Scenario League Wiki - User contributions [en]

File:Empires.zip

2011-08-30T21:20:38Z

Cyrion:

File:Empirestitle.gif

2011-08-30T21:20:09Z

Cyrion:

Empires

2011-08-30T21:19:45Z

Cyrion:

[[Category:Age of Discovery]]
[[Category:Jamestout]]
[[Category:Civilization II: Multiplayer Gold Edition]]

[[File:Empirestitle.gif]]

== Description ==

Imperium Jamestout

It is 1660. Since the mid 15th century, European nations have been discovering, conquering and settling new lands. The Portuguese led the way, with the explorer Bartolomeu Dias rounding the Cape of Good Hope, presaging Vasco da Gama's voyage to India in 1498. The Portuguese founded a number of outposts along the coast of Africa to facilitate their journies to and from the East. At the same time, their Spanish rivals financed the Genoese explorer Christopher Columbus to find a western route to China and Japan. In 1492 Columbus landed in what he thought was India - the island of Hispaniola. From their base in the Caribbean, Spanish conquistadores launched missions of exploration and conquest onto the American mainland, conquering the Aztec and Inca empires in 1519 and 1533 respectively, mostly by exploiting internal differences. In 1522 the Spaniard Ferdinand Magellan became the first person to circumnavigate the globe. But northern European nations were not far behind their southern counterparts. By the end of the 16th century French and English reconnaisance missions had prepared the way for more concerted settlement efforts in the early 17th century. The first permanent English settlement was founded at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607, followed by a French settlement at Quebec in 1608, and a Dutch colony on Manhattan island - New Amsterdam - in 1626. On mainland Europe, the centre of the continent was still dominated, in theory, by the morose Holy Roman Empire, divided betwenn a multitude of independent princes, all owing notional allegiance to the Habsburg Emperor. Further east, the rulers of Muscovy, had, by the start of the 17th century, welded the princedoms of Russia into a coherent nation, and began the conquest of the Tatar khanates to the east. By 1650, Russian traders and explorers had reached the borders of China, with settlers following. In the Americas, the Spanish vice-royalties of New Spain and Peru straddled the Americas, although the decimation of native populations left them sparsely peopled. also by 1660, a number of European trading bases had been founded in East Asia, with the Dutch leading the way with territorial acquisition in Ceylon and the East Indies. The next three centuries would see European empires cover most of the globe, and influence the rest.

== Downloads ==

Files: [[Media:Empires.zip]]

Empires

2011-08-30T21:19:19Z

Cyrion: Created page with "Category:Middle Ages Category:Jamestout Category:Civilization II: Multiplayer Gold Edition File:Empirestitle.gif == Description == Imperium Jamestout It is ..."

[[Category:Middle Ages]]
[[Category:Jamestout]]
[[Category:Civilization II: Multiplayer Gold Edition]]

[[File:Empirestitle.gif]]

== Description ==

Imperium Jamestout

It is 1660. Since the mid 15th century, European nations have been discovering, conquering and settling new lands. The Portuguese led the way, with the explorer Bartolomeu Dias rounding the Cape of Good Hope, presaging Vasco da Gama's voyage to India in 1498. The Portuguese founded a number of outposts along the coast of Africa to facilitate their journies to and from the East. At the same time, their Spanish rivals financed the Genoese explorer Christopher Columbus to find a western route to China and Japan. In 1492 Columbus landed in what he thought was India - the island of Hispaniola. From their base in the Caribbean, Spanish conquistadores launched missions of exploration and conquest onto the American mainland, conquering the Aztec and Inca empires in 1519 and 1533 respectively, mostly by exploiting internal differences. In 1522 the Spaniard Ferdinand Magellan became the first person to circumnavigate the globe. But northern European nations were not far behind their southern counterparts. By the end of the 16th century French and English reconnaisance missions had prepared the way for more concerted settlement efforts in the early 17th century. The first permanent English settlement was founded at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607, followed by a French settlement at Quebec in 1608, and a Dutch colony on Manhattan island - New Amsterdam - in 1626. On mainland Europe, the centre of the continent was still dominated, in theory, by the morose Holy Roman Empire, divided betwenn a multitude of independent princes, all owing notional allegiance to the Habsburg Emperor. Further east, the rulers of Muscovy, had, by the start of the 17th century, welded the princedoms of Russia into a coherent nation, and began the conquest of the Tatar khanates to the east. By 1650, Russian traders and explorers had reached the borders of China, with settlers following. In the Americas, the Spanish vice-royalties of New Spain and Peru straddled the Americas, although the decimation of native populations left them sparsely peopled. also by 1660, a number of European trading bases had been founded in East Asia, with the Dutch leading the way with territorial acquisition in Ceylon and the East Indies. The next three centuries would see European empires cover most of the globe, and influence the rest.

== Downloads ==

Files: [[Media:Empires.zip]]

The Age of Napoleon v1.2

2011-08-30T21:13:23Z

Cyrion:

[[Category:Age of Discovery]]
[[Category:Saladin]]
[[Category:Civilization II: Multiplayer Gold Edition]]

== Introduction ==

[[File:TAONimage2.GIF]]

Napoleon Bonaparte has been made Consul for life. There has been nine months of peace in Europe since the Treaty of Amiens ended war between France and her allies and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The fighting is not over yet. Whilst Bonaparte marshals his troops for the second round, across the channel, the British sit behind the Royal Navy and rebuild their army as well. For either side to win the coming conflict control of the seas will help to decide the outcome. In other theatres, the future French Emperor is sending troops to Saint Domingue to restore slavery and French rule, whilst in North America French diplomats are engaged in selling Louisiana to the infant United States. Britain, currently the world's largest Empire, needs time to prepare. With an expansionist America threatening Canada, French ambitions in India and the Caribbean, and Spain and Holland in South America and South East Asia respectively, the services of Prussia, Austria and Russia may be needed to put down the Corsican upstart once and for all.

== The Great Powers ==
'''The Russian Empire''': The Great Russian bear as in all scenarios, is an enemy few will want. A vast land of endless steppes and untapped resources, the land of Tsars can become a world power if given time to grow…

'''Kingdom of Prussia''': Not yet the Prussia that would defeat Napoleon’s nephew and create the German Empire, Prussia is one of the strongest German states. Despite needing a lot of work, the small Kingdom can still establish itself in world. Perhaps a few colonies, a strong army and the right friends will force the unification of Germany in early, rather than the latter part of the 19th Century.

'''Empire of France''': The premier land power. In the beginning, France already has a strong army, in particular artillery, and a good-sized navy. Taking certain cities can yield some exotic units. With one of the greatest military minds in history directing her, the conquest of Europe and Empire beckons for France.

'''Austrian Empire''': The Habsburg rule over a large cosmopolitan empire in the Balkans. With a good number of cities and well – situated in eastern and central Europe, the Austrians can be a nation that could help to decide the course of any large European wide war.

'''United States''': The young upstart, the United States is in a stage of trying to find her feet. Despite a generation of young Americans having grown up knowing nothing but US rule, there are divisions in the young republic. Federalism, slavery and the threat of the Barbary Corsairs are but many issues that plague her. However, with the Louisiana Purchase about to be finalised and with plenty of European colonies into which to expand, the Americans have many choices, especially with the new Constitution class of warship being designed.

'''British Empire''': The world’s leading power and premier naval power, Britain sits behind the channel protected by her wooden walls, the Royal Navy. The Empire enjoys superior ships and a number of specialised land units.

'''The European Coalition''': Not playable. France had better think carefully about invading the Peninsular though! Keep an eye out for the revolts in the New World if she does!

== Downloads ==

[[Media:TAONv1.2.zip]]

File:TAONv1.2.zip

2011-08-30T21:12:31Z

Cyrion:

File:TAONimage2.GIF

2011-08-30T21:11:52Z

Cyrion:

The Age of Napoleon v1.2

2011-08-30T21:11:34Z

Cyrion:

[[Category:Age of Discovery]]
[[Category:Saladin]]
[[Category:Civilization II: MGE]]

== Introduction ==

[[File:TAONimage2.GIF]]

Napoleon Bonaparte has been made Consul for life. There has been nine months of peace in Europe since the Treaty of Amiens ended war between France and her allies and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The fighting is not over yet. Whilst Bonaparte marshals his troops for the second round, across the channel, the British sit behind the Royal Navy and rebuild their army as well. For either side to win the coming conflict control of the seas will help to decide the outcome. In other theatres, the future French Emperor is sending troops to Saint Domingue to restore slavery and French rule, whilst in North America French diplomats are engaged in selling Louisiana to the infant United States. Britain, currently the world's largest Empire, needs time to prepare. With an expansionist America threatening Canada, French ambitions in India and the Caribbean, and Spain and Holland in South America and South East Asia respectively, the services of Prussia, Austria and Russia may be needed to put down the Corsican upstart once and for all.

== The Great Powers ==
'''The Russian Empire''': The Great Russian bear as in all scenarios, is an enemy few will want. A vast land of endless steppes and untapped resources, the land of Tsars can become a world power if given time to grow…

'''Kingdom of Prussia''': Not yet the Prussia that would defeat Napoleon’s nephew and create the German Empire, Prussia is one of the strongest German states. Despite needing a lot of work, the small Kingdom can still establish itself in world. Perhaps a few colonies, a strong army and the right friends will force the unification of Germany in early, rather than the latter part of the 19th Century.

'''Empire of France''': The premier land power. In the beginning, France already has a strong army, in particular artillery, and a good-sized navy. Taking certain cities can yield some exotic units. With one of the greatest military minds in history directing her, the conquest of Europe and Empire beckons for France.

'''Austrian Empire''': The Habsburg rule over a large cosmopolitan empire in the Balkans. With a good number of cities and well – situated in eastern and central Europe, the Austrians can be a nation that could help to decide the course of any large European wide war.

'''United States''': The young upstart, the United States is in a stage of trying to find her feet. Despite a generation of young Americans having grown up knowing nothing but US rule, there are divisions in the young republic. Federalism, slavery and the threat of the Barbary Corsairs are but many issues that plague her. However, with the Louisiana Purchase about to be finalised and with plenty of European colonies into which to expand, the Americans have many choices, especially with the new Constitution class of warship being designed.

'''British Empire''': The world’s leading power and premier naval power, Britain sits behind the channel protected by her wooden walls, the Royal Navy. The Empire enjoys superior ships and a number of specialised land units.

'''The European Coalition''': Not playable. France had better think carefully about invading the Peninsular though! Keep an eye out for the revolts in the New World if she does!

== Downloads ==

[[Media:TAONv1.2.zip]]

The Age of Napoleon v1.2

2011-08-30T21:10:01Z

Cyrion: Created page with "Category:Age of Discovery Category:Saladin Category:Civilization II: MGE == Introduction == File:640px-TAONimage2.GIF Napoleon Bonaparte has been made Consul f..."

[[Category:Age of Discovery]]
[[Category:Saladin]]
[[Category:Civilization II: MGE]]

== Introduction ==

[[File:640px-TAONimage2.GIF]]

Napoleon Bonaparte has been made Consul for life. There has been nine months of peace in Europe since the Treaty of Amiens ended war between France and her allies and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The fighting is not over yet. Whilst Bonaparte marshals his troops for the second round, across the channel, the British sit behind the Royal Navy and rebuild their army as well. For either side to win the coming conflict control of the seas will help to decide the outcome. In other theatres, the future French Emperor is sending troops to Saint Domingue to restore slavery and French rule, whilst in North America French diplomats are engaged in selling Louisiana to the infant United States. Britain, currently the world's largest Empire, needs time to prepare. With an expansionist America threatening Canada, French ambitions in India and the Caribbean, and Spain and Holland in South America and South East Asia respectively, the services of Prussia, Austria and Russia may be needed to put down the Corsican upstart once and for all.

== The Great Powers ==
'''The Russian Empire''': The Great Russian bear as in all scenarios, is an enemy few will want. A vast land of endless steppes and untapped resources, the land of Tsars can become a world power if given time to grow…

'''Kingdom of Prussia''': Not yet the Prussia that would defeat Napoleon’s nephew and create the German Empire, Prussia is one of the strongest German states. Despite needing a lot of work, the small Kingdom can still establish itself in world. Perhaps a few colonies, a strong army and the right friends will force the unification of Germany in early, rather than the latter part of the 19th Century.

'''Empire of France''': The premier land power. In the beginning, France already has a strong army, in particular artillery, and a good-sized navy. Taking certain cities can yield some exotic units. With one of the greatest military minds in history directing her, the conquest of Europe and Empire beckons for France.

'''Austrian Empire''': The Habsburg rule over a large cosmopolitan empire in the Balkans. With a good number of cities and well – situated in eastern and central Europe, the Austrians can be a nation that could help to decide the course of any large European wide war.

'''United States''': The young upstart, the United States is in a stage of trying to find her feet. Despite a generation of young Americans having grown up knowing nothing but US rule, there are divisions in the young republic. Federalism, slavery and the threat of the Barbary Corsairs are but many issues that plague her. However, with the Louisiana Purchase about to be finalised and with plenty of European colonies into which to expand, the Americans have many choices, especially with the new Constitution class of warship being designed.

'''British Empire''': The world’s leading power and premier naval power, Britain sits behind the channel protected by her wooden walls, the Royal Navy. The Empire enjoys superior ships and a number of specialised land units.

'''The European Coalition''': Not playable. France had better think carefully about invading the Peninsular though! Keep an eye out for the revolts in the New World if she does!

== Downloads ==

[[Media:TAONv1.2.zip]]

File:Darthveda gangwars.zip

2011-08-30T20:56:29Z

Cyrion:

Lost Paradise

2011-05-10T20:55:11Z

Cyrion: /* Rules, Details and Info */

[[Category:Stefan Härtel]]
[[Category:Ancient Ages]]
[[Category:Civilization II: Fantastic Worlds]]
[[File: LostParTitle.gif]]

'''A scenario for [[Civilization II: Fantastic Worlds]] by [[Stefan Härtel]].'''

== Historical Background ==

It is unknown when exactly the first people settled in the South Sea islands. Melanesian settlers from modern-day Indonesia are thought to have reached New Guinea as early as 2000 BC. The highly advanced "Lapita culture", named for a place in New Caledonia, emerged around 1600 BC. Two further groups, the Micronesians and the Polynesians, soon appeared. The Micronesians settled in the Marshall Islands, the Carolines, the Marians and other island groups nowadays known as Micronesia. The Polynesians descended from the Fidji, Tonga and Samoa islands and soon expanded further eastwards, as they were being pushed by the Melanesians, who were reduced to New Guinea and the surrounding islands.

The Polynesians soon became the greatest seafarers the world had ever seen, as they had only 'primitive' navigation methods and narrow boats, but colonized a territory that stretched from Hawaii to the Easter Islands, and New Zealand (where they are nowadays known as the Maori). Sadly, little of these cultures is left, especially in the smaller islands, as they fell victim to the European invasion and Christian missons. The South Seas became subject to foreign imperialism, mostly between the French, Spanish, and later Americans, Germans and Japanese.

== The Players ==

All seven civs appear in this scenario, but only five are intended for play.

If you want an easy game, you are directed to the Polynesians and the Maori.

The Polynesians start with most technologies, and three cities, and a lot of advantages concerning trade and travel. This is to reflect the importance of their culture for the rest of the southern Pacific area.

The Maori, being Polynesians themselves, have the same technological boost, plus two wonders, whereas all others (in exception of the Papua, who have none) have only one. Their enviroment, meant to reflect the Northern Island of New Zealand is very different, being a large landmass rather than many tiny islands. Whether this is more difficult or easier is up to you, it's different in any case.

Next would be the Melanesians and the Micronesians. Both have certain advantages and disadvantages.

The Melanesians have large islands, and therefore are likely to develop a large population. However, it isn't as likely as with others that they will have an easy time catching up with the development, because they aren't very advanced and their production is rather low.

The Micronesians have a huge amount of tiny atolls, which have great shield output, but very little trade and virtually no food around. Growth is a huge problem to them, and they will always have a difficult deciding whether it's north -with very productive cities and little danger, but much isolation- or south with none of the above.

The Papua will have a very hard time. They are the most isolated civ, having a large but dangerous island to explore and colonize. Once they've reached an agreeable situation, most other powers will probably have gotten a huge head start.

== Rules, Details and Info ==

This scenario is basically a completely modified standart game, and should be played as such. To make the AI more agressive, though, the capital cities of the Polynesians, Melanesians, Micronesians, Papua and Maori are set as objectives. Therefore, the scoring system isn't the same as in an original game. This isn't very much of a problem, as I believe the scores according to the original system wouldn't have been very accurate compared to real achievements in the game.

I think it's time to tell you about the map. It's ugly. Well, that may not be true. This scenario is set mostly for naval strategy, with very little land and very much water. Large land masses can only be found in the south of the map, but these territories (New Zealand and New Guinea) are already occupied by the Maori and Papua. So, why not build your cities on one of those nice and empty little islands... empty? Well, they may look so at first. But you'd better double-check. At rare occasions, you will see a little settlement on one of the larger islands. Those are tribes that reached this island before you. They are hostile. Fight them.

Sometimes, however, the island is already populated without you seeing it. The people living there are fierce, bloodthirsty cannibals. If you leave them alone, they will leave you alone, but having cannibal neighbours isn't such an attractive thing. Sending out your fearless warriors against them is a good idea. However, you never know if the island is inhabited by cannibals or not, unless your troops actually try to set foot on it. You have to live with it.

Well, settling down beside one of those villages until you have the power to destroy them is always an option. Sadly, they often occupy the more beautiful settling place. More sadly, you are usually left with a piece of land unprotected against the forces of nature. A flood may suddenly make all your units and cities perish. You have to live with that, too. Especially because it occurs more than once in a spot most of the time.

Having said that, beware of lower terrains. Higher places aren't that safe either, though. Maybe you have heard of the pacific "Ring of Fire", a ring of volcanoes and earthquake territories along the border of the pacific plate. Here, this is represented by the Melanesian islands. Volcanoes have the tendency to errupt and turn the territories around into rubble. They do this only once, and when you spot some rubble, settling down near it is quite productive. But if you see a volcano that hasn't errupted, beware of it. You never know which ones might errupt, and which ones don't (unless you look into the events file, which is strongly discouraged).

Concluding, be careful with islands that have volcanoes on them, or such that are three squares or more in size. Floods will occur in light jungle, swamp and grassland squares (though not on NZ and NG, and not those islands you start on), and will turn one terrain square into swamplands. They might do this again and again, so be careful. You should better check out if everything is still there at the start of each turn.

Each civ, in exception of the Papua, starts out with at least one WoW. These are meant to suggest the role the certain civ is meant to play. You can easily find this out by consulting the pedia. The same goes for any stats, such as units, improvements, advances, terrain, etc. You should really do so, though, as it's important for you to know.

This scenario is propably more suited for multiplayer games than for single player ones. It will definately be more interesting, as the AI propably screws up most of the carefully planned game concepts you are to find out. Revealing them all here spoils this game entirely. They aren't hard to find out though.

== Screenshots ==

[[File: LostParIsland.gif]]

== Downloads ==

[[Media: lostpar11.zip| Scenario Files]]

Lost Paradise

2011-05-10T20:54:09Z

Cyrion: /* The Players */

[[Category:Stefan Härtel]]
[[Category:Ancient Ages]]
[[Category:Civilization II: Fantastic Worlds]]
[[File: LostParTitle.gif]]

'''A scenario for [[Civilization II: Fantastic Worlds]] by [[Stefan Härtel]].'''

== Historical Background ==

It is unknown when exactly the first people settled in the South Sea islands. Melanesian settlers from modern-day Indonesia are thought to have reached New Guinea as early as 2000 BC. The highly advanced "Lapita culture", named for a place in New Caledonia, emerged around 1600 BC. Two further groups, the Micronesians and the Polynesians, soon appeared. The Micronesians settled in the Marshall Islands, the Carolines, the Marians and other island groups nowadays known as Micronesia. The Polynesians descended from the Fidji, Tonga and Samoa islands and soon expanded further eastwards, as they were being pushed by the Melanesians, who were reduced to New Guinea and the surrounding islands.

The Polynesians soon became the greatest seafarers the world had ever seen, as they had only 'primitive' navigation methods and narrow boats, but colonized a territory that stretched from Hawaii to the Easter Islands, and New Zealand (where they are nowadays known as the Maori). Sadly, little of these cultures is left, especially in the smaller islands, as they fell victim to the European invasion and Christian missons. The South Seas became subject to foreign imperialism, mostly between the French, Spanish, and later Americans, Germans and Japanese.

== The Players ==

All seven civs appear in this scenario, but only five are intended for play.

If you want an easy game, you are directed to the Polynesians and the Maori.

The Polynesians start with most technologies, and three cities, and a lot of advantages concerning trade and travel. This is to reflect the importance of their culture for the rest of the southern Pacific area.

The Maori, being Polynesians themselves, have the same technological boost, plus two wonders, whereas all others (in exception of the Papua, who have none) have only one. Their enviroment, meant to reflect the Northern Island of New Zealand is very different, being a large landmass rather than many tiny islands. Whether this is more difficult or easier is up to you, it's different in any case.

Next would be the Melanesians and the Micronesians. Both have certain advantages and disadvantages.

The Melanesians have large islands, and therefore are likely to develop a large population. However, it isn't as likely as with others that they will have an easy time catching up with the development, because they aren't very advanced and their production is rather low.

The Micronesians have a huge amount of tiny atolls, which have great shield output, but very little trade and virtually no food around. Growth is a huge problem to them, and they will always have a difficult deciding whether it's north -with very productive cities and little danger, but much isolation- or south with none of the above.

The Papua will have a very hard time. They are the most isolated civ, having a large but dangerous island to explore and colonize. Once they've reached an agreeable situation, most other powers will probably have gotten a huge head start.

== Rules, Details and Info ==

This scenario is basically a completely modified standart game, and should be played as such. To make the AI more agressive, though, the capital cities of the Polynesians, Melanesians, Micronesians, Papua and Maori are set as objectives. Therefore, the scoring system isn't the same as in an original game. This isn't very much of a problem, as I believe the scores according to the original system wouldn't have been very accurate compared to real achievements in the game.
I think it's time to tell you about the map. It's ugly. Well, that may not be true. This scenario is set mostly for naval strategy, with very little land and very much water. Large land masses can only be found in the south of the map, but these territories (New Zealand and New Guinea) are already occupied by the Maori and Papua. So, why not build your cities on one of those nice and empty little islands... empty? Well, they may look so at first. But you'd better double-check. At rare occasions, you will see a little settlement on one of the larger islands. Those are tribes that reached this island before you. They are hostile. Fight them.
Sometimes, however, the island is already populated without you seeing it. The people living there are fierce, bloodthirsty cannibals. If you leave them alone, they will leave you alone, but having cannibal neighbours isn't such an attractive thing. Sending out your fearless warriors against them is a good idea. However, you never know if the island is inhabited by cannibals or not, unless your troops actually try to set foot on it. You have to live with it.
Well, settling down beside one of those villages until you have the power to destroy them is always an option. Sadly, they often occupy the more beautiful settling place. More sadly, you are usually left with a piece of land unprotected against the forces of nature. A flood may suddenly make all your units and cities perish. You have to live with that, too. Especially because it occurs more than once in a spot most of the time.
Having said that, beware of lower terrains. Higher places aren't that safe either, though. Maybe you have heard of the pacific "Ring of Fire", a ring of volcanoes and earthquake territories along the border of the pacific plate. Here, this is represented by the Melanesian islands. Volcanoes have the tendency to errupt and turn the territories around into rubble. They do this only once, and when you spot some rubble, settling down near it is quite productive. But if you see a volcano that hasn't errupted, beware of it. You never know which ones might errupt, and which ones don't (unless you look into the events file, which is strongly discouraged).
Concluding, be careful with islands that have volcanoes on them, or such that are three squares or more in size. Floods will occur in light jungle, swamp and grassland squares (though not on NZ and NG, and not those islands you start on), and will turn one terrain square into swamplands. They might do this again and again, so be careful. You should better check out if everything is still there at the start of each turn.
Each civ, in exception of the Papua, starts out with at least one WoW. These are meant to suggest the role the certain civ is meant to play. You can easily find this out by consulting the pedia. The same goes for any stats, such as units, improvements, advances, terrain, etc. You should really do so, though, as it's important for you to know.
This scenario is propably more suited for multiplayer games than for single player ones. It will definately be more interesting, as the AI propably screws up most of the carefully planned game concepts you are to find out. Revealing them all here spoils this game entirely. They aren't hard to find out though.

== Screenshots ==

[[File: LostParIsland.gif]]

== Downloads ==

[[Media: lostpar11.zip| Scenario Files]]

File:Lostpar11.zip

2011-05-10T20:53:35Z

Cyrion:

File:LostParIsland.gif

2011-05-10T20:53:14Z

Cyrion:

File:LostParTitle.gif

2011-05-10T20:52:41Z

Cyrion:

Lost Paradise

2011-05-10T20:52:30Z

Cyrion: Created page with "Category:Stefan Härtel Category:Ancient Ages Category:Civilization II: Fantastic Worlds File: LostParTitle.gif '''A scenario for [[Civilization II: Fantastic Wo..."

[[Category:Stefan Härtel]]
[[Category:Ancient Ages]]
[[Category:Civilization II: Fantastic Worlds]]
[[File: LostParTitle.gif]]

'''A scenario for [[Civilization II: Fantastic Worlds]] by [[Stefan Härtel]].'''

== Historical Background ==

It is unknown when exactly the first people settled in the South Sea islands. Melanesian settlers from modern-day Indonesia are thought to have reached New Guinea as early as 2000 BC. The highly advanced "Lapita culture", named for a place in New Caledonia, emerged around 1600 BC. Two further groups, the Micronesians and the Polynesians, soon appeared. The Micronesians settled in the Marshall Islands, the Carolines, the Marians and other island groups nowadays known as Micronesia. The Polynesians descended from the Fidji, Tonga and Samoa islands and soon expanded further eastwards, as they were being pushed by the Melanesians, who were reduced to New Guinea and the surrounding islands.

The Polynesians soon became the greatest seafarers the world had ever seen, as they had only 'primitive' navigation methods and narrow boats, but colonized a territory that stretched from Hawaii to the Easter Islands, and New Zealand (where they are nowadays known as the Maori). Sadly, little of these cultures is left, especially in the smaller islands, as they fell victim to the European invasion and Christian missons. The South Seas became subject to foreign imperialism, mostly between the French, Spanish, and later Americans, Germans and Japanese.

== The Players ==

All seven civs appear in this scenario, but only five are intended for play.

If you want an easy game, you are directed to the Polynesians and the Maori.
The Polynesians start with most technologies, and three cities, and a lot of advantages concerning trade and travel. This is to reflect the importance of their culture for the rest of the southern Pacific area.
The Maori, being Polynesians themselves, have the same technological boost, plus two wonders, whereas all others (in exception of the Papua, who have none) have only one. Their enviroment, meant to reflect the Northern Island of New Zealand is very different, being a large landmass rather than many tiny islands. Whether this is more difficult or easier is up to you, it's different in any case.

Next would be the Melanesians and the Micronesians. Both have certain advantages and disadvantages.
The Melanesians have large islands, and therefore are likely to develop a large population. However, it isn't as likely as with others that they will have an easy time catching up with the development, because they aren't very advanced and their production is rather low.
The Micronesians have a huge amount of tiny atolls, which have great shield output, but very little trade and virtually no food around. Growth is a huge problem to them, and they will always have a difficult deciding whether it's north -with very productive cities and little danger, but much isolation- or south with none of the above.

The Papua will have a very hard time. They are the most isolated civ, having a large but dangerous island to explore and colonize. Once they've reached an agreeable situation, most other powers will probably have gotten a huge head start.

== Rules, Details and Info ==

This scenario is basically a completely modified standart game, and should be played as such. To make the AI more agressive, though, the capital cities of the Polynesians, Melanesians, Micronesians, Papua and Maori are set as objectives. Therefore, the scoring system isn't the same as in an original game. This isn't very much of a problem, as I believe the scores according to the original system wouldn't have been very accurate compared to real achievements in the game.
I think it's time to tell you about the map. It's ugly. Well, that may not be true. This scenario is set mostly for naval strategy, with very little land and very much water. Large land masses can only be found in the south of the map, but these territories (New Zealand and New Guinea) are already occupied by the Maori and Papua. So, why not build your cities on one of those nice and empty little islands... empty? Well, they may look so at first. But you'd better double-check. At rare occasions, you will see a little settlement on one of the larger islands. Those are tribes that reached this island before you. They are hostile. Fight them.
Sometimes, however, the island is already populated without you seeing it. The people living there are fierce, bloodthirsty cannibals. If you leave them alone, they will leave you alone, but having cannibal neighbours isn't such an attractive thing. Sending out your fearless warriors against them is a good idea. However, you never know if the island is inhabited by cannibals or not, unless your troops actually try to set foot on it. You have to live with it.
Well, settling down beside one of those villages until you have the power to destroy them is always an option. Sadly, they often occupy the more beautiful settling place. More sadly, you are usually left with a piece of land unprotected against the forces of nature. A flood may suddenly make all your units and cities perish. You have to live with that, too. Especially because it occurs more than once in a spot most of the time.
Having said that, beware of lower terrains. Higher places aren't that safe either, though. Maybe you have heard of the pacific "Ring of Fire", a ring of volcanoes and earthquake territories along the border of the pacific plate. Here, this is represented by the Melanesian islands. Volcanoes have the tendency to errupt and turn the territories around into rubble. They do this only once, and when you spot some rubble, settling down near it is quite productive. But if you see a volcano that hasn't errupted, beware of it. You never know which ones might errupt, and which ones don't (unless you look into the events file, which is strongly discouraged).
Concluding, be careful with islands that have volcanoes on them, or such that are three squares or more in size. Floods will occur in light jungle, swamp and grassland squares (though not on NZ and NG, and not those islands you start on), and will turn one terrain square into swamplands. They might do this again and again, so be careful. You should better check out if everything is still there at the start of each turn.
Each civ, in exception of the Papua, starts out with at least one WoW. These are meant to suggest the role the certain civ is meant to play. You can easily find this out by consulting the pedia. The same goes for any stats, such as units, improvements, advances, terrain, etc. You should really do so, though, as it's important for you to know.
This scenario is propably more suited for multiplayer games than for single player ones. It will definately be more interesting, as the AI propably screws up most of the carefully planned game concepts you are to find out. Revealing them all here spoils this game entirely. They aren't hard to find out though.

== Screenshots ==

[[File: LostParIsland.gif]]

== Downloads ==

[[Media: lostpar11.zip| Scenario Files]]

File:LP.png

2011-05-10T20:51:42Z

Cyrion:

Category:Ancient Ages

2011-05-10T20:51:28Z

Cyrion:

[[File:TheAncientAges.jpg]]

The Ancient Ages comprise the Bronze and Iron Ages and is generally acknowledged to have started with the first literate cities of Mesopotamia. The scenarios in this category cover the rise and decline of various dominant powers in the so-called Cradle of Civilization, the Mediterranean. These include the Minoans, Mycenaeans, Classical Greek city states and Cataginians. The period also encompasses the early Egyptian dynasties and their contemporaries in Asia Minor, China and India and ends with the rise, decline and fall of the Roman Empire.

Scenarios which start with the beginning of civilization and span across multiple periods are located here as well.

{| class="wikitable" style="margin: 1em auto 1em auto"
|+ '''Scenarios'''
! Thumb || Name || Period || Designer || Version
|-
| [[File:Aeterna_Civitas_1.png]] || [[Aeterna Civitas]] || 281 BC || [[McMonkey]] || [[Civilization II: Multiplayer Gold Edition]]
|-
| [[File:Aeterna_Civitas_2.png]] || [[Aeterna Civitas II]] || 281 BC || [[McMonkey]] || [[Civilization II: Multiplayer Gold Edition]]
|-
| [[File:The_Age_of_Constantine.png]] || [[The Age of Constantine]] || AD 306-337 || [[Masis Panos]] || [[Civilization II: Fantastic Worlds]]
|-
| [[File:AE1200BC_Icon.gif]] || [[Ancient Empires 1200 BC - The End of the Bronze Age v1.1a]] || 1200 BC - 455 BC|| [[Kull]] || [[Civilization II: Fantastic Worlds]]
|-
| [[File:A Soaring Spirit.png]] || [[A Soaring Spirit]] || 750 BC || [[McMonkey]] || [[Civilization II: Multiplayer Gold Edition]]
|-
| [[File:Celtic_Italy.png]] || [[Celtic Italy]] || 290 BC - 191 BC || [[Goddi Diego]] || [[Civilization II: Fantastic Worlds]]
|-
| [[File:Hellas.png]] || [[Hellas]] || 750 BC - 360 BC || [[John Ellis]] || [[Civilization II: Fantastic Worlds]]
|-
| [[File:Imperium.png]] || [[Imperium Romanum v2.2]] || 386 BC - AD 115 || [[Bernd Brosing]] || [[Civilization II: Fantastic Worlds]]
|-
| [[File:Germanicus1.png]] || [[Germanicus on the Rhine]] || 14 AD || [[John Petroski]] || [[Civilization II: Test of Time]]
|-
| [[File:KingDavid.png]] || [[King David of Israel v1.0]] || 1005 BC - 972 BC || [[Beingofone]] || [[Civilization II: Multiplayer Gold Edition]]
|-
| [[File:Iranians.png]] || [[The Iranians]] || 1701 BC - 101 BC || [[Stefan Härtel]] || [[Civilization II: Fantastic Worlds]]
|-
| [[File:LP.png]] || [[Lost Paradise]] || 2001 BC - AD 1699 || [[Stefan Härtel]] || [[Civilization II: Fantastic Worlds]]
|-
| [[File:Odyssey.png]] || [[The Odyssey v1.0a]] || 1283 BC - 1138 BC || [[Kull]] || [[Civilization II: Fantastic Worlds]]
|-
| [[File:Celtiberian.png]] || [[Of Celts and Iberians v1.0]] || 218 BC - 19 BC|| [[Jesús Balsinde]] || [[Civilization II: Fantastic Worlds]]
|-
| [[File:Quest_for_Asia.png]] || [[Quest for Asia - The Conquests of Alexander the Great v3.1]] || 334 BC - 323 BC || [[Stefan Härtel]] || [[Civilization II: Fantastic Worlds]]
|-
| [[File:Roman_Civil_Wars.png]] || [[Roman Civil Wars]] || 55 BC || [[Techumseh]] || [[Civilization II: Test of Time]]
|-
| [[File:RomanRiots.png]] || [[Roman Riots v2]] || AD 1 || [[St Leo]] || [[Civilization II: Fantastic Worlds]]
|-
| [[File:SeaKings.png]] || [[The Sea Kings]] || 1450 BC || [[EZRhino]] || [[Civilization II: Test of Time]]
|-
| [[File:AE3500BC_Icon.gif]] || [[Ancient Empires 3500 BC - Seeds of Greatness v1.1]] || 3500 BC - 1 BC || [[Kull]] || [[Civilization II: Fantastic Worlds]]
|-
| [[File:Seeds_of_Greatness.png]] || [[Ancient Empires 3500 BC - Seeds of Greatness]] || 3500 BC - 1 BC || [[Kull]] || [[Civilization II: Test of Time]]
|-
| [[File:Spartacus.png]] || [[Spartacus]] || 73 BC - 71 BC || [[Alex Mor]] & [[Captain Nemo]] || [[Civilization II: Fantastic Worlds]]
|-
| [[File:Wars_of_Mediterranean.png]] || [[Wars of the Mediterranean v2.31]] || 491 BC - AD 115 || [[Paul Mutică]] || [[Civilization II: Multiplayer Gold Edition]]
|-
| [[File:Zhang.png]] || [[Zhan Guo: Quest for Tian Xia]] || 230 BC - 210 BC || [[Prometeus]] || [[Civilization II: Multiplayer Gold Edition]]
|}

Star Trek:Battle for Alpha Quadrant (ver 2.0) (Dan Silverwing review)

2011-04-26T21:30:12Z

Cyrion: /* Art + Originality: 5/10 */

[[Category:Fictional]]
[[Category:Reviews]]
[[Category:Kobayashi]]
[[Category:Dan Silverwing]]

== Overall Score: 20/30 ==

OVERVIEW:

Ever since Paul Heron made his Star Trek Universe mod-pack (four years ago!), it set a yardstick standard which Star Trek scenarios have been falling short of ever since. Happily this one is head and shoulders above the norm, with good graphics and good, if imperfect, playability. The tech tree is well done, if imperfect in structure, and overall the atmosphere is well generated. I found it engrossing playing, even as I was trying to critique it.

== Playability: 8/10 ==

COMMENCEMENT:

To firstly set the scene, this scenario is based on a large 75x120 map, the starting positions are evenly spread around, and the planets are individual squares but strung along to create systems. You can typically have four decent cities on the larger clusters. You start at the beginning, with one 'size 3' city and one military unit and must develop from there. Roads and railroads can be built to cover a string, and the planets can be both improved and easily transformed into other types by both irrigating/mining and transforming methods.

[[File:stbaq2_terrain.jpg]]

Although you can choose between three of the major Star Trek races, this is not a classical Birth of the Federation scenario. The presence of the Borg from the start rather determines gameplay, so you don't have the luxury of time to settle space peacefully until your borders meet with a rival's; instead your focus from the start must be on researching military technologies and building military units if you are to stand a chance of winning, developing civil technologies and improvements only on a need to basis.

Starting from scratch there is a lot to do - everything you'd normally do in founding an empire: found cities, defend them, develop new technologies, build improvements and grow huge cities, then go rampaging.

OBJECTIVE:

There are five objective cities which must be captured for a decisive victory, two of which are Borg, and the others the homeworlds of the major races. There is a "story" coded in via the events.txt, which helps focus on the game goal: defeat the Borg.

== Level of General Care: 7/10 ==

COMMENT:

Trading with another race might be a good idea, except that early starships are proportionally slow, representing more primitive propulsion technologies. In fact for the one transport type in the game, you don't even need Warp drive to research it, and the speed does not increase with this. This also affects expansion, especially for the other races who will settle their own systems adequately, and use engineers to improve the planets, but not expand very far beyond this. Although oddly I found that the races which were neutral in expansion settled more than those with +1 expansion attributes. Instead of having large empires of 20+ cities to manage, the computer will be hard pressed to get five by the time you ready to expand, which means you can easily surpass the other races in production and research, and then overwhelm the home systems. Perhaps this is because there is an excess of land masses, suggesting the solution would be to either reduce these to no more than 64 or make the strings of planets longer, allowing more cities to be founded. An excess of 64 land masses may also explain other AI imperfections.

Exploration can be a bit tricky. Probes have a good long range and 2 square visibility, and as air units can be carried on naval ships which aren't cloaked and can deploy torpedos, the best thing is to build probes to explore the immediate environs, and then deploy them on a ship to explore further afield, and reveal much more space than the ship alone could. Once you've played one game and found where everything is though, this challenge is lost. It's a problem inherent in this kind of game: have variable starting positions and you can't predetermine race-specific technologies; have fixed starting positions and you lose that uncertainty. Perhaps the solution to this would be to use the givetechnology event in turn 1.

TECHNOLOGIES:

The race-specific technologies aren't that race-specific. Instead of having technologies to make other units obsolete you have base technologies which are needed to develop more race specific [sic] technologies and wonders. The conceptual idea is that eventually you should have access to the other race's technologies (which can happen quite quickly if you target the necessary prerequisite), but there is no reason why both types can't be incorporated to keep a player's fleet homogenous at least. As it is, you can develop all the other races designs and mix and match to get the best out of them. I was disappointed that the ability to take technologies from captured cities had been removed in the scenario parameters. A good idea considering that Borg technology will destroy you, and it stops the computer doing anything stupid, but bad for you re the others. After all, you can trade for them and steal them, why not conquer them?

The technology tree is relatively "open", i.e. you don't have rigidly defined epochs or tightly intertwined development, and so you can target specific technologies you want to develop and reach them quite quickly. Or concentrate on ground units, and just keep researching those technologies until you have a unit which is so far in excess of the others' that victory is assured, which you then build en masse.

[[File:stbaq2_ground.jpg]]

SUPPORT FILES:

The technologies are claimed to be ST canon, which I can't dispute. For a layman they are barely familiar and so the civilopedia is really needed here to plan things out. If you start over knowing what is what, you can exploit the openness to target specific technologies. In the pedia.txt itself, all the improvements and wonders used have updated texts. For FW you don't benefit from the terrain section, and so I still found it helpful to have the rules.txt open to study terrain attributes. The game and label text files have been updated to create a definite "atmosphere", though a very elementary mistake has been made with the advice.txt: the @@name needs to match the entry in the rules.txt, so we just have the "we should build x" message.

WEAPONS OF WAR:

As you might expect, units are mainly either ground or naval units. There is an impressive diversity of ground units, and the tech tree allows for ever more powerful units to be built. Similarly with the naval units, starting with the most basic, weakest and slowest. Attack and defence strengths are well balanced in relation to other units of the same domain, though not the other. Naval units are quite weak on the attack compared to the defence strength of some ground units, and this warns against direct shore bombardment. A decent ground unit protected by Planetary shields (Costal defences) and Orbital Platforms (City Walls) can ward off most attacks, and the player can play defensively if he wishes. Some early naval units are hardly worth bothering with, and I was disappointed that some generic naval units were better value than race-specific ones.

It is obvious that the designer wants us to use torpedos as the ships offensive weapons, rather than the ship itself, and the good side of this is that you can simply overload one ship with probes and torpedos to go borg hunting, rather than a massive fleet of startships. The downside is that the torpedos can't be reused, they're expensive to build, difficult to transport for resupply, and cost the same in support as a starship. I prefer the conventional method, yet as mentioned the starships' A/D/M values are too pitiful, and hit points and firepower remain very basic for a long time. Transportation is also unbalanced: you can build transports early on, but you can never upgrade them to a faster design. It makes the development of "Null Space Catapults" (Airports) much more attractive, but I feel that simply airlifting units around the map can be exploited to the point where it should be considered cheating, though in fairness the computer makes good use of these itself. The tactic is, put an engineer on a transport, establish a forward base city, rush build an airport and start sending in reinforcements preparatory to an invasion. When on the offence it is far more economical just to use ground units, with say one ship and a couple of probes to spot and avoid trouble. Though the units do improve in stats, the early ones don't become obsolete because obsolescence is needed to stop the Borg building them (as if the computer would even contemplate such inferior designs) - and stop non-Borg players building Borg units, and so the computer won't automatically disband and upgrade the earlier units, which makes them easy targets. Some experimentation is called for: either let the computer have free choice, or keep the Borg from researching those technologies.

The Borg play by different standards . They have their own units, which are much more powerful, and defeating them can be problematic. Though it is fairly common to see the odd Borg Cube rampaging around the map, at much faster speeds than your own ships, it is rarer to be invaded, which makes it all so pointless. This is the first time I've seen a "can carry:16" unit, and I'm not sure the computer is using them properly, even though the role is clearly transport. Perhaps a better division between attack and transport ships is needed, or more moderate values. The cost is also way too high (40) considering the AI Borg starts out in an undeveloped state. So they'll attack and withdraw quickly when damaged, and though you might suffer one city losing all of its military units at least you won't lose the city. There is a second events.txt, the "no-win" option, which makes the Borg more potent, but there is a problem in balancing the game difficulty. The computer is not very expansionist, so you can surpass them and go on to winning quite easily once you know what you're doing. Playing on a harder difficulty makes it harder initially, but doesn't alter this tendency, and having a "no-win" events makes the game a choice between assured eventual victory or crushing defeat.

== Art + Originality: 5/10 ==

COMMENTS:

In these scenarios there is usually a tendency towards a Federation bias for units and graphics. While here the people and technology graphics are generic, the Federation are still over-represented in starships (IMO). The Klingons have a nice progression in starships, with types to match federation capabilities at every stage, but the Romulans are treated as poor relations, with no interim types between early and advanced. Though it might be considered impressive to have a big range of different designs, most of the early ones are pretty worthless. The pace of technological development can quickly render one type obsolete, so why bother even building one? Plus, as mentioned above, you can develop other races' designs and build the best types depending on the role you want them to have. I think a better solution would be to restrict each side to no more than 4 warships, this way freeing up extra unit slots and allowing more than 3 of the major races to be used. Hands up all those who'd like to see the Cardassians.

Graphically, the author deserves credit for making his own very neat starship graphics. I say "neat" because although from scanned sources they have been meticulously cleaned up and look very agreeable. No black borders or anything. I'm particularly impressed with the borg units, which elsewhere are usually very dark and hard to distinguish from background space. Here they are quite light for contrast, and work just as well. The rest is a worthy compilation of previously available sources, and some I hadn't seen before. There's nothing terribly original about Star Trek scenarios per se, and a lot of what is here we've seen before. The only innovation for this genre has been a determination to use missiles and scouting air units as a central instrument. As a base, the scenario has great potential to become even better...

[[File:stbaq2_borg.jpg]]

CONCLUDING COMMENTS:

There is room for improvement, with the ships and technologies, and hopefully an attempt to aid the AI. I would like to have seen more than three major races, and with their own specific people graphics to match, and perhaps unique city icons also. The technology icons, though it's nice to have them, have been done before and better by clearly depicting an evolution through the advancing epochs (if epochs are irrelevant, why have them set in the rules.txt?). If not epochs, then why not race specific? Since you start out pre-warp, I felt that Warp drive technology would have been better used in the NP slot, so improving the transports speeds. After all, the author demonstrates a clear understanding of the tech slot associations but does not make full use of them. The sounds are also well done, with clear understanding of unit sound associations. The only criticism is that more could have been done, especially for the Borg, and for use in events. As it is they're perfectly tolerable; just rudimentary and unexciting.

File:Stbaq2 borg.jpg

2011-04-26T21:29:46Z

Cyrion:

File:Stbaq2 ground.jpg

2011-04-26T21:29:21Z

Cyrion:

File:Stbaq2 terrain.jpg

2011-04-26T21:29:06Z

Cyrion:

Star Trek:Battle for Alpha Quadrant (ver 2.0) (Dan Silverwing review)

2011-04-26T21:28:53Z

Cyrion: Created page with "Category:Fictional Category:Reviews Category:Kobayashi Category:Dan Silverwing == Overall Score: 20/30 == OVERVIEW: Ever since Paul Heron made his Star Trek Un..."

[[Category:Fictional]]
[[Category:Reviews]]
[[Category:Kobayashi]]
[[Category:Dan Silverwing]]

== Overall Score: 20/30 ==

OVERVIEW:

Ever since Paul Heron made his Star Trek Universe mod-pack (four years ago!), it set a yardstick standard which Star Trek scenarios have been falling short of ever since. Happily this one is head and shoulders above the norm, with good graphics and good, if imperfect, playability. The tech tree is well done, if imperfect in structure, and overall the atmosphere is well generated. I found it engrossing playing, even as I was trying to critique it.

== Playability: 8/10 ==

COMMENCEMENT:

To firstly set the scene, this scenario is based on a large 75x120 map, the starting positions are evenly spread around, and the planets are individual squares but strung along to create systems. You can typically have four decent cities on the larger clusters. You start at the beginning, with one 'size 3' city and one military unit and must develop from there. Roads and railroads can be built to cover a string, and the planets can be both improved and easily transformed into other types by both irrigating/mining and transforming methods.

[[File:stbaq2_terrain.jpg]]

Although you can choose between three of the major Star Trek races, this is not a classical Birth of the Federation scenario. The presence of the Borg from the start rather determines gameplay, so you don't have the luxury of time to settle space peacefully until your borders meet with a rival's; instead your focus from the start must be on researching military technologies and building military units if you are to stand a chance of winning, developing civil technologies and improvements only on a need to basis.

Starting from scratch there is a lot to do - everything you'd normally do in founding an empire: found cities, defend them, develop new technologies, build improvements and grow huge cities, then go rampaging.

OBJECTIVE:

There are five objective cities which must be captured for a decisive victory, two of which are Borg, and the others the homeworlds of the major races. There is a "story" coded in via the events.txt, which helps focus on the game goal: defeat the Borg.

== Level of General Care: 7/10 ==

COMMENT:

Trading with another race might be a good idea, except that early starships are proportionally slow, representing more primitive propulsion technologies. In fact for the one transport type in the game, you don't even need Warp drive to research it, and the speed does not increase with this. This also affects expansion, especially for the other races who will settle their own systems adequately, and use engineers to improve the planets, but not expand very far beyond this. Although oddly I found that the races which were neutral in expansion settled more than those with +1 expansion attributes. Instead of having large empires of 20+ cities to manage, the computer will be hard pressed to get five by the time you ready to expand, which means you can easily surpass the other races in production and research, and then overwhelm the home systems. Perhaps this is because there is an excess of land masses, suggesting the solution would be to either reduce these to no more than 64 or make the strings of planets longer, allowing more cities to be founded. An excess of 64 land masses may also explain other AI imperfections.

Exploration can be a bit tricky. Probes have a good long range and 2 square visibility, and as air units can be carried on naval ships which aren't cloaked and can deploy torpedos, the best thing is to build probes to explore the immediate environs, and then deploy them on a ship to explore further afield, and reveal much more space than the ship alone could. Once you've played one game and found where everything is though, this challenge is lost. It's a problem inherent in this kind of game: have variable starting positions and you can't predetermine race-specific technologies; have fixed starting positions and you lose that uncertainty. Perhaps the solution to this would be to use the givetechnology event in turn 1.

TECHNOLOGIES:

The race-specific technologies aren't that race-specific. Instead of having technologies to make other units obsolete you have base technologies which are needed to develop more race specific [sic] technologies and wonders. The conceptual idea is that eventually you should have access to the other race's technologies (which can happen quite quickly if you target the necessary prerequisite), but there is no reason why both types can't be incorporated to keep a player's fleet homogenous at least. As it is, you can develop all the other races designs and mix and match to get the best out of them. I was disappointed that the ability to take technologies from captured cities had been removed in the scenario parameters. A good idea considering that Borg technology will destroy you, and it stops the computer doing anything stupid, but bad for you re the others. After all, you can trade for them and steal them, why not conquer them?

The technology tree is relatively "open", i.e. you don't have rigidly defined epochs or tightly intertwined development, and so you can target specific technologies you want to develop and reach them quite quickly. Or concentrate on ground units, and just keep researching those technologies until you have a unit which is so far in excess of the others' that victory is assured, which you then build en masse.

[[File:stbaq2_ground.jpg]]

SUPPORT FILES:

The technologies are claimed to be ST canon, which I can't dispute. For a layman they are barely familiar and so the civilopedia is really needed here to plan things out. If you start over knowing what is what, you can exploit the openness to target specific technologies. In the pedia.txt itself, all the improvements and wonders used have updated texts. For FW you don't benefit from the terrain section, and so I still found it helpful to have the rules.txt open to study terrain attributes. The game and label text files have been updated to create a definite "atmosphere", though a very elementary mistake has been made with the advice.txt: the @@name needs to match the entry in the rules.txt, so we just have the "we should build x" message.

WEAPONS OF WAR:

As you might expect, units are mainly either ground or naval units. There is an impressive diversity of ground units, and the tech tree allows for ever more powerful units to be built. Similarly with the naval units, starting with the most basic, weakest and slowest. Attack and defence strengths are well balanced in relation to other units of the same domain, though not the other. Naval units are quite weak on the attack compared to the defence strength of some ground units, and this warns against direct shore bombardment. A decent ground unit protected by Planetary shields (Costal defences) and Orbital Platforms (City Walls) can ward off most attacks, and the player can play defensively if he wishes. Some early naval units are hardly worth bothering with, and I was disappointed that some generic naval units were better value than race-specific ones.

It is obvious that the designer wants us to use torpedos as the ships offensive weapons, rather than the ship itself, and the good side of this is that you can simply overload one ship with probes and torpedos to go borg hunting, rather than a massive fleet of startships. The downside is that the torpedos can't be reused, they're expensive to build, difficult to transport for resupply, and cost the same in support as a starship. I prefer the conventional method, yet as mentioned the starships' A/D/M values are too pitiful, and hit points and firepower remain very basic for a long time. Transportation is also unbalanced: you can build transports early on, but you can never upgrade them to a faster design. It makes the development of "Null Space Catapults" (Airports) much more attractive, but I feel that simply airlifting units around the map can be exploited to the point where it should be considered cheating, though in fairness the computer makes good use of these itself. The tactic is, put an engineer on a transport, establish a forward base city, rush build an airport and start sending in reinforcements preparatory to an invasion. When on the offence it is far more economical just to use ground units, with say one ship and a couple of probes to spot and avoid trouble. Though the units do improve in stats, the early ones don't become obsolete because obsolescence is needed to stop the Borg building them (as if the computer would even contemplate such inferior designs) - and stop non-Borg players building Borg units, and so the computer won't automatically disband and upgrade the earlier units, which makes them easy targets. Some experimentation is called for: either let the computer have free choice, or keep the Borg from researching those technologies.

The Borg play by different standards . They have their own units, which are much more powerful, and defeating them can be problematic. Though it is fairly common to see the odd Borg Cube rampaging around the map, at much faster speeds than your own ships, it is rarer to be invaded, which makes it all so pointless. This is the first time I've seen a "can carry:16" unit, and I'm not sure the computer is using them properly, even though the role is clearly transport. Perhaps a better division between attack and transport ships is needed, or more moderate values. The cost is also way too high (40) considering the AI Borg starts out in an undeveloped state. So they'll attack and withdraw quickly when damaged, and though you might suffer one city losing all of its military units at least you won't lose the city. There is a second events.txt, the "no-win" option, which makes the Borg more potent, but there is a problem in balancing the game difficulty. The computer is not very expansionist, so you can surpass them and go on to winning quite easily once you know what you're doing. Playing on a harder difficulty makes it harder initially, but doesn't alter this tendency, and having a "no-win" events makes the game a choice between assured eventual victory or crushing defeat.

== Art + Originality: 5/10 ==

COMMENTS:

In these scenarios there is usually a tendency towards a Federation bias for units and graphics. While here the people and technology graphics are generic, the Federation are still over-represented in starships (IMO). The Klingons have a nice progression in starships, with types to match federation capabilities at every stage, but the Romulans are treated as poor relations, with no interim types between early and advanced. Though it might be considered impressive to have a big range of different designs, most of the early ones are pretty worthless. The pace of technological development can quickly render one type obsolete, so why bother even building one? Plus, as mentioned above, you can develop other races' designs and build the best types depending on the role you want them to have. I think a better solution would be to restrict each side to no more than 4 warships, this way freeing up extra unit slots and allowing more than 3 of the major races to be used. Hands up all those who'd like to see the Cardassians.

Graphically, the author deserves credit for making his own very neat starship graphics. I say "neat" because although from scanned sources they have been meticulously cleaned up and look very agreeable. No black borders or anything. I'm particularly impressed with the borg units, which elsewhere are usually very dark and hard to distinguish from background space. Here they are quite light for contrast, and work just as well. The rest is a worthy compilation of previously available sources, and some I hadn't seen before. There's nothing terribly original about Star Trek scenarios per se, and a lot of what is here we've seen before. The only innovation for this genre has been a determination to use missiles and scouting air units as a central instrument. As a base, the scenario has great potential to become even better...

[[Media:stbaq2_borg.jpg]]

CONCLUDING COMMENTS:

There is room for improvement, with the ships and technologies, and hopefully an attempt to aid the AI. I would like to have seen more than three major races, and with their own specific people graphics to match, and perhaps unique city icons also. The technology icons, though it's nice to have them, have been done before and better by clearly depicting an evolution through the advancing epochs (if epochs are irrelevant, why have them set in the rules.txt?). If not epochs, then why not race specific? Since you start out pre-warp, I felt that Warp drive technology would have been better used in the NP slot, so improving the transports speeds. After all, the author demonstrates a clear understanding of the tech slot associations but does not make full use of them. The sounds are also well done, with clear understanding of unit sound associations. The only criticism is that more could have been done, especially for the Borg, and for use in events. As it is they're perfectly tolerable; just rudimentary and unexciting.

Star Trek - Battle for Alpha Quadrant v3.1b

2011-04-26T21:23:14Z

Cyrion:

[[Category:Fictional]]
[[Category:kobayashi]]
[[Category:Civilization II: Multiplayer Gold Edition]]

== Description ==

[[File:BAQTitle.gif]]

It is the 24th Century and different races are just beginning to explore and colonize the vastness of the Final Frontier - Space.

The FEDERATION, which believes in peaceful expansion where possible vie for supremacy with the Romulans and Klingons. The KLINGONS are a warrior race bent on subjugating the quadrant with brute force while the ROMULANS are a secretive race who will resort to any means of expanding their empire. Refer to the file named Index.html to understand the unique characteristics of the scenario. You MUST run the batch file called ChooseRace before you begin.

This scenario lasts for 650 turns but you should be able to achieve the capture of the 5 objective planets in 500 turns with some practice. Only the Federation, Klingons and Romulans are meant for playing. The BORG are not meant for playing and DO NOT attempt to acquire BORG technology - you will regret doing so.

== Discussion ==

Star Trek BAQ was the first Kobayashi Civ2 scenario and originally came out in the late 1990s under a Fantastic Worlds format.

The scenario was noticed by the science fiction niche within the Civ2 gaming community and trigered the association of 'Outer Space' genre with the name Kobayashi. This perhaps had something to do with the fact that Kobayashi placed a picture of himself wearing a Starfleet uniform on the scenario's title screen. (trivia: the Kobayashi Maru was the freighter to be rescued in the No-win simulation test taken by Starfleet cadets in the Star Trek II movie)

In a tradition that was to be followed by Kobayashi more often than not, the scenario had a replayability quality due to the existance of more than one protagonaist tribe with distinct units and characteristics and it attempted where possible to use all dimensions of the Civ2 engine. The research tree was of the quintessential Kobayashi format using a common master branch inter-linked with various race-specific branches. The same tree design was to be found in many of his later scenarios, such as Zweiter Weltkrieg, Star Wars:Insurrection and Star Gate:SG1.

Star Trek BAQ was subsequently upgraded through multiple versions with the last version released in August 2003. More events and units were added. Various changes were made to keep the scenario abreast with new techniques discovered by various Civ2 scenario authors. This also allowed the scenario to keep up with developemnts in the Star Trek universe, up to the release of the Nemesis movie, hence the inclusion of Nerexan WarBird unit for the Romulans. The scenario however contains no references to the TV series 'Enterprise'.

The current version is MGE compatible and includes a HTML guide and the ability to swap in different event files depending on which race was being played. Discontinuous Tech Lineage was introduced in the last version so for example the Klingons would not be able to eventually research the Galaxy class even if they stole the plans for the Excelsior.

== Downloads ==

Version 3.1b files

Files: [[Media:STBAQv3_1.zip]]

Sounds: [[Media:StBAQv3Sound.zip]]

== Reviews ==

[[Star Trek:Battle for Alpha Quadrant (ver 2.0) (Willem van Oranje review)]]

[[Star Trek:Battle for Alpha Quadrant (ver 2.0) (Chris Poulos review)]]

[[Star Trek:Battle for Alpha Quadrant (ver 2.0) (Dan Silverwing review)]]

File:Startrek3.jpg

2011-04-26T21:21:52Z

Cyrion:

File:Startrek2.jpg

2011-04-26T21:21:35Z

Cyrion:

File:Startrek1.jpg

2011-04-26T21:21:19Z

Cyrion:

Star Trek:Battle for Alpha Quadrant (ver 2.0) (Chris Poulos review)

2011-04-26T21:21:05Z

Cyrion: Created page with "Category:Fictional Category:Reviews Category:Kobayashi Category:Chris Poulos == Overall Score: 27/30 == OVERALL: An excellent meshing of the popular Stark Trek..."

[[Category:Fictional]]
[[Category:Reviews]]
[[Category:Kobayashi]]
[[Category:Chris Poulos]]

== Overall Score: 27/30 ==

OVERALL: An excellent meshing of the popular Stark Trek world and civilization.

== Playability: 9/10 ==

LENGTH: This scenario runs a little longer 'turn wise' then in a normal scenario. There are 650 turns, although you will probably finish (or be finished!) by about turn 400-450.

MAP: The map is large but most of it is space (that is ocean). The map gifs are from the Micropose scenario ‘Masters of Orion’, with a difference: The planets are actually islands and space is ocean. There are asteroids and stars that act as resources for your planets (cities). Unexplored areas of space are covered by tiles that say star trek, and it gives a pleasant and easy to view screen to play on.

TRIBES: You can choose any of the three major races (Federation, Klingon, Romulan). Each plays slightly differently. In Version 2.0 there is a detailed events file that puts the game into several chapters, although these have small effect on play, they do provide for special units for the three races if they meet the objective that is spelled out.

FW vs. MGE: There is one problem from a playabilty standpoint. Neither the spies or the diplomatic interface work properly with the multiplayer gold edition, but the author says they do work with Fantastic Worlds. Specifically with MGE you cannot establish embassies, bribe cities (though you can units), or initiate trades for technology, enforce treaties, or ask for tribute. This does not severely affect play, just makes it different. You can have peace, and the AI will speak to you if your ground units are adjacent to its cities and units.

[[File:startrek1.jpg]]

== Level of General Care: 9/10 ==

COMMENT: Overall the map and units work extremely well together. Although the map is large, it is well laid out, with plenty of systems (islands) for expansion for each race. The documentation is quite good, with star trek terms used throughout. The tech tree is in logical projection, each advance has some benefit.

COMMENCEMENT: Each player starts with one planet (city), and can build engineers from the start. Each race start area can support 3-5 planets (cities) before space travel becomes necessary.

TECHNOLOGY: Each race has ship technology specific to its race at start, but after the advance universal translator, you can research the other races' ship technology. You cannot, however, research any Borg technology, or even steal it (The rules file will DESTROY your race if you try). The civilopedia includes all types of units except ion storms. There are 21-30 city names for each main race but you probably won't need to build them all. You can build each ship listed in the ‘pedia except the Borg type ships, and each has it uses, but to have a real chance at winning, you must research better types and tri-cobalt devices (Cruise missiles with short range of 2 squares).

[[File:startrek2.jpg]]

== Art + Originality: 9/10 ==

COMMENTS: This is where this scenario really shines.

Kobayashi did all the ship types himself, and many look like stills from the screen. Cloaked ships are provided for both Klingon and Romulan types, these being submarines (no planet attacks, but carry missiles). Each fleet has five major classes with one unique transport and scout. Star Trek Federation fans can build Constitution, Excelsior, Ambassador, Galaxy, and Sovereign class ships as well as Oberth class science vessels (no light cruisers like Voyager though). The Defiant from Deep Space 9 shows up as a special event. The Klingons and Romulans also have a full range of classes.

All the Wonders have been renamed with new artwork to fit the Star Trek parameters.

The events file is set up to trigger events both with turn numbers and by player action. An example: The first time a Borg cube is destroyed, you get an event that changes terrain on the map and reinforces them! There is also an extra events file to make the game tougher, by allowing the Borg to assimilate (take over) defeated enemy units! That one is really tough to win.

[[File:startrek3.jpg]]

Star Trek - Battle for Alpha Quadrant v3.1b

2011-04-26T21:16:13Z

Cyrion:

[[Category:Fictional]]
[[Category:kobayashi]]
[[Category:Civilization II: Multiplayer Gold Edition]]

== Description ==

[[File:BAQTitle.gif]]

It is the 24th Century and different races are just beginning to explore and colonize the vastness of the Final Frontier - Space.

The FEDERATION, which believes in peaceful expansion where possible vie for supremacy with the Romulans and Klingons. The KLINGONS are a warrior race bent on subjugating the quadrant with brute force while the ROMULANS are a secretive race who will resort to any means of expanding their empire. Refer to the file named Index.html to understand the unique characteristics of the scenario. You MUST run the batch file called ChooseRace before you begin.

This scenario lasts for 650 turns but you should be able to achieve the capture of the 5 objective planets in 500 turns with some practice. Only the Federation, Klingons and Romulans are meant for playing. The BORG are not meant for playing and DO NOT attempt to acquire BORG technology - you will regret doing so.

== Discussion ==

Star Trek BAQ was the first Kobayashi Civ2 scenario and originally came out in the late 1990s under a Fantastic Worlds format.

The scenario was noticed by the science fiction niche within the Civ2 gaming community and trigered the association of 'Outer Space' genre with the name Kobayashi. This perhaps had something to do with the fact that Kobayashi placed a picture of himself wearing a Starfleet uniform on the scenario's title screen. (trivia: the Kobayashi Maru was the freighter to be rescued in the No-win simulation test taken by Starfleet cadets in the Star Trek II movie)

In a tradition that was to be followed by Kobayashi more often than not, the scenario had a replayability quality due to the existance of more than one protagonaist tribe with distinct units and characteristics and it attempted where possible to use all dimensions of the Civ2 engine. The research tree was of the quintessential Kobayashi format using a common master branch inter-linked with various race-specific branches. The same tree design was to be found in many of his later scenarios, such as Zweiter Weltkrieg, Star Wars:Insurrection and Star Gate:SG1.

Star Trek BAQ was subsequently upgraded through multiple versions with the last version released in August 2003. More events and units were added. Various changes were made to keep the scenario abreast with new techniques discovered by various Civ2 scenario authors. This also allowed the scenario to keep up with developemnts in the Star Trek universe, up to the release of the Nemesis movie, hence the inclusion of Nerexan WarBird unit for the Romulans. The scenario however contains no references to the TV series 'Enterprise'.

The current version is MGE compatible and includes a HTML guide and the ability to swap in different event files depending on which race was being played. Discontinuous Tech Lineage was introduced in the last version so for example the Klingons would not be able to eventually research the Galaxy class even if they stole the plans for the Excelsior.

== Downloads ==

Version 3.1b files

Files: [[Media:STBAQv3_1.zip]]

Sounds: [[Media:StBAQv3Sound.zip]]

== Reviews ==

[[Star Trek:Battle for Alpha Quadrant (ver 2.0) (Willem van Oranje review)]]

[[Star Trek:Battle for Alpha Quadrant (ver 2.0) (Chris Poulos review)]]

Scenario Review (ver2.0) by Chris Poulos [2]

Scenario Review (ver 2.0) by Dan Silverwing [3]

Star Trek:Battle for Alpha Quadrant (ver 2.0) (Willem van Oranje review)

2011-04-26T21:14:37Z

Cyrion:

[[Category:Fictional]]
[[Category:Reviews]]
[[Category:Kobayashi]]
[[Category:Willem van Oranje]]

== Overall Score: 27/30 ==

OVERVIEW:

This is one of the first (not the first) Star Trek scenarios I played, and I liked it very much. It contains much of the Star Trek atmosphere, and is just great to play for every Star Trek fanatic.

== Playability: 9/10 ==

COMMENCEMENT:

This is the first scenario kobayashi made, and I must say, he did a much better job than I did in my first scenario. It's a very good building scenario, you start with one size-three city, and you must expand to a multi-system nation, if you want to be able to defend yourself against the all mighty BORG. It has one big difference that changes the game to a real survival: the BORG are planning to take over the entire Quadrant, and that's what makes the game interesting. You know you have inferior technology and weapons, so you'll do just about everything to defend yourself from those evil half-mechanised beings. The AI in my games was, in contrast to the games of another reviewer, very expansive. Especially the Klingons had colonies and outposts everywhere.

I couldn't detect any major or minor faults that disrupted the game. The only thing is that the scenario is called battle for the ALPHA QUADRANT. The Klingons and Romulans are from the Beta Quadrant. But their presence makes the game a lot better, so that doesn't matter.

The atmosphere in the game is as it should be, a real Star Trek atmo' is created by kobayashi. Not only by units or terrains, but by the techs, city improvements and wonders too. Most of the the units are real Star Trek units, but kobayashi tells in his readme.txt where he got the non-Star Trek units from.

The scenario is not entirely balanced, but that's what it is about. All races are equal to each other in power, except for the Borg, who are far more advanced and stronger. But again, that's what it's all about.

[[File:wvo_STBA.gif]]

== Level of General Care: 9/10 ==

COMMENT:

The map is, as far as I can tell, a good reflection of Star Trek reality. But no-one really knows the entire (relevant) Alpha Quadrant, so I think the author guessed sometimes. But that doesn't matter, because there're always small groups of planets, which can represent systems. It wouldn't make a difference if you'd rearrange the entire map, as long as the Borg would stay in place.

The documentation is very good. I think kobayashi got a great deal from several internet-sites and his Star Trek encyclopaedia. Due to this, every information he offers the players is correct. He changed the pedia.txt so it would be updated for his scenario, and a lot of additional information is provided in the readme.txt.

The names of planets were correct, as far as I can tell. Kobayahi has better access to Star Trek information than I do. The only thing is that Nimbus III is a Romulan planet in the scenario, in Star Trek, it's a multicultural planet, and it could for example be a Klingon planet, too.

Further, there is a Cardassian planet added to the Romulans (Chintoka) and several Romulan planets are just Roman cities from the original Civilization II.

The technology tree is well done. I wouldn't make a change to that one. I first thought it'd be better if there would be advances like Transwarp, Interdimensional Travel and Time Travel, but since this scenario only goes to 2362, that would be incorrect to the series and it just wouldn't make sense. The one thing I would change is the possibility to trade the '... Innate' techs. They should be a no, no advance in my opinion, and more advances should be linked to them. That way, the races really get special technologies others can't get, except by trading. The ships in the scenario are well chosen, I think. There are far more Federation ships than others, but that's because there are just far more Federation vessels in the series.

[[File:wvo_STBB.gif]]

== Art + Originality: 9/10 ==

COMMENTS:

The artwork in this scenario is really nice. Most of the units have been created by kobayashi. The ground units (except for the Borg) came from the FW scenarios, just like the planets (not the names). Some people may think that the Borg ships are better in the 'bright' way kobayashi presents them, but I would have preferred the traditional black-coloured vessels.

The events make the scenario really great. I studied them for hours and couldn't keep stopping asking myself: "How does someone come up with this much?" The story of the scenario is told by text messages that appear through events, and they're strongly dependant from the actions you and the other races take in the game. For example: a message will pop up as soon as the Orions have discovered Stellar Cartography, it's not so that it'll appear in the 5th turn every time you play the scenario. I played it three times. The first time, the message came very early, but the second time, it took the Orions ages before they finally discovered Stellar Cartography, I had already wiped out the island of Neutrals near Earth by that time. A important part of the story, are the 'Ion Storm' messages, Ion Storms are detected, and you don't know what they are, until a certain message appears which tells you that the Borg have an effective shield against Ion Storms. The Ion Storms really fly around and hit your ships, very often destroying them. Another thing is that the scenario isn't finished as soon as you have captured Unimatrix 01. A message will appear that the Borg Queen has moved the 'control' to another Unimatrix. So first you make a large scale attack on what you think is the headquarters, but than you realise that the Borg Queen was one step ahead.

The fact that a story is being told makes it just more special, especially for real Star Trek fanatics, like me.

It's very nice if you begin a new era by destroying the first Sphere or Cube.

[[File:wvo_STBC.gif]]

File:Wvo STBC.gif

2011-04-26T21:13:59Z

Cyrion:

File:Wvo STBB.gif

2011-04-26T21:13:42Z

Cyrion:

Star Trek:Battle for Alpha Quadrant (ver 2.0) (Willem van Oranje review)

2011-04-26T21:13:15Z

Cyrion:

[[Category:Fictional]]
[[Category:Reviews]]
[[Category:Kobayashi]]
[[Category:Willem van Oranje]]

== Overall Score: 27/30 ==

OVERVIEW:

This is one of the first (not the first) Star Trek scenarios I played, and I liked it very much. It contains much of the Star Trek atmosphere, and is just great to play for every Star Trek fanatic.

== Playability: 9/10 ==

COMMENCEMENT:

This is the first scenario kobayashi made, and I must say, he did a much better job than I did in my first scenario. It's a very good building scenario, you start with one size-three city, and you must expand to a multi-system nation, if you want to be able to defend yourself against the all mighty BORG. It has one big difference that changes the game to a real survival: the BORG are planning to take over the entire Quadrant, and that's what makes the game interesting. You know you have inferior technology and weapons, so you'll do just about everything to defend yourself from those evil half-mechanised beings. The AI in my games was, in contrast to the games of another reviewer, very expansive. Especially the Klingons had colonies and outposts everywhere.

I couldn't detect any major or minor faults that disrupted the game. The only thing is that the scenario is called battle for the ALPHA QUADRANT. The Klingons and Romulans are from the Beta Quadrant. But their presence makes the game a lot better, so that doesn't matter.

The atmosphere in the game is as it should be, a real Star Trek atmo' is created by kobayashi. Not only by units or terrains, but by the techs, city improvements and wonders too. Most of the the units are real Star Trek units, but kobayashi tells in his readme.txt where he got the non-Star Trek units from.

The scenario is not entirely balanced, but that's what it is about. All races are equal to each other in power, except for the Borg, who are far more advanced and stronger. But again, that's what it's all about.

[[File:wvo_STBA.gif]]

== Level of General Care: 9/10 ==

COMMENT:

The map is, as far as I can tell, a good reflection of Star Trek reality. But no-one really knows the entire (relevant) Alpha Quadrant, so I think the author guessed sometimes. But that doesn't matter, because there're always small groups of planets, which can represent systems. It wouldn't make a difference if you'd rearrange the entire map, as long as the Borg would stay in place.

The documentation is very good. I think kobayashi got a great deal from several internet-sites and his Star Trek encyclopaedia. Due to this, every information he offers the players is correct. He changed the pedia.txt so it would be updated for his scenario, and a lot of additional information is provided in the readme.txt.

The names of planets were correct, as far as I can tell. Kobayahi has better access to Star Trek information than I do. The only thing is that Nimbus III is a Romulan planet in the scenario, in Star Trek, it's a multicultural planet, and it could for example be a Klingon planet, too.

Further, there is a Cardassian planet added to the Romulans (Chintoka) and several Romulan planets are just Roman cities from the original Civilization II.

The technology tree is well done. I wouldn't make a change to that one. I first thought it'd be better if there would be advances like Transwarp, Interdimensional Travel and Time Travel, but since this scenario only goes to 2362, that would be incorrect to the series and it just wouldn't make sense. The one thing I would change is the possibility to trade the '... Innate' techs. They should be a no, no advance in my opinion, and more advances should be linked to them. That way, the races really get special technologies others can't get, except by trading. The ships in the scenario are well chosen, I think. There are far more Federation ships than others, but that's because there are just far more Federation vessels in the series.

[[Media:wvo_STBB.gif]]

== Art + Originality: 9/10 ==

COMMENTS:

The artwork in this scenario is really nice. Most of the units have been created by kobayashi. The ground units (except for the Borg) came from the FW scenarios, just like the planets (not the names). Some people may think that the Borg ships are better in the 'bright' way kobayashi presents them, but I would have preferred the traditional black-coloured vessels.

The events make the scenario really great. I studied them for hours and couldn't keep stopping asking myself: "How does someone come up with this much?" The story of the scenario is told by text messages that appear through events, and they're strongly dependant from the actions you and the other races take in the game. For example: a message will pop up as soon as the Orions have discovered Stellar Cartography, it's not so that it'll appear in the 5th turn every time you play the scenario. I played it three times. The first time, the message came very early, but the second time, it took the Orions ages before they finally discovered Stellar Cartography, I had already wiped out the island of Neutrals near Earth by that time. A important part of the story, are the 'Ion Storm' messages, Ion Storms are detected, and you don't know what they are, until a certain message appears which tells you that the Borg have an effective shield against Ion Storms. The Ion Storms really fly around and hit your ships, very often destroying them. Another thing is that the scenario isn't finished as soon as you have captured Unimatrix 01. A message will appear that the Borg Queen has moved the 'control' to another Unimatrix. So first you make a large scale attack on what you think is the headquarters, but than you realise that the Borg Queen was one step ahead.

The fact that a story is being told makes it just more special, especially for real Star Trek fanatics, like me.

It's very nice if you begin a new era by destroying the first Sphere or Cube.

[[Media:wvo_STBC.gif]]

Star Trek:Battle for Alpha Quadrant (ver 2.0) (Willem van Oranje review)

2011-04-26T21:12:07Z

Cyrion: Created page with "Category:Fictional Category:Reviews Category:Kobayashi Category:Willem van Oranje {| class="wikitable" style="margin: 1em auto 1em auto" |+ '''Review Description'..."

[[Category:Fictional]]
[[Category:Reviews]]
[[Category:Kobayashi]]
[[Category:Willem van Oranje]]
{| class="wikitable" style="margin: 1em auto 1em auto"
|+ '''Review Description'''
! Score || Thumb || Title || Decription || Reviewer || Designer || Map || Timespan
|-
| 22/30 || [[File:2Darthveda_gangwars.gif]] || Gangwars || Run a major gang in SimCity-ish Civille, and fight the population, other gangs, the mob, and the Police. Can you take control of the city? || [[Peaster]] || [[DarthVeda]] || Medium || 400 turns; probably 15-20 gaming hours.
|}

== Overall Score: 27/30 ==

OVERVIEW:

This is one of the first (not the first) Star Trek scenarios I played, and I liked it very much. It contains much of the Star Trek atmosphere, and is just great to play for every Star Trek fanatic.

== Playability: 9/10 ==

COMMENCEMENT:

This is the first scenario kobayashi made, and I must say, he did a much better job than I did in my first scenario. It's a very good building scenario, you start with one size-three city, and you must expand to a multi-system nation, if you want to be able to defend yourself against the all mighty BORG. It has one big difference that changes the game to a real survival: the BORG are planning to take over the entire Quadrant, and that's what makes the game interesting. You know you have inferior technology and weapons, so you'll do just about everything to defend yourself from those evil half-mechanised beings. The AI in my games was, in contrast to the games of another reviewer, very expansive. Especially the Klingons had colonies and outposts everywhere.

I couldn't detect any major or minor faults that disrupted the game. The only thing is that the scenario is called battle for the ALPHA QUADRANT. The Klingons and Romulans are from the Beta Quadrant. But their presence makes the game a lot better, so that doesn't matter.

The atmosphere in the game is as it should be, a real Star Trek atmo' is created by kobayashi. Not only by units or terrains, but by the techs, city improvements and wonders too. Most of the the units are real Star Trek units, but kobayashi tells in his readme.txt where he got the non-Star Trek units from.

The scenario is not entirely balanced, but that's what it is about. All races are equal to each other in power, except for the Borg, who are far more advanced and stronger. But again, that's what it's all about.

[[Media:wvo_STBA.gif]]

== Level of General Care: 9/10 ==

COMMENT:

The map is, as far as I can tell, a good reflection of Star Trek reality. But no-one really knows the entire (relevant) Alpha Quadrant, so I think the author guessed sometimes. But that doesn't matter, because there're always small groups of planets, which can represent systems. It wouldn't make a difference if you'd rearrange the entire map, as long as the Borg would stay in place.

The documentation is very good. I think kobayashi got a great deal from several internet-sites and his Star Trek encyclopaedia. Due to this, every information he offers the players is correct. He changed the pedia.txt so it would be updated for his scenario, and a lot of additional information is provided in the readme.txt.

The names of planets were correct, as far as I can tell. Kobayahi has better access to Star Trek information than I do. The only thing is that Nimbus III is a Romulan planet in the scenario, in Star Trek, it's a multicultural planet, and it could for example be a Klingon planet, too.

Further, there is a Cardassian planet added to the Romulans (Chintoka) and several Romulan planets are just Roman cities from the original Civilization II.

The technology tree is well done. I wouldn't make a change to that one. I first thought it'd be better if there would be advances like Transwarp, Interdimensional Travel and Time Travel, but since this scenario only goes to 2362, that would be incorrect to the series and it just wouldn't make sense. The one thing I would change is the possibility to trade the '... Innate' techs. They should be a no, no advance in my opinion, and more advances should be linked to them. That way, the races really get special technologies others can't get, except by trading. The ships in the scenario are well chosen, I think. There are far more Federation ships than others, but that's because there are just far more Federation vessels in the series.

[[Media:wvo_STBB.gif]]

== Art + Originality: 9/10 ==

COMMENTS:

The artwork in this scenario is really nice. Most of the units have been created by kobayashi. The ground units (except for the Borg) came from the FW scenarios, just like the planets (not the names). Some people may think that the Borg ships are better in the 'bright' way kobayashi presents them, but I would have preferred the traditional black-coloured vessels.

The events make the scenario really great. I studied them for hours and couldn't keep stopping asking myself: "How does someone come up with this much?" The story of the scenario is told by text messages that appear through events, and they're strongly dependant from the actions you and the other races take in the game. For example: a message will pop up as soon as the Orions have discovered Stellar Cartography, it's not so that it'll appear in the 5th turn every time you play the scenario. I played it three times. The first time, the message came very early, but the second time, it took the Orions ages before they finally discovered Stellar Cartography, I had already wiped out the island of Neutrals near Earth by that time. A important part of the story, are the 'Ion Storm' messages, Ion Storms are detected, and you don't know what they are, until a certain message appears which tells you that the Borg have an effective shield against Ion Storms. The Ion Storms really fly around and hit your ships, very often destroying them. Another thing is that the scenario isn't finished as soon as you have captured Unimatrix 01. A message will appear that the Borg Queen has moved the 'control' to another Unimatrix. So first you make a large scale attack on what you think is the headquarters, but than you realise that the Borg Queen was one step ahead.

The fact that a story is being told makes it just more special, especially for real Star Trek fanatics, like me.

It's very nice if you begin a new era by destroying the first Sphere or Cube.

[[Media:wvo_STBC.gif]]

Star Trek - Battle for Alpha Quadrant v3.1b

2011-04-26T21:11:22Z

Cyrion: /* Reviews */

[[Category:Fictional]]
[[Category:kobayashi]]
[[Category:Civilization II: Multiplayer Gold Edition]]

== Description ==

[[File:BAQTitle.gif]]

It is the 24th Century and different races are just beginning to explore and colonize the vastness of the Final Frontier - Space.

The FEDERATION, which believes in peaceful expansion where possible vie for supremacy with the Romulans and Klingons. The KLINGONS are a warrior race bent on subjugating the quadrant with brute force while the ROMULANS are a secretive race who will resort to any means of expanding their empire. Refer to the file named Index.html to understand the unique characteristics of the scenario. You MUST run the batch file called ChooseRace before you begin.

This scenario lasts for 650 turns but you should be able to achieve the capture of the 5 objective planets in 500 turns with some practice. Only the Federation, Klingons and Romulans are meant for playing. The BORG are not meant for playing and DO NOT attempt to acquire BORG technology - you will regret doing so.

== Discussion ==

Star Trek BAQ was the first Kobayashi Civ2 scenario and originally came out in the late 1990s under a Fantastic Worlds format.

The scenario was noticed by the science fiction niche within the Civ2 gaming community and trigered the association of 'Outer Space' genre with the name Kobayashi. This perhaps had something to do with the fact that Kobayashi placed a picture of himself wearing a Starfleet uniform on the scenario's title screen. (trivia: the Kobayashi Maru was the freighter to be rescued in the No-win simulation test taken by Starfleet cadets in the Star Trek II movie)

In a tradition that was to be followed by Kobayashi more often than not, the scenario had a replayability quality due to the existance of more than one protagonaist tribe with distinct units and characteristics and it attempted where possible to use all dimensions of the Civ2 engine. The research tree was of the quintessential Kobayashi format using a common master branch inter-linked with various race-specific branches. The same tree design was to be found in many of his later scenarios, such as Zweiter Weltkrieg, Star Wars:Insurrection and Star Gate:SG1.

Star Trek BAQ was subsequently upgraded through multiple versions with the last version released in August 2003. More events and units were added. Various changes were made to keep the scenario abreast with new techniques discovered by various Civ2 scenario authors. This also allowed the scenario to keep up with developemnts in the Star Trek universe, up to the release of the Nemesis movie, hence the inclusion of Nerexan WarBird unit for the Romulans. The scenario however contains no references to the TV series 'Enterprise'.

The current version is MGE compatible and includes a HTML guide and the ability to swap in different event files depending on which race was being played. Discontinuous Tech Lineage was introduced in the last version so for example the Klingons would not be able to eventually research the Galaxy class even if they stole the plans for the Excelsior.

== Downloads ==

Version 3.1b files

Files: [[Media:STBAQv3_1.zip]]

Sounds: [[Media:StBAQv3Sound.zip]]

== Reviews ==

[[Star Trek:Battle for Alpha Quadrant (ver 2.0) (Willem van Oranje review)]]

Scenario Review (ver 2.0) by William van Oranje [1]

Scenario Review (ver2.0) by Chris Poulos [2]

Scenario Review (ver 2.0) by Dan Silverwing [3]

Category:Reviews

2011-04-26T21:07:11Z

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File:Wvo STBA.gif

2011-04-26T21:05:50Z

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Category:Reviews

2011-04-26T21:05:25Z

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Mongols ToT v3.1a

2011-04-26T20:55:29Z

Cyrion:

[[Category:Harlan Thompson]]
[[Category:Middle Ages]]
[[Category:Civilization II: Test of Time]]
[[File:MongolTitle.gif]]

== Description ==

"I am the scourge of God. Heaven had delivered you into my hands that I may punish you for your sins, for you have sinned greatly."

Genghis Khan, spoken from the pulpit of a large mosque in the town of Bukhara, just before ordering his troops to level the town and kill most of its citizens.

In 1211 Genghis Khan and his Mongol horde swept down from the steppes of Mongolia onto the pages of history. In less than a century the Mongols went from being a collection of small tribes to becoming the masters of the largest land empire in the history of the world. This was truly an amazing feat, and you will need great skill and luck to duplicate it.

== Downloads ==

[[Media:MongolsToT.ZIP| Scenario Files]]

[[Media:MongolsToTSound.ZIP.zip| Sound Files]]

File:MongolsToTSound.ZIP.zip

2011-04-26T20:49:32Z

Cyrion:

File:MongolsToT.ZIP

2011-04-26T20:39:15Z

Cyrion:

File:MongolTitle.gif

2011-04-26T20:38:31Z

Cyrion:

Mongols ToT v3.1a

2011-04-26T20:38:15Z

Cyrion:

Mongols ToT v3.1a

2011-04-26T20:37:27Z

Cyrion:

[[Category:Harlan Thompson]]
[[Category:Middle Ages]]
[[Category:Civilization II: Test of Time]]
[[File:MongolTitle.gif]]

'''A scenario for [[Civilization II: Fantastic Worlds]] by [[Harlan Thompson]].'''

== Description ==

"I am the scourge of God. Heaven had delivered you into my hands that I may punish you for your sins, for you have sinned greatly."

Genghis Khan, spoken from the pulpit of a large mosque in the town of Bukhara, just before ordering his troops to level the town and kill most of its citizens.

In 1211 Genghis Khan and his Mongol horde swept down from the steppes of Mongolia onto the pages of history. In less than a century the Mongols went from being a collection of small tribes to becoming the masters of the largest land empire in the history of the world. This was truly an amazing feat, and you will need great skill and luck to duplicate it.

== Downloads ==

[[Media:MongolsToT.ZIP| Scenario Files]]
[[Media:MongolsToTSound.ZIP.zip| Sound Files]]

Mongols ToT v3.1a

2011-04-26T20:36:29Z

Cyrion: Created page with "Category:Harlan Thompson Category:Middle Ages Category:Civilization II: Fantastic Worlds File:MongolTitle.gif '''A scenario for [[Civilization II: Fantastic Worl..."

[[Category:Harlan Thompson]]
[[Category:Middle Ages]]
[[Category:Civilization II: Fantastic Worlds]]
[[File:MongolTitle.gif]]

'''A scenario for [[Civilization II: Fantastic Worlds]] by [[Harlan Thompson]].'''

== Description ==

"I am the scourge of God. Heaven had delivered you into my hands that I may punish you for your sins, for you have sinned greatly."

Genghis Khan, spoken from the pulpit of a large mosque in the town of Bukhara, just before ordering his troops to level the town and kill most of its citizens.

In 1211 Genghis Khan and his Mongol horde swept down from the steppes of Mongolia onto the pages of history. In less than a century the Mongols went from being a collection of small tribes to becoming the masters of the largest land empire in the history of the world. This was truly an amazing feat, and you will need great skill and luck to duplicate it.

== Downloads ==

[[Media:MongolsToT.ZIP| Scenario Files]]
[[Media:MongolsToTSound.ZIP.zip| Sound Files]]

File:Eivind iv's medium aevum 1.2b.zip

2011-04-24T06:26:48Z

Cyrion:

File:Mediumscreen2.GIF

2011-04-24T06:25:53Z

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File:Mediumscreen1.GIF

2011-04-24T06:25:36Z

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File:Mediumunits.GIF

2011-04-24T06:25:19Z

Cyrion:

Medium Aevum v1.2b

2011-04-24T06:24:49Z

Cyrion: /* Description */

[[Category:Eivind IV]]
[[Category:Middle Ages]]
[[Category:Civilization II: Fantastic Worlds]]
[[File:Title-medium.GIF]]

== Description ==

100 turns of pure feudalism (4 years per turn)!

Civs:

•1. French

•2. Anglo-Normans

•3. Holy Roman Empire

•4. Spanish

•5. Polish

•6. Hungarian

NB! Saracens are NOT playable!

Historical context

By the close of the eleventh century, Jerusalem had been in Muslim hands for over four hundred years. In 1095 Pope Urban II launched an unprecedented military campaign to seize it back – a ‘Crusade’ to purge the Holy Land of ‘the infidel’. Over sixty thousand Christian warriors would journey three thousand miles and for almost three years to reclaim the Holy City in the name of God.

But their adversaries, the Turkish warlords of the Middle East, would resist them every step of the way. In a series of epic battles and bloody massacres, tens of thousands would die as the crusaders inched ever closer towards Jerusalem. The first crusade finally endeded in 1099 - with many more to come!

The shadow of war between Christians and Muslims hang over us today, but it is a war that began nearly a thousand years ago. This clash of civilisations, were what characterised the Middle Ages (Medium Ævum).

== Readme ==

•You start off as commander of either of the large Christian kingdoms in Europe, just after Jerusalem is secured in 1099. France starts with control over 3 Holy Land cities, as do the Anglo-Normans. The Spanish civ is a collection of the Iberian kingdoms into one, for obvious game play reasons. They will have a hard enough time as it is to repell any further Moorish incursions into their land. If the Spanish is AI controlled, the Moors may even break through into France, if the Reconquista fails...

•I chose to have the rather unorthodox civ's of Poland and Hungary in this scenario, rather than the usual Byzantine Empire or the Kievan Rus'. This as Poland and Hungary has a historic future, whereas the Byzantines are supposed to be pounded by the Turks anyway and the Kievan Rus' are supposed to succomb to the Mongols, which I can not recreate here due to lack of civ's. But do not think that a campaign in Slavonic territory will be a walk in the park. You will soon see that they are hard nuts to crack. Eventually the Mongols will also take it's toll on Europe's frontier. Also I included these civ's to balance out the obvious territorial advantage of the Holy Roman Empire.

•The Holy Land in general has several major objective cities, as this is were all the happiness wonders are located, together with other crucial wonders, originally intended for the Saracens, but which can be captured if you're a very good player. Both the Saracens and the Warriors are designed with goto events and kill unit events, to really make them a worthy adversary. If you neglect sending reinforcements to the Holy Land right off the bat, I will be surprised if you manage to hold the ground. I've designed the Saracens to really kick back if you try to invade more of their territory. You might find the Moors taking advantage of the power vacuum left in the Middle East if you manage to gain ground there, and vica verca...so take precautions before declaring any hasty crusades! I've also armed the Saracens with the Great Library wonder, so that they will always be on top of any breakthroughs made in Europe.

•Every 10th turn, all the Christian civ's will get a Crusader spawned next to Rome. Assemble these onto transporters and send them towards Saracen cities once you are strong enough. Feel free to send native wordly units to back up the holy crusaders. Several other hero units are spawned on random turns, both for you to enjoy and to curse. Negative events, such as the Inqusition, will happen twice in the course of the scenario for every civ. And once in the course of the game, even the population pollution generating tech of Automobile will be given to each civ, opening for the possebility of the Plague occuring.

•I have used Tundra and Glacier for Grassland and Plains, to avoid that the AI builds cities. These terrains obviously has the same values as the orginals, but here Grassland has resources, which is important for city growth and development. Take note of special terrain such as Trade Route and Monastery. They transform cities into imporant trade centres for your merchants or centres of growth and production for you citizens. These terrains have been deliberately placed near historic medieval trade routes and important real life medieval monasteries of various religious orders.

•The combat stats are based on John Ellis' Hundred Years' War, so if you are familiar with that scenario, you may find some similarities in regards to unit stats. Those combat stats are top notch, so I saw no reason to reinvent the wheel in that area.

•Since this is a scenario spanning over ca. 400 years (100 turns), the fraction leader at the start is not neccessarily the one that ruled in 1099, but the most famous king in that time period.

•If you have any questions or comments, feel free to PM me at Apolyton, or post them at the Apolyton thread: http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=173775

•Thank you for playing my scenario and good luck! :-)

== House Rules ==

•No use of Crusaders against Christians, only versus the Saracens

•No building of Fortresses in adjecent to cities

•No map trading

•No building of cities (recreating razed ones allowed)

•No 'shipping' of castles/citadels

Papacy rules (MP games only):

•01. Each Christian civ has one Cardinal each. This collegium of Cardinal's must assemble to elect a new Pope every 10th turn (40th year). The Pope will be one of the players and this player may declare crusades against specific cities and excommunications on King's as he sees fit.

•02. Failure of civ's to join in a Crusade may result in excommunication at the discretion of the Pope. Excommunication in practice will mean that the civ in question will be embargoed and open for war declarations without fear of another excommunication.

•03. After the Holy Crusade is declared by the Pope, no civ exept Poland may ship their unit to the destination. On the third turn the other civ's may ship units from their ports. This will allow the peripheral civ of Poland to participate in crusades as well.

•04. The Pope may only declare one crusade during his reign and once the Crusade is succesful, it is always the Pope that originally called the crusade that will get the VPs.

•05. The Pope should defend his holy duty by seeing to it that Christian brothers do not fight agressive wars against each other and excommunicate King's who exercise exessive agressive warfare.

•06. An excommunication may be lifted by the Pope at any time, either by leniancy or by bribery. An excommunication may also be lifted if the excommunicated King captures Rome. If Rome is ever captured the conqueror may 'elect' a new Pope, his own Cardinal if he so wishes, and lift whatever excommunication that rested on the King's head. This Pope then sits the next 10 years as rule 1 describes. If someone who is not excommunicated captures Rome, he may still 'elect' a new Pope under the same circumstances.

•07. During crusades, civ's should enter alliances to enable other Christian civ's to ignore ZOC's.

•08. The owner of Jerusalem has two Cardinals.

•09. Cardinals may not vote on it's own civ for Pope.

•10. If the vote for a new Pope ends in a tie, then the civ that rules Rome will have a double vote.

Victory Points (MP games only):

•I. +6 VPs for capturing the city that the Pope called a crusade on. The papal civ get +3 VPs once this city is captured, but can not participate in the actual crusade. So the advantage for the Pope to call crusades, is that his civ will get +3 VPs when the others capture it. Crusade VPs will not be lost if the Saracens recapture it.

•II. +4 VPs for every Holy City captured (the cities that France and the Anglo-Normans hold at start) and Saracen cities of the size of 8 and above.

•III. +4 VPs for capturing Rome, Constantinople and Kiev (VPs lost again upon enemy recapture).

•IV. +2 VPs for capturing any city with a Wonder (VPs lost again upon enemy recapture). These VPs comes on top if these cities are §III-cities, effectively making them +6 VP-cities.

•V. +2 VPs for every Saracen city captured (VPs lost again upon Saracen recapture).

•VI. +2 VPs for every tech discovered (0 VPs for tech's received on conquest).

•VII. +1 VP for every trade route established.

•VIII. +1 VP for every enemy human city captured (VPs lost again upon enemy recapture).

•IX. -1 VP for every turn you are excommunicated.

•X. -1 VP for losing a city to the Saracens (VP NOT won back on recapture).

== Screenshots ==

[[File:Mediumunits.GIF]]

[[File:Mediumscreen1.GIF]]

[[File:Mediumscreen2.GIF]]

== Downloads ==

[[Media:Eivind_iv's_medium_aevum_1.2b.zip| Scenario Files]] version 1.2b