Apolyton CTP2 Edition: Revision 1097 (07-Jun-2010)

[Martin Gühmann]

The Apolyton CTP2 Source Code team proudly presents the Apolyton CTP2 Edition Revision 1097 from June the 7th 2010.

This time we have support for the Chinese version of the game, a fix for a bug that made the game crash when it was supposed to play wonder movies, and more AI improvements.

Thanks to Apolyton forum user Blackjack83, we now have all the Chinese text files of the game, however so far we only added the new Apolyton Edition text strings in English. Therefore if you are Chinese and want to play the game completely in Chinese we need your help to translate the missing strings into Chinese.

The game does not crash anymore, when it is supposed to play a wonder video, there is no more need to disable wonder videos to play the game.

Finally as usual, we have more improvements of the complex artificial intelligence (AI). The AI now focus more in conquest on its weakest enemy and its smaller opponents. The AI also uses transporters if it cannot reach a target location that is on the same continent as the army it wants to use. And it focuses more on cities that are land connected and adjacent to the borders of its empire.

The Apolyton Edition can be directly installed over CTP2 v1.0, v1.1, or v1.11.

Since God old games (gog.com) has released Call to Power 2 as online download as official version without the CD check, the Apolyton Edition does not require the CD anymore, either.

If you found a bug please report here as much relevant information as possible. This includes how to reproduce the problem, an attached screenshot or savegame may be helpful. If the game crashes (terminates without user intention) then include a crash log. You can enable crash logging by editing your userprofile.txt (in [Your CTP2 directory]\ctp2_program\ctp\) to set EnableLogs=Yes. The log can then be found at [Your CTP2 directory]\ctp2_program\ctp\logs\crash.txt. Please do not attach the crash.txt to a post, instead include the content of that file in your post.

For further changes check out the change log in the readme.

If you cannot forget the past here is the previous thread.

Changelog:
2010-07-06 (Revision 1097)
Fixed:    The AI handles incursion permission correctly even directly after a
          reload.
Fixed:    The AI now ranks correctly its opponents by their strength.
Changed:  If the visible player is a robot, then the displayed unit path is
          those for robots, this is useful for AI testing.
Added:    The inteligence window now shows opponent as very strong.
Added:    The AI avoids danger on the way of its units.
Fixed:    Games with a dead player in can be loaded again.
Fixed:    The scenario editor generates goods even if no new game was created
          during the active session.
Fixed:    A memory leak in the AI code does not eat all the memory in the
          system anymore, so that the game does not crash, because there is 
          no memory left.
Fixed:    The wonder movies play again, without crashing the game.
Changed:  The AI now conquers cities according to a global plan instead of
          picking those first that are closest to most of its units.
Fixed:    Upgraded units get room for cargo if the original unit had no cargo
          and the upgraded unit should be able to carry cargo.
Added:    Added Chinese text files.
Fixed:    The AI uses transporters even if a target is on the same continet
          but cannot reached, because for instance the way is blocked.
Fixed:    The AI conqueres cities if it has a big stack adjacent to that city
          representing 2/3 of the needed power. This is no problem since the
          needed power is calculated with some buffer.
Changed:  The AI gives for conquest higher priority to cities that have a land
          connection to the existing AI empire.
Changed:  The AI gives for conquest higher priority to cities of empires with
          less than three cities.
Fixed:    The minimap shows the diplomatic relationships correctly even if you
          recenter the minimeap.
Changed:  The AI prioritizes for conquest cities of its weakest enemy.

[mapfi]

cool! although, the problem with the picture of stealth units appearing 10 tiles away has not yet been fixed, right?

[Pfeffersack]

I installed this Revision over an unpatched German version of CTP II (OS Windows XP) and get the following database errors, when trying to start the game:

units.txt: 46: Unknown token
units.txt: 46: Warning: required field VisionRange missing
units.txt: 46: Warning: required field ActiveDefenseRange missing
units.txt: 46: Warning: required field MaxMovePoints missing
units.txt: 46: Warning: required field MaxFuel missing
units.txt: 46: Warning: required field FoodHunger missing

Can anyone help me to get over this?

[Martin Gühmann]

I installed this Revision over an unpatched German version of CTP II (OS Windows XP) and get the following database errors, when trying to start the game:

units.txt: 46: Unknown token
units.txt: 46: Warning: required field VisionRange missing
units.txt: 46: Warning: required field ActiveDefenseRange missing
units.txt: 46: Warning: required field MaxMovePoints missing
units.txt: 46: Warning: required field MaxFuel missing
units.txt: 46: Warning: required field FoodHunger missing

Can anyone help me to get over this?

Maybe something went wrong when you unpacked the files, so I would just copy the files from the Apolyton Edition over your CTP2 installation again.

Otherwise, check whether the ctp2.exe is indeed dated from June this year.

-Martin

[Fugi the Great]

Game completed, small world 20 countries, hard to get started but it made it too easy once I did because the computer couldn't expand much, and the few that did ate their neighbors for breakfast. Anyway, One CTD, reloaded from Autosave with no problems. Two glitches seen, at the very end of the game. One was the amount of money I had suddenly shot up to 1.5 billion, then next turn almost nothing, and alternated between the two. Second glitch, the city of Jerusalem had all buildings built, but kept on saying that I could rebuild ten of the buildings: Shrine, Granary, Courthouse, City Wall, Theater, Ballista Towers, Bazaar, Academy, Arena, and Aquaduct.
Crash Text:
Version 2010-06-08
0x006429d0 [?IsLandConnected@CityAstar@@QAE_NHABVMapPoint@@0AA MAAHH@Z + 0x30]
0x004ca38f [?IsLandConnected@Player@@QBE_NABVMapPoint@@H@Z + 0x8f]
0x007e7507 [?Compute_Raw_Priority@Goal@@QAEHXZ + 0x617]
0x007e0972 [?Prioritize_Goals@Scheduler@@QAE_NXZ + 0xc2]
0x007e0168 [?Process_Goal_Changes@Scheduler@@QAEXXZ + 0x138]
0x00800c43 [?GEVHookCallback@CtpAi_BeginSchedulerEvent@@EAE?AW 4GAME_EVENT_HOOK_DISPOSITION@@W4GAME_EVENT@@PAVGam eEventArgList@@@Z + 0x73]
0x00581297 [?Activate@GameEventHook@@QBE?AW4GAME_EVENT_ERR@@PA VGameEventArgList@@HAAH@Z + 0x37]
0x00581c58 [?ActivateHook@GameEventManager@@QAE?AW4GAME_EVENT_ ERR@@W4GAME_EVENT@@PAVGameEventArgList@@HAAH@Z + 0x28]
0x0057fd7d [?Process@GameEvent@@QAE?AW4GAME_EVENT_ERR@@XZ + 0x2d]
0x0040c211 [?Process@CivApp@@QAEHXZ + 0x201]
0x00406e74 [?CivMain@@YGHPAUHINSTANCE__@@0PADH@Z + 0x394]
0x004068a5 [WinMain@16 + 0x65]
0x0080fbdc [WinMainCRTStartup + 0x134]
0x7c817077 [__onexitbegin + 0x7be3e11f]

[Martin Gühmann]

Game completed, small world 20 countries, hard to get started but it made it too easy once I did because the computer couldn't expand much, and the few that did ate their neighbors for breakfast.

What's wrong with eating neighbors for breakfast? Ah, I see they didn't eat you for breakfast. Anyway, you could increase the map size or reduce, the number of civs. So that they get more room. Or you can also increase the level of difficulty.

Anyway, One CTD, reloaded from Autosave with no problems.

Good for you, and bad for me since I cannot test, whether a fix indeed fixes the problem.

Two glitches seen, at the very end of the game. One was the amount of money I had suddenly shot up to 1.5 billion, then next turn almost nothing, and alternated between the two. Second glitch, the city of Jerusalem had all buildings built, but kept on saying that I could rebuild ten of the buildings: Shrine, Granary, Courthouse, City Wall, Theater, Ballista Towers, Bazaar, Academy, Arena, and Aquaduct.

Do you have savegames of these problems?

-Martin

[Kreo]

Hi guys, just one thing: I am working on reconstructing some Scenarios to make them playable under Apolyton edition - for this newest version, I made Alexander Great Scenario, 2nd Punic war Scenario (altought this take too much memory after 200 rounds that it crashes every turn - because for example Romans have about 1000 units and 28 cities), it is still playable for some time, and Ultima Scenario - but I made there a lot of changes which rebuild concept of the ultima dramatically.

Are you interested in these changed Scenarios to attach them with the newest Apolyton Edition? if you are, where should I post them (or should I attach them directly into the Scenarios sections here in apolyton?)

[Fugi the Great]

game save of glitches

Didn't realize I let it go that long (notice the date). Must have been drinking and bored. Loaded from last Autosave and saved. The money problem seems to be in sea city of Adan. Last cities founded were Adan and Sana, not sure which was last, just in case that has anything to do with it (memory overrun or something like that).

Could have conquered the planet much earlier, just wanted to make sure everything worked. So I started getting mean, rotten, and nasty to the last "free" city. Nuked them, plagued them, poisoned them, shelled then down to size 1. Was thinking about using an eco-ranger to end the game to make sure that worked, just too lazy to change governments.

[Fugi the Great]

a few thoughts, sorry about the length

When I tell someone to withdraw, and they say they will, why don't the helicopters leave as well? I realize it may be something to do with maybe being labeled as a special unit and be exempt from this, but it can be seen at all times, unlike spies. If it blocks the flow of traffic it can trigger a war. Is that what the computer uses this unit for? Kind of stupid if it can't win that war, or a least get something out of it other than dead units. Since this was never really answered properly anywhere, I usually just put a fuel tank on it. It is supposed to be a transport for units and dropping those units behind enemy lines, but it's never used for this, be neat if it did.

Liberated a city with slaves, but forgot to free them, realized there was no button to free them later. Can this be added?

Sonobuoy don't seem to work properly. Does it have something to do with not be able to see a wooden ship? Found one 2 squares away from the sonobuoy, but didn't see it until my destroyer got within visual distance. Did you ever fix the problem if where two sonobuoys overlapped that it caused a dead zone that subs could sneak through undetected?

New treaties needed: stop spying, stop enslaving. Mr. Ambassador, if you want to see what my territory looks like, ask me for my map and I will gladly give it to you, and now that you know what my territory looks like, stay out of it and we will get along just fine. If you stop taking my people and my secrets, I will stop taking your cities - fair enough?

Where are all the diplomats? I have yet to see one. The only nosey unit (a spy you can see) that I tolerate in my borders that doesn't do something nasty to someone else. And while talking about diplomacy, you would think that the computer players would try to "make nice" with the big boys and try to work on treaties that would be beneficial to them, not trying to tick them off. I had a research treaty with a friendly nation, he was getting techs very quickly from this, so it became #2 in tech (after I wiped out several other high tech nations), so it could now have beat any other nation (but me) in a fight. Why would it jeopardize this arrangement by sending spies into my cities, stealing my secrets, and causing me to start a war with it? That was just dumb.

Maybe, before a computer player does something like slave, steal secrets, or move military units onto another nation's soil, maybe it should ask itself: "Could this action be taken as an act of war?" If yes, do we really want to be at war with them?" If yes then, go right ahead and start your little war - hope you calculated properly. And if not, maybe we shouldn't do this. And if it agrees to remove its units, they should get right back on the boat that brought them here, not fortify where they are.

Then one needs to ask: "Why do nations go to war?" Spread the faith, need more resources, glory, breathing room, obtain natural borders, needed tech, you attacked my ally, we told you to stop and you aren't listening. Most nations in the real world do not attack another without a good reason, and it usually involving obtaining something worth the expense. It is usually not that it can win a battle but loose a war, if there is a good chance it could win this war with a little luck and a few allies, then away we go. But sometimes, even if you don't win, at least you got someone's attention and made them bleed a little bit so they think twice about stepping on your toes again. So even if you didn't win, you still got something out of it, even if it was a little expensive to get it.

I see in the last couple of versions that when a ship is only transporting stealth units that they do not show up as cargo. It kind of defeats the purpose when it gets close to a city and you hear "thunk" which is the sound of the stealth unit trying to get into a city without enough movement points left, thereby telling you the ship wasn't empty (exploring) and you should check out the possible landing areas where the stealth unit could have disembarked.

Why does the computer leave obsolete units in areas that it could care less about? I have one nation, that has one of the very first transport ships in the game sitting 2 squares from one of my city's for hundreds of turns. Why? Its vision won't let it see my city to watch its growth, and if it was carrying a slaver when it left home it long since died, so all it is is a drag on the nation's economy. Recall it and upgrade it.

Trying to hide that fact that an city may or may not have units in it by keeping the crossed swords on it doesn't do anything if you click on a ship or plane to attack the city and it is doesn't show up when there are no longer any units in it. Same thing too with having units disembark from a transport directly into a city, if they can't get out, it's not empty.

Is it possible to make transport ships not end their turn near the coast or city if they are at war with that nation if it detects the enemy having its own ranged units in that city or coast, or if there is the possibility that the carried stealth unit could trigger a war with this nation before the transport can get to safety?
Is it possible to make ranged ships not end their turn near a city, ranged army or ranged navy that they are at war with without bombarding first? Kind of defeats the purpose if it can't be used at least once, even if it means delaying one turn.
Why do land armies that are on a coast, that were bombarded last turn, not retreat inland and repair. Serves no purpose to just sit there and get killed for no reason.
Is it possible to make land armies not end their turn next to another enemy city, army, or navy without bombarding first, or at least have a good possibility that a nice chunk of the army won't get wiped out next turn from enemy bombardment.
Is if possible to make air units not end their turn next to another enemy city, army, or navy if there are ranged units there that could shoot them down?
In all these, sometimes you have to let them do this, but the costs have to less then the rewards.

Why do I ask these? I see a lot of stealth unit disembark, so I bombard and kill the stealth unit, as well as the transport - a lot of wasted units and the computer got nothing out of it. Maybe it should realize that this is just wasting resources and should maybe build something else next time. With all the spys and transports I destroyed, it could have created a large navy to challenge my supremacy of the sea, then bring in the spys.

Battleships and Destroyers can "bombard", they don't always have to "attack". Case in point, my destroyer bombards an enemy battleship doing 30% damage, computer attacks and sinks destroyer - okay, but battleship is now down to 20% health - easy pickings for anything. If it had it bombarded, it could very well have done the same thing, or if not it would have rendered my destroyer so low in health that I would have it retreat to a safe port to repair, and the battleship would still have won and "own" that area of the sea for now. True it destroyed my ship, but his will be destroyed shortly thereafter with another destroyer I bring into the area. Was is worth the time and resources to do that?

While talking about Navies, the computer armies really don't have one. They put out a few units to be annoying at best, but never see stacks of ships of more than three anywhere (wolf-packs). They have no way of countering a 12 stack of destroyers or battleships heading into there waters. Would this be different on a harder level?

Another battle. Two nations, both neighbors of mine and to each other are a war - I don't care as long as it doesn't spill over to my territory. Both are friendly to me, I have peace treaty with one but have to kindly remind him to keep is units out of my territory, which it complies with. I am much bigger and stronger then both of them combined. Another nation sends a spy through their territory into mine. I send an artillery unit one square out of a city to kick him out, but since you set this as an action, he can't return - lone unit - not a problem, they are both friendly. Ooops, not any more. 11 stack army attacks and kills lone unit, puts it right next to my city - citizens panic!!. Rush 6 stack (3 Inf, 3 Art) into city, city now has 5 ART, 6 Inf. Artillery bombards, enemy stack now at 6, move a couple more 6 stacks to the area - will attack next turn. What does the computer do? Nothing, it just sits there. It's not strong enough anymore to take the city, if it ever was, and cannot survive the next turn, why not retreat and say "sorry, we screwed up". My turn, bombard enemy 6 stack from city and mobile army, enemy troops gone, citizens rejoice!!!! I then proceed to liberate two of its cities until it asks for a armistice. The question then is: "Why did it attack in the first place?", it got absolutely nothing out of that skirmish. Somehow your programming tricked it into a war it couldn't win.

Before the computer player goes to war it should calculate its percent chance of obtaining what it wants and compare the costs of obtaining it as opposed to not got getting it. Just because an army sees a lone unit from a different nation, and knows it can kill it does not mean it can survive a war with that nation. It should compare its military strength to the other nation, how many of those are fortified units in cities (assumed defensive), how many armies are "involved" with another war, how many of the remaining units could be brought to bear if it counterattacks and how soon, technologies of the nation, previous history, and production power (how fast could it send out more troops) should this end up being a slug-fest. If this number is too high, pick on someone else that they have a chance of winning something.

Another thought, before one nation starts a war with another nation, have it Declare why it is going to war. That way, both parties know how to get back to peace. This could be a extension of the existing Diplomacy. Nation Z pirates my trade routes, I tell them to stop pirating, they refuse, I tell them to stop pirating or we go to war, they refuse, I say We are declaring war on you because you refuse to stop pirating our trade routes. If you agree to stop pirating my trade routes, the war will end. Once they have lost enough units, they should come crawling back to the table and agree to the treaty to end the war.
If you agree to stop spying, the war ends.
If you agree to stop enslaving my people, the war ends.
If you agree to stop picking on my ally, the war ends (assuming my ally agrees).
If you agree to keep your units out of my territory, the war ends.

Then too, it doesn't really seem that the way you say something really makes a difference. If I say stop pirating at the meanest setting, say we go to war if you don't stop, why doesn't the computer look at the difference between his power and my power, past history, and think that maybe I might not be kidding, and it really can't afford a war right now, especially one it will get nothing other then a few pirated resources. Do the resources gained from pirating my routes really make up for lost units, cities, and not being able to pirate someone else's routes for years? Especially when I have a unit right next to his that will kill his this very turn if he says "no" and gets nothing else. Was that worth it?

edit: I'm at full scale war with the Chinese, I bombard its destroyer with mine, and bring in another one into the same square for back up for next turn. What does the computer do? Retreat? Fight back? Nope, it pirates a trade route, and it's not mine, I don't have any yet. Shouldn't it know that this unit will be dead next turn and at least decide to maybe do some damage to me by attacking (2 to 1 not good), bombarding (better, but useless) or retreat and repair (much better) then lose the unit (bad)? Why is pirating a higher priority?

[Fugi the Great]

just a few more

I rarely use the GlobSat because it makes turn last 3 times longer, but Spies show up but lawyers don't? Seems a bit backward. Spies should always be hidden, lawyers might be seen and usually make it into the media circus so you know approximately where they are, so they would possibly be track-able on satellite.

Also with the GlobSat I have noticed that if the computer has to move multiple units to the other side of it empire, it will move them 1 at a time. It would be nice if it could be programmed to combine the units that are headed to the same destination into a group before moving them. Probably easier said then done though.

Would it be possible to add an attack to spies so they can "take out" other spies without triggering a war? We already have an attack that lawyers use on other lawyers (costs money though), but something like that. Just thinking it would be nice if you didn't have to keep kicking them out of your country, and next turn they are right back doing the same thing - gets old hat real quick.

A strange battle. Had my normal 6 stack of 3 INF and 3 ART defending outside a city. Computer has a stack of 6 or more tanks and decides to attack me (I knew it was coming soon), but instead of using the whole stack to attack mine, it attacked one tank at a time - loosing 3. Had it attacked with the whole stack it probably wouldn't have lost any units, but by attacking one at a time my artillery got to be used more. Just never seen that before. Yes I lost that battle, but won that war.

Wasn't there a way to turn off all the messages like "nation A is at war with nation Q", and "nation X is building the TimeWastingThingy" messages? I was looking for the the check box to turn it off, but I don't see it. Was that removed or is that an option in the INI file that needs to be switched off?

And while I'm talking about messages, maybe a beginning of turn report to tell you everything that is different than last turn, which would include all those annoying messages into a single box, instead of multiple clicks to close several boxes.

[Wozer]

The cleric and the new patch

Hey. I just discovered a problem with the cleric. When I try to convert the faith of an enemy city the game just goes to the desktop and ctp2 closes. My question is now, if this problem is fixed in the new version and if it is, can we just copy it over the old version?
If a crash report is necessary I´ll try post it.
Thanks

[Martin Gühmann]

Hey. I just discovered a problem with the cleric. When I try to convert the faith of an enemy city the game just goes to the desktop and ctp2 closes. My question is now, if this problem is fixed in the new version and if it is, can we just copy it over the old version?

Just put the new version over the old version and continue your game, that's how it works.

If a crash report is necessary I´ll try post it.
Thanks

Why don't you just post the crash report and the savegame in the first place so you don't have to add anything later.

-Martin

[Fugi the Great]

now that someone posted something

Previous version, you said:
Fixed: The AI does not build ships in that do not have acceass to an ocean
but only access to a puddle.

Could you define a puddle? I have a few A/I cities next to lakes, and they have ships in there which will do absolutely nothing to help them attack or defend, and have no access to the ocean, so basically a drain on resources. Canals would fix this.

[Wozer]

Just put the new version over the old version and continue your game, that's how it works.

Thanks.

Why don't you just post the crash report and the savegame in the first place so you don't have to add anything later.

-Martin

I tried to modify the userprofile.txt for crash logging. But the parameter was just set. So i started the game again and after the crash the log didnt appear either. So i did an upload of the save on my webspace, hoping you can handle it. It's an email game and it's my turn.

Savefile

[deepfall]

Crash starting or joining tcp/ip multiplayer

Anybody else have this issue? The original at patch 1.11 worked fine.

crashlog:
Version 2010-06-08
0x0043b71a [?PostProcessTile@TiledMap@@QAEXAAVMapPoint@@PAVTil eInfo@@H@Z + 0x3fa]
0x0043b992 [?PostProcessMap@TiledMap@@QAEXH@Z + 0x92]
0x00629b14 [?Unpacketize@NetInfo@@UAEXGPAEG@Z + 0x334]
0x00633dba [?PacketReady@Network@@UAEXHPAEH@Z + 0x8a]
0x00640aaa [?Idle@NetThread@@UAE?AW4NET_ERR@@XZ + 0x1aa]
0x00632734 [?Process@Network@@QAEXXZ + 0x1f4]
0x0040c115 [?Process@CivApp@@QAEHXZ + 0x105]
0x00406e74 [?CivMain@@YGHPAUHINSTANCE__@@0PADH@Z + 0x394]
0x004068a5 [WinMain@16 + 0x65]
0x0080fbdc [WinMainCRTStartup + 0x134]
0x7c816d4f [__onexitbegin + 0x7be3ddf7]

on a macbook pro under vm fusion 2. windows xp.