Tentative Project - Part Three

[Martock]

i thought i remember seeing an old guy walking about on a cane that was used as an early spy. maybe i'm dreaming....but i could have sworn that we had 3 spies back in CTP 1.

Klingon barbarian from hell...hmmm...i like that!
now if i can just get mark to give me that title...

anyway, i'll definitely tear about the files on my puter when i get back. the barbarian problem is getting it's warriors from somewhere so it's just a matter of tying in the rest of these guys. now the one question remains...if an attack costs money, can the barbarian ignore that or does it go into the negatives?? i didn't remember to look at that when i was having fun with the infector, but i'll do it in my current game and pop back and forth to see about it.

one last thing...how do we go about taking sprites from ctp1 and move them into ctp2? i've never done that so any help i can get would be most appreciated! i'd really like to get my doom bug back into the game.

I just got done poking around in the diplomacy files. there are some NEAT 'Threats' that haven't been implimented yet but that are partially coded.

From default/aidata/interactions.txt

Threat Actions that need to be implemented:

1. THREAT_MASS_TROOPS - TBD (cut? same as declare war.)

2. THREAT_INVADE - TBD (cut? same as declare war.)

3. THREAT_ATTACK_CITY - TBD, raise priority of seige goals for city

4. THREAT_ATTACK_ARMY - TBD, raise priority of attack goal for army

5. THREAT_PIRATE - TBD, raise priority of pirate goals

6. THREAT_SPECIAL_ATTACK_CITY - TBD, raise priority of special attacks for city

7. THREAT_DESTROY_CITY - TBD, might launch weapon of mass destruction on city

8. THREAT_PILLAGE - TBD, raise priority of pillage goals

9. THREAT_JOIN_MILITARY_ALLY - TBD, request military pact with foreigner

10. THREAT_SELL_TECHNOLOGY - TBD, (cut)

11. THREAT_GIVE_AID - TBD, give gold and advances to foreigner

12. THREAT_END_AGREEMENT - TBD, immediately end agreement

13. THREAT_TRADE_EMBARGO - complete, immediately establish a trade embargo

14. THREAT_DECLARE_WAR - complete, immediately declare war

//

Interesting huh? oh well, back to digging
Later
Backpack

[Harlan]

Wes,
My two cents about governments. Generally good, though Fundamentalism needs adding and Fascism moving. One more gvmt I'd like to see: City State. This would be an early version of Republic, which would then come later (around the 1700s at the earliest). Text files show it almost got into CTP1, but was the one gvmt type to get cut before release.

City State could be the early government for the player who concentrates on peace and perfectionist development instead of war and exploration. Since City States are really a collection of small independent countries that don't work well with each other, a sustained military campaign should be nearly impossible- units wandering around create lots of unhappiness. The total city number would be very limited, maybe the most limited in the game. But on the other hand, it would have the best science and economic aspects of the early types.

The peaceful player would naturally rush to this, then to Republic, then Democracy, etc...

Other ideas: Imperialism, allowing far flung colonies and exploitation of distant resources. Some kind of Khanate or Despotism, for players wanting to act like a barbarian. Horrible in most respects, but major military bonuses and exclusive units like the Horse Archer and Longship. What would be neat would be if you're losing pretty badly, switch to this gvmt and try to conquer the world like the Mongols did, leaving a swath of death and destruction everywhere.

Perhaps there is some space for an end-game-conquest-government which would have city size limit of around 120 with poor science, decent economy and production, and good military.

This could be somehing like "united world" government, which you could swich to if you wan't to unite (conquer) the world, so your opponents could either join you as allies, or fight you, but than you would have sufficitent city size limit to conquer everyone without getting the 'size' unhappines since all your citizens are delighted with the idea of one super- state (namely yours) and there is no size related unhappiness 9or only aftet 120 or so cities... this could be alternative to virtual democracy, or ecotopia.

[skorpion59]

Harlan,
Being a Peaceful player, I really like your idea of City State gov.

Wes,
We keep hearing about WHEN you get your site. What's up with it? Are you looking for something or waiting for somebody to finish setting you up? If you are still looking, there are plenty of people here which would help you in your efforts.

[Pintello]

Hi Wes,

Your mod is looking really good. I can't wait to get my hands on it.

Martock, or should that be Klingon Barbarian From Hell, you did indeed see a spy guy on a cane. You can thank Wes and Tom Davies for that one. It was an early spy form that Wes added in one of his Med Mods. Tom Davies, like many of the other well done player created sprites, was the one who created the sprite for Wes.

Speaking of Tom Davies, what ever happened to him and Katy and are they working on any other sprites?

Regards,

Timothy Pintello

[Depp]

What about adding rumours and such about other civs and cities ? Worked on some ranking system for CTP 1 but someone beat me to the punch. Is there anything such going on for CTP 2 ?

[Diodorus Sicilus]

Harlan: City State was just about the first thing I added in my revised Tech Tree tests, and I've played about 5 games up to the Renaissance with it included. As you mentioned, I imagined it as an Expansive, commercial entity with very poor loyalty and military support. On my version of the Tech Tree City State is reached directly from Agriculture, which is the only Prerequisite. In Advance.txt it looks like this:

ADVANCE_CITY_STATE {

Prerequisites ADVANCE_AGRICULTURE

Cost 640
Icon ICON_ADVANCE_DRAMA
Branch 0
Age AGE_ONE
{

That cost assumes that all costs for all the current advances are Doubled. Using that change has reduced the headlong lunge to gunpowder considerably, and makes (in my view) for a much improved early game.

The characteristics for City State in the govern.txt file:

GOVERNMENT_CITY_STATE {
Icon ICON_GOV_MONARCHY
EnableAdvance ADVANCE_CITY_STATE
Rank 1
SameRankAdvice GOVERNMENT_MONARCHY_SAME_RANK_ADVICE
HigherRankAdvice GOVERNMENT_MONARCHY_HIGHER_RANK_ADVICE
RationsExpectation 0
PositiveRationsCoef 1
NegativeRationsCoef 1
WorkdayExpectation 0
PositiveWorkdayCoef 1
NegativeWorkdayCoef 1
WagesExpectation -1
PositiveWagesCoef 1
NegativeWagesCoef 1
FoodCoef 1
ProductionCoef 1
InfrastructureCoefficient 0.5
CrimeCoef 1
CrimeOffset 95
KnowledgeCoef 1
MaxScienceRate 0.6
GoldCoef 1.2
CapitalizationCoefficient 0.5
UnitRushModifier 4
BuildingRushModifier 3
WonderRushModifier 6
EndGameRushModifier 6
MaxIncomingTrade 100000
MaxOutgoingTrade 100000
PollutionCoef 1.3
PollutionUnhappyCoef 0.02
SupportCoef 1.25
TurnsToNewReadiness 10
ReadypeaceCoef 0.5
ReadypeaceHP 0.5
ReadyAlertCoef 0.75
ReadyAlertHP 0.8
ReadyWarCoef 1
ReadyWarHP 1
DefenseCoef 1
WarDiscontentMaxUnits 5
WarDiscontentPerUnit 0.5
ConquestDistress -3
ConquestDistressDecay 0.2
OverseasCoef 0
OverseasDefeatDecay 0
OverseasDefeatCoef 1
HomeDefeatDecay 0.5
HomeDefeatCoef 1
MaxMartialLawUnits 0
MartialLawEffect 1
MartialLawThreshold 80
AtHomeRadius 2
EmpireDistanceScale 0.0015
MinEmpireDistance 500
MaxEmpireDistance 2000
TooManyCitiesThreshold 15
TooManyCitiesCoefficient 1
ProfessionalUnits 0
GrowthRank 3
ProductionRank 2
CommerceRank 3
ScienceRank 2
GoldRank 2
MilitaryRank 2
PollutionRank 1
LoyaltyRank 1
MartialLawRank 3
{
In Strategies.txt for the ai, it's in the queues of governments at the bottom for all the non-militaristic types. In my games so far, this means that the aggressive ais tend to remain Tyranny until they get Monarchy. Monarchy in my Tech Tree is reached through Religion, Epic Poetry (other Prereq: Warrior Spirit, the starting 'Tech' in Military category) and Aristocracy (other Prereq: Bronze Working). This means that Monarchy is generally available 30 - 50 turns later than City State, which usually comes within the first 1 - 3 techs researched.
To further increase the opportunities early in the game, Diplomats are received with Aristocracy and the cost of Caravans is relatively about 1/2 what they are in the regular game. Consequently, the non-military competition in trade and diplomacy starts earlier and can be waged with a lot more resources, without changing the early military options.

[WesW]

Martock, check out my post in the Step-by-step guide to adding a unit.

I have been meaning to write Tom Davies and see what he is up to. He may be on vacation, or playing something else right now.

Kevin, keep looking into the diplomacy files. I would love it if some others started as well. They are big and complicated and really in need of major work, from what I can tell on the forums here.
Btw, Kevin, you appear to be a student in engineering at UAH like myself. We need to get together some time when school starts back. It would be nice to meet someone from the boards here in person.

Don, "someone" is supposed to be setting up my site. Of course, he has many other things to do as well. You will hear about it as soon as it's up.
It is just as well that it hasn't gone up yet. I am still finding things to do with getting the Alpha ready to post.

Today I implemented the militia triggers, which are better than the Ctp1 version. With the new trigger, units are updated when appropriate tech is discovered to allow a new defensive unit, as they were in the Med mod I. Additional militia units are added to a city when a size is reached that expands the city's radius, except for the third stage. Units are added at size 9, 21, 33 and 45. Militias are kept from moving and sleeping, and are automatically fortified by slic commands, without the need to kill existing units. Those of you familiar with the Med mod I trigger will note that this method is much more refined than the old way.

I modified the strategies.txt to reflect the AI's need to build fewer defensive units, allowing more to be spent on other types, which I think most everyone will agree is a good thing.
I realized that the Ctp1 small icon tgas didn't fit into the Ctp2 units tab properly, so I had to resize the large pics for the "b" tgas. Not a big deal, just tedius, like so much of mod-making.
Last night I changed the settings for the city sprites so that they change when cities grow in radius.
I changed a couple of the personalities to have them explore at least medium.
I changed many of the civ personalities, making the ratios of the different types more even, and more appropriate to the civ in certain cases.

As to governments, I like the ideas you guys have proposed. Gedrin has Imperialism in his mod. From his settings and Harlan's comments it appears that this form is very similar to my Con. Monarchy. No big deal. I can put it in as Imperialism and work out the details when I get to the govt's.
In the Ctp1 texts, Republic is always called City State, and only shown as Republic to the player. I figured it was only a name change, like Phalanx, Marketplace, Silo and so many other things in the game which were called one thing in the files and shown as another during the game.
Anyway, your version sounds good. It can be a needed early Peaceful gov like Fund. was a needed middle-game Religious gov.
Imperialism will pretty much take Fascism's current place in the game for expansionistic or militaristic players.

Btw, does anyone know what the DefenseCoef flag does?

I also raised the threshold for production to cause pollution from 200 to 300 in the const.txt. There was a flag which appeared to do the same thing in the diffdb, which was already at 300. Does anyone know off-hand which threshold is used in the default game? A lot of people are complaining about how early pollution starts adding up in the game, and this would be the setting to adjust to address that.

[Alpha Wolf]

Is it possible that when you rush buy a unit, it gets created without its max HP. Kind of like simulating untrained troops. As the stand still, they would be considered still in training so they would get up to full HP quickly.

------------------
History is written by the victor.

Wes, how about puting in Generals like in the Alexander and WW2 scenarios?

[FALVES]

Is it possible to increase the verbosity of the units?
Any idea on when is the mod going to be ready? (dont want to rush your work, but every time I check this topic I get more and more anxious, and I'm shure I'm not the only one!

[skorpion59]

Ah, yes. I too am anxious but there is still playtesting, balancing, etc once it is available.

Since Wes has/had 14 months (very rough guess) on the Med Mod for CtP1, it isn't too likely he can learn the ins and outs of CtP2 and throw together a perfectly finished product in just 1 month.

Correct me Wes if I am wrong.

BTW, I still remember when the Med Mod 1 thread broke 100 posts. At the time, that was pretty impressive but it looks like you will easily break 200 or more on this one.

[Harlan]

Didorus, I'm glad to see we're thinking along similar lines. However, one thing I'd change. I think Monarchy should come first. Having City State close to Agriculure is waaay too early in my opinon. The way it should go for the typical player is like this: Tyranny, Monarchy, the split off to Theology, City State, or stick with Monarchy, depending on your playing style. City State is a more advanced form of government, with a lot of them widening the power from just one king to a proto-democracy, oligarchy, and other forms.

Also, Wes, I hope you replace the regular Fighter and Tank graphics with the superior WW2 ones now available, and now you're got something for Dive Bomber and AA Gun as well, not to mention Pillboxes and maybe Barbed Wire tile improvements. I was right it was about the invasion of France, but I'm glad to see I was wrong that there was no new graphics. Obviously the maker of this one was able to talk Activision into bending that rule heavily.

[WesW]

I left spaces in the newsprite text for the Alexander generals and the different Samurai from the Magnificent scenario, in case someone wanted to add them. Right now, I don't know how the AI is taught to use them. I also don't know about buiding them either.
I think that the generals are something better fitted to scenarios, but I left the option open in case we figure something out. If someone wanted to jump in and make this their pet project, then more power to you. There are certainly enough areas of the game for people to take an interest in developing.

[Alpha Wolf]

Does anyone know how to get these to work? i havent figured it out.

------------------
History is written by the victor.

[Diodorus Sicilus]

Harlan: I put City State so early for two reasons. First, it was historically the first "government" for a multi-city group. It really wasn't until the Assyrians that anyone did much with another city other than loot it when conquered and then demand tribute at various intervals: all the early Mesopotamian, Palestinian and Anatolian civilizations seem to have been this type, and even the "centralized" Egyptian state reverted to it whenever the Pharoahs were weak. More importantly, I felt that City State was the complement to Tyranny, which is available from the start, can be used to wage early wars and aggressive expansion, and needed a more 'peaceful' counterpart. So far this seems to have worked in my (admittedly limited) testing.
BTW in my revised Tech Tree Monarchy still comes a little earlier than it did when I played my first games of CtP II with the unmodified advances.

[WesW]

Wolf, I think that would be another slic-only feature, if it can be done.

Falves, you would have to make your own sound file, I assume.

I had thought in the past about keeping this thread going until it rivaled some of those you see in OT. All the "people" who thumb their noses at Ctp might be a little shocked at that.
I won't do it, though. When I get the Alpha posted, I will start another thread for it.

Well, I spent this evening playing the WWII scenario, and tonight gathering the units I want from it and integrating them into the Med mod. I have not tried to load it yet, choosing to make this post before retiring for the night. I "hope" you don't have to includ the entire tile sets just to get the Pillbox and Barbed Wire.

I put the Stuka and Fairey graphics into the mod, replacing the Stuka and B-17 units from Harlan's WWII pack. I added the Spitfire, and set it to replace the P-38.
I added the two German tanks and the WWII-scenario's Artillery unit, calling the Panzer II "Mech. Infantry", the Panzer III "Armor", and the Artillery "Anti-Aircraft Gun". I have not decided if I will use them in the mod yet. If I do use the Anti-Aircraft Gun, it will have the same properties described for the Antiair unit in the scenario: active air-defense, bombard air, water and land, and a bonus against mounted units. (The WWII-scenario's Artillery graphics were already in the game, btw. This was the standard artillery unit up through the beta-testing, when they decided to put in the current, mounted artillery version for some reason.)
As mentioned above, I added the files for the Pillbox and Barbed Wire. The Pillbox seems to work fine, but the Wire doesn't show up on the map. The text at the bottom of the screen says that the wire is there, but whatever is supposed to show up on the terrain is missing or something. If someone with more experience adding stuff like TIs can tell me what I need to add, I would be grateful.
Btw, does anyone know if Pillboxes attack every unit that comes next to them? This might be a bad feature in a regular game.

When playing the scenario, I noticed that fighter-type aircraft should be flanking units, and made that change to the mod.
I have also thought for a while now that City Walls should give an added bonus versus mounted units. I don't think that feature is possible without slic, but I came up with a pretty good alternative: give that bonus to militia units, since Militias will always be defending cities.

One note of interest: The setting which appears to allow Pillboxes to bombard things from 2 tiles away is the "BombardRange" flag. Some of you were talking at one time about making units capable of doing that. This appears to be another example of something already in the game that we didn't know the use of.

I have been thinking about it, and I have enough units available to make a solid WWII-era unit progression. Thinking about it somemore, I could merge the current Renaissance and Industrial age units together to form one really good age, rather than the two thread-bare ages that we have under the current layout. I will put this together tomorrow, and post everything.

There "will" be an announcement tomorrow about where you can get the Alpha verison of the mod. Just give me tomorrow to put everything together.

[FALVES]

I've been making this big ass world map (170x200) and I'l just wait for that alpha version to pop the sucker!
You go, Wes!
[This message has been edited by FALVES (edited December 24, 2000).]

[Martock]

I'm back and ready to dive into my barbarians from hell mode. i'll let u know if i find anything. i do wonder why the AI is limited to just warriors. i should be able to find something that will allow me to give them access to other units.

[MrFun]

Made some errors with the original post - I will post Part Three later.
[This message has been edited by MrFun (edited December 31, 2000).]