Vendetta 3 - MGE or ToT?

[Sarsstock]

I too would prefer an MGE version, but many players and designers alike are just frustrated with MGE's limitations and the fact that we are yet to overcome them.

[Heresson]

Originally posted by curtsibling
The tide is going against MGE at this time...

Why not just re-order a nice fresh new copy of ToT?

I won't pay twice for the same thing

[curtsibling]

Then find your ToT disk!

[curtsibling]

Originally posted by Sarsstock
I too would prefer an MGE version, but many players and designers alike are just frustrated with MGE's limitations and the fact that we are yet to overcome them.

I will admit that the lure of 24-bit units has me in it's grip!

I think more people should take the plunge and buy ToT.

It is easy to tweak, and almost everything is tweakable!

[Heresson]

Originally posted by curtsibling
Then find your ToT disk!

I've lent it to someone... 4 years ago...
I don't know who was it


OK. List me the advantages of ToT again.
(when I bought it, my cd player was down... so I never played it after all)

[fairline]

Originally posted by curtsibling
The tide is going against MGE at this time...

Why not just re-order a nice fresh new copy of ToT?

I've been tinkering with a scenario for ToT just recently. Two facts about the advanced unit fields in rules.txt that should instantly sell ToT to MGE diehards:

1. There is a 'tribe may build' mask for each unit. This means that the designer can easily specify which unit can be built by which civ. No more messing around with civ-specific techs and obsolescences to make units unique.

2. There is a terrain impassible flag. No more placing 'mountain' units to cordon off areas of the map. That would come in handy with your Norway scenario Eivind, if you're reading this

[Heresson]

1. There is a 'tribe may build' mask for each unit. This means that the designer can easily specify which unit can be built by which civ. No more messing around with civ-specific techs and obsolescences to make units unique.

2. There is a terrain impassible flag. No more placing 'mountain' units to cordon off areas of the map. That would come in handy with your Norway scenario Eivind, if you're reading this

Mountain units aren't bad. Actually, I like them, because of zones of control thing they have; You can make more with it than just with an impassable ground,

This tribe thing is very very nice indeed.
could You tell me more?

[curtsibling]

Originally posted by Heresson


I've lent it to someone... 4 years ago...
I don't know who was it


OK. List me the advantages of ToT again.
(when I bought it, my cd player was down... so I never played it after all)

Main advantages:

1. Graphics... 24-bit Bmps, meaning super cool-looking units, icons and cities. Even interfaces!

2. Events... Massive 100kb file to fill with events. Also many new event commands.

3. Sounds... Each unit can be given it's own stereo sound. No more messing around.

4. Terrain... Multi-tiled terrain means more detail and general coolness.

5. Units...20 extra units! And they face left or right depending on what way you move them.
(you can even use a program by Merc to move them 8 x directions!)

6. Menu/interface... Can be made to mimic the classic MGE interface.

I am sure other posters will chip in and tell you more.

Imagine how tasty your Mamluks scen would be in ToT!

[fairline]

@UNITS_ADVANCED
11111111, ... ;Settlers
11111111, ... ;Engineers
10000000, ... ;Warriors
00010000, ... ;Phalanx

It's easy: the first 8 numbers are assigned to each civ and the barbs. If you assign a 1 to a unit for a particular civ it can be built; a 0 means it can't. In the case above everybody can build settlers and engineers, but only civ 1 can build warriors and only civ 4 can build Phalanx.

There are similar masks for 'allowed on map', whether a unit may be bribed, invisible until attacks, impassible terrain override and several other features.

Here's another one which I know you'll appreciate Heresson: each unit has it's own unique sound slot

[fairline]

to add to Curt's list:

multiple maps for one scenario, additional events macros

[curtsibling]

Originally posted by fairline
@UNITS_ADVANCED
11111111, ... ;Settlers
11111111, ... ;Engineers
10000000, ... ;Warriors
00010000, ... ;Phalanx

It's easy: the first 8 numbers are assigned to each civ and the barbs. If you assign a 1 to a unit for a particular civ it can be built; a 0 means it can't. In the case above everybody can build settlers and engineers, but only civ 1 can build warriors and only civ 4 can build Phalanx.

Good stuff!

Here is a question: Do you know the order of civs and which colour they are?

Is civ0, the white civ (Russians/Celts/Romans), and civ1 the green civ (Japanese/Babs/Zulus)?

This mask will be a life saver!

[techumseh]

Here's some more:

impassible terrain - you can make any type of ground terrain impassible, and you can give any ground unit the override flag, meaning it can move on terrain impassible to other units.

invisible units - any unit can be given the invisible flag.

events - as mentioned above 100 kb of events is 3 times bigger than MGE. Consider some of the new events language:

@AND means any event can have 2 triggers

DELAY delays the action portion of the event the specified number of turns

COUNT is the number of units created by a single event (up to 255!)

RANDOMIZE can be added to the locations of any event created units or to the number of units created or to the length of delay of any event

Plus lots more. All of these are easy to use and don't require knowledge of masks and flags. You just have to do your events manually, which is really not very hard if you just cut and paste.

[techumseh]

Originally posted by curtsibling


Good stuff!

Here is a question: Do you know the order of civs and which colour they are?

Is civ0, the white civ (Russians/Celts/Romans), and civ1 the green civ (Japanese/Babs/Zulus)?

This mask will be a life saver!

It's "reverse programmer notation": the one on the far right is the white civ, then green, and so on up to the red (barbarian) on the far left.

[Heresson]

Originally posted by curtsibling

1. Graphics... 24-bit Bmps, meaning super cool-looking units, icons and cities. Even interfaces!

uh... by that You want to say there are more colours available, or something more?

2. Events... Massive 100kb file to fill with events. Also many new event commands.

What are the new commands types?

3. Sounds... Each unit can be given it's own stereo sound. No more messing around.

This I could appreciate indeed

4. Terrain... Multi-tiled terrain

What does it mean?

[quote]
5. Units...20 extra units! And they face left or right depending on what way you move them.
(you can even use a program by Merc to move them 8 x directions!)

Bueh, more work

Imagine how tasty your Mamluks scen would be in ToT!

The problem is that hardly anyone plays my scns anyway.
And they say ToT players are far less numerable - and they can play it if I make it in ToT...

Now that I've used You, I must say I recalled that though I do not have the disc anymore, I do have the book that went with it...
But I do not have it here, anyway.

Tomorrow, I'll try to phone the guys I might have lent that disc to.
But they may not remember it... It was several years ago.
And they may be upset that I accuse them of keeping my stuff...
I;ll try to buy a new one

[Catfish]

Re: "Tribe may build" mask.
Bloody 'ell, what a mess! As Techumseh said, the mask is in reverse programmer notation, so Fairline's example above is incorrect – but so is Techumseh's. I explained this recently in another thread; I'm lazy, so I'll quote:

Originally posted by Catfish
The values are reverse programmer notation which means you read them from right to left. There are 8 flags, one for each civ, starting with civ 0 (barbarians). 1 = can build, 0 = can't build. In the example below, only civs 1, 6 and 7 would be able to build that unit – even if all civs possessed its prerequisite tech. If the human player can't build a particular unit you will see a red "You cannot build this unit" displayed in the Civilopedia description. Look in the Original game rules and you can see that everyone can build everything – as you'd expect.

@UNITS_ADVANCED
11000010, ...

So just to be clear: Civ0 (rightmost, barbarians), Civ1 (2nd from the right, Romans/Russians/Celts),… Civ7 (leftmost, Indians/Mongols/Sioux).

Originally posted by Heresson
Mountain units aren't bad. Actually, I like them, because of zones of control thing they have; You can make more with it than just with an impassable ground

But in ToT at least you have a choice. The ZOCs are a pain in the arse most of the time.

Originally posted by Heresson
uh... by that You want to say there are more colours available, or something more?

Yes. ToT renders its graphics in 16-bit colour (HiColor) - it can read 24-bit (TrueColor) bitmaps. The game's colour depth, however, is really effectively 15-bit, because the last bit is used as a mask indicator, eg, team colours. Theoretically, this gives you 5 bits per colour channel (RGB) or 2⁵ x 2⁵ x 2⁵ = 32 768 colours, as opposed to the 192 available colours (out of 256) in the standard 8-bit Civ2 palette. However, Mercator, who has worked closely with ToT's sprite format (and BTW is responsible for teaching me all about ToT's colour format ), has indicated that due to ToT's unusual palette, visually it more closely approximates 12-bit. Clear as mud?

Originally posted by Heresson
What are the new commands types?

It's laid out in the macro.txt document (attached).

Originally posted by Heresson
What does it mean?

It means that there are 3 variations of tile graphic for each terrain type, as opposed to only one in the older versions. It just helps to reduce the level of uniformity.

BTW, Curt/Fairline, nice ToT units you've been cranking out over the last month or so. I can retire now.