quote: Originally posted by Harlan on 12-08-2000 11:24 PM Wes, You didn't really answer my questions from my previous posting. First off, what percent longer will your mod be in turns than the regular CTP2 setup, and how does that compare with what percent of new units you'll have. I still worry about getting too many new units before I can really use them. Ways to automatically update old units to new (for a price or a Leonardo wonder or something) would help, certainly.

quote: Originally posted by Harlan on 12-08-2000 11:24 PM Second question. What do you think about my comment that "less is more" and one shouldn't simply add a new unit or wonder or other, just because the graphic is there? I'll again point to the Ironclad and Monitor as an example. As far as I know, there was no such thing as defensive and offensive Ironclads, there was just one type. The Monitor was but an early single boat, and as one of the first Ironclads ever built, largely without any offensive weapons. This was an oversight (based on a need to rush a weapon, any weapon to meet the Merrimack) that was soon rectified by all later Ironclads. I can see why for logical reasons its good to look for an offensive and defensive ship in each era, but the Monitor is not what you're looking for for that era, unless you want to fly in the face of history.

quote: Originally posted by Harlan on 12-08-2000 11:24 PM I would also call into question some of the other unit additions as being unnecessary, such as the Privateer, but if you could explain the wonders they'll be attached to, maybe they're look better. The Galleon I agree is an important unit, but I believe that is exactly what the Carrack is. They're nearly the same thing, but I'm sure the Activision guys named it Carrack simply so there would be one less unit they share with Civ2. For instance, I asked the lead designer why he wouldn't include Chariot, and the name was the reason: the legal team said they were skating on thin ice with having too many things the same as Civ2, and there was no other name to call Chariot. Other ones I'd question: why a WW2 Frigate? Slinger? Horse Archer and Bandit Horseman (one or the other is fine)? Heavy Swordsman and Swordsman (again, one or the other)? The Zulus? These seem driven by a cos we have the graphics sentiment. Bombard, Culverin AND Cannon seems a bit iffy- 2 out of three is good, unless the mod will stretch time out a ton.

quote: Originally posted by Harlan on 12-08-2000 11:24 PM On the other hand, there are some holes that still need fixing. For instance, ICBM (I assume you forgot to mention Nukes), Seige Tower, Anti-Air Gun (pre-SAM). On another note, what about a provision in your mod for reducing the PW cost of adding, say, a Mega Mine to where a Mine was, or a Railroad to where a Road was. For instance, pay 300 instead of 500 if the original cost 200. I think it would be wonderful if someone made animations out of some of my units, but I also think it would be pretty near impossible, since they aren't based on 3D models.

I have not made any changes to nukes. I thought they were in the lists somewhere. I don't think there are flags present to portray siege engines accurately. If someone wants to try some slic stuff, be my guest. The anti-air artillery, which I had in the med mod I, I was going to wait and see how play-testing went. The anti-air category may have to be absorbed into another category anyway given the 5 build list restriction.

I will try and make another post dividing the standard units into their ages, and with wonder units in another list. Hopefully this will clear up some of the confusion.

Just to come to WesW's defense about the Monitor, the North built 60 something of those things just during the period of the Civil War. In fact, they were an entire official class of ships during the Civil War. I think the way Wes has broken up the early iron warships between coastal defenders and deep sea vessels is a good idea.

Wes, I like the way you are going to use one of your early "cannon" units as a strickly garrison type unit. If you can make the AI a lot more aggressive, that could be a very important developement. However, I don't think it is a good idea to use a ship as a garrison type unit. I think your plan to use the Monitor as a Shallow water defender/attacker is a better idea. If you want a garrison unit that is able to defend against sea units, just give the garrison cannon the ability to bombard ocean. I have already experimented with this and the AI definitely knows what to do with it. I think if you do give it the bombard ocean ability, you should also mitigate this by giving any naval vessels of this era the ability to counter bombard land though.

The reason the South's Merrimack type ships - they had more than one too, but not nearly as many as the North - were only used in bays and rivers was because the North had Monitor Class ships out is the coastal waters supporting operation "Anaconda." Anaconda was the name of the strategy the North used to blockade the entire Coast of the Confederecy. Later Monitor Class ships were able to handle the coastal ocean waters a lot better than the original Monitor could. Ericson, the guy who invented the Monitor, learned from his mistakes with the original Monitor and made lots of improvements on later models.

The happiness costs to much if the base i 12 and step is 4..

Also, I agree with Harlan about the "less is more" -- variety of units must be balanced with game simplicity, and I urge you =not= to include units that are too similar in function unless they really add something to the game.

Overkill of units is the one big reservation I have about the mod, and I think you should weigh each choice carefully.

1. What if Wonder obsolescense was triggered not by an advance, but by the building of another wonder? For example, the Dutch East India trading co. could become obsolete when and if someone builds the London Exchange.

2. To fix the problem of "free-building" wonders and mayors building those anyway, change the wonder effect so that it actually places the building in the inventory of any existing or newly built city, on a one-time basis. If the building is destroyed, you don't get another free one in that city. This is the way SMAC handles such things, and it works well.

Especially as you're not planning to extend the timeline any longer at current, I think the units you add need to be held to close scrutiny. 20 extra units is a gimme, but its easy to slip into 30 then 40 then more, as more sprites become available.

Another example. The Monitor again. Its true about 60 of those were built during the Civil War. Maybe 100 worldwide of vaguely Monitor-y type boats. But these had a very short history- from about 1861 to 1869, when the design of the Ironclad changed utterly. The Ironclad itself was a transitional unit, with only about 30 years of dominance, and the Monitor just an early transitional model of that. I could come up with dozens of units that have as much historical justification as that. I assume CTP2 turns would be moving at about 2 years a turn at this point, so you'd have about 4 turns to build and move into battle a Monitor before it was historically obsolete. It would be great for a Civil War scenario, though.

Galleon: the Santa Maria, sailed by Columbus, was a Galleon (though his two other ships weren't). This shows how short a historical life the domination of the Carrack was (about 50 years), though the two coexisted for a while longer.

I'm not sure what the point of Heavy Swordsman is, still. The Frigate didn't have any special anti-air capability until the SAM was invented. For the anti-air role it arose the same time as the Missile Cruiser, but is merely a cheaper, smaller version of that.

Then there's the Mounted Archer, Horse Archer and Bandit Horseman. I can't see what would be the need for three. The Horse Archer could play the role of Bandit Horseman: the Mongol Warrior type raiding at the fringes. One thing I recall reading when making the Alexander scenario: it is commonly believed by military historians that Alex's army could have taken on just about any army of the world until about 1500 since there was so little advancement in military technology and prowess until that time. The only advancement ever in archers on horses was the invention of the stirrup around 300 BC- one probably couldn't tell the difference between a Hun and a Mongol.

Its interesting that Bombard can't move or be built in the regular way, but I must have missed the discussion on that. Can you say again what that's for? Ditto for Zulus- you're keeping the associated wonders with some of this stuff a secret for now, I guess.

RELATIVE_AI_PRODUCTION_CHEAT_COEF 1.0
RELATIVE_AI_SCIENCE_CHEAT_COEF 1.0

I don't know: does the AI cheat more if these are over 1, or less than 1?

I hope other methods are worked into the mod to make the game tougher as it goes on, esp. ways to have the AI players bounce back after they start losing. One idea mentioned above was having the building of new wonders make old wonders obsolete. Off the top of my head, this gives me the idea of having a catch up wonder: doesn't do much in and of itself, but it would make a bunch of useful wonders obsolete. So if you're behind, its a great thing to build to sock to the player who's built most of the wonders.

"3.0 CONVENTIONAL UNITS:
I have made many changes to the Ancient and Renaissance units, in order to break up the Ancient age into an Ancient and a Medieval age, and I also ended up separating the Renaissance into Early and Late ages. I wanted each age to have a scout, a defensive and an offensive infantry, a ranged unit and a mounted assault unit. I have added several units to the game, and changed the roles of other units to accomplish these goals. Their new stats are listed in the Med Charts spreadsheet.

Unit strengths and abilities to increase by about 50%, generally speaking, from one age to the next, up to the Modern Age (this age begins with the Riflemen unit). Unit costs only increase by about 25% from one age to the next, so it definitely pays off militarily to keep science strong."

Later on in the readme:

"...This separation of the ages is also important because unit strengths double from one age to the next, beginning with the Modern Age. (This means that Riflemen are twice as powerful as Musketeers, and so on.) Unit costs and support continue to increase by about half the amount of the power increase. Beginning with the Modern Age, many units gain special air and/or naval abilities, which increase their cost as well. I have tried to arrange all the ages so that defensive units are the first obtained, thus granting the Militia upgrade, and offensive units the last obtained. This should give you a cushion if you are not the lead civ tech-wise, but if you get too far behind, and see Armor bearing down on you when you are still using Musketeers, you are dead meat. (Which is how it should be, imo.)"

Here is an explanation of the militia triggers. The units created will be different in some ages, but the principles will be the same. Cities will gain an additional militia when they increase in radius, up to a max of four units for Ctp2.

"I have added several SLIC triggers developed by Locutus and the SLIC group.
The first creates a defensive Militia unit when a city is founded. The unit created is the civ's current defensive unit at the time of the city's founding. This means that all cities will be defended by at least one unit, in addition to any martial law effects.
The second trigger keeps Militia units from being moved. It does this by destroying the unit when it leaves the city, and creating a replacement in the city that the unit left.
The third trigger automatically upgrades the Militia units whenever their civ gains knowledge which allows them to build the next age's defensive unit. It also allots additional militia units based upon the size of the city. Cities receive a second unit if they are size 9, a third if 17, and a fourth at 25. Additional units are allotted when the militias are upgraded. Militias left behind from destroyed or disbanded cities are also destroyed at this time.
The upgrade sequence for land and sea cities is: Phalanx, Fyrdman, Arquebusier, Musketeer, Riflemen, Machine Gunner and Plasmatica."

While I am at it, here is part of the section on sea and air units. Again, specifics might change, but the general principles will be the same.

"NAVAL UNITS:
The new aips have the AI constructing more ships, so I eliminated the pillage ability for Triremes,
Fire Galleys and Subs to avoid the aggravation of continually having to chase them off.
However, I gave the ability to pirate to the Ironclad, Sub and Battleship.
I gave all ships from the Caravel on up five extra hit points, and reduced their other values to off-set this. This was made because the extra hitpoints given by the Cohort-type Wonders were affecting ships more than they were land units, which was not what I intended.
I removed the ability of Ships-of-the-Line and Caravels to bombard land, because the AI would throw them away bombarding cities. However, they, and all gunpowder ships, can bombard water and counter-bombard, so if they are attacked from the sea, they can defend themselves.
The Destroyer can now carry 1 small land unit, and submarines can carry small land units as well. This gives you the ability to land special units onto shore from a warship (Destroyer), or undetected (subs.).
Battleships can now carry two Cruise Missiles.
The Missile Frigate is the earliest naval unit capable of bombarding air units. All earlier units are defenseless against air bombardment, except for aircraft-carrying Carriers.
The Carrier can carry Fighters, Dive Bombers, Bombers and Helicopters. The Aircraft Carrier has been re-named the Nuclear Carrier, and can carry all air units, plus Space Fighters.

AIR UNITS:
There is a bug in the game which renders aircraft defenseless when attacked over water. CD called this the "water bug". I found that if planes are bombarded over water, it produced normal results (i.e. no water bug). So, I took away the air_attack ability from all other units, and replaced it with the bombard_air ability. This seems to have effectively gotten rid of the water bug in engagements not involving the active air-defense ability. I then increased the hit points for all air units, as this gave good results for bombard combat. In order to keep the overall power of air and SAM units the same, I reduced their attack and defense values by the same percentage as their increase in hit points.

MISC. NOTES:
Every unit that can bombard can now counter-bombard."

The "Water bug" has been fixed for Ctp2, but at this time I think the philosophy of having air units bombard sea and air units, and vice versa, rather than engaging in hand-to-hand combat is both better for gameplay and more realistic.

Here is what I did to the DiffDB for Emporer level, which is what I play on. There are similar lines in Ctp2, where the AI is currently given no bonuses in any category.

"DiffDB (Emporer Level):
--------------------------------OLD
--------------------------------NEW
AI_TECHNOLOGY_COST -0.1 -0.1 -0.3 -0.4 -0.5
------------------ -0.1 -0.2 -0.2 -0.3 -0.3
AI_PRODUCTION_COST +0.35 +0.3 +0.25 +0.2 +0.1
-------------------+0.0 -0.1 -0.1 -0.2 -0.2
AI_GOLD_ADJUSTMENT +1.0 +1.0 +1.1 +1.2 +1.2
-------------------+1.0 +1.1 +1.1 +1.2 +1.2

Here are some preliminary recommendations for land units:
Age------- Defensive--- Offensive--- Ranged------ Mtd Ranged----Flanker
Bronze---- Spearman--- Swordsman---- Slinger----- Zulu Archer- Light (Jav) Cavalry
Iron------ Phalanx---Heavy Swordsman-Archer------ Mtd Archer--- Heavy (Noble) Cavalry
Medieval-- Fyrdman---- Pikeman---- Catapault----- Horse Ar----- Knight
Renaissance ------Musketeer------ Ctp2 Cannon---- Dragoon----
Industrial ------Infantryman------- Ctp1-Cannon------Cavalry----
Genetic - Machine Gunner-Fascist-- Ctp1 Arty------- Ctp2 Arty---- Tank
Diamond - Plasmatica- Hover Infantry-AT-Artillery- Plasma Cannon-- Hovertank

Glad to hear you're gearing up the Med Mod for CTP2. I'm pretty underwhelmed with the factory version and need to get hold of a hot rod version.

A couple of thoughts...

The more units the merrier! For two reasons. One, it gives us more "eye candy" and makes for a more seamless transition up the military tech tree. I hate the jarring transition from a colonial period looking infantryman to a Desert Storm era machine gunner. It makes the game a little more complex and a lot more "real feeling" to have a more diverse selection of units. The WWII era units you had in Med Mod 3/4 were great. And I wouldn't mind a few more. I even like that you had Armor and Tank (tho Tank seemed to come in a bit too late in the timeline). It played really well. Please use the little green Bomber sprite over the big gray and yellow one tho! Second, a more selfish reason, for wanting tons of units included is that whoever creates a mod, even if I love it, I'm going to tweak it. And it's easier for me to remove or change units than it is to add them.

Don't forget that the WWII scenario should provide some juicy new sprites to work with too!

One thing that bugs me about the current game that I haven't seen mentioned as a possible need for a fix is that with the advances on the tech tree, the units and building and Wonders and tile improvements gained by researching that advance often seem to be way out of whack as far as a historical timeline. For example, Economics gives you London Exchange and Shopping Malls. What?! Submarines, Oil Refineries and Offshore Oil Drilling Platforms all come at the same time? That bugs the hell out of me b/c I like to choose my advances in a somewhat historically accurate manner and seeing Calvary units around shopping malls irritates me.

About spies and Cyber Ninjas "sueing" UW units...I guess you didn't catch any of my posts in the CTP forums but I was using the Cyber Ninja for this in CTP (Med Mod4) for around a month prior to CTP2 coming out. I did not give that power to the spies or secret agents because it's almost too powerful. You may just as well delete all of the UW units entirely. Also, I "imagine" this ability as some sort of assassination of the UW unit and thus hold off and give it to a unit which I think of as more of a ninja killer type gimmick. Also I have some thoughts about the flow of the game which I'll get to in a sec... I thought it might be cool to have an earlier unit with this capability, which would require the completion of a Wonder to build and only be available for a short period of time (until the Wonder went obsolete). For example, during the Crusades there was an extreme Muslim sect called the Assassins and an extreme Christian monastic order called the Knights Templar. These two groups had substantial dealings and conflicts with each other during that time period. I thought it would be cool to make both units tied to Wonders (a la Alamut for the Assassins and Crusading for the Templars) with the Assassins being a stealthy attack unit with the "can sue" function and the Templars being an extra-powerful knight unit with the ability to see stealth units. Something like that.

I think that when a Wonder becomes available that gives a civ a special unit then there should be, for balance and in the same time period, another Wonder that can give a second special unit to another cive to prevent one civ from being too dominant.

Game flow...I notice many guys here want every unit type to be available for every historical age. Meaning they think there must be a ranged unit, or a flanking unit or a sea bombard unit for all time periods. I hate that. I think the tactics of warfare should change over time. That's one thing the original game has gotten right. I have grown to appreciate the fact that coracles have no attack power! They shouldn't. I always grew so bored with CTP in the latter stages of the game because (with the exception of the introduction of space units - love that space bomber!) you were merely upgrading your units with a more powerful version of the same thing with a different sprite. I don't mind doing that (upgrading units - as I stated with the "more is merrier" bit above) but I want to see changes in strategy as well. The introduction of the Fire Trireme is exciting because it changes naval strategy. The introduction of the catapult is exciting because now you can bombard and this changes how you attack cities and ships. If you want to introduce military capabilities earlier than the original game does, then maybe it could be with Wonder specific units. Just an idea.

I'd love to see units that are available only to Barbarians (pirates, bandit horsemen, guerillas etc).

If anyone could come up with a way for amphibious assault units to attack a ship from a ship like they do a city (attack the units in the ship and seize the ship if victorious) then they would be a CTP god.

Ditto for anyone who can figure out how to bring back Space.

Ditto for anyone who can figure out how to have different movement speeds for different units (missiles that have a movement of 15 tiles move faster than foot troops that have a movement of 2 tiles, for a more pleasant playing experience).

I'm telling you, don't discount stealth land attack units. They add a new dimension to modern era game play and they're fun to boot. Which reminds me...think it's possible to make stealth units "non-stealth" if they stack?

I don't understand why you say that the AI is currently given no bonuses during gameplay. In the DiffDB I have, it says (for example, on 'very hard' level),

% amount to multiply production cost by per age for ai
AI_MIN_BEHIND_PRODUCTION_COST_ADJUSTMENT 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0
AI_MAX_BEHIND_PRODUCTION_COST_ADJUSTMENT 0.4 0.4 0.5 0.5 0.7

Remember that the AI_MIN is used when AI is less than
50% stronger than human, and the AI_MAX is used when its less than 30% weaker than human. In between these strengths the bonus given to AI is a linear interpolation of these two adjustments.

To me, that seems like a lot of bonus. And its even more in the impossible level.

quote: [Genetic - Machine Gunner-Fascist-- Ctp1 Arty------- Ctp2 Arty---- Tank

I've been reading through all the posts here and have decided maybe I should post my $.02 for all its worth.

As to Xmon's comments:
I think that the addition of the flanker concept and the mixture of special abilities, especially in the later ages, will give you the option of different fighting styles. This may be limited somewhat if you only had standard units, but the main reason I am adding all the special units is so that you can go for different ones in different games and see what kinds of strategies come out of it. I think the special units are going to add enormously to the replay value of the game.

One thing I most look forward to with this modpack and other modpacks is an improved tech tree. Man, does the official one suck. Submarine coming before Electricity? Come on! So many problems like that.

id like to see:

Germany:
V2 rockets (like cruise missiles),
railroad guns (units which may only travel on rr but may bombard from a long distance!)
u-boat (cheap costing sub)
m-109 fighters (cheap costing fighters)
those messershmitt jets (short range but excellent air-to-air attack)
tiger tanks (expensive but lots of firepower and health)
howitzer (awesome artillery piece)
panzerfrast (infantry with high special attack vs. vehicles)

Russia:
generally have very low costing vehicles and infantry but less powerful along with:
sniper (hidden unit which can attempt to kill off an infantry unit or assassinate ruler)
--dont know much else bout the russians in ww2

Japan:
kamikaze! (basically a fighter sprite acting like a missile)

America:
aircraft carrier, larger troop ships, paratroopers
atom bomb (nuke)
b-29(?) superfortress (very powerful long range bomber)

i cant think of any more im so tired !

also couple other features:

1 new concept- some units require particular buildings in order to manufacture. for example- if you want to build a fighter- the city needs to have a general factory, ball bearing plant, engine factory(?), aerodynamics lab.. you name it. and also- when air units make bombardments they may target specific buildings like these which are required for construction of specific units.

also maybe a fire effect- special units like arsonists can start em or bombardments have a chance of creating a fire- or maybe you can have an option when you bombard to use incendiary bombs. fires have a chance of destroying pop and buildings each turn and at end of turn checks to see if it burns out. fire dept improvements increase chance of being put out.

how bout pillbox tile improvements? maybe some tile improvement like a mine but it automatically bombards units which come in range? maybe only france has em to simulate imagino(?) line
barbed wire tile improvements (infantry cannot pass)

1. The tech-sharing from CtP1 MedMod

2. See my thread on upgrading obsolete units

3. Bigger DiffDB.txt bonuses for AI in late game

4. Increase the odds that AI starts with two or more settlers (can the AI start with three?!)

5. SLIC: every wonder increases the rate of tech diffusion from the civ that builds it? Each wonder attracts tourists and pilgrims - it enhances tech transfer from that advanced civ as the pilgrims return home. I.e., each wonder functions as a Great Library in reverse.

6. Feats of Wonder geared towards the AI? We tend to want feats of wonder that reflect our own building styles, but surely there are AI play strategies that could be rewarded. First to move a unit into and out of the same city for 20 turns in a row. Seriously though, there's gotta be something...

If there are no new sprites in the WWII scenario then they may as well just keep it as far as I'm concerned.

Wes, would you consider having the militia units be one step behind the current defense unit? Militias tend to be more along the lines of armed citizens and thus would not have state of the art weaponry. If you just discover machine gunners then all your cities get infantry militia etc.

How about losing the "City Wall" graphic in the modern age? You can keep the defense bonus effect but a wall surrounding a modern city looks weird.

quote: Originally posted by wheathin on 12-11-2000 10:22 AM To keep the AI in the game (or help a straggling human), Harlan's got some good ideas (catch-up wonder, etc.) Here's more: 1. The tech-sharing from CtP1 MedMod 2. See my thread on upgrading obsolete units 3. Bigger DiffDB.txt bonuses for AI in late game 4. Increase the odds that AI starts with two or more settlers (can the AI start with three?!) 5. SLIC: every wonder increases the rate of tech diffusion from the civ that builds it? Each wonder attracts tourists and pilgrims - it enhances tech transfer from that advanced civ as the pilgrims return home. I.e., each wonder functions as a Great Library in reverse. 6. Feats of Wonder geared towards the AI? We tend to want feats of wonder that reflect our own building styles, but surely there are AI play strategies that could be rewarded. First to move a unit into and out of the same city for 20 turns in a row. Seriously though, there's gotta be something... 7. One wonder per age per player

It may be easier to adjust the penalty given the human in the diffdb than to try and slic a bunch of stuff to help the AI. Btw, the feat of wonder proposal is hilarious.
I am getting worried about having to use slic for any and every adjustment we want to make to the game. I am going to try and find other means to solve problems whenever possible, and save the slic for big things that can't be addressed any other way.

Also, I have found out how to implement Harlan's new city styles into the game. I am going to wait about adding the Industrial age for now, unless Harlan or someone else figures it out, then I would be happy to drop it in the mod.

I started a new game last night to test out the city styles, and it was immediately apparent that setting wages to a base of 12 was too high. Therefore, I have set them to a base of 8 with each notch changing the level by 2, which is midway between 12 and the original setting of 4. This should give good results, and we can tinker with building settings to further refine things.
I also reduced the base workday from 10 to 8, with each notch representing a change of 2 hours. This was what things were in Ctp1. Unit, building and other costs are going to be changed in the mod anyway, so we can adjust them to fit this new setting.

Finally, if someone would change the necessary text files so that each pop only worked an average of one tile in the first radius, I will put this in the mod, and see if helps address the issue of cities growing too fast early on in the game. I think the settings are in strategies text, but I could be wrong. If you do send me something, please specify what changes you made to which lines.

Btw, can anyone confirm or deny colorme's statement that the Min and Max ahead and behind bonuses are applied linearly throughout the game, rather than being triggered either on or off when the AI crosses the specified threadhold? This is a big deal.

For initial city growth, if there is not a net positive amount of food in the first 8 squares + center, the city can't grow. So, if you give certain types of terrain *negative* food values, you might be able to tailor better which terrains will support cities? I.e. give tundra a negative value high enough so that if a city has 4 tundra squares adjacent to it, it just can't grow at all, no matter what kind of land it's on. After all, any city located near that much tundra is just too cold - odds are it's nearby beaches, climate, forests, etc. are too hostile to support a multi-million pop city...

In DIffDB, I read a comment line which talked about the interpolation business, and hence my suggestion.

Also, I mentioned this in some other thread, that in most CTP2 games I've played, the AIs seem to have huge ups and downs in their p