"Tunnels" in the Original game - Beta-testers required.

[Kestrel]

I have revised and extended my "3-D" Original-game Scenario to allow the construction of Tunnels under the earth (as well as keeping the pre-existing features from before like truly submersible subs, Sea-mines, aircraft that can reach the Stratosphere and an Orbital realm - See also the previous post entitled "New ToT Earth, Sea, Air , Orbit Scenario." ).

The "Tunnels" feature means that where continents adjoin (where they share a common continental shelf) then "Tunnels" can be built to link them once "Tunnel Engineering" has been discovered, without the need for Sea Transport to move Units from island to island.

Tunnels can also be used to bypass enemy fortifications, or to protect Units from Ground and Air attack.

Underground cities can also be built in the tunnels, but getting sufficient food is a problem (setting up trade routes with your surface cities helps).

I have prepared a few random-start scenarios with maps in synch.

Who wants to Beta-Test ?

Post Here or E-Mail me.

Kestrel18@bigpond.com

[Kestrel]

Scenario / Modpack updated (minor bug fix)

Web-site also updated.

[MGamer07]

I'll beta-test. Send it to: MGamer07@yahoo.com

Also, how did you get five maps?
[This message has been edited by MGamer07 (edited July 26, 2000).]

[Kestrel]

Mgamer07,

I have sent you the relevant URLs. Let me know if you have trouble picking up the relevant files.

Actually there are still only 4 maps or 'realms'. The first image on the web-site for that scenario attempts to show (probably not all that well) the concept of the 3-D action I have tried to build into the game (as possible within the constraints of the hard-coding in the Civ2 program).

Regards,

Kestrel18

[MGamer07]

Okay, I got the files yesterday, but I'm still early in the game and not anywhere near researching tunnels yet though. Nice scenario! I never played your first one because I had trouble with downloading it (I think it was a fault in my file downloader, Go!Zilla). But I have found a few faults, all but one extremly minor that don't affect gameplay.

1.Spelling error in the describe for Printing Press "Chinese in the 11th Century whoi invented"

2. Are the sprites supposed to exactly match the units? The unit I especially notice is the mounted legion, when ever it's turn is done, the unit reverts to the non-sprite picture, or the guy sitting on the horse turns red.

3. This is the only one that's really important: Do all of the civs get a major advance in the beginning? I played as the Romans, and got republic when I first started (I didn't even select to research it, it just said that I discovered it). I'm not sure if other civs had it or not. Is this specific to the romans so the game will be historically accurate? Because if it's just the romans, and everyone else gets the regular planned tech tree, it would give me a big advantage as romans (I've only found one civ so far, so I don't know).

Otherwise, so far, good job. But I have one other question: how can you scenario be Earth, Sea, Air , Orbit, and underground? When you said "sea" I assumed that you put in the underwater texture set and so on from the fantasy game. I also assumed that the tunnels would work like teleporters, except on the same world. I think having a real underwater would be a great idea for your next version. You could make units like submarines and special transports to go under, and then make them invisible until attack (Cannot be sensed by radar) so you can have suprise naval attacks on your enemy.


[This message has been edited by MGamer07 (edited July 28, 2000).]

[Kestrel]

MGamer07,

Thanks for the feedback.

I'll try to answer your queries as best I can.

1. Thanks, I'll fix it. It probably isn't the last such error lurking in there.

2. The sprites are supposed to exactly match the units, except that they sometimes display the Civ's colours when active. Colours aside, does the form of the Mounted Legion (the comitensis) match in the Active and non-active phase ? If not, it's possible I have copied in the wrong sprite, I'll check.

3. Every Civ should get a decent advance soon after startup, but each gets a different advance I think. That's basically just the way the Civ game sets it up when you select "Advanced Start". However I'll check the balance tonight.

4. Subs and Sea-Mines (but not U-Boats) CAN head into (teleport to) the Undersea (Deep Ocean) region. (In the LABELS.txt I've renamed that transition to submerge/surface, but it won't appear on the menu as such unless the labels.txt file is copied to the Original folder) The Modpack/Scenario should in fact be properly named Unit-Mania-3D-Earth-Underground/Undersea-Stratosphere-Orbit but I figured that such a title was too much of a mouthful. There currently aren't any Sea Units that can head to the undersea (deep ocean) and carry Land Units because I didn't want those Land Units sneaking into the Tunnels from the Subs. U-Boats, however, can carry units relatively covertly as they have the Sub Adv/Disadv flag set (think of them as skimming under the surface of the ocean).

5. 'Tunnel Entrances' do / should work like teleporters (they look like a big hole in the ground) but 'tunnels' per se are merely a terrain type of the underworld (the only terrain type apart from Deep Ocean which is not set to "impassable")

I've tried not to use the "invisible until attack" option too much because it makes the units too powerful (particularly sea units). Instead, I allow subs to hide in the deep ocean and to surface to pick off enemy naval units, but there is the balanced danger of the sub getting caught over the top of the continental shelf and not being able to submerge deep to escape...

(I *have* set up the Stealth aircraft as truly "Stealthy" (Invisible until attack), but as they are airborne for only a short time, this is only of advantage to the Stealth bomber when it is on a reconnaissance mission. Still a good reason to build them though.)

ATTENTION : For Others seeking a copy of this scenario, note that the current zip for this scenario on my web-site appears to be defective (it cannot be unzipped). I think that I must have run out of room on my web-site half-way thru the most recent upload (this morning my time). (not only was I late for work but my upload failed miserably). I'll clean up a little, make some room and again upload the latest version tonight my time, so hold off from downloading this scenario from now until 8 a.m. Friday 28 July 2000, U.S. East coast time.

Hope that answers most questions

Regards....

[Kestrel]

Whoops - Double Post - Nothing is working as it should for me today...
[This message has been edited by Kestrel (edited July 27, 2000).]

[Kestrel]

Fixed it.

Uncorrupted Scenario zip file now available at : http://www.users.bigpond.com/kestrel18/

[MGamer07]

Oops, double post, read the next one.
[This message has been edited by MGamer07 (edited July 28, 2000).]

[MGamer07]

Okay, regarding the sprite problem: The Mounted Legion is displayed as a graphic that looks like the crusaders unit in the city screen and when they're not moving. The same thing happens to the knights, they move, then they revert to the games original knights. And about the color thing, the mounted legion was showing colors, yes, but not mine. I think he was showing my colors (Gray) while moving, and then when he stopped he changed to the default colors.

Anyways, I set the diffuclty level higher than I'm used to while I was the romans, and got killed in the 1700's. It was weird, because for awhile, I had the most technology and most advanced units, but then suddenly I found out that once my enemies started attacking me, they learned all about gunpowder pretty quickly.

I started over again as the Greeks on my regular diffuclty level, and this time I'm using a different stratagie than my usual build three cities, conquer the rest stratagie. This time, I've already got 5 cities in 1960 BC, and will soon be making more.

That's it, cya

[Spirit]

Some more sprite errors:

The HEO fighter reverts to the Chon-ee graphic at any end of turn,
the Shuttle to the Mupbu and
the Recon unit to the Benthon.

(Names taken from the extnd. org. game, see poster for graphics.)

One more remark, before I'm off for 2 weeks,
what about changing the orbital platforms map to a "the moon map" instead? This would slightly increases reality as far as I'm concerned, although you´ll need to alter a couple of units in that case.

Nice scenario BTW!

[MGamer07]

Another sprite error: the tunneler unit turns into a settler.

About the describe spelling errors: I'm not going to report every single one, but I've found many and still haven't discovered even 3/4 of the techs and units. I suggest you move all of the text over to a program like word that has a spell check, use it, and then move them back.

Also, i just got the tunneller unit. I think that it is a problem that it takes so long to build tunnels, and that there aren't many there naturally (Actually I haven't found any, but i've only been under in a few areas, so I can't assume that there's not.

And about sea mines, is there a way to make them explode when a unit passes by over head, therefore hurting the unit with out it knowing whats coming?

Cya,
MGamer07

[Kestrel]

MGamer07 & Spirit,

Regards the static sprites not displaying correctky problem...

Hmmm... The Sprites appear to be displaying correctly in my setup, so there must be something different between the way my files and folders are configured and yours.

This leads me to wonder ...

Have you renamed (or moved) your static.spr file in your Original directory ?

In order to get the various sprites to display correctly whether active or not you may need to do this.

From the description of the symptoms, this might be the problem.

Hint from John Possidente from Microprose in order to get the Units in the
Units.bmp to appear properly :

"The pictures in units.bmp are used in the Civilopedia and the build selection menu,
but evidently nowhere else; as long as the game can find the animation files,
it uses the first frame of each as the icon for the unit. These animation files,
one for each unit, provide the animations--movement, attack, dying, and so on.

The first frame of each animation file is also used, in many places, as the static icon
for the unit. So, you can change things in units.bmp, but never see them in the game,
except in odd places like the production choice menu. "

"The static frame is first looked for in static.spr if there is no static.spr then it
should look to the units.bmp file. To fix this, you must go out into the game directory
and rename the unit##.spr file for every unit that you made a new image for.

In addition to renaming the unit*.spr files so they are not used you will have to rename
the static.spr file in each directory as well so your static frames fall back to the
units.bmp file. That hides the unit animation, and the first-frame-static-image altogether
so the game falls back on the units.bmp icon for the unit. That way, you can keep the
existing units animated and still stick in your own."

[Kestrel]

Spelling mistakes in Describe.txt corrected.

(but also spelling changed in part to "British/Australian" standard from "U.S." standard).

Web-site updated.

MGamer07 - Re Your Question "about sea mines, is there a way to make them explode when a unit passes by over head, therefore hurting the unit with out it knowing what's coming ?" - Alas, not that I know of. But if you can come up with a way I'd be most interested.

Re Your Question/Note on Tunnels "I think that it is a problem that it takes so long to build tunnels, and that there aren't many there naturally (Actually I haven't found any, but I've only been under in a few areas, so I can't assume that there's not.)"

I could tweak the parameters re: time to build tunnels, it is currently set so that "Clay" to "Tunnel" takes 3 turns, "Mudstone" to "Tunnel" takes 4 turns, "Permafrost" to "Tunnel" takes 6 turns. But bear in mind that the Tunnelling unit get double movement point so this time is halved. These times are on a par with the time to irrigate,(and if you think about it, the former (tunnelling) is likely to be more difficult than the latter (Irrigating)).

However feel free to tweak the parameters however you reckon.

In the maps from which I have derived the Scenarios there are natural tunnels around (they tend to be near or under watercourses) but it would also be possible for anyone to use the files from this Scenario as a modpack and thus build their own maps with as many or as few tunnels as desired. (You would need the Civ2 Map Editor though). I can't remember if I put a guide on how to do this in the Read-me or not.

Spirit - I could release a version that has a Moon map/Moon Terrain, although I use the Moon in the "Escape-from-SOL" scenario I knocked up some months ago. If I get time (and if it doesn't result in divorce with my wife) I might have a crack at knocking out such a version - it won't take too long as I have all the stuff ready to cut & paste in. My problem is where to put it as I am limited with my ISP to a mere 10 Mb on my web-site. If you want I could E-Mail a patch version to you with "Moon" instead of "Orbit" (all other things being equal) and you can let me know if it works for you or not.

Also, let me know if deleting the Static.spr from your Original directory eliminates the wrong Unit Icon problem or no.

Enjoy.
[This message has been edited by Kestrel (edited July 31, 2000).]

[DJ]

Oh yeah, I corrected your rules files as well! I made SDI impossible to build since now the people can run to their tunnels and earth can have fun testing their nuclear powers... What better way to expose your love on the world.