Dear veterans, which of the Imperia were particularly fun or memorable? You might get some shadow reports in return.

Result:

Score: 1 (I didn't particularly try to maximize the score, but just recorded it anyway.)
Lost in the 2375 election.

I'm not even mad, this was one of the strangest games I played. Also, there were some weedy moves on my part.

Spring 1695



It was a beautiful spring day when Pocahontas took the stage before the City Hall of New Bath. Behind her, the rest of the Continental Congress filed in, with only a few notable by their absences: Magellan, Minuit, Cortes, Brebeuf, Sepulveda. Magellan was far away, his ship exploring the newly-discovered western island of the Sioux; the others had reasons of their own.

The native princess, her long hair falling silver to her waist, held up her hands for attention. The crowd, a mix of colonists and soldiers, of Natives and Europeans, fell slowly into silence. Only when the last voice had stilled did she raise her head and speak.

"My friends," she said, "for many years we have suffered the indignities Her Majesty saw fit to inflict upon us. We have seen our taxes rise and fall according to her whim, enforced by boycotts which even Congressman Fugger's best efforts could not wholly end. We have seen her wars with the Netherlands spread to our own shores, until we had no choice but to take their colonies by force. We have seen her stand idly by as the French expanded across this land, absorbing the Spanish with nary a quibble. And we have seen her offer military aid - at ruinous prices - with one hand, while raising up an army to crush us with the other.

"This cannot stand."

Pocahontas half-turned, and voices buzzed the crowd as noted revolutionary Thomas Jefferson stepped forward. He handed a roll of parchment to the princess, then retreated as she unfurled it. The crowd waited with bated breath for her words.

"'This Day, the Continental Congress has passed the most important Resolution, that ever was taken in America.

"'I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will triumph in that Day's Transaction, even though We should rue it, which I trust in God We will not.'"

Pocahontas lowered the scroll, and her eyes seemed to gaze straight into the soul of each person gathered before her.

"This very morning, the Continental Congress has voted to declare the Confederation of West Wessex independent from the Kingdom of England. It is our solemn hope that Elizabeth will see her way fit to allowing us to part in peace, and Congressman Franklin," the man in question nodded from behind her, "will depart ere nightfall to negotiate it; yet we fear that she will see only a rebellion which must be crushed. Having been elected President by the Continental Congress, I-"

A ripple ran through the crowd, spreading out in waves from the stage. Voices murmured, rose into debates, then broke into shouts and exclamations. A chant went up, starting among the Native colonists but quickly spreading across the entire assembly: "Mother-of-us-All. Mother-of-us-All!"

President Pocahontas could do nothing but wait, as the people's acclamation swirled around her; and if some stayed silent, glowering, what of it? Natives and Europeans had mingled together for many years in West Wessex, and the prejudices of a few Europeans weren't going to change that.

Finally, the crowd returned to order, and Pocahontas stood forth once more. "As your President," she said, "I have pledged to defend your lands, your cities, your nation. Admiral Drake!" A cheer went up as the famed pirate stepped forward. "Colonel Revere!" A second cheer, louder this time. "General Washington!" The loudest of all, a wall of sound that battered the stage. "Are you prepared to take up arms against the Royal Expeditionary Force, to halt Elizabeth's army in its tracks, and to secure the liberty of this, our new nation?"

George Washington spoke for all three. "Madame President - Your Highness - Mother-of-us-All -" Each title punctuated with a bow and a small smile. "- for the Confederation of West Wessex, my soldiers and I would fight the very Devil himself, and raise our banners about the ramparts of Hell."

The crowd erupted, every man and woman leaping to their feet to cheer the Conqueror of New Holland and his men. Washington took his place at Pocahontas' side, waving to the people as the rest of the Congress came forward. From a dozen places in the crowd a song rose, haphazard at first but weaving together, until ten thousand voices joined as one into the anthem of the fledgling nation:

O home belov’d, where’er I wander,
On foreign land or distant sea,
As time rolls by, my heart grows fonder
And yearns more lovingly for thee…!

~

Welcome to FreeCol, the open-source remake of Sid Meier's Colonisation. It's about 90% a straight remake of the 1994 game with better graphics; the changes are mostly to fix bugs and unintuitive mechanics in the original, or to add things such as more European nations (up to eight, from the four in the original).

As someone who owned Colonisation on floppy disk, FreeCol is an absolute delight to me every time I remember it exists. It feels like a heavily-modded Civ 3 or 4 - which is probably why they chose Civ 4 for the commercial remake/reimagining - but in many ways it is entirely its own thing.

As you can see above, colonies in FreeCol look very different to their counterparts in Civ. The most notable difference is that colonies don't have an inherent population - every one of those colonists can step out of New Bath and head over to the next town whenever I want. They're also highly specialised: while the standard Free Colonist exists, almost all of my people have been trained to one profession or another. New Bath has everything from farmers and fishermen (in the hinterlands, on the left) to weavers, preachers, and a couple of Colonial Regulars placed in the various buildings of the town. (The Regulars are teaching at the university, training the next generation to fight. They don't actually have any students right now - I'll fix that for next turn.)

There are four ways to increase your population in FreeCol. The simplest, now out of our reach, is to ship colonists in from the homeland - but, y'know, we've just declared independence, Queen Elizabeth I isn't going to be letting our ships dock. Secondly, any colony that hits 200 food will use it to generate a new Free Colonist, who can then be trained up (all of mine go straight to one of the university towns to become soldiers). Thirdly, native villages can send you Native Converts, who are excellent farmers but not too good in buildings. And fourth, you can capture unarmed European citizens, who become your own with no downsides.

Put simply, the goal of FreeCol (and Colonisation before it) is to settle the New World, build up your colonies, declare Independence, and fight off the mother country's army to secure it. This report opens on the very eve of the declaration, and will follow the Confederation of West Wessex through to either its victory (driving off the Royal Expeditionary Force) or defeat (losing all its coastal colonies/90% of its population to the REF).

Along the way, I'll explain a few of the game mechanics (see above), but mostly this is a narrative story. My cast of characters is made up of the 25 Founding Fathers from the game, AKA the Continental Congress. You elect these every so often, and they provide bonuses and benefits to your colonies. Of course, they're also a wildly-anachronistic collection… what I'm saying is, my cast will share names, nationalities, and some traits with their real counterparts, but in terms of specifics of their history and personality, I'm working on mostly from their FreeCol bonuses and my own imagination.

Here's the two who've had speaking parts so far:


Pocahontas
Real World: Daughter of a native chief local to the Jamestown colony, who (anecdotally) saved John Smith from execution, and (actually) married John Rolfe and had a son named Thomas. She died in England at the age of 21; her descendants include astronomer Percival Lowell. 1596-1617.
FreeCol: Removes all tension with the natives that has been accumulated to that point, and makes it accumulate half as fast. Joined my Continental Congress in 1649.
West Wessex: President of the Confederation, Princess Powhatan, Mother-of-us-All. She combines the best of her own story and the Plymouth Colony thanksgiving tradition, and has been instrumental in unifying the natives and Europeans in West Wessex. Her election, however, was not unanimous... 


George Washington
Real World: The General who led America to independence, and its first President. Come on, it's Washington, you know this one. 1732-1799.
FreeCol: On winning a battle, a soldier or dragoon is upgraded to the next level (Soldier>Veteran Soldier>Colonial Regular). Joined the Congress in 1664.
West Wessex: General of the armies of West Wessex. He will be organising and leading the offensive against the Royal Expeditionary Force.

(The song, by the way, is 'Oh Home Beloved', which I've cribbed from the Latter-day Saint hymnbook. It's by a Welshman who moved to America, and is nice in that it's mostly about the landscape, rather than violent patriotism and/or religion. It's a bit anachronistic, dating from around 1900, but, y'know, President Pocahontas. )

Next update will be the map of West Wessex; then we'll get stuck into the War of Independence itself.

PS: I'm assuming that as a remake of a Civ-relative, this thread is okay to be in the Civ forum. If it would be more appropriate on the Gaming Table, I'm happy for it to be move/to move it (not sure how that works).

Currently, Entangle subtracts 2 movement points of the available amount on each enemy unit at the start of each new turn.
This sounds like as if the unit had 2 lower maximal movement, but doesn't work that way.

-This matches the description of the spell (unit loses 2 movement each turn).
-This causes units to be able to attack fewer times. For example a 4 move Stag Beetle would have 2 moves left but would still spend 2 moves to attack (half of the maximal 4), so it can only attack once a turn, even if not moving.
-This causes the AI to not recognize the loss of movement on the enemy units (the maximal movement per turn stat is not affected, even though the unit is slower), so it'll still decide on running or chasing tactics as though the unit wasn't any slower.
-This causes the reduction to not affect fleeing, though it wouldn't be affected anyway as fleeing uses the overland movement stat of units - combat movement is probably not safe to call after the end of combat.

So, the question is, do we keep this weird behavior, or change the spell to do "the maximal movement of all enemy units is reduced by 2" instead?
I feel the AI part is significant enough to warrant a change?
Also, is there any other possible side effect of this change I didn't notice?

I am currently designing some negotiation scenarios, as well as an entire negotiation simulation system of my own. One of those scenarios concerns disaster relief -- it is a highly assymetric, risk management negotiation between a disaster relief organisation, two wholesale suppliers of relief kits and a flexible number of minor suppliers in the face of a major incoming hurricane. This scenario needs testing, and I would welcome assistance. The participants would have some private information and goals that they need to achieve, the result is scoreable. I would like 4+ signups, there is no upper limit, but over 9 would probably be too much. Negotiation would be by forum/discord. For an example of a negotiation already run on the site, you can see: http://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/showt...p?tid=8646

I've been thinking about these, but it's not simple.

-There was a neat balance between the cost of item creation, and very rare summons, as the two are on the same power level. Now that very rare creatures are about 50% cheaper, items seem far too expensive to use unless no very rare summoning is available. A set of items on a hero generally costs 8-12k and for that you can have 2-3 full stacks of very rare creatures which is far better than a single unit even if it's as strong as two or three or even 5 of those creatures.
-However, Create Artifact comes much faster than very rare creatures. By the time enough of them are on the field to effectively threaten a well equipped hero and prevent it from being unstoppable, it's possible to make several items and use the heroes to win the game. It's a rare spell, not a very rare one.
-Cheaper artifacts would mean higher quality treasure which would break game balance - remember that reducing treasure by ~25% was the difference between unstoppable demigod heroes in the midgame, and the current, more balanced game.

So, idk. I do know I would never cast Create Artifact or Summon Champion while I can have 500 cost Great Drakes, Sky Drakes, or 600 Archangels etc



A similar problem for Disjunction : the choice of dispelling enemy globals, or summoning 3 Great Drakes for the same price is usually obvious - when it was against 1.5 great drake, dispelling was a worthy choice (yes, the AI might recast the spell but for a few turns they don't have it which opens up possibilities for attacking and conquering, or whatever else. That opportunity is not really worth twice as many very rare creatures though, at least I don't think it does.) - albeit when playing as a Runemaster, dispelling is still worth it in many cases.

Here we go again! This will be an Ironman playthrough of Terror From the Deep on Superhuman difficulty, similar to my previous one of X-COM: UFO Defense. You can find the thread for that game here. I go over the game basics in that thread, and TFTD is mechanically much like its predecessor, so if you need a quick review the first few pages should get you up to speed. I'll only be covering mechanics that are new or different in TFTD.
Part 1:

Speaking of differences, this time I'll be adding on some simple mods and options to make things a little tougher. Pictured are the mods being used:
Aliens Pick up Weapons: If a gun-wielding alien becomes disarmed for any reason, they may pick up a new one from the ground. They'll even pick up human weapons and use them against you - careful not to leave any torpedo launchers lying around.
Alien Subs Add-on: As shown, this mod adds several variants for alien USO interiors, so you can't rely on memory each time.
Always Nighttime: All battles will take place at night, limiting X-COM's visibility.
And a couple of cosmetic mods - Statstrings appends some text to a soldier's name depending on their most notable stats, while Poet's Colored Armor lets you color-code your troops; it's handy when you have ten or more of them to manage.

I will also be running the option setting of Alien weapon self-destruction. This means that if an alien is killed, anything in their inventory will disappear; only knocking them unconscious will drop their stuff on the ground. Without easy access to alien weapons and ammo, researching them takes longer, keeping your own alien weapons supplied is more expensive, and assaulting USOs becomes a lot less profitable. It should make for an interesting change of pace. Finally, I'll attempt to avoid manufacturing items for profit. In this game as in the first, the best way to make money is to constantly build craft weapons and sell them; your monthly income and even sales of alien items quickly pales in comparison. Combined with alien weapons disappearing on death, the money situation will be a lot tighter than usual.


Have I mentioned that I've never beaten TFTD at all before? This might end up being a short game.


TFTD's first change comes immediately: your bases must be placed at sea, not on land. Not only that, but intercepting USOs over land is impossible. Your subs can (incredibly) fly into the air, but firing their weapons is a no-go.


For that reason, my first base will go in the Pacific Ocean, far from any continents. Next to Midway is as good a spot as any.


This time I'm running the default base layout. The starting facilities and loadout is identical to what you'd get in UFO Defense, though the names and details have been modified slightly to fit the nautical setting.

After ordering an Alien Containment and additional storage space, the first order of business is to do something about that horribly insecure Sub Pen (Hangar equivalent) arrangement. Two new ones are penciled in on the north side of the base; once they're done we can transfer the two Barracuda interceptors over and demolish the Sub Pens at the bottom.


Available technologies are just like in X-COM. Gauss Technology is going to be the first goal, since it may be a while before alien weapons are readily available.

Storage starts out almost filled to the brim, so it'll be a few weeks before much can be purchased.


So we'll be spending on a second base with Wide Array Sonar, instead.


After the first week, we spot our first USO. Both Barracudas are scrambled to intercept, but the sub evades them after a brief tussle and touches down near our base. After taking a minute to sort everyone's equipment, it's time to sortie.


In contrast to the Skyranger, the Triton of TFTD incorporates highly advanced door technology. X-COM starts out at the northeast corner of the map and there's not much to see here, so Seaman Fenn takes the first bold step into the unknown.


Sadly, that first step is his last - an unseen assailant shoots him dead from afar. Better perhaps to just toss out a flare and a dye grenade and sit tight.

Turn 2:

The crew (very carefully) peeks out of the Triton, but the coast seems clear now. Everybody files out and throws some dye grenades to provide cover, while one of the torpedo-carriers takes position on top of the Triton.

Turn 3:

Nothing much happens on the alien turn, but on X-COM's turn aquanaut Ed Dodge lives up to his name and avoids a shot from this Sectoid-like creature.


Daniel Fitzgerald has a good angle here, and kills the alien with one burst from his Jet Harpoon. By the way, X-COM starts out with harpoon launchers and dart pistols and torpedo cannons. Unlike UFO Defense, the starter pistol and rifle are really quite bad in general, which is why I'm looking to replace them with Gauss weapons straightaway.


At any rate, up north the aquanauts spot a suspicious structure in the deeps. This must be the USO.

Turn 4:

Moving forward to throw a flare, Fitzgerald stumbles upon another alien. Rather than try and shoot it one-handed, an aquanaut further back throws a grenade under its feet. Otherwise it seems safe enough for the rest to move in closer, though a few agents keep circling west to check for any more aliens wandering around outside.


The grenade explodes right under the alien's feet...but it's somehow only knocked out, not slain outright. At least we can take its equipment this way.


The alien turn sees another creature walking about south of the USO...

Turn 5:

...And agent Sungur finds another just outside the doors.


Let's get to work. Two agents in the south team combine to take down the first enemy, with Pawel Kaminski's incendiary bolts dealing the final blow.


Efforts in the north are...less than successful. Mr. Vilfort here misses horribly with his explosive shell, killing one of his fellow agents. One of the torpedo-ers has better aim, and blows up the alien nicely.

That done, everyone else moves up. The alien phase passes without incident and it's on to Turn 6.


We've run out of dye grenades at this point, so hopefully there's nobody else waiting for us outside. Checking the entryway to the USO reveals nothing moving, and the squad creeps closer...


Nope - there's two more aliens out there, one of whom guns down Pawel Kaminski.

Turn 7:

Henry Sutherland exchanges fire with the nearby alien. He lands one hit, but so does his opponent, and that's the end of Henry. Further east, this alien shrugs off an exploding(!) bolt to the back - adding a harpoon produces the desired results.

After Henry's death, there's only Ed Dodge near the western foe. Can he handle this on his own?


At the same time, the USO team checks out almost the entire ship...until this aquanaut finds an alien lurking in the very last corner, right as they run out of Time Units.


Oops.
Turn 8:

On the bright side, Ed Dodge managed to avoid a second point-blank shot in one night, and has no trouble dispatching his target.


The USO alien is easy to find as well, and goes down to a taser jab, bringing the mission to a close. That could have gone better, but rookie aquanauts are easy come, easy go, and we did manage to recover the weapons of two aliens.


OpenXCOM recently added a feature to view soldiers' stat gains after each mission. It makes for more relevant reading than the promotions screen, if I'm being honest.

Sub needed for TheBlackSword, he is Suleiman of Maya.

It was medieval start game, now it is coming to industrial era.

Your position is not very exciting but not bad in general. Economics require repairing
but you have a huge mounted stack very well promoted. 

I hope TBS will appear to give some advices or as a team player.

Game Board
Rules Documents
Tech List

(Game 1 Start)

I guess we're starting--I took red and made the only move you can when scouting doesn't exist (building an L1 Infantry).  Your turn Cornflakes.

This is the war declaration that happens if you army strength is too close to another wizard's. It is so because it generally is the last chance that wizard has to fight you - if you surpass them too far, they won't stand a chance.

However, to form treaties (and to defend yourself), you need armies so it's inevitable to reach this state of the game.
Having a high enough positive relation score is the only way to avoid the war (aside from being under the influence of a peace treaty, which either requires a previous war, or a successful threaten roll which also risks war and is unlikely to succeed without having an equal or higher military.)

Thus, I think we might need to revise the formula and reduce the amount of relation needed to avoid the war, to give the player a fair chance to build up their forces and still use diplomacy. There are two other paths we can take as well : we can either limit this declaration to not happen until turn X (100~150) which gives the player more time to raise relation or military to safe levels, or alter the formula completely, so it doesn't depend on military.

This is the current amount of relation the player needs to avoid the war, if the military power is exactly equal (worst case), and there are no other penalties (such as having had broken a treaty with that wizard earlier) :

   

Chaotic changes the personality modifier every turn so it can be anywhere between Maniacal and Peaceful.

Please post your suggestion on how much relation should be necessary in the lowest and highest level of difficulty, for the average (Aggressive) personality, assuming the gap between each personality remains the same. I can change the gap between difficulty levels freely, but it has to be the same per level, so if lunatic needs 3 more than master, then master needs to be 3 more than expert.

For the meaning of numbers : Neutral is 0-19, Relaxed is 20-39, Calm is 40-59, Unease is -19 to 0, Restless is -39 to -20. A relation below -40 causes a "low relation" based war declaration, and above 60 you are almost always already allies.

PS : I believe the AI is playing much better now, and can probably still win if not ganging up on the player right from the start, so it's acceptable to ease these conditions and allow the player to avoid war more easily - chances are the AI will get ahead in economy and research, and obliterate the player if they do start the war, as they'll have massive hordes of very rare creatures. I might be wrong though.
It might also make late game strategies work better.