Good Possibilities

[Martin Gühmann]

Here I like talk about everthing that is or could be possible to do with trade goods in CTP2. We know the Civ3 ressource system, that only allows you to build a certain unit if you have a certain ressource available.

For example you need oil to build tanks. But here comes a question into my mind: Why should I event a technology like oil refining if I don't know what it is oil. So inventing oil fuiled tanks without knowing how to fuil them is stupid and actual impossible.

So my idea is if a civ controlls a certain good it gets an advance, let's say in the example above advance_oil that enables the advance oil refining and then you can build your tanks and maybe some other advances.

Another idea would be to make some other advances depending on the terrain that the civ owns. For example if you only own grassland, dessert and plain tiles it should be difficuilt for to find some stone to event stone working. But if you own some forest or jungle tiles than you should get the tech to event something like wood working instead of stone working to build huge constructions.

The consequences of implementing these ideas would be a radical change of the tech tree, even more radical as the modifications in Cradle or MedPack2. It is not just adding and removing some techs from the tree. Both mods still offer a conventional tech tree, it is still linear. In this tech tree you will be able to make "jumps" and really breakthrough, because you found the ultimate good that enabled the superior weapon technology. Of course also one of your opponents could invent it. :D

So the idea is that a player can't invent everything, espeacily if not every good is on the map. But there is another idea to prevent a civ to invent everything, for example if a civ already invented wood working why they should invent stone working, if it can already build huge constructions. And if you steal an advance that you shouldn't own then you get a message that this particular advance is absolutly useless to you, because you already know the great advance of XXX that enables already the great things.

As I said above that this will result a radical change of the tech tree actual a complete new tech tree, with the consequence of huge modifications not only in the advance.txt, but also in the buildings.txt, wonders.txt, units.txt, governments.txt....

The result will be a new mod, so far the project title is GoodMod2: The Mod of Good dependent advances
The gameplay of this mod would be total different from the other mods here, because your progress in technology would be nearly completly dependent on goods. The difficuilty level would be dependent on the good slider. More goods means in this case more techs and more techs means an easier game. The game would be also very random, depending on the goods on the map.

As there is so much to change and to add, the task is huge, therefore this thread to get your ideas and thoughts and of course your help, about all the enabling goods for the advances, what wonders should be in, units buildings, government...

-Martin

[centrifuge]

This is a great idea Martin, and I hope that work on it get's started right away:b:

There are a couple things though...

Originally posted by Martin Gühmann But there is another idea to prevent a civ to invent everything, for example if a civ already invented wood working why they should invent stone working, if it can already build huge constructions.

I'm not sure that I agree with this point. For example, a Civ would need the lighter easier to work with wood for horse carts, weapons(spears, arrows...), and houses etc. However, Stone is going to be needed for more sturdy construction of things such as aqueducts and fortresses.

Originally posted by Martin Gühmann Another idea would be to make some other advances depending on the terrain that the civ owns.

I assume that this means that if I start on an Island that is mostly forest, I will be able to research a certain path of techs...But, If I take over some territory that is mostly mountains, do I get a brand new choice of techs to research, in addition to the ones that were already available? If that is the case, If I lose the mountain land, then the new tech path would be lost, and any benefits that came with it...

This would make the Civ that has the most diverse starting territory the easy favorite of the game, which could be quite interesting, but also very frustrating;)

Overall, it sounds like a very good Idea, however, I think that the choices of tech paths and dependance, will need to be implemented very carefully.

Just my couple of cents

C

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by centrifuge
I'm not sure that I agree with this point. For example, a Civ would need the lighter easier to work with wood for horse carts, weapons(spears, arrows...), and houses etc. However, Stone is going to be needed for more sturdy construction of things such as aqueducts and fortresses.

The army stuff here is a good point that I didn't considered. But actual it isn't necceassry to build an aqueduct or a fortress out of stone, you could also use wood to fortify your positions.

Originally posted by centrifuge
I assume that this means that if I start on an Island that is mostly forest, I will be able to research a certain path of techs...But, If I take over some territory that is mostly mountains, do I get a brand new choice of techs to research, in addition to the ones that were already available? If that is the case, If I lose the mountain land, then the new tech path would be lost, and any benefits that came with it...

The result would be if you take over a territory rich of stone you can invent knew techs, because you know from that day the ressource stone and you have huge amounts of it available. Of course it would be insteresting to simulate the "forgetting" of techs. But this is very complicated, and your civ wouldn't forget the tech at once.

To go back to the oil example you got oil under your controll and therefore the oil tech that enables oil refining, now you discovered oil refining and tank warfare and you are now able to build tanks once you build some tanks you loose the oil good, mow you have less oil available then before. The conclusion wouldn't be to distroy your tanks, but you could reduce their movement points in order to make them a little bit less efficient.

Originally posted by centrifuge
This would make the Civ that has the most diverse starting territory the easy favorite of the game, which could be quite interesting, but also very frustrating ;)

That's the idea behind it. And would be closer to reality, otherwise the tech developement in the world would be today on the same level everywhere. The plan is to use GoodMod1 as a base and there the AI expants already a lot, so that this wouldn't be the problem to help the AI in getting goods and you have to find ways to get techs. Of course tech trading should be also an option, but the benefits should be less.

Originally posted by centrifuge
Overall, it sounds like a very good Idea, however, I think that the choices of tech paths and dependance, will need to be implemented very carefully.

That's right and therefore this thread to find the best tech parth and dependances.

-Martin

[arktiem]

Hey there!!

WOW! I have been away for a few days and come back to some exciting stuff!! :b:

All right, Martin! This new GoodMod you are working on sounds really cool and I am looking very forward to heaing more about it. :D I have a LOT to catch up on, but will be carefully watching and would love to help in any way I can. Will post more later.

Arktiem

[child of Thor]

Martin, CTP2 needs this kind of thing - so good luck!
I won't argue any particular points on what you've said so far, i just think ANY good/terrain dependant techs or units/buildings that can be introduced to CTP2 will be a great thing to achieve.
Just one thing, on what your proposing - how would you stop one particular civ getting a huge advantage over the rest when they invent/get a particular advance/good?
In the example of oil(good) to allow oil refinery and tank, if only one civ gets the chance at this, is this a good thing? I gather from what you wrote above this would be the outcome of what your proposing?Just kinda wondering what your take on this - as i said any thing of this kind will be great, just wondering about the balance if it's easy for one civ to get a big lead tech/unit wise? Of course i may have got the wrong gist of what you wrote
:)

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by child of Thor
Just one thing, on what your proposing - how would you stop one particular civ getting a huge advantage over the rest when they invent/get a particular advance/good?

That was the idea behind the stone-work on the one hand and the wood-work on the other hand. Both stone and wood should allow you to construct huge buildings with similar effects but if you got one of them first your civ won't see any need to reasearch the other tech. And even if you get it by a goody hut afterwards the other one was discoverd, your poeple couldn't use it, because the knowledge of the other tech path is already deeper.

I think it is better to make a whole group of techs depending on one ressource then just one tech. For the oil example it would mean that if you get an oil good under your controll then you can research oil refining that would enable internal combustion and here begins it, can it be only fueled on the base of oil or are there alternatives. So at least it would enable internal combustion on the base of oil. After that tech you could develope tank warfare on the base of oil, if you lose the the oil good in the meanwhile then you can invent tanks nevertheless, but there are a little bit more inefficient, because your oil will be limited. That could be done if you keep the oil good then you tanks will get a significant movement bonus. You can imagine there are private and public goods on the world. Public goods are under the controll of a civ, private ones in the hand of private persons who can sell them to everyone they want. Of course this way of getting ressources is more expensive then if your civ has the good, herefore less move point in the case you don't own the good.

Of course there is another way of getting to know a ressource: Trading. So there is another way to invent tanks, but in the end tanks will be less effective.

The mean thing of this concept is that you only can do something with a thing if you know this thing, therefore if someone can invent it other civs will get the oppotunity, too. But of course not every civ. So far the trade concept looks a little bit more difficuilt. (But I think the SendGood event can give enough pieces of information, if there is not another way to get more information.)

Originally posted by arktiem
Will post more later.


So what keeps you from doing that arktiem? And that's a way to help, we have a lot of goods that can enable a tech group.


Here two other ideas:

Ship contruction: What here is required is a costial city, to use a ship you need a habour or a place at the coast where it makes sense to build a ship. Building and inventing a ship in the middle of the dessert is just stupid.

Slave Labour: This tech should only be invented if you know that there are other civs that can give you some workers, so if you don't know anyone you can be enslaved why to invent a tech that let you enslave other people. (This would be interesting if you have to find the right good first so that you can enslave other poeple or you can only free them. In the original game this decisson lies totally in the hand of the player.)

-Martin

[centrifuge]

Originally posted by Martin Gühmann


That was the idea behind the stone-work on the one hand and the wood-work on the other hand. Both stone and wood should allow you to construct huge buildings with similar effects but if you got one of them first your civ won't see any need to reasearch the other tech. And even if you get it by a goody hut afterwards the other one was discoverd, your poeple couldn't use it, because the knowledge of the other tech path is already deeper.



I've been thinking hard on this concept, and believe it to be a good one, however, I don't like the idea of not "needing" to learn stone-working because you already know wood-working.

I think that anyone would have a very hard time thinking of any civilization throughout the history of the world that has not simultaneously used both woodworking and stoneworking. What it comes down to is that a civ will use the best technology that fits there needs, until another technology comes along that may fullfill those needs better. In the example of woodworking and stone working, A civ that knows how to make arrows and spears by sharpening a stick will do so, until they find that there is a more durable method of creating the spear and arrow points, by working with stone until it is sharpened. This is also, IMHO, the case with architecture. Sure, fortresses, aqueducts, etc. can be made with wood as well as stone, but that doesn't mean that a civ who already knows how to make a fortress from wood will not begin making them from stone, if the advance of stone working is stolen from another civ. The reason that I say this, is that stone is far more durable to fire and seige weapons, such as battering rams.

I guess that the point that I'm trying to make, is that a civ will work with the tools that it has available(thus the reason for this mod) but will also use the best materials for the job, so if it does learn about stone-working by stealing it from another civ, it is, IMHO, quite probable that the civ(with its newly aquired knowledge) will go in search for a source of stone.

Does this make sense? Or is it possible that I'm looking at the mod from a different direction than was originally intended?

-C-

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by centrifuge
I guess that the point that I'm trying to make, is that a civ will work with the tools that it has available(thus the reason for this mod) but will also use the best materials for the job, so if it does learn about stone-working by stealing it from another civ, it is, IMHO, quite probable that the civ(with its newly aquired knowledge) will go in search for a source of stone.

One thing you have to consider is that you can only use the best tool and materials that are available at a place, you are in a jungle and have only the trees and no stone available than you will build your houses out of wood.

And you have to consider that you don't need to build your houses out of wood if you use wooden weapons and of course the way around. So maybe I should rename the advances to wood construction and stone construction. But the question remains how close this concept to reality is, even if it should balance the civs out, so that they will end all different.

Originally posted by centrifuge
The reason that I say this, is that stone is far more durable to fire and seige weapons, such as battering rams.

That's really a point, in reality you can't really keep someone from adapting a tech, alternativly we could think about alternative techs that enable a group of techs that will lead in the end to the same result.



To give you an idea of how many goods could enable a tech here a list:

1. Rubies
2. Diamonds
3. Bauxite
4. Emeralds
5. Glass
6. Oil
7. Dates
8. Camels
9. Hardwood
10. Bears
11. Apples
12. Beavers
13. Cotton
14. Tobacco
15. Potatoes
16. Poppies
17. Coffee
18. Grapes
19. Uranium
20. Olives
21. Medicinal Herbs
22. Jade
23. Bananas
24. Sugar
25. Tea
26. Emerald
27. Coal
28. Gold
29. Spices
30. Elephant
31. Wheat
32. Buffalo
33. Alligator
34. Rice
35. Chilli
36. Peat
37. Caribou
38. Whales
39. Giant Squid
40. Tuna
41. Crabs
42. Pearls
43. Salmon
44. Lobster
45. Copper
46. Silver
47. Crabs
48. Fish
49. Dye
50. Iron Ore
51. Silver
52. Saphires
53. Emeralds
54. Seals
55. Walrus

-Martin

[child of Thor]

Originally posted by Martin Gühmann
One thing you have to consider is that you can only use the best tool and materials that are available at a place, you are in a jungle and have only the trees and no stone available than you will build your houses out of wood.

And you have to consider that you don't need to build your houses out of wood if you use wooden weapons and of course the way around. So maybe I should rename the advances to wood construction and stone construction. But the question remains how close this concept to reality is, even if it should balance the civs out, so that they will end all different.

That's really a point, in reality you can't really keep someone from adapting a tech, alternativly we could think about alternative techs that enable a group of techs that will lead in the end to the same result.
-Martin

I lived in a jungle for awhile and it had plenty of stone - infact the quality of the local stone tools was very high(lots of hard volcanic rock available). Hmmm apart from the ocean/deep sandydesert and central artic/antartic most places in the world have(accesable) stone, and the people used it from pre-historic times for tools and weapons. I would look at it more along the lines of any terrain tile(apart from the one's mentioned above) should have an element of stone available to be used, and maybe to get the distinction for large stone constructions you would need access to mountains or the advance of quarry or mine(?) This kinda thing. I know you are thinking of specifically using trade goods, but it does seem to have a slightly unrealistic aspect to it if your civ just can use either/or of a particular branch, some things just make sense to be used(stone/wood)if they are likely to be present.
On the other hand i think maybe you should just go for it with the more 'set-branched' tech tree idea and we can see how it all comes out in the wash - i'm sure you have spent alot of time planning and working it out so maybe it's best to leave the more 'subtle' stuff untill later.
It's just the wood/stone thing that is a bit contentious;)
Still it could be fun to play a predomently wooden-age civ(i'm thinking the flintstones or i guess woodblocks!:D )

EDIT: nice trade good list!:b: lots of potential for good-specificness!

[HuangShang]

love the whole idea!!

this way the enemy is actual different from you, otherwise the normal game feel like everybody's European

using terrain might easy than goods because without goods one can't advance, making good tile the center of all wars (unless thats the whole idea)

[centrifuge]

Martin, That is one awesome list, the tech dependence potential seems almost limitless. I agree with COT, you as the modmaker already have the plan, so it will be nice to test an alpha version, at which point it will be easier to make comments and suggestions. I can hardly wait...

[Lou Wigman]

I think you need to be careful here. Even back in the stone age trade played a crucial role. Various peoples that had no suitable stone were able get arrow heads etc from quite far away. Thousands of kms in fact. There is no way these people travelled that far. There is ample circumstantial evidence that stone tool 'factories' existed in pre-history and that their output was widely traded.

In more recent times the American 'Indians' had wide ranging access to firearms even though they lacked the technology to produce them.

This illustrated the undoubted fact that not having the technology to produce something doesn't mean that you can't get hold of it. My own sorry country doesn't produce PCs but just about everybody has one.

Civ games tend to ignore this completely. Throughout history there has been enormous technology 'leakage'. What has made some civs more efficient than others is in their ability to use the available technology rather than having a short lived technological advantage.

It seems to me that far more importance needs to be placed on economic and social factors rather than simply on technology itself.

Sorry, I'm rambling.

[Locutus]

I think basically this is a good idea but, as pointed out, you have to be very, very careful about how you implement it: gamebalance can be lost very easily if it's not done properly. I might post more elaborate stuff later, don't have much time now...

[Pedrunn]

The idea is terrific! Amazing! Super! Another revolutionary idea from ctp2 modmaking!
I am already picturing a new tech tree.

Yet, Dont forget!
You also would need to make the AI hungry for goods. And knowing how to use them.

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Lou Wigman
I think you need to be careful here. Even back in the stone age trade played a crucial role. Various peoples that had no suitable stone were able get arrow heads etc from quite far away. Thousands of kms in fact. There is no way these people travelled that far. There is ample circumstantial evidence that stone tool 'factories' existed in pre-history and that their output was widely traded.

In more recent times the American 'Indians' had wide ranging access to firearms even though they lacked the technology to produce them.

This illustrated the undoubted fact that not having the technology to produce something doesn't mean that you can't get hold of it. My own sorry country doesn't produce PCs but just about everybody has one.

Civ games tend to ignore this completely. Throughout history there has been enormous technology 'leakage'. What has made some civs more efficient than others is in their ability to use the available technology rather than having a short lived technological advantage.

It seems to me that far more importance needs to be placed on economic and social factors rather than simply on technology itself.

Sorry, I'm rambling.

Actual you just participate in this thread and this is good. You gave me a reason to justify the invention (or discovery) of something like speers. A random event could give you this technology, once you founded a city, that would be a basic technology, so everyone is here equal.

And your post leads me to another idea, trade was there before cities were founded, so once you founded two cities you could an advance that allows you to research Inter-City-Trade, that would give you a trade unit with one move (trade) point. If you find the Camel Good than you can invent the Camel Domestication, that would allow Caravans, once you have domesticated Camels you can't lose this tech, because you have them and more from the good resource aren't necessary anymore to keep them.

Another idea would using the elephant good to enable war elephants.

Originally posted by Locutus
I think basically this is a good idea but, as pointed out, you have to be very, very careful about how you implement it: gamebalance can be lost very easily if it's not done properly. I might post more elaborate stuff later, don't have much time now...

Yes that is really a very serious problem, therefore I started this thread. So I am waiting for your ideas.

-Martin

[HuangShang]

I'd say that you can have cities of different nation where their areas of influence border be able to cause something for the exchange of info

and govs that are less strict can allow this to happen more freely

also, when enabling tech by goods, you can have goods traded in count as yours. infact it'll make sense to change price/value of a good based on suppply and demand.
the more countries have the good, the less expensive.
the more countries need the good, the more expensive
it makes sense because the whole idea of the mod based on goods

[HuangShang]

eh...(off topic) what with the light by the name?

[child of Thor]

Originally posted by HuangShang
eh...(off topic) what with the light by the name?

It shows you who is 'on-line' at the time, as an example im now 'off-line';)

[child of Thor]

RE Martins good list:

Is this the kind of thing you're aiming for?
It's very rough(and the fact i just couldn't cut and paste it from word without scrambling it didn't help!), but already it seems if you are just relying on the Goods themselves there are all sorts of difficulties to balance it up(for example which ore should lead to 'Metulgary' advance, copper,bronze,Iron or maybe all three?).Is this how you are thinking of doing it? Some goods will remain just that(what do you do with emeralds for example(and it was in your list three times;) )?

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by child of Thor
(for example which ore should lead to 'Metulgary' advance, copper,bronze,Iron or maybe all three?)

I didn't know that bronze is part of GoodMod1. Actual I even didn't know that this one is a ressource that can be found on the earth. Actual it is an alloy of copper and tin. The Great Library confirms it and the GL leads me to the idea that it is only neccessary to make copper as a prequisite for bronze working.

But to answer your question, if you mean that you need all of the for suggested goods then the answer is no, but if you mean just one of them no matter what of them to get metallurgy then the answer is yes.

Originally posted by child of Thor
what do you do with emeralds for example and it was in your list three times

Actual that are three different goods with the same name, rwo with the same sprite and another one with a different sprite. The main differences between them are in their on the map occurance probabilities. (And they have different database indices, that is improtant for slic if you use the DB index number in your code) Unfortunatly I can't hide them in the Great Library, as the GLHidden flag of the Goods.txt is broken. So for the gameplay all these copies should do the same. One thing you have to consider if you like to replace goods in the list that your good has to fit into the terrain. Unfortunatly CTP1 and CTP2 only allow 4 goods per terrain (Yeah I know the CTP1 editor suggest that only two goods are alowed per terrain, but the civctp.exe looks a little bit different) Horses on mountains is not the best idea, actual they are animals of the plains, maybe they could fit into the grassland invironment to replace to potatoes there.

So far for the other goods your list is a start. :b: So what we now could add for grapes, tobacco and poppies would be the advance drugs, also these goods could lead to medicine, but could also make your people "happier" :D as they make them to forget their problems, or it could help you to develope "stronger" unit.

Originally posted by HuangShang
and govs that are less strict can allow this to happen more freely


That is in interesting idea and it could reduce the benefits of such governments like Democracy.

OK let's go to another topic I found in the advance.txt section of the ctp2.exe these strings:

Dependencies
LeadsTo

Dependencies is not clear if it is this what it says then it would be actual the same like Preriquisites.

LeadsTo is more interesting if it just allows to reasearch another advance for that you don't have the enabling advances. If this work like this then it could save some slic work, but I am afraid only trial and error can help here really.

-Martin

[child of Thor]

just a quick reply Martin(i'm about to finish work:lol: ),
the quote about certain govs being less strict was by HuangShang, not me - so i don't want to take credit for it:D
the other stuff i see what you are saying and yes i took a bit of liberty to replace two of the emerald entries with 'Horses' and 'Bronze'(i wasn't sure about it either as it is just an alloy - guess it's a bit of Civ1 creeping in!), thinking in my ignorence it was a typo. Still i like this whole thing very much indeed - what kind of list have you come up with for Good dependent advances/units?

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by child of Thor
the quote about certain govs being less strict was by HuangShang, not me - so i don't want to take credit for it

Yeah this manual quoting, and I tought of it to change it...But anyway quote fixed.

Originally posted by child of Thor
(i wasn't sure about it either as it is just an alloy - guess it's a bit of Civ1 creeping in!)

Bronze was really a trade good in Civ1. OK it could be justified as trade good but not as a ressourse. Actual this is a problem with most of the goods graphics that you see them as a ware and not as a raw ressource. But of course raw ressources would create a total different atmosphere.

Originally posted by child of Thor
what kind of list have you come up with for Good dependent advances/units?

So far I hadn't much time to think about more then the basic concepts and the ideas already presented in this thread. To get started was one idea of this thread, another idea was to leave it open first, and find out what could be done later. Therefore your suggestions are more then welcome. Next Monday I will write the last exam of five this month and this semester, then the lecture time ends and I have some time until October (I hope). Until then you can suggest more. For example I find it a good idea to burn dryed peat, so I have something that can be done with it, also the idea for diamonds I didn't considered myself.

Another example is using horses, camels, elephants or buffolos for trade, I didn't considered this myself, but it is possible, fortunatly you don't need sprites for these trade units. Avtual this is a better example for using of alternative techs as the stone wood example. This help also to balance it, so the change is bigger to get one of these improved trade units then just the improve trade unit would be dependent on camels. Actual these units are equal in reality, but for the CTP2 setup they should be equal, on plains and grassland horses will be the best trade units, in the desert camels. Elephants would be good for heavy loads. Maybe this would be a reason to give Elephants one more trade point then the other ones, but on the other hand horses are fast. So the amount of trade points they give should be equal.

But these four goods could give different advances or units for example elephants should give the war elephant as unit. You would give horse riding from horses of course.

-Martin

[Locutus]

This is something I came up with tonight, similar to what CoT posted only more elaborate, with more goods and more advances. To ensure balance, some resources are available on several terrain types and some branches of the advance tree can be opened up by (one of) several resources. Of course this is something I quickly threw together, it can't possibly be balanced properly, but it's a start...

I think the list of resources itself is pretty exhaustive: pretty much everything from all the games/mods/whatever I used as source is in some form or another included here (though suggestions are welcome of course). The only problem is that there are already more resources than fit on the map, so some selection is needed. The technology that's dependent on these resources is still pretty sketchy, but it gives a general idea of what's possible...

I don't know how to implement Clothing, Fur and Hides in the tech tree yet but I think that with a system like this, they should be implement some way or another, so I left those techs between brackets.

As far as the wood/stone(/clay) debate goes, my opinion is that small amounts of stone/wood/clay/etc are always available, everywhere in the world. For building houses or weapons, it doesn't matter whether you live in desert, forest, grassland or tundra, there are (almost) always materials available for such things. For things like building the Pyramids, Stonehenge or Angkor Wat or whatever though, you need *huge* quantities of high-quality building material, you can't find these everywhere. Therefore I think Marble, Clay, Hardwood, etc *should* be resources but they shouldn't be necessary for basic units and buildings, just for wonders and maybe specific units/buildings (FE City Walls, but then the Stockade should also return for those who don't have these resources and still want city defenses).

First follows a list of all resources by terrain type. 4 per terrain, for some terrains several alternatives are available. Note that it might in some cases be desirable for balance and/or realism to move some stuff around, the resources don't necessarilly have to stay with the terrains at which they are listed now. As it is it's a somewhat arbitrary list. After that follows a list of all resources and the advances they enable (these advance might represent entire branches, where subsequent advances depend on the one listed here, that is TBD). The 3rd column gives examples of what units/buildings might depend on them. The last column has an 'x' for every advance that isn't in the terrain list as a first choice, this made it easier for me to balance out the list and ensure the most important resources were in. Advances after #63 are not in the terrain list at all, since currently there's no room for them anyway. Goods with an (L) behind their name are Luxuries and can add happiness or whatever...

Note that I used the GoodMod list as basis but removed all doubles (I hope).

<i>*Terrain Type*
x. First choice
(x. Alternative)</i>

*Polar Mountain*
1. Rubies
(2. Diamonds)
3. Bauxite
4. Emeralds
60. Marble

*Desert*
(5. Glass)
6. Oil
7. Dates
8. Camels
55. Saltpeter

*Forest*
9. Hardwood
10. Bears
(11. Apples)
12. Beavers
51. Silk
(59. Amber)

*Grassland*
13. Cotton
(14. Tobacco)
(15. Potatoes)
(16. Poppies)
33. Rice
54. Cattle
(61. Wool)
62. Hemp

*Hill*
(17. Coffee)
18. Grapes
19. Uranium
(20. Olives)
26. Coal
60. Marble

*Jungle*
(21. Medicinal Herbs)
22. Jade
(23. Bananas)
(24. Sugar)
(25. Tea)
29. Elephant
56. Rubber
(14. Tobacco)
28. Spices

*Mountain*
25. Tea
(4. Emerald)
26. Coal
27. Gold
57. Tungsten
(60. Marble)

*Plains*
(28. Spices)
29. Elephant
30. Wheat
(31. Buffalo)
53. Horses
61. Wool
(62. Hemp)

*Swamp*
32. Alligator
(33. Rice)
34. Chilli
35. Peat
63. Clay

*Tundra*
36. Caribou
6. Oil
3. Bauxite
57. Tungsten

*Deep Water*
37. Whales
(38. Giant Squid)
39. Tuna
46. Fish
64. Lithium

*Shallow Water*
(40. Crabs)
41. Pearls
42. Salmon
43. Lobster
46. Fish

*Sand Dunes*
44. Copper
45. Silver
5. Glass
(8. Camels)
55. Saltpeter

*Beach*
40. Crabs
46. Fish
52. Salt
(6. Oil)
58. Dye

*Desert Mountain*
47. Iron Ore
45. Silver
(2. Diamonds)
52. Salt
55. Saltpeter

*Polar Hill*
48. Saphires
6. Oil
3. Bauxite
57. Tungsten

*Glacier*
49. Seals
50. Walrus
6. Oil
2. Diamonds

*Submarine Volcano*
1. Rubies
2. Diamonds
(48. Saphires)
4. Emeralds
40. Crabs

*Continatal Shelf*
(40. Crab)
41. Pearls
42. Salmon
43. Lobster
6. Oil

*Submarine Canyons*
37. Whales
38. Giant Squid
39. Tuna
57. Tungsten

*Submarine Ridge*
37. Whales
38. Giant Squid
64. Lithium
6. Oil

*Kelp Bed*
40. Crabs
41. Pearls
42. Salmon
43. Lobster

*Coral Reef*
40. Crabs
41. Pearls
42. Salmon
43. Lobster

=== Effects ===
<i>x. Resource -> Advance -> Application not used</i>

1. Rubies (L) -> Laser -> War Walker
2. Diamonds (L) -> Laser -> War Walker
3. Bauxite/Aluminum -> Modern Metallurgy -> Tank/Interceptor
4. Emeralds (L) -> Laser -> War Walker
5. Glass (L) -> Optics -> Cathedral
6. Oil -> Oil Refining -> Tank
7. Dates/Palm Tree (L) -> Oil Refining -> Tank
8. Camels -> Camel Riding -> Camel Rider
9. Hardwood -> Construction -> Torii/Angkor/Madurai/etc
10. Bears -> (Fur)
11. Apples (L) x
12. Beavers (L) -> (Fur)
13. Cotton -> (Clothing)
14. Tobacco (L) x
15. Potatoes (L) x
16. Poppies/Opium (L) x
17. Coffee (L) x
18. Grapes (L)
19. Uranium -> Nuclear Fission -> Nuclear Plant/Nuke
20. Olives -> Oil Refining -> Tank x
21. Medicinal Herbs -> Medicine -> Apothecary/Hospital x
22. Jade (L)
23. Bananas (L) x
24. Sugar (L) x
25. Tea (L)
26. Coal -> Coal Mining/Steam Engine -> Forge
27. Gold -> Currency -> Marketplace
28. Spices (L)
29. Elephant (L) -> Elephant Riding -> War Elephant
30. Wheat -> Agriculture -> Farm
31. Buffalo (L) -> Animal Husbandry/(Hides) -> Pasture/Trade x
32. Alligator (L) -> (Clothing)
33. Rice -> Agriculture -> Farm
34. Chilli (L)
35. Peat -> Peat Mining -> Forge
36. Caribou/Game (L) -> (Fur)
37. Whales (L) -> (Hides)
38. Giant Squid (L)
39. Tuna (L)
40. Crabs -> Fishery -> Nets
41. Pearls (L) -> Currency -> Marketplace
42. Salmon (L) -> Fishery -> Nets
43. Lobster (L) -> Fishery -> Nets
44. Copper -> Metallurgy -> Phalanx
45. Silver (L) -> Currency -> Market
46. Fish -> Fishery -> Nets
47. Iron Ore -> Iron Working -> Legion
48. Saphires (L) -> Laser -> War Walker
49. Seals (L) -> (Hides)
50. Walrus (L) -> (Hides)
51. Silk (L) -> Silk Armor -> Horse Archer
52. Salt -> Food Preservation/Currency -> Granary/Market
53. Horses -> Animal Husb/Horseback Riding -> Horseman/Pasture/Trade
54. Cattle -> Animal Husbandry -> Pasture/Trade
55. Saltpeter -> Gunpowder -> Arquebusier/Musketeer
56. Rubber -> Industrialization -> Tank/Modern Infantry
57. Tungsten/Wolfram -> Mechanization -> Manufacturing Plant
58. Dye (L)
59. Amber (L) x
60. Marble (L) -> Construction -> Temple of Zeus/Colesseum/etc
61. Wool/Sheep -> Animal Husbandry/(Fur) -> Pasture/Trade
62. Hemp -> Paper/(Clothing) -> Banking
63. Clay -> Construction -> Colesseum/Angkor/Madurai/etc
64. Lithium -> Fusion/Plasma Weaponry -> Fusion Tank/Plasma Destoyer x
---
65. Lead x
66. Tin x
67. Nickel x
68. Zinc x
69. Linen/Flax -> Paper/(Clothing) -> Banking x
70. Corn -> Agriculture -> Farm x
71. Porcelain x
72. Papyrus x
73. Lemon x
74. Lama -> Animal Husbandry -> Pasture/Trade x
75. Beer x
==========
Total: 75
In use: 53

[J Bytheway]

Iridium -

http://pearl1.lanl.gov/periodic/elements/77.html

Apparently helicopter spark plugs :)

[Locutus]

Note to all: I made some changes to my previous post, if you already read it and found it somewhat incomprehensive, you may want to read it again :)

Iridium: I quite frankly have no idea what it is or what it's good for, but it seemed to me that we needed some sort of resource that will become important in the future. I took the periodic table and randomly chose a metal, it happened to be Iridium :D

[J Bytheway]

:lol: Lucky that you happened to pick one which actually occurs in metal form, not as an oxide...

You might consider the stuff they use to produce tritium in fusion reactors - I believe lithium... that would be important since plasma destroyers, etc. might by fusion powered (fusion tanks?).

[Locutus]

Well, my choice was not *entirely* random.... ;)

Ow, lithium is very nice indeed... good for future stuff AND it's apparently found in/near water, the one place on the map that still has room for more resources...

I'll edit it in in a moment...

[child of Thor]

I guess Hemp - (Paper) and Papyrus would lead to advance Literacy and buildings libary etc.
Actually clay,wood and hides were some of the earliest things used for writing - could that work here?
As for the animal/trade thing it sort of speaks for itself - all animals that can be domesticated would have used to take goods from one place to another, if you only had elephants around(India) then that's what you used.What about some Lama's for south american civs;)
(maybe in place of donkey?as horse could cover that?)

[Locutus]

Re: Literacy: I guess so, but I'm not sure if you want this. As you said, you don't need Paper in order to be able to write, you you can use dozens of different materials for that. Paper revolutionized written language though, just as much as the printing press did (although paper never became famous for it): it's waaayyy cheaper, easier to produce, better preserved, easier to use, etc. It lead to a golden age of literacy in China and found dozens of different applications aside from writing material, from toilet paper to money. Paper is by no means a necessary advance for a civilization to have but it does give a huge boost. Writing OTOH is vital: without writing no complex government forms, philosophy or scientific research is possible. You really can't make a tech tree without writing, so making it a terrain-dependent tech could shut down huge and vital sections of the tree. Not a good idea IMHO...

As for Lama vs Donkey, I agree that would be a good idea, I'll adjust my post again. However, there really isn't room for either, so it's really an academic exercise...

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Locutus
To ensure balance, some resources are available on several terrain types and some branches of the advance tree can be opened up by (one of) several resources. Of course this is something I quickly threw together, it can't possibly be balanced properly, but it's a start...

Yes it is a start but a very good one :b:

Originally posted by Locutus
As far as the wood/stone(/clay) debate goes, my opinion is that small amounts of stone/wood/clay/etc are always available, everywhere in the world. For building houses or weapons, it doesn't matter whether you live in desert, forest, grassland or tundra, there are (almost) always materials available for such things. For things like building the Pyramids, Stonehenge or Angkor Wat or whatever though, you need *huge* quantities of high-quality building material, you can't find these everywhere. Therefore I think Marble, Clay, Hardwood, etc *should* be resources but they shouldn't be necessary for basic units and buildings, just for wonders and maybe specific units/buildings (FE City Walls, but then the Stockade should also return for those who don't have these resources and still want city defenses).

I think this is the way to go: You don't have hard wood so you can't build huge constructions, but you can build small ones, same with marble and clay. Now it is the question if you really need marble to build a wall or if it will normal stone do too. My conclusion here is that you don't need the fine stone. Another aspect here is this "The rich gets richer problem" wouldn't be so huge, because not everyone could build the same wonders.

For paper: Actual there are alot of ways to make it. You could use grass, wool, cotton, wood. Actual you don't need speceal wood like hard wood just common wood that could be found in the nearest place. But a preriquisite for paper would be writing. Once you know writing you have to find a better and easier way to write something down.

For writing: I would make it rather event depending, once your first city has grown to size 5 for instance you need to write something down in order to be able to organize your growing civilization, alternative this advance could be researched if you founded you second city.

Salt: I think I will use the salt shaker as graphic for that Harlan presented in the Civ3 creation forum. The glass transparency effect will look wonderfull on a CTP2 map.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads/saltlarge.jpg

-Martin

[child of Thor]

Originally posted by Martin Gühmann

I think this is the way to go: You don't have hard wood so you can't build huge constructions, but you can build small ones, same with marble and clay. Now it is the question if you really need marble to build a wall or if it will normal stone do too. My conclusion here is that you don't need the fine stone. Another aspect here is this "The rich gets richer problem" wouldn't be so huge, because not everyone could build the same wonders.

For paper: Actual there are alot of ways to make it. You could use grass, wool, cotton, wood. Actual you don't need speceal wood like hard wood just common wood that could be found in the nearest place. But a preriquisite for paper would be writing. Once you know writing you have to find a better and easier way to write something down.

For writing: I would make it rather event depending, once your first city has grown to size 5 for instance you need to write something down in order to be able to organize your growing civilization, alternative this advance could be researched if you founded you second city.

Martin

Yeah this is a nice way to do it, writing before paper.

Our Ancestor's in europe(Celtic people's) never,apparently, had an organised written language.A few 'elite' individuals held all the legistative knowledge needed by memmory:eek: - yep guess i'd have to be a warrior/farmer in that case.

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Martin Gühmann
Yes it is a start but a very good one :b:
I'm glad you like it :)

Now it is the question if you really need marble to build a wall or if it will normal stone do too. My conclusion here is that you don't need the fine stone.
Yes, I guess that's true. Basically all you need is hills to be able to build city walls and wonders such as Stonehenge or the Pyramids...

For paper: Actual there are alot of ways to make it. You could use grass, wool, cotton, wood. Actual you don't need speceal wood like hard wood just common wood that could be found in the nearest place.
The most common materials used for paper throughout history have been flax, hemp, cotton, etc. Creating paper out of wood is a fairly recent invention: the idea first came up in the 18th century but until the late 19th century, early 20th century (when various chemicals where added to the recipe) the quality of such paper was very poor, so I don't think it should be possible to use wood for paper in the game (BTW, Paper was invented in the early 2nd century AD in China, in case you didn't know). Cotten, Hemp, Flax and maybe Wool and Papyrus, that should pretty much be it if the above list can be regarded as complete.

For writing: I would make it rather event depending, once your first city has grown to size 5 for instance you need to write something down in order to be able to organize your growing civilization, alternative this advance could be researched if you founded you second city.
I like this...

Salt: I think I will use the salt shaker as graphic for that Harlan presented in the Civ3 creation forum. The glass transparency effect will look wonderfull on a CTP2 map.
That makes sense, I had noticed that Civ3 good already (although I didn't get the idea from Harlan - for a change :))

Well, if the list of resources mentions above is (more or less) useful, then the next step would be to design a tech tree that fits it. How would you go about this? Start from sratch? Use the original/MM2/Cradle tree as basis? I would like to use this idea for my own mod, which uses MedMod as basis. Also I personally think that the MedMod tech tree is of an unprecedented quality. So personally I would be most interested in seeing a modified MedMod tech tree for this, but I don't know what you, Martin, had in mind yourself... Since I don't have time to work on my own mod anytime son anyway, I wouldn't mind helping out in designing some other tech tree, as long as it fits in my schedule...

[J Bytheway]

I've designed a few tech trees in my time and I'll volunteer to have at this one if you like - I've got oodles of time on my hands right now :D. It would be a good test of CTPEd - let me know what new features would be nice (Unfortunately I wouldn't be able to implement them soon since my laptop with the source code on is off for repairs).

My usual technique is to begin with the units / buildings and then build the tree aroud them, but this tree would be more complicated, I think. I'd be tempted to start from scratch and draw on the MM tree for inspiration rather than modify it, since that is likely to confuse the issue since this is a fairly radical new concept.

There's a couple of things like IW's idea of having or-gate style links which I'd like to try.

So, Martin, say the word and I'll have at it, but it'll have to be soon or not at all - middle of August I'll be dumped into doing all my Uni holiday work.

If the tree is begun it should help to clarify what goods are relevant, and prevent over-emphasis on any one region of the tree - does anyone have any ideas about luxury goods?

[Locutus]

Hey, sounds good to me :cool:

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by J Bytheway
I've designed a few tech trees in my time and I'll volunteer to have at this one if you like - I've got oodles of time on my hands right now :D. It would be a good test of CTPEd - let me know what new features would be nice (Unfortunately I wouldn't be able to implement them soon since my laptop with the source code on is off for repairs).

I intended it to use it and of course request new features. The first thing I would like to see is that the latest Great Library style would support the not having the gap between the { and the rest of the text.

Originally posted by J Bytheway
My usual technique is to begin with the units / buildings and then build the tree aroud them, but this tree would be more complicated, I think. I'd be tempted to start from scratch and draw on the MM tree for inspiration rather than modify it, since that is likely to confuse the issue since this is a fairly radical new concept.

I would say this time it has to be designed around the goods. Not that there will be a lot of techs that will be given by goods that will allow to research the actual techs.

Originally posted by J Bytheway
There's a couple of things like IW's idea of having or-gate style links which I'd like to try.


Originally posted by J Bytheway
So, Martin, say the word and I'll have at it, but it'll have to be soon or not at all - middle of August I'll be dumped into doing all my Uni holiday work.


As I know Locutus has to do a lot with his real life and Apolyton you have it.

Originally posted by J Bytheway
If the tree is begun it should help to clarify what goods are relevant, and prevent over-emphasis on any one region of the tree - does anyone have any ideas about luxury goods?

As I already pointed out Locutus' list is a start but I still whish to add something and maybe to change something. But I have to give this later. So far start with Locutus list and of course add some future stuff, I reall want to see an UFO and a verson on the AI Entity in this mod although the effect of the AI Entity can't be so strong as in CTP1. More will follow later.

-Martin

[J Bytheway]

Originally posted by Martin Gühmann
I intended it to use it and of course request new features. The first thing I would like to see is that the latest Great Library style would support the not having the gap between the { and the rest of the text.

I am rather frustrated that I can't continue with it since I was in the mood to and couldn't. I don't know when I'm likely to get my computer back...

I would say this time it has to be designed around the goods. Not that there will be a lot of techs that will be given by goods that will allow to research the actual techs.

Indeed, but it is foolish to simply include the techs and then try and concieve of things which you would like them to lead to - I have made this mistake in the past. Would you like to use the units from the MedMod as a basis for the units here, or something else? Similarly for the buildings. Are you hoping to integrate the visible wonders code?

As I know Locutus has to do a lot with his real life and Apolyton you have it.

OK, I'll try not to dissapoint you.

As I already pointed out Locutus' list is a start but I still whish to add something and maybe to change something. But I have to give this later.

Obviously the sooner the better.

So far start with Locutus list and of course add some future stuff,

I'll start with his list of first choices and see where I go from there.

I reall want to see an UFO and a verson on the AI Entity in this mod although the effect of the AI Entity can't be so strong as in CTP1.

I take it from this that you don't want to conform too closely to what has gone before. I'll consider myself given a free reign ;).

More will follow later.

Again, the sooner the better. I'll get started right away.

Some questions: in order to add to the future stuff what kind of resources (if any) do you think might be needed for the following:

Fibre optics
Aircraft
Stealth aircraft
Stealth subs
Space craft
Superconductors (cold and/or room temperature)

[J Bytheway]

Incidentally, by giving my control over the tech tree you do realise that it is likely to be biased towards Maths and the physical sciences :D. But since progress in applied science and other such things is most likely to be held up by a lack of goods, I think this will be a good thing - it will give you something to do while you're desperately trying to claim a good.

[J Bytheway]

Sorry for chain-posting but I thought of one more thing - what prefix would you like to use for the files in this mod? GM2? GDA?

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by J Bytheway
Indeed, but it is foolish to simply include the techs and then try and concieve of things which you would like them to lead to - I have made this mistake in the past. Would you like to use the units from the MedMod as a basis for the units here, or something else? Similarly for the buildings. Are you hoping to integrate the visible wonders code?

I think if I do it myself I would end of reinventing of one of the already given tech trees, therefore it wouldn't be a problem to start with MedPack units and buildings. My main concern is that it should be possible to finish the science victory in the given number of turns, one thing that I missed in ApolytonPack and MedPack2, there are two ways to reduce the number of turns in order to achieve the science victory faster. One possibility would be to reduce the number of techs, the other way would be to allow alternative branches. You need one of them to achieve the science victory but not all of them.

For the wonders: To see the AI Entity on the map would be cool, so the visible wonder mod will be in. But I think this wonder will give you only a normal happiness bonus instaed of the content bonus.

Now for the good list:

Submarine Volcano:

This terrain is seldom therefore it shouldn't be a balance problem to use here Saphires instead of Crabs. Submarine Volcano can only be found in deep water therefore that shouldn't be a problem with the fishery.

Swamp:

Chilli is a luxurary good and Rice could be used for Agriculture, therefore it is Rice instaed of Chilli there.

In general there won't be such things like Elephants and Horses on the same terrain, that isn't good for balance also two kinds of grain won't be found on the same terrain, same for drugs. (Poppies, Tobacco and Grapes) These drugs should make the population "happy". So prefer the goods that aren't luxuraries only.

One final not about Dye, from the Civ3 Great Library (a much better word for Civilopedia), I know that Dye can also be used for Explosives.

Originally posted by J Bytheway
Some questions: in order to add to the future stuff what kind of resources (if any) do you think might be needed
for the following:

Fibre optics
Aircraft
Stealth aircraft
Stealth subs
Space craft
Superconductors (cold and/or room temperature)


Unfortunatly here I can't help you I only know that "hot" Superconductors are some sort of ceramics, therefore for that you don't need any good probably. For the other ones maybe someone else has an idea.

Originally posted by J Bytheway
Sorry for chain-posting but I thought of one more thing - what prefix would you like to use for the files in this mod? GM2? GDA?

For the prefix I already created a file called GM2_readme.txt, so you know now the prefix. That should be all for now.

-Martin

[J Bytheway]

Originally posted by Martin Gühmann
I think if I do it myself I would end of reinventing of one of the already given tech trees, therefore it wouldn't be a problem to start with MedPack units and buildings.

Will do.

My main concern is that it should be possible to finish the science victory in the given number of turns, one thing that I missed in ApolytonPack and MedPack2, there are two ways to reduce the number of turns in order to achieve the science victory faster. One possibility would be to reduce the number of techs, the other way would be to allow alternative branches. You need one of them to achieve the science victory but not all of them.

I am tending towards the latter - I have always in the past made it necessary to research every single tech, but in a tree like this (especially if I can make the or-gates work well) you should be able to skip things, IMO. Perhaps something like the tech dissemination code from the MM for CTP1 could be included to represent trade and fill in the gaps in your knowledge which you passed by. If this could be made sensetive to geographic proximity and diplomatic relation then that would be excellent.

For the wonders: To see the AI Entity on the map would be cool, so the visible wonder mod will be in. But I think this wonder will give you only a normal happiness bonus instaed of the content bonus.

If visible wonders is in I'll base my choice of wonders on that released by IW.

It might also be a good idea to code the entity revolting code manually in SLIC so that the fraction of the empire that you lose can be reduced.

Now for the good list:

Submarine Volcano:

This terrain is seldom therefore it shouldn't be a balance problem to use here Saphires instead of Crabs. Submarine Volcano can only be found in deep water therefore that shouldn't be a problem with the fishery.

If you're going to have so many goods on the volcanoes is there any way you can increase the probability that a good is on any one square so that you are likely to actually find them.

Swamp:

Chilli is a luxurary good and Rice could be used for Agriculture, therefore it is Rice instaed of Chilli there.

I think rice should be more widespread than that, but perhaps not. I've no idea how much rice there would be if it was not cultivated.

---

I've cleared out the existing advances and obtained a blank slate, so I should be able to proceed with initial construction now.

Can you (or anyone) supply some basic code for making the good-dependant advances themselves for playtesting purposes.

[HuangShang]

WOW almost done... couldn't really under everything

BTW is there a volcano on land?

[Pedrunn]

Before all the excitement began (am i late?) did someone tested the SendGood event or any other event that will be related to this mod?

[centrifuge]

Originally posted by J Bytheway
Some questions: in order to add to the future stuff what kind of resources (if any) do you think might be needed for the following:

Fibre optics
Aircraft
Stealth aircraft
Stealth subs
Space craft
Superconductors (cold and/or room temperature)

Martin's right, "hot" superconductors tend to be ceramics, and from what I recall, the main thing that they have in common are that they all seem to involve "sheets" of copper and oxygen atoms mixed with other elements such as yttrium, barium, calcium etc. One common one for example, has the formula YBa2Cu3O8 I'm not sure of any recent events with superconductors, but as of about ten years ago the so called "hot" superconductors still would only function at a maximum temperature of 125 K (-148 C), which would require something along the lines of liquid nitrogen. Cold superconductors tend to be metal alloys taken to liquid helium temperatures. Of cold superconductors, AFAIK, the one that functions at the highest temperature is a niobium-germanium alloy. It shows superconduction at around 23 K ( -250 C).

Hopefully, that will help with coming up with something for the superconductor dependence. Room temperature superconductors may be a good candidate for future techs.

Fiber optics... I'd have to read up on, but some obvious prerequisites will be a the availability of plastics and/or glass, along with a knowledge of optics, electronics, and magnetics.

Aircraft: Physics, aerodynamics, lightweight materials, perhaps aluminum/ Al Alloys.

Stealth: IIRC, Stealth aircrafts have a ceramic outer casing that absorbs the radar waves...Stealth subs, no clue...(silent propulsion may be one possibility)

Space craft: Again, ceramics come into play for the heat resistance. You may also want to think about the possibilty of the spacecraft, harnessing nuclear fusion (or fission) in which case you might want to look toward the actinides on the periodic table. (cold fusion may be another obviously good choice for a future tech.)

Hopefully some of this will help, if not than thanks for giving me the opportunity babble:)

[J Bytheway]

Originally posted by HuangShang
WOW almost done... couldn't really under everything

I wouldn't go so far as to say that. Almost begun, perhaps :D.

BTW is there a volcano on land?

Nope. (Well, there is in the Samurai scenario and Big Mc made one for land, but not in the default game).

[ahenobarb]

One issue should be when trading these goods between nations, does that give you access to the technology dependant on that good? The answer of course should be yes, but does the program keep track of what specific good you are receiving through trade or just the amount of gold you are receiving.

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by ahenobarb
One issue should be when trading these goods between nations, does that give you access to the technology dependant on that good? The answer of course should be yes, but does the program keep track of what specific good you are receiving through trade or just the amount of gold you are receiving.

That's the reason why the SendGood event must work, so once the good is sended I can extract the good that was sent the owners of the two cities. But I have no doubt that this event will do what it promises, although I didn't test it.

It would be more difficuilt to give a bonus each turn the trade route exists, as there is no function that checks what good does a city receives every turn. Of course I could use the information from the SendGood event and store it in an array, the huge problem would be only that the whole information gets lost if you reloadslic, that's also one problem in DiploMod.

-Martin

[HuangShang]

Originally posted by centrifuge


Aircraft: Physics, aerodynamics, lightweight materials, perhaps aluminum/ Al Alloys.

Stealth: IIRC, Stealth aircrafts have a ceramic outer casing that absorbs the radar waves...Stealth subs, no clue...(silent propulsion may be one possibility)

Don't forget engines.. meaning some fuel chemists and of course... can't think of any right now;)

[Locutus]

Originally posted by J Bytheway
Fibre optics
Aircraft
Stealth aircraft
Stealth subs
Space craft
Superconductors (cold and/or room temperature)

Fibre Optics: Glass, maybe Oil (for plastics).

Aircraft: for early aircraft all you really need is an engine, iow Oil. For modern aircraft high-quality light-weight materials are needed such as Aluminum (=Bauxite), and maybe Tungsten and copper for the weapons and other electrical equipment..

Stealth aircraft: basically the same as what you need for regular modern aircraft.

Stealth subs: tough one, I guess the same as a regular sub: Oil for fuel. Maybe Copper and/or Tungsten for elecronics/weapons.

Superconductor: Tungsten is the strongest and most heat-resisting metal there is, that would definitely have to be a requirement for Superconductors. I've seen this in several mods for other games as well.

[centrifuge]

Originally posted by Locutus

Stealth subs: tough one, I guess the same as a regular sub: Oil for fuel. Maybe Copper and/or Tungsten for elecronics/weapons.

Superconductor: Tungsten is the strongest and most heat-resisting metal there is, that would definitely have to be a requirement for Superconductors. I've seen this in several mods for other games as well.

Sorry to have to disagree with you Locutus, but the leading fuel source for subs since (IIRC) the 1950's has been nuclear.

Tungsten is a good choice for superconductors, but unfortunately not the best, the reason that I say this is that it is necessary to take it to lower temperatures than other choices. Check out this site, it has a ton of info on superconductors: http://superconductors.org/

Also, it appears that I was wrong with my numbers in my previous post. The record high temp for superconduction is now 138 K (-135 C)
...Not that it really matters, cold is cold.

[Locutus]

D'oh! You're absolutely right of course, I had totally overlooked Uranium. That could be used for stealth subs (and maybe some future units too).

As far as superconductors go, I wouldn't want to overuse Copper too much. It's already an important ancient age good and you'll probably need it for Electricity as well, but it IMHO shouldn't be required for too many units/advances, otherwise you'd get too far behind. So you'd have to alternate the various metals a bit, choice copper for some units, tungsten, aluminum or iron for others. Tungsten seems to fit well with Superconductors, even if it isn't 100% accurate.

Then again, maybe we could represent ceramics itself. Does anyone know what ceramics are made of? 'Classic' ceramics such as porcelein are made of clay or similar materials but I know nothing about modern ceramics as used in superconductors or modern aircraft (stealth or otherwise), but I'm guessing it's a very generic group of materials and therefore not very useful to us...

[Dale]

Just one the writing/paper thing mentioned a few posts ago. Wasn't the first thing humans wrote on with an alphabet human skin? ;)

That opens a whole bag of worms! Slaves can be strategic goods which enable diplomats to be born! :D

[centrifuge]

Originally posted by Locutus

Then again, maybe we could represent ceramics itself.

I believe that we should if possible, ceramics are a very important part of history, ranging from pottery to the space shuttle. You'll have to forgive me, my bacheleors degree is in chemistry, and my Masters is in materials science and engineering, so this is an area that I get a little but anal about.

I'll check around a bit further and if I think that I can come up with something that will work, I'll post it.

[centrifuge]

Originally posted by Locutus

As far as superconductors go, I wouldn't want to overuse Copper too much. It's already an important ancient age good and you'll probably need it for Electricity as well, but it IMHO shouldn't be required for too many units/advances, otherwise you'd get too far behind. So you'd have to alternate the various metals a bit, choice copper for some units, tungsten, aluminum or iron for others.


This is a good Idea, copper isn't the only necessity for conduction, so maybe we can have a branch at this point that allows a civ to gain electricity, superconduction etc. if they have a different conducting resource. What I mean by this, is that the use of different materials will come to almost the same conclusion ( maybe with a lower quality outcome if at all possible, but I know that this is pushing it)

[child of Thor]

Early ceramics were simple clay open-fire fired pots, maybe with a potash glaze(fire ashes and water) as the containers needed to be more impervious to liquids.

I would say the single most important advance was the kiln - this allowed the higher temperature fireing and the first proper 'commercial' pottery, either earthenware(around 800 degrees) and stoneware (about 1100 degrees- these figures may be off a little!).

So for anything other than primative pottery you need a decent fireing process. I'd say from the games point of view, that about the same time 'forge' can be built then the technology for a good kiln would be available(very rough maybe - but neat)

In industrial ceramics then everything is just refined xN:

The glaze would need a better understanding of glasses,
Fireing tempretures would need to be increased,
Clay would be a refined resource.

[J Bytheway]

OK, I have retrieved the CTPEd source code so now the 'design a tech tree' is turning into 'Update CTPEd to make designing the tech tree easier', which is naturally slowing progress. It's surprising how much time I seem to be spending doing other stuff...

Anyway, I hope to have more progress to report soon.

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by J Bytheway
OK, I have retrieved the CTPEd source code so now the 'design a tech tree' is turning into 'Update CTPEd to make designing the tech tree easier', which is naturally slowing progress. It's surprising how much time I seem to be spending doing other stuff...


Yeah but actual the time is well spend, that is indeed a welcome side effect.

-Martin

[J Bytheway]

*Bump*

And a (complete lack of) progress report.

I've done nothing significant, though (as Martin knows) I've made some progress with CTPEd instead. Now I have to focus on Uni work instead so if anyone else want's to take over, they are more than welcome.

[Ekmek]

Any progress. THe advance trees sounds great.
NOt to get into the weeds but one thing about separate tech trees would be that they must be limited to eras.

I'm barely figuring out SLIC, but i wonder if this is possible. Can you SLIC tile improvements with values? I know IW said you can assign a value to buildings to mak a simulation of culture. The hard part was being able to know how much you had and the AI trying to acquire it.

But as a possibility maybe different resources allow you to build only certain tile improvements and that improvement creates a number of that resource per turn. then building the unit will require shield and a number of resources per turn. just a thought.

[Pedrunn]

Martin,I have tested the SendGood event and it did worked.
Did you start any coding already? If yes, may i see it?

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Pedrunn
Martin,I have tested the SendGood event and it did worked.
Did you start any coding already? If yes, may i see it?

Actual I started to modify GoodMod again to release GoodMod1 v.1.0. I started to rewrite the old scripts to improve them and to remove the last DebugSlic=Yes errors. So far I have no tech tree. I only know that I will use the mod_CanPlayerHaveAdvance function to keep players from researching advances instead of using dummy advances. What me really concerns is that the information gained by the SendGood event is that it has to be gathered into arrays, I can't recreate the information if someone reloadslic. I can recontruct some pieces of the information by checking the advances a player has. But I can't check if there is international trade. Therefore I know that it is very difficuilt to do it so that you can research if you get the good by trade. I could make it so that the good is required to start research the tech, and if the contact to the good is lost it is not possible anymore to start the research that would also happen if you reloadslic. So far I need a tech tree.

-Martin

[Pedrunn]

The religion code has the same problems as what is concerned by the reloadslic. But still we keep doing it. And i think only succession games and modders actually use this feature usually.

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Pedrunn
The religion code has the same problems as what is concerned by the reloadslic. But still we keep doing it. And i think only succession games and modders actually use this feature usually.

Of course it wouldn't keep me from doing it, but I need a sollution with that I can live. Oh and in the replayed tourny game I had to use the feature also one time to avoid a repetive game. And it was used at the start of the tourny game. Actual this problem has the diplomod too. It just caused two DebugSlic=Yes errors. That were the only ones I got.

-Martin

[Pedrunn]

I never hide my willing to have this feature. So i do everything it takes to have it. Any help needed i am here.

[Pedrunn]

Does anyone have a graphic for saltpeter? and some info?

[Pedrunn]

Martin, have you found a way to know if a trade route that was selling a player a certain good breaks.
since the KillTradeRoute(GEA_TradeRoute, int_t) doesnt gives that info.

When does the TradeBid(int_t<player>, int_t, city_t, city_t) is triggered.

And have you seen the unused UI file called "tradescreen.ldl"?

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Pedrunn
Martin, have you found a way to know if a trade route that was selling a player a certain good breaks.
since the KillTradeRoute(GEA_TradeRoute, int_t) doesnt gives that info.

No, actual I was busy with the last version of GoodMod and now I should use my time to prepare me for the next semester in university, so some time will past before I can continue on this project. But this is a real problem. You could keep the international trade routes in arrays and remove them if war is declared. The problem here is what is represented by the int. Is it a player or is it a good data base index.

Originally posted by Pedrunn
When does the TradeBid(int_t, int_t, city_t, city_t) is triggered.

I guess when an AI makes a trade bid on one of your goods, or you on one of the AI goods. I never saw this in CTP2, so possible it is not triggered of course you could write an event handler that gives you an alert box: Trade Bid was made!

Originally posted by Pedrunn
And have you seen the unused UI file called "tradescreen.ldl"?

It is the CTP1 trade screen I think you won't be able to get it to work I wouldn't knoe how it should work to reset the trade route, because the tile improvements don't give any fright bonus to the terrain like in CTP1. :(

-Martin

[centrifuge]

Originally posted by Pedrunn
Does anyone have a graphic for saltpeter? and some info?

You could try to use Civ3's version... if you want it, and don't have access to their graphic, I'll post it for you.

[Pedrunn]

Centrifuge, I know but i can only find the civ3 resources in small sizes. Half of what is needed for CTP2. If you have large icons for the saltpeter and the horse I will be very thankful.

[SMIFFGIG]

I havent got Civ3 installed, but the icons from the Civilpedia would be perfect (thats probably what ones you mean isnt it)

There is a goodmod for civ3 that gets rid off all the little crappy civ3 resource icons and replaces them with minimized civilpedia versions, and it looks way better AND BIGGER, you may want to take a look at this Pedrunn.

If not and nobody has responded and posted the icons within the next few days or so ill install Civ3:rant: (think about what your putting me through here pedrunn ;) ) and post the icons you want .

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Pedrunn
Centrifuge, I know but i can only find the civ3 resources in small sizes. Half of what is needed for CTP2. If you have large icons for the saltpeter and the horse I will be very thankful.

Thanks toe Wes I can provide you with the good icons of the Civ3 Great Library. (Much better name then Civilopedia :D It has more atmosphere.)

And by the way to check out Harlan's Civ3 GoodMod is also a good idea as SMIFFGIG mentioned.

-Martin

[Pedrunn]

I found Harlans resources in the civ3 graphics directory but hadnt found the original ones in big size.
Thanks Martin this will help me a lot with my new trade system code.
And thanks SMIFFIG'S (or should it be SMIFFGIG now ;)) it is this kind of friendship among the users of this forum that makes it such a nice community to be part of. :b:

[Amesjustin]

This Mod sounds almost alot like one I was developing in Civ3, but I think you can go alot farther with it here.

By splitting the tech tree off and having a sea, mountain, forest, or prarie-based civ you are basically creating culture. You can make a similar advance path for each branch that goes on almost forever so that if someone does get diverse terrain/goods they CAN pursue all paths but will specialize in none.

Early advances should be based on terrain/goods available. With these advances, newer, more advanced units/advances/improvements/goods become available.

The next set of advances should be based on all the above.

For instance: You discover the good oil. Now you can research combustible fuels. Once you research that, create the Ford Model-T unit and the city furnace (?), and research Oil Refining. Researching Oil Refining allow you to build Oil Refineries and Research Oil Drilling. Oil Drilling will allow you to discover deep oil in previously unknown places (like an Alaskan wildlife preserve) and build PW deep oil Drills. If you have both the Oil Drilling Advance and the Deep Sea Exploration advance and 15 Oil Drills you can develop Offshore Oil Drilling which lets you see offshore oil and build Offshore Oil Platforms (which have a 0.5% chance of creating a disastrous oil spill killing off all food production in a 2 square radius for 10 turns).

Just some ideas to throw around.

I also like random events/disasters, and unique terrain/landmarks/GOODS would also add a tremendous amount of luck to the game.

[child of Thor]

Firstly welcome Amesjustin!
It's always great to have new idea's floated around on these subjects:)
I really like what Martin started on in this thread - i think if any of the ideas expressed here see the light of day it will open another chapter for the players of CTP2. From what you posted on another thread earlier you say you know C#, so i'm sure the Modders around here will be delighted for your input. If your feeling upto it check the Slic files and documentation that you can find in the modification section of CTP2. I think it can become a quite nasty addiction!

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Amesjustin
This Mod sounds almost alot like one I was developing in Civ3, but I think you can go alot farther with it here.

Yes that is right, Slic a C++ like programing language (unfortunatly not as powerful as C++) gives you the power to do much more then you will ever can do in Civ3. Actual it is not only slic but the combination of slic and the open text files.

Originally posted by Amesjustin
By splitting the tech tree off and having a sea, mountain, forest, or prarie-based civ you are basically creating culture. You can make a similar advance path for each branch that goes on almost forever so that if someone does get diverse terrain/goods they CAN pursue all paths but will specialize in none.

Actual you don't need to make for everyone a tech tree it is possible to make a tech net, it is not necessary to develope everything in order to get the future techs.

Originally posted by Amesjustin
Early advances should be based on terrain/goods available. With these advances, newer, more advanced units/advances/improvements/goods become available.

Actual the main idea is that (trade) goods are available on the map from the start of course in accient time there are other uses for oil than today, in acient time you can use oil for lights, or to seal a boat or you could conservate wood. In modern times you could refine it and use it as fuel or you can make plastic out of it. So no new goods will become available, they are already on the map. You just need to discover the technology to use them. OK this last thing could take a while, but without enough goods you have a problem.

Unfortunatly my main problem now is that I don't have a tech tree or the units that should be found in the game. My other problem is that I don't have the time to find a tech tree or better tech net until Crismas.

-Martin

[SMIFFGIG]

Personally I would prefer it so that the resources appeared after certain advances like CIV3... If you really dont agree with this at least some HAVE to only appear after a certain advance eg:

Uranium = err dont remember this having to much use in ancient times

Aluminum = same here, not only would it have been impossible for them to extract in great enough quantaties. But what the heck would be the point

OIL = Ok i can see why you want this in ancient times. But really the usage of such a good in those times was minimal compared to today, the value of the good would have to DRAMATICALLY increase during time. However the major problem with having it available from Ancient on is. Me player settle everywhere where oil is knowing it will be worth a bomb in centries to come. Not only is this unfair but its historically incorrect as no Civilization would have known how important Oil would become *obviously*

Furthermore the enjoyment of discovering new trade goods would be much higher IMO. Even if just some appeared through technology and others where available from the begining but increased in value through the ages

Likewise other trade goods could decrease in value (like grapes)

There could be other goods that just tottaly disappeared through the years due to low value eg

Ameythst = (this gem stone was once as valuable as ruby and saphire possible more valuble, however due to discoveries all over the world of massive deposits the gem stone is VERY cheap [i have some bits lol])

Mammoth = Well we all know what happened to the mammoth, we also know how greatly valuable it was to early man
(this is a on the spot brainstorm im sure many many more could be thought of)



Another suggestion I have (and all ready briefly mentioned) is goods changing value through time, either a fixed fluxuation a random one (dont like idea of that) or one that is dependent on certain dates and/or events (my fav). There would be some goods that just never changed in non-physical value (Gold, Diamond)

:)

[Ekmek]

I dont know if any one has gotten anywhere on any of this but I thought of an idea that might make it do-able. But it involves making the resources units. If SLIC could be made to make these units only appear on the tile where the resource is located and these units be non-moving babarian units, that have to be captured then you use the UPGRADE Slic to convert these resources into units. This also makes a few things possible:

1) the "resource units" will appear after certain techs, so you'll still have the resource tile improve for regular trade but being able to use it will require certain techs.

2) you can steal resources in another player territory. There is already a CTP2 unit that could serve as a corporation doing that. Or a the eco-terrorist can destroy them.

3) it could be randomized where certain tile improvements have larger quantities of the resource (i.e oil, a square in the ME makes 5 oil units and one in pensylvania only 2, and even eventually after a few turns none.)

4) Resource units can be traded similar to civ3 since units can already be traded in CTP2

5) The hard part would be military units that require more than one resource.

6) using theses units to build bldgs, unles it can be slic that the resource unit has to be disbanded and it creates a non available city improv and then subtracts a certain number of PW.

I'm sorry I'm not a SLIC, just trying to help. I figure you guys probably are on to something better anyways.

[ahenobarb]

Originally posted by SMIFFGIG

OIL = Ok i can see why you want this in ancient times. But really the usage of such a good in those times was minimal compared to today, the value of the good would have to DRAMATICALLY increase during time. However the major problem with having it available from Ancient on is. Me player settle everywhere where oil is knowing it will be worth a bomb in centries to come. Not only is this unfair but its historically incorrect as no Civilization would have known how important Oil would become *obviously*



If it's not to late to comment. Instead of increasing its value on a point system, why not just make it so that you can't build gasoline powered units or city improvements without it. There are SLIC events to determine if you are receiving a specific good, so you could check every turn for this and If you're not getting oil, you can't make any more tanks. And to make it more interesting, if you lose your supply of oil, maybe your gas powered unit stop in their tracks!;)

Does anyone know if it is possible to create a good that is not specific to a terrain type? I would like to add some other goods, but I don't want to have to remove any of the 4 goods already assigned to each terrain type. Is it possible? Or is it pie-in-the-sky?

[J Bytheway]

I believe you would have to create new terrain types which duplicated the existing ones in all ways except the goods which were on them. I'm not sure of what other complications this might cause, though...

[child of Thor]

Its been awhile since much was heard on this project, i'm hopeing no news is good news. If Martin(or anyone else) has got any further with this a bit of news might be nice:)
I want to go to war over oil;)

[ahenobarb]

Originally posted by J Bytheway
I believe you would have to create new terrain types which duplicated the existing ones in all ways except the goods which were on them. I'm not sure of what other complications this might cause, though...

Thanks J! I will have to try that. :b:

[Martin Gühmann]

Well if someone can provide a tech tree for the start, I can start on the slic work in the next vacation.

-Martin

[Pedrunn]

Those ideas for goods are terrific and i even have some of my own but what makes me not stimulated to do so is the lack of buy good option in the trade manager. :(

One day i may be able to see a trade system like civ3 or CTP1 the rest strategic resources and special bonus can be done through slic.

[Ekmek]

If there were good units you could trade goods by selling the units/trading them for gold it would be like civ3

or Could we make a special unit, like corporate branch, that once it engages/attacks the city it purchases the good from that city (being it from another nation? Have the price be based on a formula of good, a preset AI value and the population size. A pop up to pick the good to buy would be possible or have specific good purchases.
This could also work with my "good unit" idea where the good would travel like civ2 caravans and "attack" the city and return gold based on a calculation.

just a suggestion

[Pedrunn]

I believe moving units for when you did not had to is a bit boring. My idea (http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=62425&highlight=Pedrunn+System) is to buy a good when clicking in a citv that has the good you want. Them a pop up message would appear with the trade negotiation(eg. how much? How many? How long?, etc..) and of course teach the AI to be a good trader. Still this systme is not good enough for me. I just think the trade should be done in national level. I dont want to add micromanagement to the game like look for a city that has the good in the map.

[Tamerlin]

Originally posted by Pedrunn
I believe moving units for when you did not had to is a bit boring.

True, this is why I have converted the Cradle Updater to use it with the Apolyton Pack, I was bored moving tons of units on the map.

I just think the trade should be done in national level. I dont want to add micromanagement to the game like look for a city that has the good in the map.

Once again I agree, one of the greatest pleasures with CtP2 is that you are freed of the excessive micromanagement frequently encountered in many strategical games.

[porlcass]

Having oil as a strategic resource would make for some good game play, but you wouldn't want to make it all powerful. Possible alternative to oil power sources are:
- Enthanol, available with advanced distilling techniques, and can be based on a (more plentiful) sugar good. Ethanol should be available only marginally later than oil powered vehicles. Vehicles powered by ethanol tend to be slower (read 1 less movement) and corrode faster (read higher upkeep).
- Solar, requires a certain number of desert tiles for the the idea be available, and it should be available a bit later than oil and ethanol. Solar powered vehicles should be a little bit slower, and have a 'fuel supply' (ie. batteries) that is replenished by ending a turn in a city, desert, desert hill or desert mountain tile (obviously the desesert mountain must have a road on it...). Running out of fuel does not destroy the vehicle, but causes it to have only 1 movement point until it's fuel is replenished. On the plus side, their upkeep cost is lower.
- Fuel Cells - This should come later than all of the above technologies. Fuel cell powered vehicles should be a bit slower, but otherwise equal to Oil powered vehicles.
- Cold Fusion - This would come much, much later, and eliminate the strategic advantage of oil.

[Tamerlin]

Originally posted by porlcass
- Solar, requires a certain number of desert tiles for the the idea be available, and it should be available a bit later than oil and ethanol. Solar powered vehicles should be a little bit slower, and have a 'fuel supply' (ie. batteries) that is replenished by ending a turn in a city, desert, desert hill or desert mountain tile (obviously the desesert mountain must have a road on it...). Running out of fuel does not destroy the vehicle, but causes it to have only 1 movement point until it's fuel is replenished. On the plus side, their upkeep cost is lower.

Welcome Porlcass,

The alternatives to oil supply is a very good idea though I think a military solar vehicle would be impractical as the solar cells are necessarily on the armor of the vehicle. ;)

[Ekmek]

Maybe we should make a set of standard, non-resource required units and the more elite units/high-tech require resources. just a thought as we hopefully get closer to implementing this

[MrBaggins]

A solution for oil in all terrains:

Have a 'map' stored in an array, the same size as the actual map. It has -1 for no resource in that square, 0 for Oil, and so on and so on.

You randomly generate 'hidden' resources... like oil... uranium perhaps... basically any resources that would have been not discoverable early... since they weren't in plain sight. (you might still have oil in deserts... where it leaked up visibly...)

You use a survey team (and) survey ship unit, to find the resource. When they stop and use the fortify command, they search the immediate area (how large a radius depends on tech?) If they find a resource, a message is given... and you're told how close.

If you have the survey team over the site AND there is a resource AND you own the square, then you can plant a drilling rig/platform/whatever, as appropriate for the hidden resource.

The AI would be able to programmatically know where the oil was, and it would build a new city nearby/build fortresses/etc/etc as was appropriate to secure the resource... or the AI gets fudged locational bonuses, by putting 'reachable' hidden resources nearby.

or you plant resources early... wait till the each AI has x number of cities, then plant a random number near random cities. Distribute some through the map. Optionally place some close to the human player.

The human won't have the fudging 'in his face', because the location will have been fudged early... and a lot of territory growth/change will take place in the meantime. Its just more likely that the AI's will be in places where the Oil is. He, is, afterall, in a minority of 1.



An optional thought; you could have non-renewable resources simulated by including a second map, with quantities of that resource, and reduce that each turn its extracted.


This *should* or *may* set up intreguing diplomatic situations; if you don't have Oil, you can't just conquer- with Tanks/Planes/Ships... you have to be diplomatic and trade... or maybe you have Oil... but not a lot... and are hence are on a timer to invade a nearby Oil producing state. Maybe don't have/can't get oil, and hence are limited to human-based armies, and steam ships... till you can change it. A lot of play testing and balancing will be necessary to find a good balance in terms of this area.

MrBaggins

[Ekmek]

Has anyone been working on these good possibilities?

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by E
Has anyone been working on these good possibilities?

As I said last time, I don't have a tech tree and I don't have time to make one and John has no time to do one either. :( So the answer is no.

-Martin

[Ekmek]

Just a random thought the other day:

Civ3 might have it backwards with technology revealing resources. If the source code allows it (or SLICing) ,aybe it should be that you can only research certain techs if you have a good/resource in your teritory or acquired by trade?

Alsao I'm for a consumption use system, but also thinking that with the source code coming whenever it might be possible to create Economic victory conditions using goods, such as Oil Monopoly where you control all of the oil. (even economic great leaders is a possibility, like civ3 great leaders and scientific leaders but have them appear when you find/or build an improvement on a resource. They give you either bonus cash, or a free economic building or something)

[Ekmek]

I also thought of the possibility of WONDER GOODS. Probably have to be done with the code but it would be instead of just strategic, bonus, and luxury a good that offers special traits like some RoN resources.

I.E citrus lets ships heal at sea.

Or bronze gives better armor in the ancient age

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by E
Civ3 might have it backwards with technology revealing resources. If the source code allows it (or SLICing) ,aybe it should be that you can only research certain techs if you have a good/resource in your teritory or acquired by trade?

It is not a problem to find out if a civ has a certain good in its territory via slic, the problem is to find out whether there is a good incoming by trade. Here we need the source code. But actual I prefer a source code solution as it makes modding easier afterwards.

Originally posted by E
Alsao I'm for a consumption use system, but also thinking that with the source code coming whenever it might be possible to create Economic victory conditions using goods, such as Oil Monopoly where you control all of the oil. (even economic great leaders is a possibility, like civ3 great leaders and scientific leaders but have them appear when you find/or build an improvement on a resource. They give you either bonus cash, or a free economic building or something)

I think the economic victory conditions can also be sliced, the consumption use system is also possible but would survive a /reloadslic. Unfortunatly uni starts in 3 weeks again and I won't have time to do anythink here. Currently I am trying to improve my GoodMod AI, well so far I found a way to make it to respect the city cap, and also a way to make shure that it captures undefended cities, only the city cap compound is missing here, yet.

-Martin

[Ekmek]

Thanks for the feedback Martin, I dont want to burden you and I do appreciate all your GOOD work.

[Gen.Dragolen]

Martin,

Have you ever considered using this model for how resources interact with the developement of technology and vice versa:

The resources have to be know to start with: man was mining resources like obsidian for arrow and spearheads, and trade was developed because it was often found far away. They would have seasonal camps to dig and then haul the goods back to home. This process was repeated up into the Bronze Age. But the important part was what was driving the process.

The problem is how to model advances that depend on two seperate parts that function independantly of each other, but are required: the resources have to be available and the skills have to be mastered. It is up to some genius to come up with a new idea on how to improve a process by either changing materials or improving the process itself. Call it the Eureka factor.

This is sort of what we have already with the science costs. I would like to suggest that because many of the technologies are possible with many different materials, so there shouldn't be a restriction based on resources except in some specific cases, especially in modern times. This allows a civ that has limited natural resources to still get advances but of a unique nature. More to follow...


D.

[Gen.Dragolen]

Martin,

Continuing right along, a good modern example is the differences in the technologies used by the Former Soviet Union vs the US. Much of the military hardware the US produces relies on exotic materials and plastics to do the job. The Soviet scientists did the same work with exotic steels.

When the first Mig 29 (F-15 equivalent) was brought to Japan, the American's jaws all hit the ground because they had assumed that you couldn't build a Mach 2+ interceptor without titanium and aluminium. And there sat an all steel interceptor. The Soviets didn't have access to elements like titanium so they figured out how to do it without. Genius is almost as powerful as stupidity when it comes to figuring out how things work, but with slightly better consequences.

So this leaves a model with one part time invested in a technology which relies on an engineering approach, and one part for the Einsteins, Da Vinci's and Archimedes of the world. C3C's scientific leaders are a good idea, but it should be limited to advances only.

This leads me to the need for different leaders in the fields of culture, military and sciences. But that should be for another thread. What we need is a function that will do a check using the PRNG to determine if a certain advance should happen in a given branch of the tech tree. This should depend in part on what resources the civ has at their disposal, from trade and territory.

It is also a good way to allow for tech leakage from trading resources with another civ.

Oops, getting off topic. Back to trade: since it is the foundation of civilization, we need to make it so that each improvement should have a required trade good. A show I watched cover this topic very well: the archeologists found a city in a river valley about 20 miles from the coast. They found cotton cloth and fish bones everywhere. One valley over, they found massive irrigation works for cotton fields (massive for 9-10,000 BC) and cotton fishing nets at coastal settlements.

The city in the middle made fishing nets from the cotton grown in the next valley and traded the nets for dried fish. This drives me towards a missing component in the trade models: everything is based on raw materials. The real money is made in trading finished goods. And that means being able to do something better than anyone else.

So if you have cotton in one city's backyard, it should be able to produce trade goods like clothe and fishing nets depending on what technologies are available. This makes it better to produce the finished good as opposed to the raw cotton. I can think of many cases where this is going to be a royal pain, but it would fit nicely with the tech tree and improvements.

So for a civ with a foundry in one city without raw resources has to import them, which means you need to get a trade route setup to a city that has the wanted resources. This ties in with the need to make colonies in areas where there are no established cities to source from. This would really make the search for goods more important that it is now.

Currently, I just drop a city where ever there are resources I want, or take a city with a trade good. With a good supply of caravans, I'm usually able to keep trade going with neighbours until they start wars and choking my routes. Then I'm only trading internally. It would be nice to make this tactic next to impossible to keep up.


D.

[The Big Mc]

Do you know what the problem is with every single civ like game Today and for that mater the rest of time :lol:

You . We know to much about the past, That’s why strategic goods is a bad idea (same with what you are putting forward).

Oil has been known about for centuries (long before the birth of the car) . in civ terms you will always know that oil is a modern strategic good .

Same with everything else you will always beat an AI in a Straight fight because you with out noticing it cheat.

The second point I want to make is that the Russians were way smarter than the Americans in the cold war. Will you are taking about the intercepts the Americans called the Russians backwards for using valves in there radio. Of course the Americans finally cottoned on that valves help with EMP.

[child of Thor]

Originally posted by The Big Mc
Do you know what the problem is with every single civ like game Today and for that mater the rest of time :lol:

You . We know to much about the past, That’s why strategic goods is a bad idea (same with what you are putting forward).

Oil has been known about for centuries (long before the birth of the car) . in civ terms you will always know that oil is a modern strategic good .

...edit......

True there is that, but if we can give the goods a value of scale - so the computer can tell which goods are worth most, then it wont matter. The positive thing about strategic goods is summed up in the name - they can be strategic :)

If the AI will/can fight/deal diplomatically with the human player to get/keep access to the goods then its going to make a much more interesting and tactical game. 'If' being the important thing ;)

[The Big Mc]

child of Thor just remember when we get an ai as smart as the human It will demand rights.

what you are saying is lets get the ai to cheat so it makes a city in the desert that virtually starves so it can get oil for in 200 turns :lol:

[child of Thor]

maybe...:cute:

it will have to cheat - Ai is too stupid, atleast for another decade or more .As long as its inteligent cheating i dont mind a little :evilgrin: