Africa & Middle East - Goals?

[low_grade]

So I just started playing this scenario. Looks like a great early Africa map, but I'm a little dismayed that I don't see any goals. Not that I'd mind playing a goal-free game for one, it might be quite liberating, but I was just wondering. And also the 25 year limit seems quite short for such a large map. Anybody else play this scenario through? Was it worth it or did you end up feeling dissatisfied?

Anyway my strategy so far has been to first buy rights in Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, build Lumber Mills in Atbarah and Al Ubayyid, and buy up the logging camps all around plus a couple of cotton farms. So far it's a pretty booming start. Wondering how the game will play out.

I like that you don't start with any rights to begin with, too, also very liberating.

[Avien]

I like the look of this map. It's huge, detailed and straight up pretty. However it seems a bit unfinished. As you say, there is no goal. Also the borders are not 1829, they are more like 1910. And Sahara is full of farms. I think this map needs some love. It would be cool to play a map of 1829 borders. 1858 like this map might also be fun.


Edit: I found out that the map has goals, though they are not explained in the briefing.

[OilCan]

Yeah, this game has goals of connecting 200 cities, a $500M CBV and company cash of $500M for the gold. Unfortunately, there is no game brief provided with the map. This is one of those few game scenarios which is not well described at the start of the game. And about those farms in the Sahara....maybe this is a futuristic view of what could happen as our global precipitation patterns change due to global warming?!?

[Avien]

It would be global cooling in that case ;)

The map looks excellent, but I doubt Sahara was that large in 1829, when the scenario starts. However the entire desert full of farms, seems to be pushing it a bit ;)


Edit: How can I remove the farm areas in the scenario editor? I can't seem to figure out how to do it.

[OilCan]

I only know enough about the editor to be dangerous...maybe someone else will jump in here with better advice.

To delete a farm on a map, open the game editor (Shift+E), select the bulldozer icon and then hover over the farm (farm house turns red). Right click to delete it. Save the game under a new name while in the editor mode.

I don't know how to stop farms from appearing in a map region as the game goes on.

[JayEff]

It would be best to close out the launched game and then load the map in editor mode. And once you get into that you might as well get into a full blown re-edit because there may be other things that need changing.
- On the welcome page, press Extras
- On the page that loads, press Editor
- Press Load Map
- Choose the map you want, and start it.
- Now you are in Editor Mode and you are ready to edit

- Click on Paint Regions. You need to alter the regions to decrease the density. From here on it is up to you.
- If you click on the region's name at the bottom and you will see where it is painted. Also at the bottom, note that there is room to make a couple more regions if you want.
- Click on the little magnifying glasses and you will be able to edit the region's details; what we call its 'recipe'. I immediately notice one problem with this map: all the regions have 100% density. You should drop the desert regions to, oh, 30% or less. And increase the densities of some other regions - ore hotspots for instance.
- And the mapmaker has not done any work on the city recipes yet
- And I do not trust the painted regions. There are places that I know are rich in ore, and they have agricultural recipes.
- The ratio of industries to peeps is out of whack. The economy on this map will be really screwy unless half the cities are removed, or their densities are all halved. You need parity between cities and hinterland.

This map needs a lot of work. Why not play Modern Africa or other African scenarios instead?

[Avien]

This map needs a lot of work. Why not play Modern Africa or other African scenarios instead?

I suppose, nice looking map though :)

[Hawk]

This map can be found in the Base Maps section.

[RayofSunshine]

Being that this"Africa & Middle East" is an "unfinished" scenario, why is there not "scenario down load"? Is it a Base Map because the "beta map" was deleted from the Forum, so no download could be done?

Well, I guess I answered my own question. Base Paint is without the color tint, so probably a "base map" would just be the terrain. So, did I reach the correct conclusion?

[Hawk]

Being that this"Africa & Middle East" is an "unfinished" scenario, why is there not "scenario down load"? Is it a Base Map because the "beta map" was deleted from the Forum, so no download could be done?

Well, I guess I answered my own question. Base Paint is without the color tint, so probably a "base map" would just be the terrain. So, did I reach the correct conclusion?

It's considered an unfinished map, not because of any terrain painting - which has been done, but because it doesn't have a status page and the briefing needs to describe the goals.
It has a bunch of events but most of them are historical comments.
Plus it's possible some of the events might need some tweaking.

I think that's what you're talking about.

[RayofSunshine]

Wow Hawk,
That takes in a "lot of territory" of possibilities for a creation. However, I don't see a "zip" or whatever for a download. So, from a little memory, would this creation be in the Archives under "Base Maps"? I'm too lazy to check it out.


You have enough to do, so I just took a couple minutes and checked the Archives, and did find the download in the Base Maps. However, thanks for the your previous comments to my questions.

[Hawk]

You just don't like reading these posts, do you?

viewtopic.php?p=40191#p40191

5 posts up.

[RayofSunshine]

Well Hawk,
Maybe not, but if you check my previous post, you will see that I ""did"" check the Archives "Base Maps". However I then made a discovery on the download. It is not a ''zip", so thereby it cannot be opened to get a .gmp extension. Hence, I don't know how the other members can make comments, when the scenario cannot be opened. Guess I am missing something.

[Hawk]

I did read your post where you said you found it, after you asked if it was in the Base Maps section, after I had already said it was in the Base Maps section, which you didn't read; hence my comment above.

What do you mean it's not a zip. The name of the file is Africa_Middle East.zip. Sure looks like a zip to me.

[RayofSunshine]

Hawk,
When I get the "Africa and the Middle East " clicked,in the Unfinished Maps category, the screen for the download only shows "Africa_Middle". No zip. I checked the others to just see if it was my computer system, but they do show the .zip extensions.

Well, really Hawk, I went back into the Archives and now I did get a .zip extension. Whenever my son gets my other computer system up and running, I hope that I don't have the same problems with it. Can't say that I won't have problems of myself. LOL And it does get to be a little frustrating at times.

[Hawk]

Sounds like the other times you didn't get a complete download.

Hawk,
When I get the "Africa and the Middle East " clicked,in the Unfinished Maps category, the screen for the download only shows "Africa_Middle". No zip.

Do you mean Base Maps section, instead of Unfinished Maps category?

[RayofSunshine]

Well Hawk,
I lost an amount of spare time, as I was scanning out 1800 slides for one of my Sons, to be burned to a DVD. Had some problems with my system, so took a goodly amount of time to complete the project.

As to your question of Base Maps or Unfinished Maps. I don't know what had transpired after my last post, but I now clicked on the RT Base Maps, and went to download the Africa & Middle East scenario, only to find that I have it in my folder of "Scenarios to play".

So, whatever problem I had for the transaction, it got cleared up a month ago. Time flys, but thanks for the info.

It doesn't seem like much has transpired over the past month of any new scenarios being submitted. However, I do see that there are a few updates of info. Guess our creators are busy with other projects or life.

[aiven]

I like the look of this map. It's huge, detailed and straight up pretty. However it seems a bit unfinished. As you say, there is no goal. Also the borders are not 1829, they are more like 1910. And Sahara is full of farms. I think this map needs some love. It would be cool to play a map of 1829 borders. 1858 like this map might also be fun.


Edit: I found out that the map has goals, though they are not explained in the briefing.

Hmm, this is definitely me. Why am I greyed out/unclickable? :o

[Gumboots]

PM Hawk about it. At a guess I'd say the account was closed due to it being inactive. Admins do that sort of thing sometimes.

Incidentally, I have to wonder why 1829 borders are being mentioned, given that no rail was laid anywhere in Africa until the 1850's.

[Hawk]

Hmm, this is definitely me. Why am I greyed out/unclickable? :o

PM Hawk about it. At a guess I'd say the account was closed due to it being inactive. Admins do that sort of thing sometimes.

Yep! That would be the reason. Most likely no activity for over a year.