I have sent a note to Mark to post the Cradle here at Apolyton.
Last night in my game (Very Hard, 12 civs, Raging Hordes), the Japanese gutted my empire at around turn 250, and I am happy with what happened.
Several AI civs and the Barbarians kept military stacks outside of my cities for a good portion of the game. I could not get them to agree to leave, nor did I have the military strength to deal with all of them. I monitored the AI from time to time on the cheat mode - the AI did not lose any cities to the Barbarians. The Barbarians are a little more passive than I like, but it is the sheer number of them that makes it tricky to deal with them, because they will stack up and attack any weak stacks that venture outside of your cities. It becomes a challenge to decide what to build - improvements or military. The Barbarians did attack and take one of my cities in the early going with a large stack - I had to build up and retake the city, losing time in the process.
For a good part of the game, those AI stacks parked outside of my cities were minding their own business - in fact I was a little annoyed with the AI's passivity. I knew that if they wanted to, they could do me a world of hurt. I never started a war in the course of the game - but this Mod makes it difficult to do so, because of the healing limitations placed on units.
But, in the course of a few turns, the Americans took a city with a stack, and then the Japanese launched an assault on my internal cities with a stack. As a sidenote, I had a sizable force on the southern part of my empire to deal with 2 other civs who had been harrassing my units. By the time I got that force back up to the north, the Japanese had taken my two best cities, and the trigger that guts a city of improvements had wiped out a good portion of those city improvements. I took the cities back, but it was hopeless to rebuild up, and build a military to deal with all of the attacking civs.
What was also interesing to note was the distance the Japanese force traveled to get into my heart. The Japanese had parked a stack of 12 in my empire, and after taking a couple of cities, were in the process of sending an additional stack in my direction.
So yes, this Mod is hard on the harder levels...
Isn't that what everyone wants?
The Mod is still available at my site, so if you want to, go ahead and download it from there.
http://www.mydocsonline.com
login: hexagonia
password: hextapul
Below is an exerpt from the readme, describing what I wanted to accomplish in this Mod...
?One of my main purposes in creating this Mod was to address the shortcomings of the AI. I worked from the principle that if the AI was not capable of exploiting a feature in the game, then I would (attempt to) severely limit what the player could do in that same situation. This would make the game more difficult, because the tried-and-true strategies of the past may not work as well.?
a. Global Slider Adjustments
- Base Wages are at 5 gold per worker instead of 4
- Gain/Loss on the Ration Slider is at ration per worker instead of 3 per slider click
- Gain/Loss on the Production Slider is at .10 instead of .15 per slider click
It is my impression that the AI does not use the sliders too much ? therefore, these adjustments will help level the playing field. This will make it harder to max out the sliders to catch up to the AI on harder levels.
b. There is also a happiness penalty for maxxing out your sliders. Basically, you gain more unhappiness for working/underpaying/starving your workers than if you treat them well. The standard rate is (-3) for unhappiness and (+2) for happiness, although there are different settings for certain governments.
c. Rush Buy Modifiers have been increased in the later governments. It will cost more to Rush Buy later in the game.
d. Healing Rate for Units has been greatly slowed down - It has been totally eliminated if the unit remains out in the field, and is at 5% per turn in a city.
e. AI Goody Hut Priority - Increased Barbarian attacks - Reduction of free stuff from Goody Huts.
f. AI Production Boost on the more difficult levels
g. AI Power Bonus and Siege Priority Boost - this is supposed to make the AI more aggressive and more willing to attack cities - there are also many tweaks in the Strategies.txt file.
h. Happiness issues have been modified with the following...
- Base happiness is now at 75 instead of 73
- Revolutions are at 68
- Pollution has been modified to affect happiness earlier in the game
i. City Population growth has been slowed - the first cap is at 12 instead of 18.
- Aqueducts are now a food enhancement improvement (per Granary)
- The City Efficiency Improvements are now the Apothecary, Physician, and Bath House
j. There are now 2 types of Slavers. The Slaver works as a stealth unit, but it cannot be stacked with an army to capture slaves. There is also a Slavemaster, which does not have stealth capabilities, but can be stacked with an army to capture slaves. This is an effort to make slaving a little more difficult for the player, as the AI does not use slavers in stacked combat. Creating a military unit with slaving abilities will help the AI reduce the advantage that a human player has. In addition, the Chariot, Legion and Praetorian units will automatically enslave a defeated foe.
I believe that the combination of the tweaks above have given CTP2 a much-needed challenge to the player.
