Alternate Sci-fi Mod completed!

[BlueO]

I see the mod I was working on is up on the Apolyton files section. I thought I should announce what the mod does here.

First, it contains a bunch of new units I've made. I don't see the units on the apolyton site, but you can find them at Omnigod's site. Because the unit.txt and the ai will use these new units, you will need to download them.

Second, it uses the Frenzy AI. In fact, I created that slic code, just for this mod.

Third, it has two special threats that I made. The zombie threat and alien influence. The zombie threat will take over cities and automatically generate more zombies. Alien Influence will only affect the cpu, and allow them to build a super cheap and powerful alien unit. Both events come pretty late in the game, near the end of modern era.

Lastly, and the proudest feature of this mod, the city expansion! This part of the code took a lot of time, and a lot of graphics to get working. The feature will expand the city on the world map and make it look like your civiliazation is actually growing! Here's a sample pic of what the feature does.



I still think its really awesome to see city clusters all over the place!


Welp, I had lots fun making the mod. Actually, I probably spent more time and had more fun, making the mod than actually playing the game so far.

Enjoy!


New image edit in:

Here's a mock up based on the picture above. I haven't gotten this far into the game yet, but this is what zombie threat and alien fluence is suppose to be like. You'll also notice a bunch of hi-tech units the players can use too.



[This message has been edited by BlueO (edited January 22, 2001).]

the city expansion is just BEAUTIFUL!!!!!


btw, can you do a 200x150 screenshot and send it to Omni for the db?

[kormer]

Looks awesome blue, do you mind if I took just the city expansion part of your code out and include it in my own modern era scenario? Also what files should I look to include. And lastly, can you give me a list of new units, any that would be appropriate for my scenario?

[Immortal Wombat]

The city expansion looks great, but do tile improvements still work from underneath, and can you place them on the "extra" city tiles ?

[BlueO]

Okay, to answer the question.

MarkG, I can't capture 200x150 size images because the game runs at 640x480 for the lowest resolution I believe. The only thing I can do is to do a resize of the 800x600 or cut a part of the picture out so it'll be 200x150. Not sure what you want, but I'm sure you or Omnigod can do this yourself.

Kormer, yeah go ahead and use the city expansion in your mod. Be warned though, I integrated the city expansion feature into the main scenario.slc which is actually the frenzy ai mod. And the frenzy ai mod is modified to accomodate the city expansion feature. And both slcs are integrated with the zombie/alien influence feature. So just removing the city expansion feature might be difficult. I'm afraid none of the new units will fit into the modern scenario. I like to have sci-fi/fantasy type units over realistic ones. So any new units in the game won't fit with the 'civlization' type feel.

To successfully extract the city expansion feature, you need to edit the scenario.slc (to remove the frenzy ai, and any reference to zombie/alien threat) Hmm...actually that's all you need to edit. You will need the following files in your mod to work: goods.txt, goodsid.txt, tileimp.txt, terrain.txt, and gl.txt. I believe that's all the files the city expansion use. Oh, you will need the gg030.spr -> gg050.spr files in the sprite directory.

Immortal Wombat, the tile improvement will not work. You can however, edit the tileimp.txt so you can make them work, but don't know why you would want that. The only tile improvement that works are the road tiles because I edited the tileimp.txt to make it so.
[This message has been edited by BlueO (edited January 22, 2001).]

quote: Originally posted by BlueO on 01-22-2001 03:33 PM The only thing I can do is to do a resize of the 800x600 or cut a part of the picture out so it'll be 200x150.

that's what i want. i know i can do it, but i thought you might want to have the choice of what to show up in the db

[BlueO]

[/QUOTE]that's what i want. i know i can do it, but i thought you might want to have the choice of what to show up in the db
[/quote]

Yeah, go ahead and cut/paste or resize. It doesn't matter to me what part shows up in the db really.

[dande]

I spent a few hours installing and playing the mod this afternoon. Here are my observations (in no particular order):

1. First off, this is only the second mod in my life of "civ"ing that I have enjoyed immediately. (The other was "stoneage" for civ2.) The whole game just seemed more fun than CTP2 unmodded, I don't quite know why?! Perhaps it has something to do with the added "beauty" to the game. The Amazon women bring something not present in the original CTP2.

2. There are a ton of goody huts(ruins)!! did you mod this too? I sometimes found two ruins only 2 spaces apart. I even found a cluster of three encirclling one square. Neat-o!!

3. I did stumble upon zombies in ruins. (I must admit, contrary to your advice I didn't disband them because I wanted to check them out.) They were helpful to exploring and evaluating the mod.

4. The AI offered to trade techs with me!! This never happened in a CTP2 game for me before. What a surprise!! However, I had not acquired diplomats yet and had no embasies established. Was this a bug? it happened twice; the first time around 3100 BC.

5. Everybody loves me. With AI frenzy I was expecting a bloodbath, but they love me. All smiles and offers of peace treaties. This never happened in CTP2 unmodded (to me), but who knows?!? I am respecting their requests and only violated a no trespass in order to approach a city and ask (politely) for them to give it to me. They did. Twice. And with their only two cities in my possesion they were destroyed with all the love and pleseantness they could muster. Was this supposed to be?

6. I love the idea of city's sprawling out. However, I haven't experienced this yet. I have a few cities of size four and I think one of sze five. No sprawl. Is this right?

7. Mayors are active. I have never used mayors and love micromanagement so I always leave them off. However, roads are popping up all over the place and my PW are being used. I checked and my mayors are off. I turned them on and back off, but they continue to build roads. Is this the early parts of city expansion or is it a bug?

8. Very few barbarians. After 20+ ruins and 1000 years (on a regular map) I found no barbarians. Then all of a sudden three or four huts in a row ambushed me with barbarians. I was so confident that the barbarians were non-existant that I even lost a city to two barbarian wariors. (the first two I saw. probably around 2900BC.) I quickly took the city back with a knight (from ruins) and an amazon warior.

Anyway, although I am not sure I am experiencing the mod the way it wa intended, I'm having fun. And isn't that what "civ"ing is all about!

[WesW]

BlueO, this really does look fantastic! Just shows what the capabilities of this game are, if talented people want to take the time to work with it.
I will definitely want to try and integrate the city expansion feature into the Med mod. If you would put together a special zip with only this part of the mod, I would appreciate it. There is no rush for this on my behalf, as I have a lot of other stuff to do first, but in a few weeks or so I would like to try it out.

I have already downloaded the Amazons, to look more closely at when I get around to the wonder units part of the Med mod. The Hi-tech units will get looked at as well, since I currently have no wonder units for the futuristic eras.

Btw, I think the link to the Modern Amazons is broken. It points to the hi-tech units.

[OmniGod]

I've updated the link to hitech units. It now points to the correct file. With in a few hours it will all be available on the db.

Rich - nice work Blue.....

[skorpion59]

I like this idea as I have always wanted more SciFi type units. When I D/L'ed the file and tried to play, I kept getting all kinds of errors about missing files. I came back and D/L'ed the new file(s). When unzipping, some secondary files want to overwrite existing files from the first zip with files which are significantly different sizewise. Also, as with most of the zip files, many files are put in 1 directory and not put in the correct directory structure. This makes everything confusing.

Any possibility of getting a new zip with all the correct files in the correct directories. A mod should do this and it should have all the required files the mod needs. It shouldn't rely on a secondary file(s) for additional units or information. I want to play this game but I don't feel like spending 6 hours going through it to figure out what is needed where to play it.

[WesW]

Blue, email me if you would like to an historical unit or two for the Med mod.

[OmniGod]

Sorry Skorpion... that would be my stupid mistake. I added the units to a second file since they weren't included in the original files and forgot apparently to add the directory structure. That should take a few minutes to correct when I get home. As for why it's two files is just because they're both fairly large and this is to help out the people on 56K (not everyone has DSL, Cable or a T3). Problem wil be fixed for future downloads..

Rich

[BlueO]

Alright, I just made a zip that should help out kormer, WesW, and any other mod makers in using the city growth feature. I put up the zip temporarily at:
http://www.ncal.verio.com/~richl/ctp2.html

Omnigod, if you want to put it up on the Aployton's db, go ahead, but the explanation I put in is fairly sparse...so maybe someone else wants to write up a more descriptive explanation?


To answer a couple of Dante's question, the ai diplomancy files are actually the ones from Dale's. I was trying to include his diplomod, but I kept getting errors. I tried to solve the errors, but I have no clue on how to use the diplomacy functions since I can't find any docs on how to use them. I used his diplomacy text changes because I was hoping to see some ai diplmancy on their own. No luck there..

The first city population size for city expansion is 7, then 12, then 17, then 21...

The mayors aren't actually active, I put in a small slic code that automatically build roads around all cities. I was tired of seeing a huge ai stacks pileup around their cities because their stacks are incabable of moving around their own cities. I was hoping roads around their cities would solve that...not verified though. However, it does help my own armies to have my own cities all with roads around them.


hmm...is it me, or does the genetic era city expansions look weird? Maybe its the lack of shadow...or something, but the sprites looks to be floating on top of the tile...

[kormer]

Thanks a lot for seperating it out. I was messing with it earlier today and realized I was in over my head Also with the genetic age cities, it is weird, and in sci-fi the weirder the better!

[Dale]

BlueO, wait till I get V3.0 going and that should fix any errors, bugs, whatever, AND be generic enough to play with other mods. (And hopefully self-explanetary enough too)

BTW, these pics look GREAT! Might have to give the city-expansion a go one of these games. Great work.

------------------
Author of Diplomod. The mod to fix diplomacy.

Rommell to a sub-commander outside Tobruk: "Those Australians are in there somewhere. But where? Let's advance and wait till they shoot, then shoot back."

[Chris B]

Your mad rocks, Blue, but it would have been nice to have fixed a few standard game annoyances in your mod, like how forests only give 5 production and how hoplites exist till gunpowder, even though pikemen are clearly superior. I'll do this myself, but its just a thought.
Also, I don't like how towns don't give off any extra rescourses. Would there be some extrav commerce and production being generated there?????

[Starfighter08]

Crash report:

When starting your mod it always quits to desktop. I'm
sure I did the install process right, because I read
the readme.txt and installed it two times but it still
didn't help.

PS: I'm using patch v1.11
PPS: I would really like to play your mod.

[BlueO]

quote: Originally posted by Starfighter08 on 01-27-2001 06:05 AM Crash report: When starting your mod it always quits to desktop. I'm sure I did the install process right, because I read the readme.txt and installed it two times but it still didn't help. PS: I'm using patch v1.11 PPS: I would really like to play your mod.

Hmm, without more info, I can't help you. All I can suggest is, reinstall ctp2. I'm also using version 1.1, not 1.11.


On the other news, just finished making version 1.03! I've sent a message to Omnigod, so he can put it up on the files section.

The new version has many improvements. Most notabely, 3 new modes of play. There's the normal mode, which is basically version 1.01 with a few changes. There's the extreme mode, which makes the ai gang up on the human faster and adds a new mega threat designed to wipe out the human player from the face of the Earth. Then lastly, there's the bare insanity mode, for pure hardcore players!

Anywhoo, for those of you who noticed the changes to the second image above, you'll see a couple new units. One of them is a size 200x150 image! Yup, ctp2 can handle sprite sizes larger than the default 96x72, and I took advantage of that in version 1.03.

Version 1.03 should be the last version, since I don't have any more ideas to add.

[BlueO]

quote: Originally posted by Chris B on 01-24-2001 05:51 PM Your mad rocks, Blue, but it would have been nice to have fixed a few standard game annoyances in your mod, like how forests only give 5 production and how hoplites exist till gunpowder, even though pikemen are clearly superior. I'll do this myself, but its just a thought. Also, I don't like how towns don't give off any extra rescourses. Would there be some extrav commerce and production being generated there?????

Thanks! I'm quite proud of the mod myself too. I really don't know what values to add to town and city tiles. Basically, I felt that each tile in ctp2 already gives out so much resources, I lowered the overall values of the towns to counter it. I'm sure there's a better way to balance it all, but I don't think I'm up to doing it. But you would be correct, a town/city tile should generate more commerce than a regular tile. But for production, I think that really belongs to the mine series tile improvements. I think the nature perserve tile improvement should be changed to pollution counter tile improvement.

[skorpion59]

BlueO,

I like your SciFi mod and look forward to V1.03 since most people only want to do Historical Mods.

I haven't got very far along and was wondering if you use teleporters in it like the Samuri Scenario does?

[DJ]

The Samuri scenario uses teleporters? I thought it just killed off your unit and created another one for you...

[heardie]

quote: Originally posted by DJ on 01-28-2001 12:21 AM The Samuri scenario uses teleporters? I thought it just killed off your unit and created another one for you...

That wouldn't work, because that would reset your units health. Teleport is much simpiler

[DJ]

What I meant was, the teleport uses an event to create your new character, then kills the old character. The scenario does have a lot of control of itself, so it probably figures your old stats again. Plus, that's the only reason why I can figure that the death wav plays whenever you teleport somewhere else. If BlueO was to do the teleport, wouldn't that take a lot of events to find the location of each unit?
[This message has been edited by DJ (edited January 28, 2001).]

[skorpion59]

Whoa, far more ambitious than I was thinking about.

I was talking more about having 2 teleporters that will transfer units entering it from one continent to another continent. They would be set locations and always transfer between only them.


EDIT: Omni, could you let us know when the version in the DB is 1.03?

[This message has been edited by skorpion59 (edited January 28, 2001).]

[BlueO]

Moving units from one spot to another is very easy. Use the Event: MoveUnits() function. I had considered giving the cpu a teleportation tech for later stages, so their units can instantly attack any human cities from anywhere. But decided not to, since I really want to be able to see the ai stacks coming at me.

I have the mod version 1.03 up temorarily here: http://www.ncal.verio.com/~richl/ctp2.html

[DJ]

Really? So you could create a teleporter that teleports any unit to the receiving teleporter?
[This message has been edited by DJ (edited January 28, 2001).]

[Dale]

There is an event handler for such teleporting, and it doesn't play the death sound. I used it in the withdraw mod to transfer the units out of your borders.

Event:Teleport(army_t , location_t );

I just gave the event the expel sound by having:

AddEffect(WDT_tmparmy.location, "SPECEFFECT_DIPLOMATIC", "SOUND_ID_EXPEL");

before the teleport event. Hope this helps.

------------------
Author of Diplomod. The mod to fix diplomacy.

Rommell to a sub-commander outside Tobruk: "Those Australians are in there somewhere. But where? Let's advance and wait till they shoot, then shoot back."

[DJ]

Thanks guys! That's pretty cool that there is an event like that.

[Huysmans_666]

Hey there,

I've played the mod for some time now and I'm thrilled, no errors no crashes, splendid, but there is one items which is not very realistic.

When I opened the trade manager, very early in the game and later on still, it said to me that if I were to trade the selfmade goode it would give me 3300-3500 per trade route per turn !!!

I created 10 of those and was richer than Bill himself within a couple of turns.
Therefore if you do this you can rushbuy everything in the game and that is not very realistic I think.

Is this a bug or a glitch in the mod ???