The Medieval Pack II v2.0: Crusade! Texts Release

[WesW]

Attached below is a zip file containing the updated texts and slic files for the Public Release version of the Medieval Pack II v2.0: Crusade!

Note: This version's files have been re-named to remove the "X" from them, which means that installing this version will replace the Call-to-Arms version of the modpack. Once you finish the readme, I think that you will agree that version 2 is a worthy successor to the first version.
Unzip the file into your Call-to-Power folder as usual.

I have checked the mod to be sure that it loads properly, but it has not been play-tested beyond that. However, since most all of the new script language consists of proven code from other mods and previous versions of the Medpack, I feel confident that it will perform correctly.
There is one area that needs to be checked, however. In previous versions of the mod, I had removed the ability to found cities on mountains. However, the AI kept trying to found them there, which resulted in settlers which appeared to just be standing around, as most of you have noticed in your games.
To try and correct this, I have removed the ability of settlers to move on mountain terrain. Players need to check to see if the AIs are still trying to found mountain cities. If there is still a problem, then I will re-install the original game settings.

I have pasted the readme below, except for the sections on modifying the Elite and Pirate triggers.

Medieval Mod II v2.0: Crusade! readme
by Wes Whitaker.

This file covers all the additions made in the Crusade! version of the Medieval Pack II.
Overall, I feel that this mod sends the Medieval Pack II out in fine fashion, giving players the most realistic and challenging games yet. I do not know when or if I will return to compose further versions of the modpack, but I feel certain that the talented programmers at Apolyton will continue to produce game-enhancing triggers, which can easily be integrated into the modpack by using Modswapper. Since Call-to-Power will be the only civ series for some time with an editable scripting language, it will be interesting to see what can be done with the game in the future, and how it will compare to Civ III.
Working on what evolved from a small mod designed to fix a few perceived flaws in Call-to-Power I into a 30 meg behemoth for Call-to-Power II over the last two years has been an experience that I hopefully will never forget. I guess I spent a couple of thousand hours on the mods myself, with several thousand more hours from those whom I collaborated with and whose work I added to the Medieval mods to form the Medieval mod-Packs. Overall, I consider it time well spent. The work gave me a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment that helped me through some tough times in my life, and the skills and experience I gained working on the mods will serve me well in both my personal and professional life in the years to come.
I wish all my fellow mod-makers good luck in the future, and I thank all of you with whom I have worked and all of you who have contributed to the threads and provided feedback. Finally, thanks again to Mark and Dan for their support with promoting the mods and for designing my hosted site and helping me learn how to use it in a basic way.

For the second version of the modpack, I have tried to address the remaining failings of the AI, and to further enhance gameplay.

New graphics: (not included yet)
I have included new pictures for all but the futuristic improvements in the game. These graphics come from Harlan Thompson's graphics pack. I have also included the Stonehenge movie from Call-to-Power I.

The movie helps to complete the modpack, and the full-screen pictures look better than the originals, imo.

Settlers, cities and goods:
I have added five more triggers by Martin Guhmann. Thanks to Martin for altering his scripts to fit my ideas for the Medpack.

The first trigger adds a pop point to a city whenever a settler or engineer is disbanded in it.

The second takes a portion of a civ's gold and PW when it loses a city, proportional to the percentage of the civ's population lost, and gives it to the capturing civ.

The third trigger gives the human the option of razing a city when you capture it. You will receive 100 gold and 75 PW for each pop point of the city. This atrocity hurts your relations with other players, however.

The fourth trigger is the Good mod, which creates an invisible terrain improvement on all good tiles in the game. This improvement gives additional gold, production and/or food to the city working the tile. Exact amounts are listed in the terrain page of the Med charts.

I have also added existing goods to several terrains which did not get them before, and altered the probability of getting goods on all terrains so that some are rarer but more valuable than others.

AI cheats:
The fifth trigger gives the AI's commerce tile improvements on Forests, Jungles, Tundra and Swamp tiles within their cities' radii.

I also added the PW cheat mod by Player 1, which gives the AI's 5 PW and 10 gold for each population point in their cities, beginning on turn 300.

I hope that these cheats will help the AI's stay in the game after the Renaissance age, when they typically start to fade.

Slaving and disbanding:
I have removed the victory enslavement ability from all units in the game. This means that you can only acquire slaves by using a Slaver to capture citizens from cities or Settlers.

I found that the human could still use the victory enslavement ability better than the AI, and that it was too easy to get large numbers of slaves from attacking special attack units like enemy slavers.

Note: I also re-installed the flag which prevents a player with slaves from building Abolitionists.

I had Wouter alter the code which automatically disbanded enslaving units so that it automatically disbands obsolete units on certain turns.
Now, all remaining Ancient age ground units are disbanded on turn 300, which is near the end of the Medieval age. Classical age regular units and Ancient age Elite units are disbanded on turn 400, Medieval age regulars and Classical Elites on turn 475, and Renaissance regulars and remaining Elites on turn 550, near the end of the Modern age.
Regular and Elite naval units are disbanded on the same turn as their age's Elite ground units. Renaissance naval units are not disbanded.

As with the AI cheats, I hope that this trigger will force the AIs to field modern armies, and not get over-burdened with unit support costs which cause them to fade after the Renaissance age.

Note: I have also added Player 1's Battleview fix to the mod.

Population boom:
Jules wrote an slic script which gives a civ granary-like buildings when it discovers Germ Theory and Immunization. All cities will receive these buildings, which all 10% to the food collected by the city. These buildings are removed when a civ discovers both Contraception and Equal Rights.

This trigger attempts to emulate the population boom that occurs in a civ due to advances in medicine which help protect the population from epidemics and decrease childhood mortality rates. Traditionally, when a civ discovers birth control and women win the right to hold jobs outside the home, the birth rate of the civ drops so that population growth rates return to normal.

Pirates:
Locutus wrote an slic script which adds pirates to the game. The current setting is one pirate creation every ten turns on average, though players may set the rate that pirates are generated. Details on adjusting the settings in the MM2X_SLC_Wouter script file are given below. Possible pirate ships are Triremes, Longships, Cogs, Carracks and PT Boats.

Note: PT Boats are now a sub-surface class ship, and not a stealth unit.

Wouter was not able to place land units in the pirate ships, but this will still give another element of realism to the game, and force players to enhance their navies if they want to keep their trade routes open.

Terrain-influenced Elite units:
Locutus also enhanced the Elite units script so that the chances of gaining Elite units is affected by the types of terrain in the nine tiles within a one square radius of its cities. The terrains which increase the chances of getting a unit are detailed in the Med charts spreadsheet. Details on how to change the settings are given below.

[SteamFax]

Wes
Thank you very much for your update. Video's not yet availble? Never thought I would like those videos so much, gives a sense of historical accomplishment I suppose.
I heard they removed them from Civ3.
Keep up the good work!

[Foro]

i find the elimination of units that getting to old is very interesting and would like to implement it in a game i will start with a friend at the weekend (wrote a little scenario for this)
so my question is is it possible to get it as a single slic and can it be implemented in an ongoing game without problems via reloadslic ?


thx in advance

[WesW]

Thanks, SteamFax. Dan is continuing to pester the tech support guy about getting my access to the webpage restored. I will post all the graphics when I am able.

Foro, I don't know about cutting out the individual trigger, but I do know that you could not implement it into an on-going game. Sorry.

[Immortal Wombat]

Originally posted by WesW
Foro, I don't know about cutting out the individual trigger, but I do know that you could not implement it into an on-going game. Sorry.

Technically you could, but it would only work from the time you /reloaded the slic, not from turn 1.

[Kill1Frenzy]

I've found a problem in mm2, and now my save game is corrupt, just as I was getting nukes

The problem:
When a city is totally destroyed, the game crashes!!!!

[Martin Gühmann]

How was the city destroyed. Was the city selected before it was destroyed? That is a problem in CTP2 and that is the reason why I used this for loop instead of the kill city option in my kill city option slic. And than I had to discover that a city that was previous selected caused the crash. And that happens often if you are testing your slic with the cheat editor especially if you do it like I did it with the kill city option.

-Martin

[Kill1Frenzy]

Well, it doesn't matter how it was destroyed, if it was by bloodbath or by conquering while only one pop left, it kills my game anyway.

[Martin Gühmann]

You could attach the you save game in a *zip file here in the Forum. Today the limit of the size of attached files is 500000 k that should be enough, maybe for not zipped files, too. Than I could take a look on your save game.

-Martin

[WesW]

Martin, I had this same crash with me the last time I played a game with the new triggers. I don't know why I did not report it to Locutus and you, since it had to be from one of the new Crusade triggers. It crashes both if the city is destroyed by conquest or if you disband the city.

[Kill1Frenzy]

There would be no meaning in uploading my game cause you anin't going to see anything, the game crashes as soon as it has loaded, it doesn't even display anything in the main window.

[Kill1Frenzy]

Hallu? How is the fixing going, progress rapport please

Except from that is(are?) the MM2 multiplayer compatible?

[Starfighter08]

Is disbanding cities still possible?

EDIT: ok this is already a known problem, shame on me for not ready all posts

[Martin Gühmann]

OK I tested that with the latest update just put two cities with the cheat editor on the map and disbanded one and I got the crash. So I lunched a Game with MM2X files and the same effect happened. I lunched a GoodMod game no crash. So it seems that is not my slic that caused the problem. Unfortunatly I was only able to make a quick test. So that I wasn't able to find anything.

-Martin

[Locutus]

Well, I found a way around the crash-on-disband bug, I sent the fixed file off to Wes just a few minutes ago. For those of you who can't wait until Wes posts an update, I attached the relevant SLIC file. Just replace the existing file with this one and start playing - use /reloadslic from the chat window if you want to continue an existing game.

[Immortal Wombat]

What was causing the problem?

[Kill1Frenzy]

Thank you oh so much, locutus
Now I can finally play this wonderful game again

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Immortal Wombat
What was causing the problem?

I still don't know actually, I just rewrote the whole section that was causing the crash I do know KillCity and DisbandCity events (eventhandlers for these events were causing the crash somehow) are always quite troublesome, had some problems with them with the militia code as well.

[WesW]

The good news- I can access my site again.

The bad news- I cannot get the full version of the mod to upload to the site. I have emailed Mark again about it. I believe he thought it was related to the email server problem, but I just tried again, and still no luck.
In the meantime, install the file that Wouter posted above, and hopefully I will finally have the graphics that go with it posted soon.

Btw, I am putting together a mod for Civ III, which I am calling the Medpack III for Civ III. There are a lot of limitations on what you can do with the Civ III editor, but I think that I have enough stuff to enhance the game a good bit. No new graphics for units or civs, either, but I have found some pretty good work-arounds for that, which is something you get pretty good at once you have spent a couple years working with the Ctp files.

[Locutus]

Originally posted by WesW
Btw, I am putting together a mod for Civ III, which I am calling the Medpack III for Civ III.

What?! You heretic! Traitor! We shall hang you for that!

[Immortal Wombat]

Poll: Hanging or Burning at Stake

[The Rusty Gamer]

So here's the question WesW, will CivIII get the equivalent of ModSwapper?

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Immortal Wombat
Poll: Hanging or Burning at Stake

To use Locutus' words reassimilation would be the way to go. If I look into the Civ3 forum there is a lot of work to do.

-Martin

[WesW]

Civ III isn't so bad, you just have to give it that Medeival touch (aka kick in the pants).
Anyway, I think that the problem with the webpage is that there is a file size limit somewhere. I broke the mod into two pieces, 1)the Stonehenge video and 2)everything else. I could load everything else, but not the 4.4meg zipped vid. If I can't get something worked out soon, I will just post everything else and you can fondly remember the Ctp 1 Stonehenge vid. The other graphics are simply full-sized build queue pics like the Castle, but for all the original improvements, so you are not missing anything other than eye-candy.

[Triphosphatase]

WesW: There are 3 things that I find 'broken' with your mod:

1. When the build queue is empty, and the last item built was an unit, it will not continue to build that unit until another item is placed in the build queue. (I do remember Original CTP2 to do this correctly)

2. When Captilization/Infrastructure is the current item being built in the city, the city will continue building C/I forever, even if there are other items lined up in the build queue after C/I. C/I should act like units: City builds C/I turn after turn if there are no following item in the build queue, but if an item is appended to the queue, the city will switch to that item after a turn.

3. The pop-up dialog that shows up when a civilization obtains an elite unit is broken. The name of the elite unit, and the advance name are displayed as the variable name itself (something like: [.advancename]), and not as the advance name.

The first one is a game ruiner, I don't like dealing with empty build queues and I also don't like inserting a hundred units into the queue so it will not run out. (I problem if I want to append a city improvement from the national manager)

The second one is just an annoyance.

The third one is cosmetic.

Can you show me how to fix these three? I do not know much about SLIC, and I do wish to play CTP2:Med. (And Civ3 was such a dissapointment :| )

[WesW]

David Sobotka (Hexagonian) let me post the Stonehenge avi at his docsonline page a couple days ago. I emailed Mark about it, as he was the one who wanted me to post it at a third-party site. I thought he would transfer it to my page, but he is probably booked up right now.
Anyway, I decided to link from my page to Hex's, so simply click on the part 6 to get the Stonehenge avi. The texts and pics are now up as part 5.

To answer Tripod's 3 points above,
1) This is a matter of taste, and it was done on purpose. If I know I want to build Musketeers for the next 20 turns, I simply fill up the queue with enough of them to last for that span. Usually, though, if I do not anything after a unit, it means that I want to come back to the city after that one unit is built and see what needs to be done next.
I forget which file has the setting for this, but it is probably the same one which turned the debug slic on or off.
2)I rarely used C/I, so this is a new bug to me, or at least I cannot remember distinctly if it was a game bug or not. Sorry. Things are getting fuzzy for me after a few months largely away from the files, and with the last two weeks learning the civ 3 structure.
3) There are several places where the pop-ups are messed up, and I am not a good enough programmer to figure out what to do about it. As far as I can tell, all of them are set up the same way, but yet some work and some do not. If you can straighten these out for me, I would be very grateful. The strings are located in the scen.txt, and some are referenced in the slic files too.

As far as modswapper, I will contact Paul about that. Civ 3 desperately needs this, as their "scenario" structure simply reads the bic file, and refers to the default structure for all other files.
I have not seen Paul posting anywhere in a long time, so it may be hard to get him back.

[Pedrunn]

Wes, to set the infinite unit building as it was in the original game the only thing you had to do wasnt delete the line: OnlyBuildOne in all units in the unit.txt?
Triophosphate i know it is going to be really boring but you could do yourself. Like i said just delete the line in everyone of the 125 units of the medmod.

[Pedrunn]

1)Triphosphate, you could solve problem one yourself. To set the infinite unit building as in the original game delete the line: OnlybuildOne in everyone of the 125 units of medmod (just not the settlers units) found in the MM2_unit.txt.
Isnt that right, Wes?

[Immortal Wombat]

Originally posted by Pedrunn
1)Triphosphate, you could solve problem one yourself. To set the infinite unit building as in the original game delete the line: OnlybuildOne in everyone of the 125 units of medmod (just not the settlers units) found in the MM2_unit.txt.
Isnt that right, Wes?

That is correct.
Have fun on the Ctrl-V

Point 2) is a game 'feature', not a bug as such. I suspect it can be solved with some SLIC, but build-queue SLIC is not too detailed, and it might take some workarounds. I'll have a look.

Point 3) comes (possibly) from the SLIC Debugedness (dunno how though) or from having the array insufficiently well defined in the code.

Wes I have a new computer. 1.5gh 256 meg of ram with gforce 2 video card 64 meg, build in sound card, and XP Home OS. I loaded the game with all of your mods and the game will not start. I get an SLIC error. I can play the non mod game with no problem.