ. After all, ST:BAQ was a 
'civilisation' type scenario while ST:DW is a 'war epic'.
I initially thought that all I had to do was tweak ST:BAQ a bit
and do a new events file. Boy was I wrong. If I had started 
with ST:DW, I would have probably given up halfway. Setting up
the map was hard enough but balancing the game was a nightmare.
It involved dozens of iterations of playing the scenario for 50
to 150 turns before an imbalance manifested itself. A fix for 
a certain time period would cause balancing problems either 
earlier or later and trigger other changes.

One of my goals was to maintaing the level of difficulty 
throughout the scenario. A lot of scenarios reach a climax
at some point after which it gets easier and easier. This
scenario is designed to get increasingly harder, forcing you 
to complete quests or tasks just to keep abreast. When the 
wormhole is sealed, you expect the game to get easier but it 
doesn't. When the Cardassians are destroyed or when you finally 
control the Alpha Quadrant and the Dominion is left with less 
than half its original planets, you expect the game to get 
easier but it doesn't. 

Another goal was to make each Act of the scenario different,
like mini-scenarios. A third goal was to force the player to
use different combinations of ships and not just masses of a
single super design - a hallmark from ST:BAQ. I think the 
concept of giving the Dominion a super-duper ship in huge
numbers at the later stages really requires task forces of
different types to survive (see the strategy guide Act 4B).


9.02 EPIC
---------
This will probably be my best work. I am quite sure of this 
because a top notch scenario needs an epic saga and DS9 is the
only epic that I am very familiar with and have a passion for.
Well, actually I have some fancy for 'Legend of the Condor 
Heroes' but that is not very well known in the West. 

Some of you may be surprised that I refer to DS9 as an epic but
if you think through this carefully, DS9 contains the majority
of essential themes that can be found in other epics like 
Odyssey and Lord of the Rings (yes that was an epic).

Parallel conflict between Good and Evil on Earth
 = Dominion vs Alpha Quadrant

And in the Heavens 
= Prophets vs Pah-Wraiths in the wormhole

Destined but reluctant hero 
= the Emissary, Ben Sisko

Hero has one Immortal parent 
= Sarah Sisko

Temptation of the Hero 
= in the form of Benny Russell

Limited interaction between Immortals and the Hero
 = Orb experiences, visions and the Celestial Temple

Secondary heroes each with their own special abilities 
= the crew

Peripheral heroes who die a tragic death 
= Jadzia Dax

Good guys from the evil races 
= Odo and Garak

Trusty Steed or Ship 
= Defiant

Landmark terrestrial battles 
= The siege of AR 558

Landmark naval battles 
= The attack on Chin'toka System.

Quest for sacred objects 
= Orb of the Emmisary, 

Other quests 
= White Facility attack, rescue from internment camp 371

Stories of past ages and faraway lands 
= Visit to Kirk's era, Bell Riots in 2024, Parallel Universe

Journey to the Netherworld 
= Gamma Quadrant

Myriad of different non-races 
= Cardassians, Bajorians, Founders, Klingons, Romulans....

Succession of Kings 
= Dukat to Damar, Gowron to Martok

Faithful servants of the Evil race 
= Jeh'Hadar and Vorta 

Mythical Beasts 
= Jen'Hadar Battleship and Breen Shield Cutters

Ressurection 
= Ezri Dax

Sacrifice and eventual ascension to the heavens 
= the battle in the fire caves

I have tried to incorporate many of the themes above and I let
them unfold as acts and scenes in an epic play while keeping
somewhat close to the actual timeline of DS9. Some acts deal
with the hero Sisko while others deal with central battles and
events. 

In fact the quirks of the Civ2 engine really required many 
innovative techniques to do justice to the Dominion War story.
This is perhaps the right place for me to list done what 
innovations(many but not all original) I used. 


9.03 MAP COMMENTS
-----------------
In a certain part of the map, I used a checkered land-sea 
pattern to simulate the Orbital Defence Platforms of Chin'toka.
This contained the ODPs in a fixed area but allowed starships 
to move through them.

A parallel dungeon type map involving Sisko and the Pah-wraiths
was used. This allowed the Benny Russell story to move along 
within the wormhole while the war continued unabated outside.

I took advantage of the way mountain and hill icons combine to 
have more map pictures. This allowed the four-square spiral 
galaxy, wormholes facing two directions and distinct starbases 
for each race. I've been told that this is a technique used in 
the X-com scenario although I've never played it.

Having normal uncharted space and using the concept of roads to
represent charted space was a good idea. Its probably not 
original and the concept of inner and outer space has been
touched upon in John Valdez's outerspace modpack. 


9.04 SOUND COMMENTS
-------------------
I managed to put an extraordinary amount of unique sounds that
still could be zipped onto one floppy. This was a limitation
I imposed on myself although I collected more than 10 megabytes
of sounds and dialogue for this project.

One method of saving space was to rearrange the unit positions 
so that sound files were not duplicated. This allowed space for
additional wave files containing dialogue from DS9.

I think my choice of the intro music from ST IV was suitable
but it seemed to repeat itself after a few times. I next turned
to some dialogue but that was a tad plain. Finally, I resorted
to splicing voice into music. This is an innovation I am 
particularly happy with.

Another interesting change was the use of plain dialogue as
the combat sounds for the Sisko and Pah-Wraith units. It 
seemed only natural as it was a battle of the mind. 


9.05 SPECIAL UNIT COMMENTS
--------------------------
One challenge was to leave a starbase there even after it was
overrun. This led to the starbase terrains mentioned in 9.03
plus the use of an invisible fortress. Immobile "land carriers"
fielding torpedoes and immobile shields was the final touch.

I think the hollow shields also merit mention. I got this idea
when I came across a similar unit icon done by JLH. They pop up
showing what's below when a starbase or planet is attacked as
the photon cannon is a 'ship' and always stays on top when
there's no fighting. The 'ship' trick also allowed the 
'defenses of the starbase are destroyed' message.

Another challenge was to simulate the self-replicating 
minefields. This was done by stacking immobile units with high
hit points on each other. I did consider making the mines 
regular units and giving a para-drop ability as a method of 
deployment but that meant they couldn't be stacked and 
fortified as they would have to be naval units. So in the end 
I left them as unique units.

I got the 'use the same unit twice' idea from the Nazgul units
in the Lord of the Rings Scenario (dh Thompson) and used it in
a modified form. When the Ketracel White Facility is destroyed,
the Dominion get a tech which makes the old attack ships 
obsolete but allows the building of an exact same unit for 
double the cost.

Initially there was a big problem getting the AI to build and 
use all its units in the correct way. All the AI races, 
including the Klingons, Romulans and everyone else were always
just attacking with the best most powerful unit they could 
build. For instance, the Cardassians were building only the 
Galor until the Keldon came along and then it built nothing but
Keldons. It never wanted to build the Hideki at all. 

The unexpected solution lay in setting one ship design to the 
air superiority role. Ground units set to air superiority 
behave like scouts and was ideal for the smaller designs. 

Although the AI races had an advance that made the second 
generation federation ships obsolete, there mere discovery of
these designs in turn made some of their existing ships 
obsolete as well. It took days of play-testing to figure this
out. So all the second generation federation ships were set
to a naval superiority role to fix the problem.


9.06 EVENTS COMMENTS
--------------------
I have paid special attention to moving the storyline along by
having events triggered every so often. This theoretically 
should nudge the player along the intended route at his own 
pace and not force events along by the number of turns passed. 
In this respect I have used many more than the typical number 
of trigger units (whose sole function is to cause events when 
they are destroyed). Nine to be exact. Then there are other 
units which are also triggers but serve other purposes. There
were 5 of these.

One feature of the scenario is free Galor and Jem'Hadar War 
Cruisers until certain shipyards are destroyed. When a certain
shipyard was destroyed, it triggered a terrain change which 
did not allow the create unit action in the event manager to 
work any more. By a similar effect, the Chin'toka orbital 
defence platforms were destroyed enmasse by employing a 
terrain change.

The Wormhole was represented by a railroad with the sea on 
both sides. Changing the terrain on the railroad allowed the 
wormhole to seal and reopen on command. I did this because I 
wanted the wormhole to be a tunnel, not just a gap between 
two areas. Of course my choice of representing the wormhole in
this way way did limit me in some ways. The railroad wormhole 
meant that the starships had to be land units. This meant that
the starships could no longer carry missiles as they did in 
STBAQ. In STBAQ, I used a mostly sea as terrain since I didn't
want the organic units to walk in space. In the case of STDW, 
the infantry can no longer move to solve this problem. Quite a
few improvements were lost by doing away with the sea. So now 
there are no equivalents of the 4 sea city improvements. 

9.08 ACCURACY
-------------
I am quite confident that my map is accurate within reason.
I inferred the right locations for planets and other items by 
referring to the Star Trek Encyclopedia and did not use any
fictional planets. The right wonders, like Mount Seleya
are in the right places. The targets like shipyards and the
ketracel-white facility are also near the right planets. 

Betazed was occupied and there was a major battle for Vulcan 
so I put these near Bajor. Other planets, like Nimbus III which
were supposed to be on the border between empires X and Y were
also situated correctly.

My units are completely unique units and not borrowed from 
elsewhere (other than STBAQ). I could have borrowed some ready 
made CIV2 star trek unit graphics which were pretty good but 
I decided to digitize and minaturize everything from scratch 
to ensure accuracy and a consistent look. There were a few other 
starships I could have used but I left them out due to space,
design and time period constraints: New Orleans, Centaur, 
Constitution, Constellation and Prometheus.

Exceptions were the pah-wraith and the Orb of the Emissary. 
They were modified from the units library that comes with FW, 
but did you notice?





