Designer Diaries

The ideas behind the game....

The Call To Power II End Game
By Dan Hagerty, Game Designer
* APOLYTON EXCLUSIVE *

Great Library

The Great Library, is a part of the CTP2 Section where we will present the various units, city improvments and advances of Call to Power II.

• CTP2 Advances
• CTP2 Buildings
• CTP2 Units

Documentation

Little pieces of information we found on the net or the forums.

• CTP2 Readme - RTF(26k)
• CTP2 Multiplayer Readme - RTF(75k)
• CTP2 Manual Part 1 - Manual RTF(357k)
• CTP2 Manual Part 2 - Manual RTF(357k)
• CTP2 Manual Part 3 - Manual RTF(357k)
• CTP2 Manual Part 4 - Manual RTF(357k)
• CTP2 Manual Part 5 - Manual RTF(357k)
• WW2 Readme - RTF(5k)

Documentation on the map/scenario and generally modifying the game can be found in the CTP2 Modification pages.

Help

Got a problem or a question? No problem just put it into our CTP2 forum.

Pre-Release Information

• CTP2 Announcement
• CTP2 Anouncement Summary
• CTP2 Artificial Intelligence
• CTP2 Interface
• CTP2 Combat/Units
• CTP2 Civ Management
• CTP2 Micromanagment
• CTP2 Diplomacy
• CTP2 Trade
• CTP2 Multiplayer
• CTP2 Graphics and Sound
• CTP2 Included Maps/Scenarios
• CTP2 Customisation
• CTP2 Advances/Buildings/Wonders
• CTP2 Miscellaneous
• CTP2 System-Specs and Release

At this time of this writing(Feb/15/2000), the games was announced only 2 hours ago.

Basically, the only info is the press release, which however has some good information. The basic improvements over CTP I are:

• Game lasts from 4000BC to 2300AD (instead of 3000AD of CTP1)


• Improved diplomacy:
  "A robust diplomacy interface will assist players in choosing their political stance, and allow counter proposals when dealing with other civilizations."


• "Ministers" and "advisors":
  "Players who are inexperienced in managing an entire civilization may consult their ministers and advisors who will offer advice and make recommendations."


• Same graphics engine with improvements:
  "Cities’ influence over the surrounding landscape increases as their populations grow."


• Borders:
  "Borders between neighboring states are clearly defined to help prevent inadvertent skirmishes or international incidents"


• "Historical timeline" feature:
  "A historical timeline gives players a holistic perspective on their civilization’s achievements over the centuries, and many units are presented with new graphics and animations"


• Improved(more realistic, historically accurate) combat:
  "Combat in Call to Power II has been refined and rebalanced for more realistic outcomes"


• City "mayors" (ala civ2/smac advisors probably):
  "The enhanced city management screen features automated mayors that help administrate the day-to-day operations of individual cities"


• Improved interface and menus:
  "The interfaces and menus in Call to Power II have also been improved to simplify gameplay... improved build queue menus allow players to amass armies or build their cities’ infrastructure with ease"


• More ways to win:
  "Players who choose to develop an aggressive civilization can achieve victory through military conquest. Conversely, gamers who prefer a more subtle approach can achieve dominance through scientific means."

Until today I was convinced there were only 3 sizes for the tga files 160 x 120, 32 x 24 and 24 x 18. But the large pictures used for units appear to be 96 x 72. This might explain some of the bad quality of the pictures in game (if the game has to scale them down). The uniticon.txt obviously uses 4 entries for icons (2 are identical), so I tried to enter a 96 x 72 tga instead of one of the UPUPXXXL.TGA files and it does work. However, I guess this requires additional space for the files, but probably this gives better quality of game icons and possibly even improves speed...

Question:
I would like to do a SCENARIO. where things have already happened you know.
Are there some place to read about how to define regard,- trust,- startyear,- cost of researches and that kind of stuff?

Answer: The questions you have asked are really two things. You can alter scenarios by changing the text files, and more abstract stuff has to be done by SL...

BUTTONS IN THE MAP EDITOR

1. Cut Map Area
2. Copy Map Area
3. Paste Map Area

- These work much like any such cut, copy and paste buttons in painting programs. To use them, you first have to select an area of the map using button 13, see below. Having selected a map region, you can cut it (copies it to the 'clipboard' and replaces with shallow ocean), copy it (copies to the 'clipboard' but remains present also. Once it is on the 'clipboard', you can paste the region by selecting the paste button (#3) and clicking a tile which you wish to become the TOP LEFT tile of the pasted region.

4. save map area.
-I never use this. I guess it's so you can save a segment from one map you make. why? (see #8)

5. Small brush size. One tile at a time
6. Medium brush size. I dunno, maybe 9 at a time.
7. Large brush size. Something like 25 or 36 at a time.

8. load map area.
-Cunning, no? You can now load the segment (that you saved from one map in #4) into another.

9. Set Map 'Explored'
- All players see the map as fully explored. I think this saves into the scenario, otherwise it works no difference from button #16.

10. Set Map 'Unexplored'
- Opposite of #9

11. X-wrap on/off.
- i.e. do the sides of the map connect in the game?

12. Y-wrap on/off
- i.e. do the top and bottom of the map connect?

CO-ORDS
- Displays the co-ordinates of the tile your cursor is hanging over.

13. Select portion of the map
- As used with buttons 1,2 and 3. Simply click the tile you want at a corner of the chosen region, then drag across to the opposite corner of the region and let go.

14. Eraser.
- Works like a paintbrush, but turns everything to default terrain (shallow water)

15. Reset Map
- Covers the whole map in shallow water.

16. Reveal Map
- duh...

17. Reload Slic
- You won't need this for map design, but it reloads the SLIC files that you may have changed while modding.

18. Locate!
- Type in a set of x and y co-ordinates, and press locate to center the map on them.

19. Remove all Goods
- Removes all goods...

20. Generate Goods
- Generates goods at random across the map. Different seeding pattern on each click.

21. Hut
- Place a hut on the map, or remove one by clicking this button, then clicking the hut.

22. River.
- As above, but with rivers, not huts.

23-26. Place goods
- Place (or remove) goods on the map. Most terrains only have 2 goods, so only the first two buttons work. Some mods allow the other 2 to work as well.
Button 1 places the first good for that terrain, button 2 will place a different one (but will firstly remove the first good, click again to add the second - it doesn't replace. if that makes any sense...)

27. Toggle Pollution on/off

28. Map Size.
Select the map size you want. This will reload the map as a blank all-sea map, so copy any regions you want to keep.

29. Difficulty
- Select one of the 6 difficulty levels.

30. Barbarians.
- Select one of the 4 barbarian levels.

31. Date Roller
- Change the year in the game by scrolling backwards and forwards.

32. Save Map
- Save the map to a map file. Then you can reload it later, or publish it, or something.

33. Load Map
- So you can continue working on it I guess. You have to have saved it first.

34. Save scenario.
- Save the whole scenario (map, rules, etc. ) to a scenario file, which you are asked to place in the scenario structure. Select the scenario fo your choice, and click save. The press 'back' outwards.

...

The Apolyton CTP2 Source Code team proudly presents the Apolyton CTP2 Edition Revision 1111 from June the 12th 2011.

This new version focuses mainly on improving the AI. Especially how the AI handles its oversea conquest with land and air transporters. A bug fix makes the AI also a little bit relaxed with enemy units that could be a potential thread.

We have also a few bug fixes and minor corrections.

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