Marathon scenario

[Rodia]

Hello.

I'm looking for the author of Marathon scenario.

Does Mr. A. Rinkleff use this board?

I know his email is in Rugged defense but the scenario is a bit old and well, I'd prefer to send him a PM.

(I need permission to use the eqp file) <- here it goes, no more need of PM.

[Rodia]

Sorry to answer myself but..., I got the permission, yay! (Thanks a lot).

Any advice for TOAPW - the Peloponnesian War in TOAW?

I have Thucydides! [:D]


Edit:

[Telumar]

I like the look of the Icons. So this is not Marathon/Persian Wars, but Athen vs Sparta.

Now, what about the technical details? How have you modded the equipment to model Hoplites/the Phalanx, Cavalry, Archers etc pp. Shipping? Turn lengths?

[Rodia]

Thanks for your kind words, Telumar.

Indeed, the counters right now are the best thing. [;)]

1) In order to cover 431 BC - 404 BC i'm going for 1 Toaw week = 1 month.

Unfortunately is this or stopping at 410 BC because the 1000 turn limit.

2) I'm using a 15 Km/hex map, converted from the "Epic of the Peloponnesian War" boardgame. In the editor is declared as a 50 Km/hex map to stress supply lines and make all troops slower... Maybe too slow - I'm still experimenting with that.

3) About Equipment: There are hoplites, triremes, peltasts, archers, cavalry, swordmen & spearmen for the persian, generals and kings.

Hoplites are 9 Attack, 18 Defense ATM, with everything having less punch and way less defence (but more movement). IE: Peltasts are 4 - 4.

Strategoi and kings have supply, mp and engineer properties and they are attached to normal hoplite units, but as equipment they do not reinforce - I have yet to beta test that in the long run.

4) Ships! Right now the more daunting task is the sea.

If it was for Peloponnesian Elmer I would release the map in one week (he plays great) but Elmer Pericles is not working at all.

About the ships, I want to make them deadly to other ships but inmune to land troops and inofensive for them (besides their antishipping properties). They also do supply.

5) There are some cool events already. The Olympic truces, Alcibiades defection, Argos neutrality, Mytilene revolt...

I'm using nuclear attacks (!) for the plague in Athens of 430 - 429 and 427. I'd much prefer to use pestilence or chemicals instead, but I don't see how to do that for a single hex.

6) New sounds!

7) And a total lack of Sicily (for now).


I'm going for historicity all the way, but not forcing it (ie, there's no event to kill Pericles at 429 and plague events are somewhat random).

If you guys have any advice or any "don't do that, fool!" I'm all eyes and ears.


Sorry for the wall of text, I've been working alone on this for to much time

[Rodia]

Added Sicily and Magna Graecia to the map:



Some questions if you don't mind:

- Reentry points are at Sparta and Athens, but that makes ship reinforcements to appear on the map corners. Besides moving the reentry points to a port is there anyway around this?

EDIT: Found this.

- I've made groups of ships only, but PO for these groups doesn't follow orders (at all). Do ships have to be attached to land units for PO to move them?

- I've read there's no Theatre Options in PBEM. Is that still true?

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: Rodia

- I've made groups of ships only, but PO for these groups doesn't follow orders (at all). Do ships have to be attached to land units for PO to move them?

- I've read there's no Theatre Options in PBEM. Is that still true?

Great job on the counters, by the way.

The formation's PO objectives need to be enemy owned in order to get it to take action. So, if you've put them in deep water hexes, and those hexes are friendly owned (hard to tell for deep water) then the PO won't do much. Better to put them on land - even for naval formations. See if that's the issue.

No truth to the TO thing. Where did that come from?

[Rodia]

Thanks, Mr. Cross. [:)]

About TO in PBEM, my fault: i'ts the Programmed Opponent the one who does not use it. I got this mixed after reading 10+ years of TOAW info in one month.

And thanks for naval PO advice, that makes a lot of sense.

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: Rodia

About TO in PBEM, my fault: i'ts the Programmed Opponent the one who does not use it. I got this mixed after reading 10+ years of TOAW info in one month.

Ah, yes. That is true that it does not do so on its own initiative. However, you can program the PO to use them, if you wish. You use the PO1 Activate or PO2 Activate effects.

[Rodia]

That's perfect, thanks again.

The TO could be used to simulate the ancient Athens assembly - just fantasizing ATM, there's a lot of scenario basics still to be done.

BTW, I should state that I worked in the counters but of course the art is not mine (I wish).

The graphics are from a dingbat Truetype Font. In the scenario doc there will be full credits.

[secadegas]

Please note that while trying ancient wars you're on the very (very) limit of TOAW engine.
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Use it at your own risk but please to not complain if some details don't match.
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[Rodia]

Yeah, I noted that. I'm nuking Pericles, after all. [:D]

But TOAW has been used for ancient battles scenarios before, and what I want to do is an ancient war at operational level.

So hopefully I'm not deviating that much and this thing will work.

[Creeper]

ORIGINAL: Rodia

1) In order to cover 431 BC - 404 BC i'm going for 1 Toaw week = 1 month.

Unfortunately is this or stopping at 410 BC because the 1000 turn limit.

Hi Rodia,

if you are familiar with a hexeditor, I can tell you how to increase the 1000 turn limit.
Give me a PM.

btw, really good looking counters; i love it! [:)]

[Rodia]

Thanks Creeper, and thank you for your offer.

I'm gonna keep 1 week = 1 month, at least for first version. That means 333 turns.

But I have a question about that:

I made a "6 turns warm front / 6 turns cold front" cycle to represent summer - winter. In the map there's two weather zones (warm & hot).

Are warm - cold fronts enough to simulate summer - winter? Or should I add negative shock for both forces in winter and/or random storms?

[SMK-at-work]

There were a lot of "random events" in the PW - especially cities of the Delian league revolting against Athenian "rule". As a result there were a lot of armies raised in response to events - they might be 1000 hoplites, 100 cavalry, some light troops, and then maybe 2-3 times that of allies.

Not sure how you will cope with that.

Also the raising of troops was strictly for cash - so tribute coming in from the Delian League and taxation and the silver mines in various places financed Athenian efforts. And eventually of course Persian Gold financed Spartan victory.

Supply outside of winter was mainly by local purchase - although forces with limited local resources - such as on small islands or in a siege situation would sometimes need resupply.

Athens itself of course was fed by gain from the Black Sea - and it was the cutting of this route that secured its defeat.

The Greek campaigning year was normally 10 months.

A great book for how Greek armies operated is "Campaigns of Alexander the Great" by Phil Barker - it is old (1979) so may be hard to get - but contains a lot of summarised info as to the wealth and strength of various cities 100 years after the start of the PW - which isn't really that long

Good luck!

[Rodia]

Hello, SMK-at-work!

Indeed, I've been thinking a lot about the way to do revolts: Mytilene (428), Corcyra (427), Chios, Miletus (412).

Against the PO they work atm, but a PBEM player could easily block them and that's a big no.

I have to rethink my approach and convert the fixed events into something more flexible (anyways, keep in mind that without Peloponnesian support, all these revolts where doomed to fail - but yeah, I have a problem here).

About the 10 month campaigning: besides 6 turns warm front / 6 turns cool front, after some weather tests I have to do a winter mini cycle (dec, jan. and feb.) with negative shock.

Are "front effects" cumulative?

I wonder if something like this will work:

October - Cool Front
December - Cool Front
May - Warm Front
June - Warm Front

ORIGINAL: SMK-at-work
Good luck!

Thanks!

[Rodia]

Weather loops, why they do not work for me?

For example this one:

Event 38: Turn 7, Cool Front, "FALL"
Event 39: Ev. activated 38, Enable event 38, Delay 12

(Range 1 in both).

Event 38 fires again in turn 19 (good) and then in turn 32 - instead of turn 31.

Is there a limit to the number of event loops the engine can handle?

I'm using 36 of them to simulate the seasons (cool/warm fronts, shock, pestilence, and supply+/supply-).

Without loops that would mean 972 events.

What I'm doing wrong?

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: Rodia

Weather loops, why they do not work for me?

For example this one:

Event 38: Turn 7, Cool Front, "FALL"
Event 39: Ev. activated 38, Enable event 38, Delay 12

(Range 1 in both).

Event 38 fires again in turn 19 (good) and then in turn 32 - instead of turn 31.

Is there a limit to the number of event loops the engine can handle?

I'm using 36 of them to simulate the seasons (cool/warm fronts, shock, pestilence, and supply+/supply-).

Without loops that would mean 972 events.

What I'm doing wrong?

Events are tricky, so you never really know if something really involved will work till you try it. But I would suggest trying this change:

Event 38: Turn 7, Cool Front, "FALL"
Event 39: Turn 7, Enable event 38, Delay 12

Be aware that each front only shifts the temperature by one level, and there are eight levels. So a full cycle through all would require 7 cold and 7 warm fronts.

[Rodia]

But in your example, correct me if I'm wrong, event 39 will not get fired again, and there would be only "FALL" in turn 7 and 19.

Or maybe in each turn after that?

Yes, you're right: this thing is tricky and I have to try. I just wanted to know if I was doing something obviously wrong.

I will do more tests and check your suggestion.

Yup, fronts: Besides other effects I'm going for Warm in summer to I think is Frozen1 in winter and back, for a very nice effect of snow in mountains, but after the first looped year this whole thing collapses and it goes a mess.

Oh, and the problem it's not the jump from Warm to Frozen3, I'm aware of that. It's just looped events firing late.

Tests, here I come.

Thanks again for answering, Curtis.

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: Rodia

But in your example, correct me if I'm wrong, event 39 will not get fired again, and there would be only "FALL" in turn 7 and 19.

Or maybe in each turn after that?

More likely the latter, but I'm not sure. I know that if you omit the Delay 12, it would fire every turn after turn 7. Turn-triggered Enable events don't have to be re-enabled themselves. But I don't know how the Delay 12 will affect it. You'll just have to test.

[Rodia]

Hmmm, with turn as trigger there's no delay.

The magic is this "Delayed repeating loop" as it's shown here:

http://thetoawbeachhead.files.wordpress ... aw-3-4.pdf

I've had good consistent results with loops with only two of them, so now I'm thinking the problem is the 36 I'm using.

I'm gonna try a more economic approach, with EDIT: [s]only 4 loops[/s] no loops at all.


After some tests I can't trust Evil Ed, I'm gonna go event by event.

4 seasons in a year, 26 and 3/4 years to cover, thats 107 seasons. With only cool/warm fronts and shock effects, for a total of 4 events by season = 428 events.

Adding pestilence and supply +/- between winter and spring = 590 events.

Does TOAW 3.5 expand over the 999 events limit? [:D]