Pontiac's War Scenario

[Hobbes]

The scenario is designed for either human v AI play with the human player taking the British side or PBEM.
The scenario has been tested with the Activation Rule set to large movement and combat penalty.
After extensive testing the scenario should be fairly well balanced but I would be interested in any feedback.
The AI does take a different path in most games, so it is possible to replay, change your tactics and get a different game from the AI.

EDIT: Scenario file is now available in WiA patch.

The scenario notes are posted below.



For further scenario information and AAR please see this thread :-
http://www.ageod-forum.com/showthread.php?t=13624

New PBEM AAR here :-
http://www.ageod-forum.com/showthread.php?p=162052#post162052

AAR with sides reversed :-
http://www.ageod-forum.com/showthread.php?t=15773

King William’s War: The Lily and the Lion
AAR:
http://www.ageod-forum.com/showthread.php?t=20925

King Philip's War: In Blood and Fire
AAR:
http://www.ageod-forum.com/showthread.php?24977-Hobbes-v-Athena-In-Blood-and-Fire

A screenshot for Halloween :-




Many thanks to Lodi and Bo Rearguard for all your help!
Happy Halloween,
Chris

[Hobbes]

This is now the mod download thread. If you downloaded yesterday and experienced a problem with missing unit names please download the file again.

Cheers, Chris

[Hobbes]

New version attached to first post with a fix for three missing event strings (thanks arsan!)
If you downloaded yesterday and experienced a problem with missing unit names please download the file again.

Cheers, Chris

[Ebbingford]

Have just started my second attempt at this after suffering a minor defeat first time round. Hats of to Athena ( and Chris)

Anyway, this time round I was quite disturbed to see my Fort Pitt garrison surrender at the end of turn 3 processing. There was no breach made in the fort, they had ample supplies and yet they gave up. Doesn't seem quite right to me that they did. I don't know if this is something introduced in 1.06, or if it is to do with the Pontiac mod which is why I'm posting here.
Any thoughts anyone? I think I did read somewhere about siege resolution being changed but can't find where. If it has does this seem right in a situation like this? I can see a surrender taking place if a breach has been made or supply has run out, but a commanded garrison of regulars in an intact fort surrendering?

[arsan]

Probably it has nothing to do with the Pontiac scenario but with the revised siege resolution introduced since 1.05. It made garrison surrenders faster, as before sieges were absurdly long.
Take in mind each turns is a month. 3 months under siege with no rescuing force in view seems enough reason to ask for terms.
IIRC sieges on America on that era hardly ever lasted more than a month, and most of times it was a matter of weeks or even days. Definitely
different than the big European sieges on the middle age or renaissance.

So the variables were tweaked so surrender happened in a reasonable time, around 2-4 turns (still longer than historical, for game play reasons).
IMHO It works very well in the standard scenarios. Maybe not so good in this "special flavor" one

In any case, you were unlucky with the dice rolls, as having no breach and no arty on the enemy camp makes surrenders less probable.

By the way, if you prefer longer sieges, all the siege variables are tweakable just by editing the
Bombard&Blockade&Siege.opt file you can find on C:\Program files\Wars in America\WIA\Settings with notepad

Cheers!

[Ebbingford]

Thanks Arsan I thought it was probably not to do with the mod, I should perhaps have posted this in the main BOA2 forum.

I think I was extra unlucky as Fort Pitt was only under siege for 1 turn leure:
The garrison which had a power of 105 and a supply wagon was also only being besieged by an Indian stack with a power of about 180, with no artillery.

[arsan]

Oh! i though it had been three turns!
Indeed you were extra super unlucky!!
I would court martial the whole garrison!

[Hobbes]

I'm very surprised by this as it is so rare - only happened to me in testing once or twice in 60 or 70 tests!

I think you were just extremely unlucky

Cheers, Chris

[LUDOPEREZ]

Hi Hobbes I want to make two questions.
First ,it's normal that Hicks Spy dissapear in November of the first year (1763).There aren't any message about that in the log of the play.
Another question it's that why the indian support units dissapear in November of each year.
Are both dissapear normal?
Another question it's why when Indian Units go to winter cuartel in November
not withdraw in their tribes of origin.This serious logical if the village was destroyed
Thanks for the mod i'm enjoy very much

[Hobbes]

Hi Ludo, yes Hicks only spies for the Indians for a few turns. It is assumed that the Indian supply will be used up during winter so it is also eliminated during the winter quarters event, but more supply could arrive during the following year. If an Indian village is destroyed the displaced tribes will move to one of several other villages for winter.

Cheers, Chris

[Hobbes]

A new version of the mod attached to first post. English text has been put in place of the NULL's that existed in the foreign language versions (apart from Russian). The scenario notes have been added to the WiA directory in a .txt file and a couple of minor bugs have been fixed.

I'm not aware of any outstanding snags at this moment so please post if I have missed anything.

Cheers, Chris
P.S. captured supply will work as expected even though the unit colour does not change.
As far as I can tell this works in the same way for all WiA scenarios.

[Hobbes]

Quick update attached to first post to fix a problem with Fox winter quarters.

Cheers, Chris

[Hobbes]

I'm feeling quite pleased with myself that, with no skill, I have managed in 30 minutes to change the picture of (in my imagination) Boston,
from the image in the event above :-




To a less built up version :-



It is amazing me what you can do with these free graphic programs.
I don't really have any idea of what the Boston sea front would have looked like in 1689 though.
Does anyone have any idea? Would it have consisted mainly of wooden buildings?

Cheers, Chris

[Hobbes]

I should make it clear that where I refer to English settlements in the scenario notes I mean the regions with a settlement icon:
Mill Creek, Greenbrier, Shenandoah and Juniata.

These are the regions where Indian raiders might get VP, for both settlement destruction and taking captives.
The other British towns and villages tend to be quite well defended by militia and there is not much to gain by attacking them.

Cheers, Chris

[Hobbes]

Hi folks, an update for the Pontiac War scenario added to the first post.

Improvements :-

Indians recieve a trader unit to garrison structures should they be taken from the British at Michilimackinac,
Detroit, Niagara, Vincennes and de Chartres.
The British can now build bateaux at fort Pitt once the Indian villages along the Ohio river have been subdued.


Bug fixes :-

Indian morale event fixed to give the possibility of a loss of morale during the winter months.
Indian trader events now working properly.
Indian option chance to fix general Bradsteet in place for one turn moved to '65 from '64.
Building stockades has a slightly lower EP cost.
Several Indian hints now showing the correct morale and VP gain after British structure loss.
AI interest in a region with a settlement reduced after settlement has been destroyed.
Region Ohio 'Conluent' can now be entered.
Toned down overstack disease event for both sides, mainly due to increased effect when stacked with ships.
Changed the rules governing entry into the conflict for several Iroquois units. William Johnson becoming incapacitated has slightly less effect.

A problem I can't fix is the duplicate Allan Campbell. The Campbell at Albany should be John Campbell. However their stats are the same so
there is no adverse effect on the scenario. Annoying though. Hopefully there will be at least one more official patch so I can amend this and also add the King William's War models.

[Hobbes]

One clarification I would like to make. The French units at fort Vincennes and fort de Chartres have already surrendered to the British; they are just awaiting a British force to relieve them of control in the region they occupy. A British attack on these regions represents the change of control and will not lead to any French reprisals. A French fort exists at de Chartres but this will not be shown in the scenario until the British take control - this is just to prevent an unrealistic situation of an Indian fort garrison.

Cheers, Chris

[Hobbes]

[lodilefty]

A problem I can't fix is the duplicate Allan Campbell. The Campbell at Albany should be John Campbell. However their stats are the same so
there is no adverse effect on the scenario. Annoying though. Hopefully there will be at least one more official patch so I can amend this and also add the King William's War models.

Forward to mewhat you want, and we'll put this in the next Interim Update

[Hobbes]

Thanks Lodi!

[Hobbes]

Small bug. The Indians are now receiving too many trader supply units from the French.
It won't have much effect on the scenario but I will post a fix by the weekend.

EDIT: I will wait until the current AAR is complete before posting another patch.

Cheers, Chris

[Hobbes]

Forward to mewhat you want, and we'll put this in the next Interim Update

Hi Lodi, I've been a bit slow with this the past few weeks. I will hopefully be able to send you the updates in the new year. If it doesn't make the interim patch I hope it will be in time for the main one. As you are working on 1812 at the moment I assume I don't have to panic to get new models into a last WiA patch. Maybe I should just send you the one new model I need to correct Pontiac's War and send you the King William's War models later when I have had a chance to test them?

Thanks for all your hard work - and best wishes for Christmas.
Chris

[lodilefty]

Hi Lodi, I've been a bit slow with this the past few weeks. I will hopefully be able to send you the updates in the new year. If it doesn't make the interim patch I hope it will be in time for the main one. As you are working on 1812 at the moment I assume I don't have to panic to get new models into a last WiA patch. Maybe I should just send you the one new model I need to correct Pontiac's War and send you the King William's War models later when I have had a chance to test them?

Thanks for all your hard work - and best wishes for Christmas.
Chris

No hurry.
OK, send your Pontiac fix for the next IU

[Hobbes]

Thanks Lodi, I'll get the Pontiac model to you in the next day or so.

[Hobbes]

Hi folks, in case you are thinking of trying the scenario you may want to wait for a few weeks. I will post a new patch when I have had time to test it with the following changes (and possibly one or two others). I'm hoping that this will be the final patch, but I may put some work in to create a scenario that is playable against a British AI once King William's War is complete (unless I start work on a Peloponnesian War scenario).
I'll post here when it is ready.

Improvements
William Johnson’s constitution has been improved – he won’t fall ill quite as often
The Indian Chalagawatha objective has been removed. It was not necessary as it is already a British objective.
This is also an attempt to reduce Indian VP slightly
Junundat removed as a British objective should the Wyandots tire of the fight
New Mississauga Indian village at Ganaraske on the northern shore of lake Ontario
Several events have modified triggering criteria or text

Fixes
Robert Rogers graphic will now appear correctly
The duplicate Allan Campbell is now the correct John Campbell
The Cahokias Confluent is now navigable
The British are not given the option to build bateaux on the Ohio river until the Indian villages of Sawcunk and Wakatomika have been subdued
Missing text for the Vincennes and fort Chartres capture events is now included
Fixed bug where sometimes Indians would gain a regular monthly supply from traders
Fixed bug where Cherokee’s would intercept Indian supply each turn. This is now a % chance each turn if the Cherokee option has been selected by the British player
Both trader and captured British supply is removed from the Indians at the start of each winter. Fresh supply can be obtained from traders in the spring.
More chance of the Indians suffering a morale loss during the winter months

Cheers, Chris

Edit:-

Fixes
Cayuga fixed units changing sides remain in their villages
Hopkins graphic appears correctly
Fox unlocked when reacting to a Dahcotah raid
Several other small fixes and improvements.

EDIT: Sorry for the delay with this - if anyone is waiting for the final patch.
I am now having some problems with the AI aggression in WiA patch 1.07.
Hope I can get this sorted out and then the patch will be available.

EDIT II: Pocus has found a fix for the AI Aggression problem - The AI is sometimes moving into an assault posture when looking to assault a small structure some distance away - unfortunately it can move into this posture while in a region with a large fort - and thus makes a suicidal attack on the large fort! I will have to wait for the next patch before I can complete testing - so it may be some time yet.

[Narwhal]

Played the scenario (UK vs AI Indians). Great scenario - I guess it is more balanced in MP because in SP under the recommended setting I breezed through it (AI is not good at using the mobility of Indians I believe).

Small bug : in October 1765 I took Fort de Chartres and thus won the game. But in the message log I (also) got the cryptic message : "evt_nam_ChartresLost1FW". I can send you a screenshoot or a save. Any idea what happened ?

[Hobbes]

Played the scenario (UK vs AI Indians). Great scenario - I guess it is more balanced in MP because in SP under the recommended setting I breezed through it (AI is not good at using the mobility of Indians I believe).

Small bug : in October 1765 I took Fort de Chartres and thus won the game. But in the message log I (also) got the cryptic message : "evt_nam_ChartresLost1FW". I can send you a screenshoot or a save. Any idea what happened ?

Thanks Narwhal, it's nice to get some feedback. It is an odd message.
Are you sure it was evt_nam_ChartresLost1FW and not evt_nam_ChartresLost1PW? I just downloaded the Pontiac file from this thread and this event text does seem to be missing - but it should have a suffix of PW not FW?
The actual text should just read "British gain control of Fort de Chartres"

The final version should be out with the next WiA patch - but waiting for Pocus to find the time to look at a couple of potential bugs.

I'm surprised you found the AI Indians to be easy to defeat as they always seem to play a fairly strong game in my tests. I assume they destroyed most of your minor stockades in '63? Against a decent player the AI will always struggle - but I thought this was a scenario that was easier for the AI logic as the Indians are quite easy to control (not much to think about - no building forts/depots worrying much about supply).

I assume you built 1 or 2 depots in the scenario? At Detroit and Pitt?

Cheers, Chris

[Hobbes]

I just realised that the list of bugs that will be fixed includes the problem that you found :-

Missing text for the Vincennes and fort Chartres capture events is now included

So as long as it was PW and not FW all should be well with the next patch.
Cheers, Chris

[Narwhal]

Are you sure it was evt_nam_ChartresLost1FW and not evt_nam_ChartresLost1PW?

You're right. It's with 1PW. Small text - tough to read

I'm surprised you found the AI Indians to be easy to defeat as they always seem to play a fairly strong game in my tests. I assume they destroyed most of your minor stockades in '63?

Yah - they destroyed absolutely all the stockades West of the Ohio in the first turns. They took and destroyed the Fort at Niagara as well, and the one at Detroit because I made a mistake and let it without defense (I played extremely agressively).

I assume you built 1 or 2 depots in the scenario? At Detroit and Pitt?

A lot more than that : 2 depots, but I also rebuilt a lot : Niagara Fort (now called Fort John Bradstreet ) and Detroit (I built a depot there - dunno if there was one at the beginning or just a stockade). I also built a depot in the wilderness next to the Ohio for wintering. I think I built a depot at Ohio Forks as well.

My strategy was too bring as many supply wagons to Ohio Forks as I could (I had up to 4, after building a depot), then sent Bouquet with a fat stack to attack the 4 indian villages in the South, during winter (to catch the indians at home). I would recommand not giving the players any "four elements" supply wagon, to make it harder to just built a depot in the middle of the Indian zone, and then attack all the neighbours at less than 15 days from the depot (so Bouquet can be back and protected from the winter next turn) - which I did not do but could have done - or simply killing the Indians while they are wintering and take the hits from the weather - which I did .

In the North, it was slightly more difficult, I lost Niagara Falls early but wiped out all the Indian villages on both the Erié and the Ontario, so my boats were free to go wherever they wanted. Then, there were a lot of battles for NIagara falls, but I finally prevailled and from then on took Detroit back (landing with Wilkns and Dalyell forces - if it was red it was attacking, if it was in orange it was defending)...

Major... sorry GENERAL Robert Rogers took Michilimackinac and then Fort de Chartres. They were the only orange (COL) dudes on the offensive. Small bug BTW ... when he "graduated" to General, the icon on the map lost the cute face of Gal Robert Rogers and only had a picture of a Ranger. It is purely a graphical bug - I can send a SC if you want.

The "neutral" apaches partly rebelled (I think the Cayugas did) and joined Pontiac's bandits so this part is working. Unfortunately, I think they attacked the Tusacora, "unlocking" them even though they should not have been. I did not used the unlocked Indians. They were soundly crushed by Browning army - that'll teach them.

[Hobbes]

I’ve never seen Fort Niagara taken! Detroit and Pitt are both without Depots at start. It sounds like you played the scenario very well – much more aggressively than I have ever tried. Thanks for the thoughts. I doubt I will make many more revisions to Pontiac but I will keep them in mind for the next scenario.

I don’t see a problem with the Cayugas attacking the Tuscacora after joining with Pontiac – or with the Tuscarora becoming unlocked. Things obviously got a bit heated in the Iroquois long-house and scuffles broke out.

Rogers is one of the few models that has not been created specifically for Pontiac’s War so he has the promotion possibility that other leaders don’t have. I don’t think that Rogers is a leader that was ever likely to make general – maybe if Lodi reads this he may decide to remove the promote option from him and other irregular leaders/rangers?

Interesting to note the display bug as well.

Hocus Lodi!

[Narwhal]

I’ve never seen Fort Niagara taken! Detroit and Pitt are both without Depots at start. It sounds like you played the scenario very well – much more aggressively than I have ever tried. Thanks for the thoughts. I doubt I will make many more revisions to Pontiac but I will keep them in mind for the next scenario.

Actually, my mistake, it is FORT ERIE which was taken, retaken and eventually called Fort Bradstreet, not Fort Niagara. I am horrible at geography, and those two forts are next to each other. Changes a lot, he ? Sorry for that mistake.

Fort Niagara could have been taken, as at some point in my game there were only one unit guarding it.

Playing with the Indians right now, noticing another VERY minor bug. When you open Hicks detailed information, if you put your cursor on the little spy icon, you get LDR_TXT_IND_SPYPW.