Call To Conquest

[Peter Triggs]

Call To Conquest, a new mod, is now available in the Directory. Thanks, Locutus.


This is not a proper readme but just some preliminary remarks. I've tried to put most everything anyone needs to know into the Great Library. Check it out.

1) Quickstart: Strongly recommended to avoid early game tedium.

2) Barbarians: I never play with them. You probably won't need them, the AI players should be enough to deal with.

3) Map Size: Huge or Gigantic recommended. Not sure about oversized ones, but certainly nothing smaller.

4) Customize Map: I've changed the city's border radius in such a way that you really need a lot more land. So I recommend something like 30% water v 70% land.

4) Number of Civs: 8 recommended. Big numbers are probably not viable and less than this probably makes the game too easy.

5) Difficulty levels: Don't be too ambitious. Try Medium to get the hang of it. Actually, I've never tried it on impossible.

6) Diplomacy: You may get some early diplomatic agreements but generally your close neighbours don't like you. Once things start happening, it's always worth checking the 'Intelligence' screen though. ;)

7) Strategies: Don't be deceived if the game seems to be quite easy at the start: a turtle strategy shouldn't work. Your goal is to conquor the world and you have to build up your Civ and then get on with it fairly quickly. And you can't count on 'taking them out one at a time'.

Known issues: If you use the Autopilot option so that your planes will automatically return to their airbases, you will find that occasionally Biplanes (only Biplanes) will run out of fuel. I'll try to fix this in a future patch.

Finally, :blush: :blush: :blush: here's the first patch. There were a couple of 'in development handlers' that I neglected to remove and I've made a tweak to some DiffDB settings. Unzip to your "Call To Power 2" folder.

[tlatoani]

Cool Peter, I'll check it out:b:

PS Do you use your unit_updater?

[Peter Triggs]

Yes, and there's lots of new stuff.

[child of Thor]

:cool: I may dust of my CTP2 disc and tear myself away from morrowmind on xbox to see this :b:
what AI tweaks+diplomacy delights await us i wonder;)
nice and sneaky work Peter:) i didn't see this one coming!

[Martin Gühmann]

From a first glace I saw a lot of slic code, that is amazing. Could you explain what the important slic files contain, IIRC you worked on a new version of diplomod, I like to know which file does it contain. And also the cross water invasion code.

By the way we need a new item about, so that everyone knows that there is something new in CTP2. :)

-Martin

[Locutus]

I've been trying to post a news item for hours, but the news server seems to be down :(

[Peter Triggs]

Martin,

I tried out that diplomacy code that I wrote last year, but it just didn't work in this mod. This is supposed to be a totally military conquest orientated mod so there's not a lot of room for standard diplomacy.

Unfortunately, the Cross Water Invasion stuff has been put on hold. I had this game going where I thought "These guys should be mounting an amphibious assault". So I tried to code up what I would do if I were them. But it only worked on that map: when I tried it on different maps, it just wasn't general enough. We need better geographic functions that will allow us to deal with continents, oceans, and lakes. I've got some ideas about this, but I don't know if I'll ever have time to work them out.

If you've been playing it you'll have noticed that there's lots of new stuff. I'm starting to document it and will get back to you later.

[tlatoani]

Originally posted by Peter Triggs
Martin,

I tried out that diplomacy code that I wrote last year, but it just didn't work in this mod. This is supposed to be a totally military conquest orientated mod so there's not a lot of room for standard diplomacy.

So developing the economy first and then going after your enemies is not the ideal strategy for this mod?

[Peter Triggs]

Well that's still the basic idea but I tend to build up my defenses a lot more than I used to.

[Myrddin]

Getting a cease-fire seems hard, let alone a peace treaty

The AI seems more aggressive and co-ordinated - I lost a few cities, including my capital

To help the AI further, it would make sense to tone down Bombardment - a couple of turns with a large bombardment stack makes taking a city easy. The AI does not seem to know how to do this, or how to counter it, so reducing the effectiveness of bombardment would help it.

Unit update only works when the units are in cities; and later updates don't catch anything that was missed the first time round, so armies in the field at the time of the appropriate upgrade miss out - could this be changed

[Aias]

:dance:

I can't wait to try it out! :)

Too bad I'm working the next 6 days straight!:(

[Peter Triggs]

Unit update only works when the units are in cities; and later updates don't catch anything that was missed the first time round, so armies in the field at the time of the appropriate upgrade miss out - could this be changed


How strange: that's the way the old updater worked. Have you tried using the sentinal button. Select an updatable unit in a city and press the sentinal button. You should first get a message asking if you want to update the unit and then a message asking if you want to automate the procedure.

[Aias]

I got this error message when I was unzipping the file:

Can't create output file: C\program files\activision\call to power2\ctp2_data\default\graphics\sprites\gu119.spr

Any thoughts?

[Peter Triggs]

Um, no. Anybody else get this? Did you get any other error messages.

gu119.spr is the Musketeer (red jacket with bearskin hat). It's in the zip and, AFAIK, this has been the standard number for it since MedMod.

[Myrddin]

No error messages up to Renaissance

Froze once, but loaded fine from autosave - not unusual for CTP2!

[Aias]

Yeah, I don't know why this happened. The latest Cradle loaded and works fine.

I'd appreciate any suggestions.

[Glen]

It happened to my Aias,

So what i did was unziped the Mod to another folder (Activision2\Call to Power 2\) or what ever (Not the REAL call to power location)

then i went into the newly made activision2 folder and highlighted the newly made call to power 2 folder and moved it over to the REAL activision folder. A Msg box came up stating there was already a folder called "Call to Power 2" and files may be overwriten so i clicked continue or yes (whichever the button was called)

And the job was done... bit primitive i know but it worked for me!

Peter Triggs- Nice Mod i havent had time to play it proper yet but it looks interesting :)

[Locutus]

I got this error message when I was unzipping the file:

Can't create output file: C\program files\activision\call to power2\ctp2_data\default\graphics\sprites\gu119.spr

Any thoughts?

Probably this means the file already existed and your unzip program didn't want to overwrite it. If the rest of the files unzipped alright, the mod should work okay. If not, try to get your unzip program to overwrite (or skip) existing files and try to unzip again. What program do you use to unzip?

[Glen]

Locutus,

I had the same problem but it carnt be because Overwrite is disabled or switched off because it overwriten some of the files already??? Maybe i need to update my Unzip program but it has always worked fine before?

I use WINrar

[Aias]

I'm using WinZip. I used the self extractor that came with the CTC files.

I went in and had to manually pull about 5 sprite files, before it installed properly. I haven't tried playing it yet, but after I pulled the sprite files, Cradle still worked.

Yet another one of the great mysteries of life solved on the Apolyton CTP2 message boards!

[Maquiladora]

Ive played 2 games so far both for about 150 turns each. I really like the increased effectiveness of mines (even on hills!) and the early taxation is very useful.

Ive lost a few cities in each game, mostly from the AI surrounding me with 6 or 7 size stacks until they knew they could attack and win, so im rushing for early catapults.

It would be good if you could make the bazaar more rewarding to build. In the default game it was +10% too and i never built it, maybe if it was 25 or +50% gold and twice production cost.

Theres not too many changes that its confusing to jump into and its really challenging. Now i should probably play more.

[Myrddin]

Some random thoughts

I assume the main reason for the submit option is to build Killer AIs, rather than have them stuck in pointless endless wars - seems a good idea

Ditto - Alliance

The first government change I got was Republic, which seems better than many of the later types - was I just lucky with my research, or does this reflect the tech tree. Similarly Modern Democracy seemed to arrive earlier than I was expecting

Unit updater works fine, now I understand what it does


No bugs seen, apart from CTP2's predilication to crash to the desktop in late game

[Peter Triggs]

Good that the unzipping problem seems to be under control.

Maquiladora

It would be good if you could make the bazaar more rewarding to build. In the default game it was +10% too and i never built it, maybe if it was 25 or +50% gold and twice production cost.


How about +10% and 1 gold per citizen? I find myself struggling for gold until I get to the Industrial Revolution. I've got to adjust what happens after that because the gold can just pile up.

Myrddin:

To help the AI further, it would make sense to tone down Bombardment - a couple of turns with a large bombardment stack makes taking a city easy. The AI does not seem to know how to do this, or how to counter it, so reducing the effectiveness of bombardment would help it.


I think you're right: bombardment is overpowered. The AI will bombard from within cities (if you have a stack next to one of it's cities, it will often bombard it). It will also use it's ships to bombard your coastal cities sometimes. But for a human player, being able to bombard does make taking cities quite easy. As you say, it needs to be toned down but I don't know by how much. If you can't take cities the game will stagnate. I remain to be sold on this 'History in your lunch hour' business (Rise of Nations, but I think Civ3 might have appropriated the slogan for their advertising); on the other hand, I think that one of the reasons why there's not a lot of people left around here is that the big mods have tended to be made for the core players who are really good at the game and happy to play for a lot of hours. Difficult.


I assume the main reason for the submit option is to build Killer AIs, rather than have them stuck in pointless endless wars - seems a good idea


It was Lou Wigman's idea (See this thread (http://www.apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?threadid=40383)) Immortal Wombat did the initial coding and I added the trigger conditions so that it was more event driven.


The first government change I got was Republic, which seems better than many of the later types - was I just lucky with my research, or does this reflect the tech tree. Similarly Modern Democracy seemed to arrive earlier than I was expecting


There are three government 'threads':


Right: Monarchy => Theocratic Empire => Fascism => Global Corporatism

Center: Classical Democracy => Republic => Modern Democracy => Virtual Democracy

Left/Other: Oligarchy => Theocracy => Communism => splits up here


Progressing along any thread should always take you to a better state. But I hope I got this right: Hex once remarked about how powerful the parameters in govern.txt are, and he sure wasn't kidding


No bugs seen, apart from CTP2's predilication to crash to the desktop in late game


That is a major bug and shouldn't be happening. Any idea as to what might be causing it?

[Locutus]

Last edited by Peter Triggs on 11-07-2003 at 01:58
Too late, I saw what the original link was :cute: Have you been spying on me? ;)

Edit: screwed up the attachment

[Locutus]

2nd try: I witnessed a unique moment in CtP history today ;)

[Peter Triggs]

Damn rights. I'm not often in the Democracy Game forum. :blush:

[Maquiladora]

How about +10% and 1 gold per citizen? I find myself struggling for gold until I get to the Industrial Revolution. I've got to adjust what happens after that because the gold can just pile up.

That would be better, still even in say a size 10 city making 50 gold thats only an extra 15 gold to build the bazaar. Maybe it could be +15% gold and 2 gold per citizen? Just an idea but its a shame when a building isnt worth building at any stage but the AI *is* building it, which then puts the AI at a disadvantage to be wasting production on it when the human knows better.

To solve the problem of too much gold later on you could disable the bazaar when a more modern marketplace style building is built, so it isnt a cumulative gold benefit but just upgrades the bazaar to marketplace for +25% gold or something.

[Myrddin]

Crashes to desk-top in late game - I thought this was a feature in CTP2:D

No obvious triggers, reloading from autosave seems to work, but this has happened in vanilla CTP2 and all the mods, so I don't think there is a specific issue with CtC

It does amuse me to see the complaints in the forum about the 'bugs' in Civ3 - they have never met the pre-patch CTP2!

[child of Thor]

Myrddin, I'm 90% sure that the late game crashes to desktop are due to the pillage tile bug.
Martin wrote a patch for it, it isn't always included in the Mods so you'll have to download it yourself, i think it is in the File Directory somewhere or it was on one of the older threads.

EDIT: ok i've searched back over the most likely threads from the last year to find the file. I can't seem to find the thread with it in :(
It's not in the Directory so either this means that all the new Mods now have it incorperated as standard, or it has just been forgotten about as most 'regular' players don't get to the late stages often or just don't have the problem?
Martin or Locutus could this file be put in the directory if it isn't now part of all the Mods please:)

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Peter Triggs
Damn rights. I'm not often in the Democracy Game forum. :blush:

Or anywhere else for that matter ;) You've been here for 3.5 years now and still only barely qualify for a custom avatar -- you're probably the most prominent lurker on these boards :)

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by child of Thor
Myrddin, I'm 90% sure that the late game crashes to desktop are due to the pillage tile bug.
Martin wrote a patch for it, it isn't always included in the Mods so you'll have to download it yourself, i think it is in the File Directory somewhere or it was on one of the older threads.

EDIT: ok i've searched back over the most likely threads from the last year to find the file. I can't seem to find the thread with it in :(
It's not in the Directory so either this means that all the new Mods now have it incorperated as standard, or it has just been forgotten about as most 'regular' players don't get to the late stages often or just don't have the problem?
Martin or Locutus could this file be put in the directory if it isn't now part of all the Mods please:)

The pillage bug is not the problem Peter included GoodMod so it is in.

Peter, did you try the PillageOrder instead of the CutImprovement order?

-Martin

[Peter Triggs]

This is the 'MG_PillageImprovement' handler we're talking about, isn't it?

I didn't touch that one. But I just noticed that the version of Goods.slc that I modified to do the map changes is v1.4. Was anything put into a later version that I'm missing and that might have something to do with this?

[Peter Triggs]

you're probably the most prominent lurker on these boards


I think that's probably Soren Johnson. He hardly ever posts but I see him in the 'online now' list all the time.

Nice to see a man who enjoys his work. (Hmm, unless he's activating his computer remotely, just to create an impression.)

[Locutus]

Like me, he probably just always has a window to 'Poly open, even if he isn't actually using it...

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Peter Triggs
This is the 'MG_PillageImprovement' handler we're talking about, isn't it?

Yes it is this handler, I asked about the PillageOrder, because you commented this one, that the PillageOrder would be better, as it would prevent the unit from a move loss. Possibly I tried the order. And if I tried it then it does not work, but I am not sure.

Originally posted by Peter Triggs
I didn't touch that one. But I just noticed that the version of Goods.slc that I modified to do the map changes is v1.4. Was anything put into a later version that I'm missing and that might have something to do with this?

The main issures I tried to address was to accelerate the code a little bit. I tried to reduce for-loops and used functions to get the good index instead of the first way to copy all the code into the handlers. I wrote an alternative function with a tree structure, the goal was to reduce the avarage number of needed equations, but I don't think this has a notable effect.

But I think I made it so that only one turn is needed to finish all the goods. And maybe I found one or two bugs.

And one comment on the unzipping problem:

I got it, too. But it only happens if you used Unzip instead of Winzip to extract the files. It occurs when a file already exists and its write protection is enabled. I got three sprites with write protection on probaly from Cradle. So my solution was to disable the write protection of each single file. Of course alternativly you can also use Winzip.

-Martin

[Immortal Wombat]

Sweet :b: Nice one Peter!

[child of Thor]

ok thanks for the info on that Martin:b: So no more pillage worries for me(i should download the newer Mods and updates;) ).

[tlatoani]

Peter:

I’ve captured two cities in my game, but only in the second did it ask me if I wanted to loot the place and scatter refugees around my nation? The first was a size 2 and the second a size 7 if that has anything to do with it.

The news updates about foreign wars is a nice touch. I missed that from Civ2. Good work:b::b:

[chris1]

I Tried it on impossible, take my advice never ever have civs next to you. I got wiped out so bad i had to restart the map. But i learned my lesson. They even destroyed one of my cities. Congratulations you hjave the AI the ultimate killer!!!!

very good job, I like the sprites from ctp1 added in a good idea.

If i download the new patch will i have to restart?

however there are some problems i noticed,

the pollution settings are awful, when you democratic gov the people moan and wine about it. They did that in apolyton which is why i refused to play on it.

too many governments

but i overall i found this to be the best mod for ctp plaers the AI hates you and wants to kill you as i noticed when the welsh kept blitzing me repeatedly, the diplomats said they were raving mad man very funny.

[Peter Triggs]

I'm going to try to post quickly here before Poly's server goes down again. :(


I’ve captured two cities in my game, but only in the second did it ask me if I wanted to loot the place and scatter refugees around my nation? The first was a size 2 and the second a size 7 if that has anything to do with it.


Yup, you only get to loot cities of size 3 or more.


If i download the new patch will i have to restart?


You can continue by reloading SLIC. But this is preferably to be avoided. (It can screw up the AI's strategy for a couple of turns and, later on in the game, can make it rather more difficult for you.)


the pollution settings are awful, when you democratic gov the people moan and wine about it. They did that in apolyton which is why i refused to play on it.


I always play with pollution turned off: IMO, this pollution business was not one of Sid's better ideas. Maybe it's OK in general, but this Mod is supposed to be focused purely on the military side of things.


when the welsh kept blitzing me repeatedly, the diplomats said they were raving mad man very funny.


Has anyone got the banana message yet? ;)

[chris1]

i've had the:

"The mexican leader is stark raving bonkers"

"The English leader hates you"

"The scottish fearful of you"
"The Native Americans secretly wants you guts for garters"

thats about it,



if you put pollution off, with the ecotopia advances work, i.e eliminating polluting cities?

I must compliment on a job well done, exspecially to the AI, who are a bunch of viscous stubborn pests Particulary the mexicans and native americans. They keep on trying to steal my cities, and kill my units



Also do you know how many men you need to take over the world? im currently stuck playing defense. Need to build up my armies.

[chris1]

hi sorry guys for the double post but i just got the funniest message ever from the Ai:

It was Japan it says " There leader has gone bannas and is convinced this a computer game"

Very funny, indeed, although they not so funny when they razed two of my cities to the ground, damn them!!!! i can't conquer them either, on a sub continent with mountains in the way but did manage to destroy the size 22 city of satsuma which made me feel much better.

[Peter Triggs]

if you put pollution off, with the ecotopia advances work, i.e eliminating polluting cities?


Don't know, but you can always try.


Also do you know how many men you need to take over the world? im currently stuck playing defense. Need to build up my armies.


I can't say exactly, but I do build a lot more armies than I used to. In part this is just to keep my cities well defended.

There's always a 'banana option' in Poly polls, so I figured that since this game is only ever going to be available from Poly, there should be a banana in it someplace.

[tlatoani]

Really nice game Peter:b::b:

Comments:

I've never seen an AI raze to the ground another AI city before, but the Nigerians and the Dutch did it to the Chinese.

I thought that the AI didn't bombard outside their own cities, but I have a Ethiopian 12-stack with about 5 or 6 catapults fortified outside one of my cities and every turn they bombard it, they also have a 10 stack roaming around waiting for my defenses to weaken I suppose.

The navy fighting was more intelligent also, the Ethiopians took care of the fire tirene's that were guarding my shores and then a 4 stack invaded.

What exactly triggers a Coup D'Etat? I took over Moscow and the entire Russian empire was turned over to the Ethiopians. It was the first of their cities I took, altough I did retake two cities of mine that I had lost. It seemes a drastic measure, but I liked it.

All in all a very nice game. :unworthy:

[Peter Triggs]

What exactly triggers a Coup D'Etat? I took over Moscow and the entire Russian empire was turned over to the Ethiopians. It was the first of their cities I took, altough I did retake two cities of mine that I had lost.


The Coup D'Etat should have been triggered by your previous conquest of some other nation. When you defeat a nation then, if you're relatively strong a Coup will take place. It's rather linear I'm afraid because as soon as you take out one nation, you're on the road to running away with the game.

I'm working on the second patch. I think I can fix it so that the AI civs will keep up with you in science almost right to the end of the game.

[tlatoani]

Originally posted by Peter Triggs


The Coup D'Etat should have been triggered by your previous conquest of some other nation. When you defeat a nation then, if you're relatively strong a Coup will take place. It's rather linear I'm afraid because as soon as you take out one nation, you're on the road to running away with the game.

I did take out Canada three turns before, so that's what must have triggered the Coup. Thanks.:)

I'm working on the second patch. I think I can fix it so that the AI civs will keep up with you in science almost right to the end of the game.

The only the patch available is the one you put up right after you announced CtC right?

[chris1]

The Ai are very effective now, build more units will use far more powerfull weaponary,

i think you need at least over 350units to win, on this type of game i found it is better off conquering civs during the modern part of the world.

Everyone razes my cities to the ground.

[tlatoani]

Peter:

I did a tech tree of CTC, I got lost where the new units come into play. I didn't find a previous or future tech for "SUB-NEURAL ADS", did I get things wrong?

I tried to upload the file in the post but since I did it in excel it won't upload in poly.

I also noticed that the tank doesn't update to fusion tank, and that other units don't have previous units they can be updated to. This is the case of marines, hover infantry, etc. Did you have any particular reason for doing this?

Thanks and sorry about the hassle.:)

[Immortal Wombat]

SUBNEURAL_ADS is kept without previous or future techs so that it can be used as a null advance in the game files. It means we can assign an advance to tile improvements, units, buildings etc. which the AI can never research, so that it can't build things it shouldn't, like Wonder units, visible wonders, GoodMod improvements and so on.


If you zip your excel sheet, the zip file can be attached.

[Aias]

Peter,

Outstanding work! Best mod I've ever played (and that is quite a compliment, as there are some excellent mods on here).

Random thoughts:
-I've had the AI bombard me, either bombarding my cities or bombarding my army when it is trying to take a city.

-This is one I haven't seen posted yet: you can destroy ALL tile improvements with a ship in one turn! When I was attacking the Cubans, if you bombard on tile improvements, it destroys them. Just keep moving your ship and bombarding them (not pillaging, but bombarding). So, even with a submarine you can move around the AI's coast, bombarding sea and land tile improvements and destroying them all until you are out of movement. The AI doesn't do this Peter, so this is something to be looked at.

-Love the unconditional surrender! However, then it seems like you are racing the AI to put troops in that city. Isn't it possible to place some units in there and calling it an occupation force or something?

-Btw, pillboxes ROCK!!! :b:

-Coup D’etat gave all of the old units to the conqueror. I was stacking an army to finish off Cuba. They only had 5 cities, outdated units (riflemen against my tanks) and were on alert status. Then, the friggin' Chinese launch a coup and foiled my plans! Brilliant, Peter, though I wanted to kill you at the time! ;)

-I personally like all of the different governments.

-One thing that did puzzle me, late in the game (1750-ish) all of the other civs were at peace with one another. They were all just at war with me! I do have an alliance with the Irish, however.

I’m sure I’ll come up with more feedback as I get further along.

[tlatoani]

Originally posted by Immortal Wombat
SUBNEURAL_ADS is kept without previous or future techs so that it can be used as a null advance in the game files. It means we can assign an advance to tile improvements, units, buildings etc. which the AI can never research, so that it can't build things it shouldn't, like Wonder units, visible wonders, GoodMod improvements and so on.


If you zip your excel sheet, the zip file can be attached.

Thanks IW, clears up the confusion about the advance.

Here's the zip file of the tech tree and the updater path for the units in CTC. As I said, I hope I didn't make any (many?) mistakes.:D

[chris1]

yes when i played i noticed the japanese constantly built ships to attack my shores and prevent me building them. ("CURSE THEM")

i also like the new leader units, very handy in a scrap.

i also discoverd the only way i ever manage to get the japs to surrender was simply to burn to the ground half of their cities.

But

If it is at all possible could you improve the map editor, to allow you simply to insert say australia next to japan or something. I think this would be great idea for the game.

[Peter Triggs]

tlatoani:


also noticed that the tank doesn't update to fusion tank, and that other units don't have previous units they can be updated to. This is the case of marines, hover infantry, etc. Did you have any particular reason for doing this?


I intended that the game should end at the current technology level (stealth fighters/bombers). When you get to this point you'll notice that there's a big jump in the advance costs. But I guess it wouldn't hurt to put updates in for future techs. Will do.

And thanks for doing the tech tree! :)

aias:


This is one I haven't seen posted yet: you can destroy ALL tile improvements with a ship in one turn! When I was attacking the Cubans, if you bombard on tile improvements, it destroys them. Just keep moving your ship and bombarding them (not pillaging, but bombarding). So, even with a submarine you can move around the AI's coast, bombarding sea and land tile improvements and destroying them all until you are out of movement. The AI doesn't do this Peter, so this is something to be looked at.


Right, will get on to it. I've been working on 'Reforming Fascists', and literally just got it finished. If you (or the AI) are in Fascism and then switch to a more advanced Government type, you lose all your Fascist units. I've worked out a way to 'reform' them so that they become Modern Infantry units. The actual code is trivial, but it took me over a week to figure out how to do it.


Isn't it possible to place some units in there and calling it an occupation force or something?


Could do but I rather like it the way it is. You should be getting enough messages so that you have a pretty good idea of when you're about to beat them. This way you have to plan ahead to rush some troops into your new cities. Actually, you generally don't need a lot: it usually takes the AI awhile to adjust to the new balance of power.


-One thing that did puzzle me, late in the game (1750-ish) all of the other civs were at peace with one another. They were all just at war with me! I do have an alliance with the Irish, however.


Ahh, this may take some justifying. I'll try to get back on it tomorrow.


chris1:

If it is at all possible could you improve the map editor, to allow you simply to insert say australia next to japan or something. I think this would be great idea for the game.


Afraid this is a 'no can do'. Maybe if we get the source code, but don't hold your breath. I think that this sort of thing would be very difficult. (For us at least.)

Update: Just as I was about to post this it's been announced that the source code is going to be released!

[Aias]

Peter, thanks for the replies.

I'm very close to finishing off the Nigerians, the last civ standing. They even had a coup to overthrow my alliance partner, the Irish.

The AI makes great use of air power. I remember the unmodded CTP2 the AI planes just flew back and forth between cities. Now they attack other sea, air and land units.

I've really enjoyed playing this mod. After I'm done with this game, I'm going to bump up the difficulty level and see what happens!

Again, fantastic work!

[chris1]

the turks had a coup and surrended to me unconditionally, i now have all there cities. but i have bit of a problem i don't have enough troops to station in them. I also want to retake an island that ireland stole of me.

great game.

[aryaba]

Great mod...been getting squished quite a bit...but two things I have noticed:

Raiders are supposed to be a transport unit, and I can't seem to load any units on them...this disabled my campaign as I upgraded all of my transports to these and was unable to continue my attack on another continent. Anyone else have this problem?

Secondly: Is there any way to make the gigantic maps bigger in a future release of this MOD?

Thanks.

-Arya

[Aias]

Arya.

I had the same problem with the raiders as well

[chris1]

everything about the game is perfect, great AI and the new units are awesome however there are still some problems:

Generated maps suck beyond imagination.

Some of the units don't have animation,

still bugs in the system i.e freezing up, taking longer to start up and outright crashing

[Peter Triggs]

chris1:


Some of the units don't have animation


I tried to use only animated sprites whenever possible, but in a few cases there just aren't appropriate ones. There's also a few odd tga's. This is because I know literally sweet FA about graphics and was hoping that someone would volunteer to fix them up.

Aias:

Re: Bombarding tile improvements. I see what you mean and this is a nasty one. It's because of a technical thing with the event that triggers the special effects that I put in and the destruction of the tile improvements:


BombardOrder(army_t<army[0]>, location_t<location[0]>)

Order an army to bombard.


This triggers when the order is given, whether or not the army can legally bombard the location (e.g., you get the red circle cursor). It's not very easy to work with: it would be better if there were another event that triggers when the actual bombarding takes place. You might have noticed that you only get these effects when the human does the bombarding. I couldn't do the effects for the AI because it's always giving this order and it was just too difficult to control. If you get the effects and notice that nothing else happens, I'm afraid you just have to view it as 'target practice' :).

So, I can try to 'zero out' the movement of your ship as soon as you give the order but this will mean that you'll have one chance to take out a tile improvement and, whether or not you succeed, your ship is finished for that turn. What do you think?

aryaba:


Is there any way to make the gigantic maps bigger in a future release of this MOD?


Quite possibly. I don't think that using extra-large maps and more than 8 civs would break the mod but it might mean that it runs very slowly. Martin is the expert on this sort of thing; maybe he's tried it.


Raiders are supposed to be a transport unit, and I can't seem to load any units on them...this disabled my campaign as I upgraded all of my transports to these and was unable to continue my attack on another continent.


Aak, I forgot to put the cargo data in for the Raider unit. This is easily fixed: I've attached a new CTC_Units.txt. Use it to replace the old one in ...\ctp2_data\default\gamedata. (You shouldn't need to reload SLIC to keep your game going.)

I've also tweaked some of the ZBRangeAttack values for later UNIT_CATEGORY_ATTACK and UNIT_CATEGORY_DEFENSE units (Infantrymen, Musketeers, and later). I'm trying to make sure that they stay in the front row in battles and that proper ranged units stay behind them. Feedback on this is appreciated.

[Aias]

Peter, I see what you mean about the problems with the bombard. In a perfect world (i.e., when the code is out) it would be great to be able to bombard a city or tile improvement and then have a move or two to get away. I think it would be best to probably zero out after the bombard takes place. My guess is that this would bring it more in-line with AI behavior, since the AI doesn't do the non-stop bombard.

Also, I'm playing a third game and I'm still running into the same thing: where all of the AI civs are at peace, except with me!

[chris1]

On my game every nation is comunist except me. As for the Civs are at peace this just means they're plotting to attack you it happened to me i just defeated the turks. then immediately the egyptians,russians declared war Ireland had a revolt and joined Egypt.

[aryaba]

Noticed a couple other things:

According the the great library the carrack can carry up to 5 land units, but only allows for 3.

Radar stations only have a 4 square viewing range.

-Arya

[Peter Triggs]

According the the great library the carrack can carry up to 5 land units, but only allows for 3.


Noted.


Radar stations only have a 4 square viewing range.


Actually, radar stations are supposed to have a vision range of 4/5 and a radar range of 8/10 depending on what terrain they're on. I think this means that you should be able to see planes but not ground units in this outer area. But this may be broken because I don't ever recall seeing it happen. I'll change the GL entry to just say 'from a distance'. I'm pretty sure that this used to work in CTP1 but has anybody seen it working in CTP2?

[Immortal Wombat]

I think the radar range allows you to see 8/10 tile radius on the minimap in the corner: you can see the presence and nationality of enemy units as well as terrain types, but not precisely what is there.
As I don't ever build radar stations though, I don't know if this is functional. I observed it with sonar buoys in CtP1.

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Peter Triggs
Quite possibly. I don't think that using extra-large maps and more than 8 civs would break the mod but it might mean that it runs very slowly. Martin is the expert on this sort of thing; maybe he's tried it.

Yes of course more civs and a bigger map mean more cities and espeacially more units, with the consequence of a slower game. Contrary to Apolyton Pack I left the ultra gigantic map option in GoodMod for Apolyton Pack. I felt the player should and can decide on his own whether he/she and his/her computer can manage such a game. Another problem with big maps is that the more units the more cities and the more civs you have the more unwanted stuff can happen like game crashs. But I leave this to the player.

aryaba to add the Ultra Gigantic Map feature just unzip the the attachment of this post into your ..\ctp2_data\default\gamedata\ folder. It will add four files to this folder:

CTCU_map.txt
CTCU_Const.txt
CTCU_govern.txt
CTCU_gamedata.txt

Now use ModSwapper to start the game with the option:

Call to Conquest: Ultra Gigantic Map

And if you now start a new game with the gigantic map option you get a map that is four times bigger than the normal gigantic map. Note that the TooManyCityThreshold for the governments could be a little bit too high, but to find goods values here is not easy as you won't have trouble with it on maps with a lot of water, but huge land masses could make it a problem. And note I did not tested these files so you could still find a problem.

-Martin

[Peter Triggs]

It would be an exageration to say that I've rewritten the AI, but I've certainly supplemented - I think fairly significantly - both it's Strategic and Tactical Engines.

1) Strategies: Originally, strategies were primarily determined by the personality of the AI player's leader. I've added a 'Geographical Threat' component so that, once everyone in the game has cities, the geographical threat of each civ to each other civ is calculated. The resulting data is then used to determine both the AI player's strategy and also his diplomatic stance towards those of his neighbours that he has had contact with.

As I recall (it's been sooo long since I've played the default game), one problem was that as soon as you get strong, no-one will attack you. Richard Myers actually told us how to fix this:


If you want the AI to ignore economic strength when determing if it should want to be at war, that's tougher. However, if you force the AI to declare war and make sure the diplomatic state for the AI (in diplomacy.txt) will refuse peace that should do what you want. So how do you force the AI to declare war? Sigh, I have a function to do this, but I forgot to expose it via SLIC. However, this is a fun way you can do this. If you create a new goal (maybe called GOAL_PROVOCATION) that looks a lot like an attack goal, but in which the TargetOwner: is ColdEnemy rather than HotEnemy. This will cause the AI to preemptively attack, and once at war it will stay at war as long as it never makes or accepts a ceasefire. You'll have to add the goal to everyone, but only set it to have maxeval > 0 for beligerent AI. You could also swap in a strategy specifically that enables this goal only when the AI has military superiority.


I've incorporated this idea (not exactly as written above) so that you'll now find yourself being preemptively attacked regardless of your strength.

Another thing is that I've added a lot of situation determined strategies to strategies.txt. Some of these vary the priorities and other parameters of the various BuildListSequenceElements so that the AI will, for example, build more units when it's losing a war. Others control what type of unit it should be building. WesW complained straightaway about the shortage of buildable unit categories (see this thread) (http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=17959) and I always found it very frustrating trying to control this part of the game, so in the end I put in my own system. It's the file CTC_unit_building_system.slc and could be adapted to any other mod with a bit of work.

2) Tactics: I've made a number of tweaks to the tactics engine.

2.1) New Tactics: The game's default tactics system is really quite good. IMO, though, one big problem is the process matches parameter: the AI prepares a big list where it matches it's armies against possible goals. It then does a number of passes (5 to 7, IIRC) through this list depending on the difficulty level that's been chosen. This number is hard coded and Azmel2 once commented that he regretted that he hadn't exposed it. There's a SLIC event, ProcessMatches, for this; but I've never been able to generate it. So, what I've tried to do is to supplement the game's system with a sort of 'sweeper' system where I try to duplicate it (insofar as I understand it) but then have my handlers kick in when the AI gets stalled. In a way it's similar to FrenzyAI, but is much more developed and works, if I may say so, much better.

2.2) Save the Planes: This is another system I put in that changes the way that the AI uses it's air units. It was Celestrial Dawn, the grandaddy of CTP2 modders (actually, I better mention that the recently returned Mr Baggins also worked on those seminal mods) who made the point that airplanes don't fight like ground units. I've changed it so that generally planes can only attack each other and can only bombard ground units. So I've segregated them from ground units and provided them with lots of airbases where they can come and go from. If you chose the 'autopilot' option you'll be basically putting your planes partially under control of the AI. It uses almost the same algorithm to handle it's planes.

2.3) Cruise Missiles: I have a feeling that the code for handling cruise missiles was never finished. So again I've put in my own system. I intended that Pillboxes should be a counter for tanks. (Someone over in the Civ3 forums made the point that even though CTP2's combat system is superior to Civ3's, it breaks down because once you can start building up 12 stacks of tanks, there's nothing that can stop you.) Cruise Missiles, then, are intended to give you the ability to take out pillboxes. But I think I may have overpowered them.

3) Generalities:

While MedMod was under development, a bloke called Jani did a lot of playtesting and posted:


Now your play is always like this:
1. build cities and defenders
2. You are approximately as strong as AI
3. You meet first, second and finally all AIs
4. You or AI start war.
5. You take first of his city.
6. You take many of his cities.
7. second war
8. You are the most powerful nation
9. ...

I think ctp2 is not challenging enough even with MedPack. I have never seen AI to take my city. I have not actually seen any good tries of capture city from AI. When I have beaten first or second AI I usually will be too powerful to other AIs and in that point game starts to be boring. It is always the same. This is the main reason why I like to start games much more than playing them to the end.


WesW immediately responded:


I agree with you that most games follow the steps you laid out. I have tried to make the game more challenging so that this formula will not always hold true. This has been a problem with all the civ games, however, and I am not sure if anyone has ever come up with a reliable way of making things harder. I think that we are getting closer, however, and perhaps we will achieve this goal in the near future.


We're talking here about 'end-game tedium', a problem not specific to CTP2 as witnessed by this somewhat over the top comment that Mark Asher made in a preview of Civ3:


The best part about the presentation I went to was watching Jeff Briggs' bald head start to bead up when I asked how they were going to get rid of the end-game tedium that has always plagued the Civ series. He showed me a streamlined tech tree, like that was some kind of answer? All the while Sid Meier was standing in the corner of the room with his arms folded in front of his chest, never uttering a word during the presentation. He was like the Godfather and Briggs was his lieutenant, and you just knew Meier was going to bust Briggs over the head with a coffee mug if he said something stupid.


So, I'm nothing if not ambitious and quite a few things that I've put in have been done so in an attempt to relieve this end-game tedium. I've tried to be guided by the following two thoughts:

Harlan Thompson:
The problem with CTP1 was if you could survive long enough, the game eventually became a cakewalk. Whereas the game should be the other way: not too hard to survive initially, but the longer the game goes on, the greater the challenges.


and

Brian Reynolds:
The rules of the game should work to keep the game competitive for as long as possible. Players have the most fun when the game is a tight contest, so our game systems should help keep players who fall behind "in the race" and try to prevent players who get ahead from simply "running away with it."

Ideally, a game should end at the exact instant a player has effectively been guaranteed victory, a player should be eliminated at the moment victory for him becomes essentially impossible, and both of these situations should occur approximately when the players have experienced the expected game arc--that is, in a game about a 10,000 year timeframe we don't want to have 80% of the games end after the first 1,000 years. These ideals cannot be practically achieved in every game session, but our games and game mechanics should be tuned to push toward these goals rather than away from them.


This is the point of the 'Surrender' and 'Mergciv' systems. IMO, once you're guarenteed victory over an AI civ there's no point dragging it out. But as Jani noted above "When I have beaten first or second AI I usually will be too powerful to other AIs and in that point game starts to be boring". Hence the Mergeciv code which by making more powerful AI enemies increases the later game challenges as Harlan suggested.

Granted the result is a bit linear, but I don't think it's really any more linear than the existing system. And it's faster so that the game ends closer to 'the exact instant a player has been guaranteed victory'.

This comes with a cost. At the moment this mod has only one victory condition: Conquest. (But I've been toying with the idea of putting in a Domination victory a la Civ3.) I'm not that good of an AI programmer who could deal with Diplomatic and Science victories. To do this you'd have to have an AI that can change it's strategy when the human decides to change from, e.g., Conquest to Diplomacy. (In fact I've always had a sneaking suspicion that it was the added Diplomatic victory possibility to CTP2 that played a large part in screwing up it's AI.)

A consequence of this is that in this mod your Diplomacy options with the AI civs are limited. In the vanilla game an AI civ's diplomatic responses to you are largely determined by it's leader's personality. In CTC, once the game gets under way they are determined largely by how close you are to them and how much they fear you (this in turn is determined by how strong you are and what you've done: once you start conquering, a 'fear radius' spreads out from you to the other civs who have made contact with you.) As the game progresses then, as in the real world, the AI civs will put aside their differences and 'gang up' on you (think of the Allies in WW2).

That's all for the moment. There's an AI discussion going on in another thread and I've got to get in on it.

[chris1]

As soon as i conquered turkey russia and egypt delcared war on me, N America did but signed a treaty with me. This is a very clever strategy waiting for me exhaust myself against the turks then attack. Im betting as soon as egypt and russia are gone N.America will attack me.


Can't wait for nukes then at last i wll revenge!!!!

[tlatoani]

Peter:

I’ve added future units to the updater SLIC file. To do this I only have to use the templates for updating you included in the file, right? I don’t have to change anything else?

I’ve also reduced the cost of advances in ages 8 through 10 in the CTC_advance.txt file.

Just checking: When I replace both of these files I only have to type “/reloadslic” in the chat window to keep a current game going right?

Thanks.

[Peter Triggs]

I’ve added future units to the updater SLIC file. To do this I only have to use the templates for updating you included in the file, right? I don’t have to change anything else?


That would be enough for the original version of the updater but for updater2 you have to do a bit more. Towards the bottom of CTC_updater2.slc there's a function:


int_f CTB_PlayerHasEnablingAdvance(int_t thePlayer, int_t theAdvance)


Go to the bottom of this function, which looks like this:


elseif (theAdvance== AdvanceDB(ADVANCE_NUCLEAR_POWER)){
if (HasAdvance(thePlayer, ID_ADVANCE_NUCLEAR_POWER)){
advanceChk=1;
}
}
return advanceChk;
}


You need to insert more clauses for each new advance you've added to trigger updates. For example, if you're updating Tanks to Fusion Tanks, you'll need to insert (just copy, paste, and edit):


elseif (theAdvance== AdvanceDB(ADVANCE_NUCLEAR_POWER)){
if (HasAdvance(thePlayer, ID_ADVANCE_NUCLEAR_POWER)){
advanceChk=1;
}
}
elseif (theAdvance== AdvanceDB(ADVANCE_FUSION)){
if (HasAdvance(thePlayer, ID_ADVANCE_FUSION)){
advanceChk=1;
}
}
return advanceChk;
}


If you have any problems, attach your new version to a post here and I'll have a look at it.


Just checking: When I replace both of these files I only have to type “/reloadslic” in the chat window to keep a current game going right?


Yup. But you'll probably find that the units of some of the civs you're fighting will revert to a 'peace' military readiness setting for a few of turns. The military readiness setting wasn't used in the vanilla game (everybody is always on 'war' setting) but it was so easy to put it in that I couldn't resist it. The only problem is that you get this glitch if you reload SLIC.

[chris1]

i've noticed another bug on cheat mode, if you conquer 6/8 nation then you can't do anything with number 7 rather annoying that is.

As for the zip.file i couldn't get it working.

i know why the game crashes and goes slow due to too mny units and tile improvements so the easiest solution is to delete loads of units and odd cities the ai won't need anymore.

i found this works quite well however be carefull what you delelt don't do what i did and accidently delete N.America capital!!!!

[tlatoani]

Originally posted by Peter Triggs
You need to insert more clauses for each new advance you've added to trigger updates. For example, if you're updating Tanks to Fusion Tanks, you'll need to insert (just copy, paste, and edit):


Thanks Peter I'll try it this weekend. I set it up so that both missile cruisers and battleships were updated to plasma destroyers (and assault infantry and heavy machine gunners to hover infantry). Do I have to insert these new lines of code for each of the old units that are to be updated to the new one or just once for the new advance? Sorry about asking but I'm an :idiot: when it comes to programming. Ask me about economics that's another story:D

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by chris1
i've noticed another bug on cheat mode, if you conquer 6/8 nation then you can't do anything with number 7 rather annoying that is.

This is a common CTP2 bug not a bug only present in CTC, so it would be better to mention this in the thread about bug fixing in the source code. Well as it is already mentioned there no need to do it again.

-Martin

[chris1]

ok cheers,

anyway i started up a new game a few days ago, currently Russia has destroyed completely three of my cities which i needed to spy on the zulus.

Mexico has crushed the mayans.

how do i use the txt.zip/?

[tlatoani]

Peter:

Never mind my last post, I figured it out.

But I have another question, I want to make Naval Tactics have a prerequisite of cannon making not cannon technology. Do I only need to change the prerequisite line on the CTC_Advance.txt file for Naval Tactics?

[Todesengel]

Great work, new ctp2 experience: The AI fights back! :b:
And: Hidden feature included! I thought it would take me all night to make it work with the citymod, but it´s already everything there. Just change the CIV_CITY_STYLE in the civilisation.txt...

Another thing: I´d like to play it with a (real) world map, but palpatine_world is too big and omni_world, which should be just right (210x210) makes it crash.
Has anybody any ideas or other suitable maps?

[LDiCesare]

I started playing this game, and it is really good. The surrender and mergeciv things are great. The first prevents tedium and has the additional advantage of preventing the player from leaving one city to an ai in order to avoid the mergeciv event. Great mod.

[LDiCesare]

Here's what just happened to me:
I conquer teh British after a long war, and the Germans immediately afterwards. Suddenly, the French suffer from a coup d'etat and become part of the native american empire.
However, this empire looks like it is badly ruled. Many cities riot, each one going at war against another one. Net result after a while, 6 formerly French cities are now Poland, with whom I exchange maps and make peace.
Suddenly, one Pole city revolts.
Immediately, all Poland falls to the hands of the newly born empire.
Considering I had a stack just near Toulouse, and the city was empty, and they had just taken it from my friends the Poles, I went into the city ASAP. Then, all cities of the fledgling empire surrender to me (I guess they didn't have time to build a single unit).
So the net result of the French/American coup d'etat is I just gained 6 cities without firing a shot. Of course, native american armies roam near the 5 other cities, but they didn't take them immediately (*** ai, still unable to find out that a city is empty). Of course, one of the cities I got already revolted to become a new empire (there have been so many that I don't remember their names - only Poland seems to have lasted long enough to be worth remembering). (I didn't care to get them happy since I believed the ai would invade immediately).

[chris1]

how do i use the zip code?????????????????????????????????????????????


i had a full scale nuclear war on my map.

[chris1]

are yu going to make a new map editor?

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by chris1
are yu going to make a new map editor?

A new map editor? Do you mean the cheat editor? Well in that case there is no change before we get the source code, and even when we have the source code why should we? The cheat editor is fine except the part about the cities and maybe some other minor flaws. So some improvements are accurate but not doing it from scratch again.

-Martin

[chris1]

no for creating maps etc, for example, adding on continents or islands etc???

[Lou Wigman]

This is certainly a very polished mod with all the whistles and bells. I have been playing at impossible level with pollution on, 8 civs on a gigantic map.

The human player is easily able to match the AI in technology even at this level. As a result the battles that take place are largely fought with similar forces. There is nothing wrong with this per se but it does require economically strong AI civs. Unfortunately this is not the case. When I reach "Republic" ( typically pre-BCE even at 'impossible') I will have 20 cities almost immediately. A look around the map at this point shows that none of the AI civs have even 10 and most only have 5 or 6. Merging two civs at this point fails to produce a civ even remotely as strong as the human player. This mod, as well as all others for that matter, stands or falls by this.

I noticed that the AI cities are very far apart. In am currently experimenting with reducing the radius between them and seeing if this prompts the AI to build more. I also reduced 'MinSettleScore' and increased ' SettlerUnitsCount'. Might try a few other things as well. I'll let you know what happens.

Merging civs
This typically occurs once, but as I have explained above doesn't always have the desired result. Perhaps it should be triggered more often.

Military AI
This is certainly very aggressive but completely lacks focus. In an earlier incarnation (cradle 3.2 I think) it would attack with several maximum stacks against a single city. CTC doesn't do this. Indeed, armies of 12 are very rare and the AI breaks these up almost immediately thus exposing itself to counter attack. It certainly doesn't combine its forces to launch attacks against a single target. In all its strategy can best be described as 'death by a thousand cuts'. From a players point of view it rarely represents a serious threat. Unless I make a mistake, which happens.

Offensive v Defensive
In each era there is an offensive and a defensive unit. Certainly a legion will beat an hoplite in a straight fight. But put an archer with each and the legion gets beaten every time. This means that the legion is a better defensive unit and the hoplite a better offensive one. Exactly the opposite of what was intended! This doesn't really work and I NEVER build 'legions' or 'man at arms'. The 'infantryman' has been made more mobile than the 'musketeer'. Now here is an interesting concept. Rather than offensive v defensive how about heavy v light. Create a cheap unit which lacks punch but is more mobile than ordinary infantry. After all, light infantry have been used through much of history.

Map generation
The settings in ctc_const.txt produce bland and boring maps. Lots of grass lands with little variation of terrain with latitude. Didn't like this one bit. That's my opinion anyhow.

No trespassing agreement.
Back to the bad old days it seems. The AI basically ignored these. Put back the SLIC code which ejects the units or else take the no-trespass agreement out of the game.

Technological Advance
Advance through ages happens too quickly. Typically reach Industrialisation around 750 AD. Cost needs to be increased slightly.

Rail Movement
This is as per the original game. Its too slow for my liking and I have increased it. The concept is all wrong anyway. Why should a cavalry unit be able to rail further than an infantry unit? Doesn't make sense.

Government limits
I hit hard against these very quickly. Not until modern democracy was I given a free reign. Possibly a bit too restrictive in mid game. It all depends on map size, number of AI civs etc. No obvious answers here I guess.

Pollution
Turning pollution off makes the game way too easy. Don't need to build any 'happiness' improvements and thus save lots of gold on maintenance. In addition most of my cities are on 'taxation' for most of the time again massively boosting the human player's economy. Exactly what is NOT wanted.

[tlatoani]

Note:

I had to fix the sizes of two units that didn't seem logical. One is that the howitzer is a "large" unit and won't go into a transport. The other is that a jet bomber is also large and won't go into an aircraft carrier. I could live with this but the stealth bomber can fit into an aircraft carrier. These are two things that I think could be fixed in a later version.

[Shadow]

My current game seems to have come to a premature end due to the following SLIC Errors;

C:\....\CTC_SaveThePlanes.slc:291:Array index 0 out of bounds

and

In object LookAroundCityForAirbase, variables 'LookAroundCityForAirbase#tmpCity' and 'LookAroundCityForAirbase#theCity' are of different types


There were two more SLIC errors that were nearly identical.
Just letting you know in case it's something you can tweak. I don't know enough about it, nor have the time to figure out if it's my mistake.

Cheers,
Shadow

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Shadow
My current game seems to have come to a premature end due to the following SLIC Errors;

C:\....\CTC_SaveThePlanes.slc:291:Array index 0 out of bounds

and

In object LookAroundCityForAirbase, variables 'LookAroundCityForAirbase#tmpCity' and 'LookAroundCityForAirbase#theCity' are of different types


There were two more SLIC errors that were nearly identical.
Just letting you know in case it's something you can tweak. I don't know enough about it, nor have the time to figure out if it's my mistake.

Cheers,
Shadow

Actual it doesn't end your game, only this particular slic code has problems when it is executed, unfortunatly it bumbs you to the desktop. Well the slic errors look like those I get when I have set DebugSlic to Yes, set it to No and see what happens.

From the error message I wonder whether you try to give a city away or to get one by diplomacy, Shadow

Unfortunatly the error is still there, but I have no idea why the city[0] from a GiveCity event should be invalid. Well my solution would be to do a city is valid check first before I give it to the for airbase look around function.

-Martin

[Shadow]

Martin,

You're absolutely right, I can't believe I forgot after playing and tinkering with CTP2 for so long!!! :rolleyes:

I didn't change debug SLIC from Yes to No when I installed the game on a new system.
Thanks for the reminder!

Shadow

[chris1]

i'm trying to make a decent map of the world but it sucks rather badly, playing is alright except the continental sizes suck badly, India is bigger than europe, etc

does anyone have a decent map of the norhern hemisphere i could use?? (top half of the globe where upper the red line)

so far the AI has been using some 12 stacks mostly it tries to wiggle down my forces with smaller groups first then attack in full.

i alsocan't get the zip.txt for using the ironclads to work could anyone help me???????????

[chris1]

PLEASE HELP ME!!!!!!!

I keep getting error messages!!! aGH!!!! what happens is i start the game then it gives an error saying something like "noname building tag2" somthing annoying like that. Then yu ok it goes then click on endturn it does it again and again.

Then my computer brokedown and know i need a new harddrive and i broke my mouse by banging on it too much. "rather annoyed by know"

[Martin Gühmann]

Chris did you check your userprofile.txt for DebugSlic=Yes? For the map you could check the Apolyton directory, OmniGod did some very nice maps, of course they must be converted to CTC, but some are in *bmp format anyway, especially this XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXL-WorldMap with very high accuracy. :D

Alternativly I could do a world map for you, but unfortunatly I won't have time before the next weekend to do it.

-Martin

[chris1]

Well yu see i don't a world map i just want a map of the northern hemipshere, There is one on there but they missed out china,india and half of russia i need them parts in it as i'm trying to do a RA scenario.

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by chris1
Well yu see i don't a world map i just want a map of the northern hemipshere, There is one on there but they missed out china,india and half of russia i need them parts in it as i'm trying to do a RA scenario.

Actual I refered to this map (http://apolyton.net/dir/index.php?sid=493675245&id=1188&t=reviews&toprate=5.0000&tophits=4300&cat=39). Just use a paint program cut out the needed parts shrink them down to the proper size and use the bmp2ctp2 tool and load it into the game. Unfortunatly this is not the easy part and I don't have the time today to answer you this question now.

-Martin

[chris1]

Hi martin, i recently got a brand new computer with 56gb harddrive anyway i started a game ofcall to power using the call to conquest mod, guess what happened when i triedto put a new city

it came up with an error going on about it not having the buildcity-noname erro.

what does this mean exactly???

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by chris1
it came up with an error going on about it not having the buildcity-noname erro.

Chris did you open your userprofile.txt in your ..\ctp2_program\ctp\ folder with a text editor and did you check it whether there is a line like DebugSlic=Yes?

If you find this line there then change it to DebugSlic=No. If this is not the problem then it is hard to guess without the exact error message.

For the map Chris did you use OmniGod's *.bmp worldmap to create the map you want or do you still need help?

-Martin

[chris1]

i tried that and it worked i can't believe i forgot to do that. Cheers mate

yes i do still need help for my map editor, i have on my computer windows XP when i try to run thebmp editor it says my pc is not configured properly.

If possible could you please draw me a map of the northern hemisphere i would be extremely grateful. please make sure all of asia is on it as there is one but it is missing china.

[Martin Gühmann]

OK here is a map of Asia, well it isn't far from being finished. It was made by cutting out the appropiate part of OmniGod's world map, and was scaled down afterwards, so that it has now a size of 70x140 tiles. Unfortunatly this method has some downsides so that you still need to do some work. The bmp2ctp2 tool can't convert a map with rivers so you need to add the rivers on yourself. OnmiGod marked the positions of the rivers with the color for the dead terrain so you have these dead terrain tiles, too. Additional the scaling down the map skips pixels/tiles of the map so that the Himalaya has to be fixed for example that is also true for the coastline. You have also to add goods and ruins.

The map file itsself is in the scenario editor format so you have to unzip it and put it into your ..\ctp2_program\ctp\save\maps folder. Then you have to use the scenario editor load map function to load it.

-Martin

[Martin Gühmann]

Peter I wonder what the idea behind the raising the MinSettleDistance is. In the default game a MinSettleDistance of 7 gives you AI civs with gaps in their territories.

-Martin

[chris1]

i hate gaps in enemy territory, i try to fix them sometimes. its the only real time i use the cheat editor to add on extra citeis etc.... has anyone mae any scenarios for this game yet i thought of making some i just need to know how to setp them up.

i tried yuor map and i am still doing minor altercations to it. but i m currently trying to finish of my latest game of ctp2. i need to kill the vikings they keep burning my cities down.

[Peter Triggs]

Where's Pete ?

Thanks for all the feedback guys and I'm sorry that I haven't been responding. The thing is that ever since it was announced that the source code for the game is going to be released I've been spending pretty well all my spare time getting trying to get aquainted with C++ and Object Orientated Programming. Neat stuff. :b:

So I'm not planning on leaving but when the source code comes out I think that it's going to be a real challenge to understand it and do anything properly constructive with it. With that in mind, I'm going to keep plugging away at trying to learn C++.


Martin:


I wonder what the idea behind the raising the MinSettleDistance is. In the default game a MinSettleDistance of 7 gives you AI civs with gaps in their territories.


I wanted the AI to build "big fat cities like in Civ2" (Celestrial Dawn's phrase, that's what got me into modding). I also changed the


BORDER_INT_RADIUS 6 # 4 pt
BORDER_SQUARED_RADIUS 36 # 20 pt


in Const.txt to prevent the gaps.

[Martin Gühmann]

OK that closes the gaps, so the AI ends with fewer cities and you have also a change to achieve the bloodlust victory, but on the cost that you have cities which work radius won't overlap. Well it is another question whether this is a disatvantage.

-Martin

[Lou Wigman]

I reduced MinSettleDistance back to 4. With the current settings the AI never seems to build more than 5 or so cities. Knocking it back to 4 causes the AI to expand much more aggressively and have seen AI civs with up to 20 cities. This simply did not happen in the original mod. Yes, the cities are too close together but at least they are there and are adding strength to my opponents.

[chris1]

i had some major problems playing this game with pollution settings turne on, its just way to high. is it possible to alter them to the previoud level.

[Peter Triggs]

Chris1,

If you look through CTC_buildings.txt, you'll find that some of the buildings reduce pollution by using "PopulationPollutionPercent" and "ProductionPollutionPercent" with negative numbers. The only thing I can think of is that you try increasing the percentage that these buildings decrease pollution.

[chris1]

cheers mate.

also i desperately need to learn how to use the map editor as i can't get it to work.

Different strategies for ctc:

i noticed that when i played CTC the AI (wales) keep building ships and attacking any naval unit i built this really pissed me off. They wouldn't even sign a peace treaty with me. since there was no chance they could ever invade my country i am at a loss to explain there actions.

The vikings(damn them forever) kept burning down my cities endlessly in the same place as well. As i needed a city there. I tried everything to stop them i didn't have the resources to mount an invasion. it was early in the game

i have noticed the AI is very repetetive has anyone else noticed this? the reason i mentioned this im still amazed at how this mod has improved my gameplay aside from the minor bugs its brilliant.

[Martin Gühmann]

Peter can you post or point to a list which explains the meanings of the single PowerPoints values? I just added the PowerPoints to a GM1_Units.txt, but I need to know what the value 11 means for example.

-Martin

[Peter Triggs]

This is the latest version I could find. Basically, since I couldn't figure out how to get at the text fields that determine what a unit can bombard, I coded it up as a number in the powerpoints field. For example, 11 means that it's a (surface) naval unit that can only bombard water. Only PT boats fall under this.

[Martin Gühmann]

Thank you very much Peter it helped me to correct some entries. I also noticed that in your CTC_Units.txt a lot of special units have 0 PowerPoints although they should have 3 according to your list. The UNIT_ABOLITIONIST is such an example. In my GM1_Units.txt I gave them all 3 PowerPoints except the traders. I left them with 0 as you don't find them on the map anyway.

-Martin

[chris1]

HOW ON EARTH DO I USE THE MAP EDITOR??

i can't even get it working it comes up with my computer not configured properly this is annoying. i have a paintshop pro my PC is Windows XP.

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by chris1
HOW ON EARTH DO I USE THE MAP EDITOR??

i can't even get it working it comes up with my computer not configured properly this is annoying. i have a paintshop pro my PC is Windows XP.

For what do you need Paint Shop Pro if you just want to use the ingame map editor. Paint Shop Pro is program for editing images, but not for editing maps unsless you whant to draw a bitmap and want to use the BMP2CTP2 tool.

-Martin

[chris1]

has anyone got a map of the northern hemisphere i could borrow possibly?

to martin: all i really need is a half decent map editor like yu have on cheatmode which i have to use/

[ískallin]

When i try to unzipp it i get an error: Can't create output file GU193.SPR
Any thoughts

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by ískallin
When i try to unzipp it i get an error: Can't create output file GU193.SPR
Any thoughts

IIRC you just need to read the beginning of this thread or search for that sprite in your ..\ctp2_data\graphics\sprites\ folder and disable the write protection of that file and all the other sprites with write protection.

-Martin

[ískallin]

OK thanks...

[ískallin]

Pete... Congrats this mod is great!!!
I regret that i didn't try it earlier!
The Great leader was a nice surprise... Butthe bombard must be toned

[chris1]

i have a big problem i ahve been defeated byt the combined russian/viking/american/english/cuban armies but i have some 14 cities left they have 100s of 8units bering donw on me. but i have been developing nukes!!. they won't negotiate with me. what should i do?

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by chris1
they won't negotiate with me. what should i do?

Looks like they don't care, so:


BOOM :D

-Martin

[ískallin]

God i love this mod. I got the coup'etat event, the german genrals rebelled and assasinaited Adolf Hitler...

[chris1]

my primary threats are russia and the vikings so i will nuke there armies when tehy attack

[ískallin]

:evil: Lets go nuking
:band:

[chris1]

i also am on the lookout for a map of the northern hemisphere if anyone has one? it would be helpful

i quit that game cause they beat me. its all the rioters fault buggers i would have had nukes if it wasn't for them!!!!

[chris1]

hi guys sorry for the double post but i need help. i desperately require a map of the northern hemisphere as its impossible on a map of the world.

also how do i change the pollution levels so there normal instead of agh! he has pollution he stinks of crud lets revolt all the blinking time and i don't have to burn to the ground there cities.

[Tamerlin]

Hi chris1,

When you start a new game I think you can disable pollution.

Another way to disable pollution when you have already started a game could be to open the cheat menue and make a little modification, you should have a message warning you that the pollution feature will be disable, etc... do the said change, quit the cheat menue and you should now play without pollution unabled. Reload slic (just in case though I don't know if it will really have any effect) after this and it should be OK. Let me know if it works. ;)

Try this map:

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Tamerlin
Another way to disable pollution when you have already started a game could be to open the cheat menue and make a little modification, you should have a message warning you that the pollution feature will be disable, etc... do the said change, quit the cheat menue and you should now play without pollution unabled.

There is no need to click that button just open and close open and close the cheat editor and it gets disabled automaticly. Thanks to a bug. :D

-Martin

[chris1]

cheers guys i already knew that though i want to play with pollution settings on but they just seem to get extroadinarily high i havn't even got oil refineing yet just about everyone myself included has a massive pollution level of over 8000pts we all have some mines but i even deleted everyone elses. what i need to know is how to alter the pollution settings to the original CTP2.

I also require a northern hemisphere map? Thanks again for the european map will be using that in one of my scenarios.

[Tamerlin]

Sorry chris1 I don't have a map of the whole Northern Hemisphere. :(

I think you can open the DiffDB.txt of the appropriate mod (that should be located in your C:\Program Files\Activision\Call To Power 2 DG\ctp2_data\default\gamedata folder) and change the amount of pollution generated by the population and the unhappiness it is generating though I don't know exactly how the value should be altered to suit your needs. IMO, the pollution generated because of the production is located somewhere in a SLIC or txt file in the same folder.

Good luck! :D

[Boney]

I have been playing with 14 nations on a gigantic map with impossible setting, mostly land as I know that sea maps are just too easy. I have just reached 30ad and have conquered the nearest civ. I think the game has been quite difficult at times and I even lost my capital for a turn (I moved a stack by mistake when I intended to just move one unit). But I now seem to be getting the upper hand. I have not found the AI overly aggressive at all, in fact they have been a little disappointing so far. A number of civs have not expanded further than the initial 5 cities they started with, making life very easy, but on the other hand some civs have expanded rapidly.

I want to know if I should continue, do the AI still have any sort of chance of winning?

I must say that for me, unless some serious merging occurs, Cradle is still the most difficult, and poses the greatest challenge. But would the AI have given me a better fight if I had played with 8 civs? If not then I have to go back to Cradle.

But the game play has been excellent the concepts included in this mod are truly great and I appreciate all Peter has done to create this mod.

[chris1]

To: boney try finishing off the game they should get harder the more civs are elminated.

As for the 5 civs problem could be becasue they have no more land or they are being crushed by another AI, but if your so bugged about it simply go and wipe them out. try attacking some of the stronger Ais for a major war or using stealth units they hate that!!

I think the less civs you have the better the and more stable the game is, just think of your poor PC!" having to do all them ais for you.

has anyone here ever tried one on one civ? it may be much harder then?

[Zacharov]

I've a little problem... My settlers seem to disappear...Especially when i'm unloading them from a ship.. What can i do to fix this?

[Peter Triggs]

I have been playing with 14 nations


They should start merging once you start conquoring but, I just realised, that with 14 civs they're unlikely to merge fast enough to keep up with you.


I've a little problem... My settlers seem to disappear...Especially when i'm unloading them from a ship.. What can i do to fix this?


This has got to be a bug. Do they always disappear when you unload them or just in certain circumstances?

[Zacharov]

Originally posted by Peter Triggs
This has got to be a bug. Do they always disappear when you unload them or just in certain circumstances?

Maybe it's just a human error (i messed with several mods) I'll try again and let you now if the bug still exists. I've just tried it again. I boarded a settler in a carrack and a turn later the settler dissapeared again.:(

Well it is not that bad... I'll just stick to conquest :D

By the way... I just got a great leader, but he (no women?;) ) is of no use, because i have no contact with the ai yet.. Wouldn't it be great when a leader fortified in the capital caused a reduce in crime or something like that?

[Boney]

boney try finishing off the game they should get harder the more civs are elminated.

They should start merging once you start conquoring but, I just realised, that with 14 civs they're unlikely to merge fast enough to keep up with you.

Chris I did as you said and, as Peter said, within about 3 turns the Germans merged with the Nicaraguans, and then Spain and France attacked in strength. All my production is now producing units, but I cannot produce them fast enough. This looks like turning into a long hard struggle.



I just got a great leader, but he (no women? ) is of no use
As to female heroes, how about Boadica or Joan of Arc, and in Thailand there were twins (can't remember their names) which inspired the Thai amry to fight off the Burmese in Phuket.

Another thought, would it be possible, occasionally, for two nations to merge and then change their name for their newly united country. This is what happened to many small European states when Germany was formed.

Another couple of questions:
Why is it that my fire triremes can never win one on one battles?
How long do the great leaders last until they die?

[Peter Triggs]

The only reason we don't have female Great Leaders is the lack of appropriate sprites. Sprite making is quite an art and requires a dedicated artist.

Great Leaders live for at most 50 turns.

Maybe fire triemes are underpowered. You could go into CTC_Units.txt and try giving them some extra attack points.

[Maquiladora]

Well i finally got a chance to give this great mod another try, im about 150 turns in and around researching Theology so its early stages.

I mostly bypassed the 3 secondary Governments of Monarchy, Oligarchy and Classical Democracy, although i did switch for a short time to Classical Democracy it didnt work out so i dropped back and built up more happiness buildings for a change to Republic now, but ive no real need to be in Republic either because ive only got 11 cities and still 26% of World population with 8 AI's on a gigantic map :eek: and comparing governments Classical Democracy would serve me better anyway...

On the side of units i found myself not building any Legions at all because of their 3 shields support cost, compared to Hoplites which are better defensively and only cost 1 support and 25 less production to build, but when the time came i upgraded a few of my Warriors to Legions anyway, although next time i wont.

Currently im spamming out Mounted Archers and defending in armies of 6, but i surely wouldnt use only 6 stacks if the AI came at me with larger stacks but still such a great unit. I also managed to get Cyrus great leader, although veterans dont actually give a bonus to units its gives some nice atmosphere to it, and i was 1 turn away from Alexander the Great :mad:

edit/

Another thing i was going to mention that i saw the AI terraform some of its forests to plains, which i thought was quite impressive. Does the AI terraform coastal tiles to hills then build mines on them too? that would be :cool:

[chris1]

im currently playing on a world map i had problems putting the nations in the right place i had to restart it several times.

where the hell is assyria anyway?

in my games i stack up tonnes of units in my surrounding cities and several groups of 12 6s as well as mounted units as scouts.

my biggest enemy is japan who is bonkers and has attacked me with amazingly enough cows??

Russia is the most advanced and america is attacking the middle east (occupied by russian forces)

i desperately need a northern hemisphere map.

does anyone know how to make the civs go in the places there civilisations are i.e Britain britain etc...

[Maquiladora]

Assyria was in northern Iraq and southern Turkey too i think.

I was gonna continue my CtC game but i had to scrap the whole install because i was in a rush for a MP game and i deleted the saves too, crap! Ill be starting again then.

As far as scenario creation goes, if you place player 1 settler on British isles and assign player 1 as Britain it will start there..... as far as i understand your question chris. I dont think theyre get very far though, researching some ships before they get a second city lol

[Boney]

Originally posted by Boney

Chris I did as you said and, as Peter said, within about 3 turns the Germans merged with the Nicaraguans, and then Spain and France attacked in strength. All my production is now producing units, but I cannot produce them fast enough. This looks like turning into a long hard struggle.



I have almost finished the game, it is about 1400. Around 0AD the AI civs started to merge and for 300 to 400 years I was under pressure. After that there was no problem and I am now just mopping up the other civs.

some points I should mention:

Firstly the old prob of AI cities revolting was just too prevelent, there were always (nearly every turn in fact) new patches of red showing on the maps. The AI is still not good enough at city management.

The surrender option is a little faulty, it makes taking out a civ a little too easy. Could it be possible to have this option but only applicable to 50% of AI's. One civ had two huge stacks of cav that sneaked behind my lines, and in one more turn they could have had my lightly defended capital city. I took out a small border city and the threat disappeared when they surrendered. Also it is too easy to just give a city to a small civ and then send your troops in and the whole civ capitulates (which I did not do). I don't know if it is possible, but it would be good if the surrender option could only be triggered if cities within a short distance of the capital were taken.

Pill boxes are a great idea and make it a lot more difficult for a stack of tanks to go on a rampage.

This was also the first game I can remember where one of my cities was attacked by two 12 stacks on the same turn. The first stack I was able to defeat but the second then just mopped up.

Another couple of probs, which are common for all CTP2 games is to do with the wonders. from 1AD unti about 1200ad there have not been any wonders up for grabs. Also the AI does not seem to go after wonders much.


I think this Mod is another milestone in the development of CTP2, there are many new ideas that make it a classic in its own right. Though I have to say that cradle is still the most difficult IMHO. The only real prob with Cradle is that it is so slow to get moving,

[Aias]

Originally posted by Lou Wigman
I reduced MinSettleDistance back to 4. With the current settings the AI never seems to build more than 5 or so cities. Knocking it back to 4 causes the AI to expand much more aggressively and have seen AI civs with up to 20 cities. This simply did not happen in the original mod. Yes, the cities are too close together but at least they are there and are adding strength to my opponents.

How did you do this, Lou? Where is the text file located at?

[Aias]

Peter, is it possible to add the 'goodie hut' text back into the game? I miss having the huts at the beginning of the game. It makes exploring a bit more fun.

Will there be anymore CTC updates? I realize that you are trying to master C++, but I'd like to know how to reinstall the stop tresspass string. Also, does anyone know of any way to stop all of the widespread city revolts at the end of the game? Since the same cities revolt all of the time, my barbaric solution is to destroy the cities! Like killing a fly with a sludgehammer, I guess!

[Peter Triggs]

Thanks for the kind words, Boney.

Aias,

1) The MinSettleDistance is in default\aidata\strategies.txt. There's quite a few of them, almost one for each strategy. Although, I never noticed a problem with the AI only building 5 cities. Maybe it's map dependent?

2) I had Goody Huts in right to the end. Then all of a sudden, something I did made Great Leaders start coming out of them. Like, Rommel in 3600BC. I couldn't figure out what it was, so I had to take the Goody Huts out.

3) "I'd like to know how to reinstall the stop tresspass string." Which string?

4) Will there be any more CTC updates? Eventually, but not for a while. CTP3 will not be backwards compatible with CTP2, just like you can't use CTP1 mods with CTP2. For example, I've already added some extra 'unit build categories' (flanker and bombard units) to strategies.txt and the rest of the source. In the mod, I did this with SLIC but it was a rather ugly workaround. With the source it was almost trivially easy.

So when we eventually get what I like to call CTP3 worked out I'll redo a version of CTC for it. But you'll have to be very patient.

[Aias]

[/QUOTE]2) I had Goody Huts in right to the end. Then all of a sudden, something I did made Great Leaders start coming out of them. Like, Rommel in 3600BC. I couldn't figure out what it was, so I had to take the Goody Huts out.

Ah, I can see why they were left out.

3) "I'd like to know how to reinstall the stop tresspass string." Which string?

Perhaps 'string' was a poor choice of words on my part. The units still don't get booted if they hand around too long. And I suppose that navy units don't count as tresspassing. Is this a CTP2 bug?

4) Will there be any more CTC updates? Eventually, but not for a while. CTP3 will not be backwards compatible with CTP2, just like you can't use CTP1 mods with CTP2. For example, I've already added some extra 'unit build categories' (flanker and bombard units) to strategies.txt and the rest of the source. In the mod, I did this with SLIC but it was a rather ugly workaround. With the source it was almost trivially easy.

So when we eventually get what I like to call CTP3 worked out I'll redo a version of CTC for it. But you'll have to be very patient. [/QUOTE]
Hey, I'm just thankful for the work you've done and this great mod!

[Aias]

Looks like I still need work on doing multiple quotes in my posts!!

[chris1]

hi guys i really need your help, it so annoying and frustrating it makes me want to tear my hair out in frustration, the enemy are attacking me with cows!!!!! AGH!!

basically when we get past the ship of the lines the units are cows, how do i sotp this.

Does anyone here want to know how to make a game of ctp really hard?? without using the mods?? reply to my email and i will answer your question........

[Peter Triggs]

That's very strange. Has anyone else seen this? It looks like there might be a sprite missing.

[chris1]

I am currently trying to reinstall the game after it decided it didn't want to do new game button anymore and went to crashmode instead.

As for making a ctp2 game hard, try playing on a world map , put you settlers on south america or Australia i guarantee it will be next to impossible to complete.

[BurntHostage]

Hey wassap been awhile but as I have lotsa time to kill I dusted off the CTP2 cd and gotta say - GREAT MOD!!

Originally posted by LDiCesare
Here's what just happened to me:
I conquer teh British after a long war, and the Germans immediately afterwards. Suddenly, the French suffer from a coup d'etat and become part of the native american empire.
However, this empire looks like it is badly ruled. Many cities riot, each one going at war against another one. Net result after a while, 6 formerly French cities are now Poland, with whom I exchange maps and make peace.
Suddenly, one Pole city revolts.
Immediately, all Poland falls to the hands of the newly born empire.
Considering I had a stack just near Toulouse, and the city was empty, and they had just taken it from my friends the Poles, I went into the city ASAP. Then, all cities of the fledgling empire surrender to me (I guess they didn't have time to build a single unit).
So the net result of the French/American coup d'etat is I just gained 6 cities without firing a shot. Of course, native american armies roam near the 5 other cities, but they didn't take them immediately (*** ai, still unable to find out that a city is empty). Of course, one of the cities I got already revolted to become a new empire (there have been so many that I don't remember their names - only Poland seems to have lasted long enough to be worth remembering). (I didn't care to get them happy since I believed the ai would invade immediately).

funny - I just had what I can only describe as a "cascade" of revolts - every civ revolted into a new civ one after the other... and then I lost the game after all my cities revolted... wierd... but hopefully that wont happen with the files I picked up in this thread...

[Peter Triggs]

It might be the pollution that's doing this. Are you playing with pollution on or off?

[chris1]

well i tried to reinstall the game but it just crashed again. as soon as i clicked on the new game button.

i have decided to replace the Cd with a new version of ctp2 i bought of the internet.

yes as for the pollution it happened to me as well. people as so ungratefull for everything you do for them.

[tlatoani]

Peter:

To corroborate what Chris1 said.

In a game I'm playing, when I arrived at the tech for ship of the line, the sprite that showed up was a cow.

It was fun though, seeing a cow sailing in the open sea. When the battle screen came up, the "actual" sprite for the ship of the line was in it.

Not that I mind, but just to let you know.

PS I installed CTP2 and the mods in a new computer with the newer Windows system if that makes any difference. Before on my old computer the cow thing didn't happen.

[chris1]

heres a piece of advice for everyone, trying to play CTC, with pollution. NEVER EVER PLAY AS MODERN DEMOCRACY, they almost always revolt. Try communism of fascism or some of the newer govs.

also do not under any circumstances build early mines wait for megamines. I also discovered deleting old buildings like aqueducts,shrines etc. help immensely in dealing with pollution. Simply go through ever city and delet one building every turn focusing mainly on your outer cities this helps immensely.

If a city dares REVOLT burn it to the ground!!! like i did on the english when soem cities revolted.

as for the city after city revolts, what government did you have??

i also feel that this game advances through the ages miles to quickly, i had tanks in the 1540s.

[Aias]

Fear the cows!

[Peter Triggs]

PS I installed CTP2 and the mods in a new computer with the newer Windows system if that makes any difference. Before on my old computer the cow thing didn't happen.


That explains it. It's not your new system, it's the fact that you re-installed. It has to do with the hard-coded 200 sprite limit. There's only 200 numbers that we can use and IIRC we hit the limit, so I expropriated the number for the cow and put a ship in. But anyone who re-installs CTP2 can overwrite my ship sprite with the old cow sprite.

I've attached a zip of the ship sprite. It should go in Activision\CTP2\ctp2_data\default\graphics\sprites

[tlatoani]

Thanks Peter.

What were the cows for anyway? When they show up and get killed they actually fall on their knees and die. What was that for?

[Peter Triggs]

IIRC, in CTP1 there was going to be a cow unit that you could graze on land near your cities to increase food production. You had to watch out for rustlers though.

Unfortunately, they had to take it out of the game when they discovered that you could surround you cities with these cows and prevent spys (and planes, I think) from attacking. It was called "The Wall of Beef Defense". :)

[chris1]

i get the feeling the producers of this game did not do a very good job. so many bugs and flawsm poor ai needs a total overhaul. i hope if ctp3 ever comes out acitivision under westwood will make the game miles better.

i've urently conquered the mongols on my game, japan has at last surrendered to my mighty armies!!!!

India and russia are licking ther wounds i will build the larhest army the world has ever known hahahaha!!!!!

[Protra3211]

Try some of the other mods.

Great mods such as Cradle or Apolyton ---these will give you a good fight .On the higher levels it takes between 70 to 80 percent of the game before you can have your way with the AI.

The real problem is -when you get to the modern age the units with long range such as -sea units and air units are to much for the AI.

I think Call to Conquest does the best job as far as air units go. But for example a 12 stack of battle ships could wipe out most units in any Ai city. Making it easy to capture with other units and you can get away with many attacks like this.

I have changed the numbers in CTC_DiffDB text file for -production -technologe-gold-the same as Apolyton.Should give you a stronger AI'.Also changed the time for the AI to think. In Const text file -changed to 35000 from 3000 , The line is AI_TOTAL_TIME_SLICE (in milliseconds) this seems to help.

[Aias]

Peter,

I've been playing the game for playtesting purposes. When I conquer a city, I keep waiting for the pop up to ask me what I want to do with the city!

There are many wonderful things in CTC that I hope make it into the new code!

[Peter Triggs]

IIRC, you only get the message if the city is larger than size 3.

Thanks for the 'wonderful things' comment. I'm hoping that soon CTC will be playable as a scenario with the new executable.

[Protra3211]

Hi Peter Triggs

Been keeping track of CtP2 forums for awhile now.
Seems this mod is the first to deal with the modern age warfare. This is where I would begin to over take the ai.
Do you have a downlode site for just the texts of the game.
Like many im into tweaking game files. This mod should be looked over by those who are working on the code. May help in reaching the next step a AI thats good and balanced in every age in the game.
Can you beat this mod on the impossible level?
If so what percent of the game turns does it take till your in 1st. place?

[Peter Triggs]

Do you have a downlode site for just the texts of the game.


Afraid not. Most of the 15megs in the zip are sprites and pictures. Now that we've got the source we ought to be able to organize the sprites better so that people don't have to continually re-download them.


Can you beat this mod on the impossible level?


Actually I haven't had a chance to play the mod since last summer. There were other things I was working on (like reforming Fascists into Marines so that when a civ changes out of Fascism they don't suddenly become militarily weak) but since November I've been struggling with the source code.

[Protra3211]

Thanks for the reply.

Have done some tweaking on the Fascist unit as well.
Removed Goverment Type in Units Text.
Has Advance Fascism next
obsolete Advance Mass Media
Will let the Ai keep buliding these units even if it changes goverment.Mass Media ---it was the media (news reels) that reveled the evils of Fascism.Also by this time in the game the next unit to be build is Machine Gunner-a perfect replacement.

[chris1]

my computer went pooh. so i had to reformat my drive.

try completeing it with pollution on yu will see what happens to the ai, yu may win but it i;; be less enjoyable.

[peege]

Great job on the mod. I have played a few full games of it, and the first one was one of the best games of Civ I have played in a long time.

However, there are two major things.

ONE - Bombarding is the answer to a quick conquest, and once the ball is rolling, even with the Surrender ratios on 5:1, you can bombard the coast and invade with one unit, and they surrender.

TWO - I have been playing with more than 8 civs, and I don't know if that is why, but I have noticed the AI is having a hell of a time keeping cities from revolting. For example, I was the Mayans, and there were three other Mayans at the same time. Four Irish over the course of the game, and so on. The game crashes with the message that there are more civs than defined. (Can't remember the exact message, but that is what it says.) Can't the AI put an entertainer or 5 in a city when conquered. It might help their economy if half the cities weren't revolting EVERY TURN. I do mean every turn. A city will go barbarian, then the next turn conquered by the original civ. Next turn, American, then over to Mexican. It doesn't stop until you capture it and employ a few entertainers.

Other than that, I loved it. I mean that. I really hope there is an answer for why this keeps happening. Because the other aspects of the tech tree, and units are great. The military leader/hero, is a great feature as well. Finally someone increased the max number of cities. Brilliant.

Thanks

[chris1]

heres another tactic to try out on coastal cities, idid it to the french on the world map. simply target coastal cities with ship/bombing i successfully devastated there entire army with 10 ironclads bommbing them 4 times.i have only one major problem russia they have machine guns.

[peege]

Sorry for the redundancy. Having read some older posts, I realized that the revolting city and bombardment issues have been completely played out.

On the other hand. One major thing that would be great to see would be engineers who are capable of building roads outside of your own territory. I wouldn't mind if it wasn't a public works tile drop though. The funds could come out of PW, but it should take an actual unit to go lay them down. Just because the enemy should have the ability to kill whoever is building the roads.

I have seen this brought up in other forums, but just thought I should bring it up again, because I was really impressed with so much of CTC. I hope your CTP3 project is coming along well.

I also figured out why the AI throws in the towel so quickly. I was playing with far too many civs. The average civ that hasn't conquered anything would not have more than 1/5 of my cities or units. So the answer is to turn off surrender when playing with more than 8 civs, and turn off pollution on CTC period to avoid AI revolution every turn.

One other thing I missed is in the Apolyton pack, the turns:years ratio is stretched out to make using the older units last longer. Although I don't think I could stomach much more fire trireme battling, I liked that for the land wars. Just a thought.

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by peege
On the other hand. One major thing that would be great to see would be engineers who are capable of building roads outside of your own territory. I wouldn't mind if it wasn't a public works tile drop though. The funds could come out of PW, but it should take an actual unit to go lay them down. Just because the enemy should have the ability to kill whoever is building the roads.

No need for stupid engineers just use any unit of your own go into unclaimed territory and place there a fort, at least make sure that the tile you wish to place a fort on it is in your vision range. Then wait a few turns and the fort extents your borders. On your new land you can build everything you want.

-Martin

[peege]

Thanks Martin.

I didn't realize that forts extended the borders. That helps. All these years. Wasted... Alas.

[Maquiladora]

Or take out a settler, build a city, plop down your road construction, disband the city. You dont spend 1000pw or whatever on the fort then.

[chris1]

on my game i am going to attempt to get a nation to nuke me. ihave chosen australia as they always use nuclear weapons i will let youknow what happens. I have already anihihlated two french cities so the ai views me as evil...

i discovered that about forts quite good for filling holes within your borders.

[tlatoani]

Long time since anybody posted here, hope someone is still interested.

I have a problem with the Leviathon. It doesn't seem to move. I tried putting the maxmove of the unit to 200 but can't get it to budge. I have maglevs around the thing but still it won't move, it will not even board a transport (I also set the size to medium).

Any ideas why this is happening?:(

[Maquiladora]

Weird, could you post the save game?

Actually the Leviathan still has:

MaxMovePoints 10

in CTC_units.txt so it wont even move 1 space, you need to change it to 100 to move 1 space.

You say that you changed the move points to 200, sure it wasnt 20? Did you restart the game after you changed it? Sorry if these are obvious questions for you.

[J Bytheway]

Originally posted by Maquiladora
Actually the Leviathan still has:

MaxMovePoints 10

in CTC_units.txt so it wont even move 1 space, you need to change it to 100 to move 1 space.

That setting should mean that it can move one space. The fact that it's so low simply means that is can still only move one space, even when it's on road/railroad/maglev.

[Maquiladora]

Actually its something in CTC thats preventing it. It works unmodded and playtest, but in Cradle Hex changed it to 100.

[tlatoani]

Originally posted by Maquiladora
Weird, could you post the save game?

Actually the Leviathan still has:

MaxMovePoints 10

in CTC_units.txt so it wont even move 1 space, you need to change it to 100 to move 1 space.

You say that you changed the move points to 200, sure it wasnt 20? Did you restart the game after you changed it? Sorry if these are obvious questions for you.

I reloaded slic after I changed it to 200 and nothing.

I'll start a new game and cheat so I can get the leviathon to see what happens. Thanks for the replies.:b:

[Peter Triggs]

The code is buried deep in my HD but, IIRC, I made them immobile with Slic.

[tlatoani]

Originally posted by Peter Triggs
The code is buried deep in my HD but, IIRC, I made them immobile with Slic.

How do I go about making them mobile again? Please say something easy, computers and I don't get along too well:idiot:

Thanks again Peter.

[Immortal Wombat]

If I have this correct, you want to find CTC_Units.txt in the ctp2_data/default/gamedata folder, then find the UNIT_LEVIATHON entry, and change the PowerPoints from 80 to 81. The SLIC code reads 80 as immobile defensive units and 81 as mobile defensive units, and freezes units accordingly.

[Peter Triggs]

That should do it.

[tlatoani]

Originally posted by Immortal Wombat
If I have this correct, you want to find CTC_Units.txt in the ctp2_data/default/gamedata folder, then find the UNIT_LEVIATHON entry, and change the PowerPoints from 80 to 81. The SLIC code reads 80 as immobile defensive units and 81 as mobile defensive units, and freezes units accordingly.

Thanks IW, I'll try it out tonight. Real life got in the way again last week, but I did my presentation today and now I'm
FREE AT LAST! FREE AT LAST! THANK GOD ALL MIGHTY, I'M FREE AT LAST!!!

:band:
:dance:
:ana: :Party:

Had to get it off my chest:)