Date: Sat, 31 Jan 1998 13:48:58 -0500
From: "Robert F. Heeter" 
Subject: W2WT: Round B - The Duel of the Ancient Gods (B)

Warlords -

Nearly-final versions of the Round B "Duel of the Gods" scenario
and starting gamefile are now available for final playtesting
and debugging at Elam's Tournament Downloads page:

    http://www.pixgen.com/elam/warlords/tournament.html

If you have any problems with the download, email elam@pixgen.com.
If you have problems with the installation, email
   Barry Brook (PC), bbrook@rna.bio.mq.edu.au or
   Ivan Baird (Mac), ijb@nbnet.nb.ca
If you have problems or comments on the scenario itself, just reply
   to me at 

Enjoy!  Remember, Round B is scheduled to start February 19!
More detailed info on Round B will follow later...

-- Bob / Headquarters

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Duel of the Gods - Version 3.0 PLAYTESTING - 31-Jan-97 - Bob Heeter

** Readme:  Scenario Information and Historical Background **

-- Information --
[ 4 players - 50 cities - 36 ruins and 4 temples - tournament armies ]

This scenario was designed for four-player human PBEM games,
particularly the World Championship Tournament.  The Tournament
army set is very fast and the map is almost completely
symmetric, so balance should be good, making for a very
interesting and relatively quick game, even with the full-size
50-city map.  The AI does not cope very well with the army
set or scenario setup, so I do *not* recommend this
scenario for play against the computer.  I specifically
configured the scenario for games with 2 heroes per side
(with the second hero arriving only on Turn 2)
and with any razing or quest option.
I recommend using the special gamefiles in which the ruin
contents have been edited for balance and to match the
ruin descriptions.  Enjoy!


-- Background:  The Duel of the Ancient Gods --

It is the late 22nd century, and humanity has mastered the Earth.
Energy and biotechnology, harnessed worldwide, converted
the oceans and lands into a docile, terraformed womb.  Order,
pattern, structure, and harmony now permeate the very atmosphere.
Civilization's retreat from the militant technologies of the 20th
century into pastoral bliss and tranquility is now complete.
Temples to the ancient gods became hedonistic vacation spas,
while humanity neglects even advanced technology, growing soft
with general contentment - though the usual political scandals and
petty jealousies simmer as always beneath the calm surface
of society.  Indeed, the ancient laws of morality have nearly
been forgotten, along with the ancient religions and their gods,
and humanity is content merely to exist in peaceful bliss,
having conquered curiosity, closed Pandora's box, and
recreated the Garden of Eden on its own.

But the ancient gods are not dead, they have merely been
sleeping, and if Man was created in God's image, then
of course the Gods are all too human in their nature.
The ancient gods awaken from several millenia of slumber -
for even the gods must rest sometime - and they see that
Man has matched them and forgotten them!  What is this?
Where are the temples, the churches, the sacrifices and
monuments and pyramids?  Man may have matched their
talents, but humanity has never seen their jealous wrath
so violently inflamed!  If humanity no longer needs the
mercy of the Gods, then it must be taught to fear their wrath!

Yahweh, ancient god of the Hebrews, and once also revered as
"God" by the Christians and "Allah" by the Moslems, awakens
in the northwest, incarnate and in a terrible rage, his angry
breath blowing forth in a plague of locusts and monsoon floods.
Zeus, king of the Greek and Roman pantheon, emerges in a flash
of lightning and thunder upon Mount Olympus in the northeast.
And Ra, the mighty Sun God of the Egyptians, billows forth
from the Great Pyramid in the southeast!

Concealed in their mountain retreats from the blissfully
ignorant eyes of the humans, the Gods consider the situation.
Humanity must be punished, Armageddon must come, but how?
The ancient gods are indeed a vain lot, and even after thousands
of years they still cannot agree which of them is the strongest
and who deserves to be glorified most!  Yahweh declares that
he is the mightiest and sets forth to prove it, but Zeus
scatters lightning at his feet and Ra merely chuckles as
Yahweh hot-foots it back to his castle.  Ra then suggests
that since the humans must be punished, but the gods cannot
agree how or by whom, then there should be a contest, an
epic struggle, indeed a mythic duel of nightmare and terror:
in the end, only one god will rule, and humanity will kneel
before that god in submissive terror forevermore!

The Duel of the Ancient Gods is thus decided upon.  The battleground
is all the new Earth, and the gods recall their favorite and
most terrifying mythic powers as they plot their duel.  From ghosts
of military geniuses to vicious, hideous creatures of nightmare, the
gods summon forth their mighty armies and lead them into battle.
The gods even begin to enslave those gibbering souls who once were
immoral and impertinently atheistic humans, but happened to live
too close to the deities' strongholds, and who now submit to the
will of the gods in abject terror for their very souls.  Thus
the gods harness their human subjects with the yoke of war, that
they may power the engines of war and produce even more of the
great creatures of myth and legend with which the Gods will
do battle...

And yet, the gods in their wounded pride remain blindly arrogant!
Though most of the humans cower in their cities when the gods
first burst from their mountain retreats, a small number resist.
Even in the age of blissful contentment there are those who
remember the lore of the ancient technologies and consider
spiritual and personal freedom worth the price of their lives, and
one by one they sneak to the ancient research labs of the southwest,
where they harness nearly-forgotten human powers that the Gods in
their slumber never noticed, and convert the technologies which
redefined their world into weapons to defend it.

The humans, too, can create creatures of myth and legend.
The humans, too, can Duel with the Ancient Gods.

The earth is now a stadium for the most intense contest of all
eternity!  Will Yahweh, Zeus, or Ra be the one to punish their impudent
children, or will the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve prove that
the creators are no longer the masters of the world?  The world is
indeed a stadium, but with one minor difference - all the spectators
are trapped on the field of battle, and the price of defeat is death
and everlasting damnation!  This is not a war about bravery or
chivalry, it is about treacherous survival and the everlasting
glory which only the survivors will ever remember!  Yes indeed, a
mighty battle is brewing...


-- Strategic Design Notes --

We have done everything we could to keep the map symmetric, so that
no side will have any advantage (other than turn order and, in
non-tournament games, the random occurrence of items in the ruins).
Within the official starting game file we symmetrically arranged
even the items and allies.  The ruin descriptions specify what is
supposed to be found in each ruin, and if someone would like to
edit the ruin information  to create a different incarnation of
the game I'll be happy to explain how (but it's complicated and
requires use of a hex editor.)

The map was designed to have about 10 cities per side, with
high-income cities in the "rear area" and lower income cities
on the vulnerable front lines.  10 cities are "up for grabs",
including the six very wealthy cities in the center.
The spider-building cities in the center area are there to keep
the ghosts and elementals of the White and Yellow players from
overrunning the middle before the later players have a chance.
(The intent is to play with the spider cities as "enemy" cities
so that even a blessed elemental cannot take them without help.
The spider production *must* be pillaged when the city is taken;
we have not spent time making sure all the spiders that are
produced there have the standard abilities.)

You'll find that the map is easier to navigate north-south than east-west;
thus the map is effectively more square (less elongated)
than it looks.  But it's still a bit faster to cross horizontally
than to cross vertically - except for navies.  The center of the map
is of immense strategic importance, with its concentration of 6 cities
(2 of which have very high income) and easy access to control all
four temples.  But, especially with razing off, the center is also
very difficult to control, since it borders all three of the
other players...

The rest of the map is either "allocated" to a given side with
internal road links, or else "no man's land" - a battlezone between sides.
The temples were deliberately placed in "no mans land" near the strategic
central "core", so that they will be frequently fought over!
To balance the value of the core a bit, additional ruins were
scattered around the edges, containing the most valuable items,
allies, and additional gold needed for long-term survival.
The ruins placed near each capital city should provide a good supply
of items and allies for your initial expansion, while ruins further
away will help replenish your gold and augment your forces when you
need it most - right before rushing into battle with the enemy!

In order to prevent players from gaining a decisive advantage
by rushing to the border lands, though, the ruins that lie right
on the borders contain only gold, which has its value but does not confer
immediate tactical advantages in the way that items or allies would.

The scenario was designed for tournament play with a 2-hero
limit, and as this should be a duel of "gods", there are several
flight and command items to make those heroes mighty indeed.
Heroes should be able to visit multiple temples and gain many
levels from all the ruins, so we chose not to include any battle
items - heroes will have plenty of strength on their own.
Speed items proved too unbalancing in playtesting, and gold
items seemed unnecessary.


-- Credits --
I used WarCorrespondent and WarCartographer by Matt Hills,
plus a bit of RedEdit and a program called War2Editor,
to create this scenario for the Mac-Classic version of
Warlords.  I then used ResEdit to create the Mac-Deluxe
version of the scenario.  Then I used ResEdit to make
a .SCZ library file for use with the PC-Deluxe version.
Barry Brook fixed some bugs and made some improvements
in the .SCZ Deluxe version, and then Patrick Domning
and Ivan Baird ported the Deluxe files back to the Mac
and PC-Classic versions that are now available.  Whew!

-- Caveats --
Warlords' behavior may be slightly weird when you first
start a game.  Save the game and then open the saved-game
and life should get better.  I don't think there are any
outright bugs left in the scenario.


Send feedback to Bob Heeter, , and enjoy!