Techumseh's ToT Mod

[techumseh]

I've been working on a mod for the Test of Time Original game. There are some new units with new stats, and unit art is updated. There are three sets of unit art: British (orange, yellow, lt blue and red), German (dk blue and green), and Russian (white and purple). Terrain and city art are updated, using Fairline's unit art for the most part, and Curt's cities. Terrain is a combination of Catfish's and my own.

Mountain and glacier terrain are made impassible, except for Explorers and Mountain units.

Otherwise, it's mostly familiar - no changes to city improvements or wonders, and no real changes to the tech tree (except for some unit pre-reqs) - so far.

The main objective is to break down the development of units into historical periods, as opposed to the current situation where you might have an infantry unit of one period, with a cavalry unit of another, and an artillery unit of another period altogether. The periods are: ancient, medieval-renaissance, Napoleonic, Steam Age, and WWII-modern.

Many unit stats are changed to reflect historical realities, eg. the phalanx is the main offensive unit until the legion.

I'll post more on this later if there's some interest.

[typhoon]

There's interest.

[EZRhino]

Definitely there's interest. Sounds like a fun project!

[GhostOfDisco]

This should be interesting...

[Arthedain]

Ditto!

Sorry for the OT, but speaking of ToT mods. Shouldnät one be able to make one cimilar to CTP (Call to Power) and by that I mean being able to build under the sea and in space like in that game. And speaking of CTP, boy was that a dissappointment.

[McMonkey]

Very much interest from me too. I have been playing a modified MGE game (extra units and new graphics) that I put together with a friend at work this weekend. To see an even more improved version for ToT would be great.

In our game we played at Deity level and the AI still had some Phalanx units in the late eighteen hundreds! It would be great to see a version that was more realistic in the unit area. I used up the extra unit spaces with Horse Archers, Machineguns and such units. ToT would allow even more scope for expansion.

One aspect I have altered but not tested yet is the attack/expand/civilize settings. I have worked out that the best setting for the AI (in my opinion) would be -1 rational, 1 expansionist, 0 civilized/militaristic. By setting the attack value to -1 rational I hoped to compensate a little for the aggressive MGE/ToT AI. Nations that are set as -1 perfectionist tend to build only a few cities and cannot compete effectively. Expansionist Civs seem to build strong empires and will even spread to new continents. By setting the civilize setting to 0 I would hope the AI's will pursue a balanced tech research regime. I have set all of the AI nations to -1/1/0 and I will try it out again and see how they do.

Go for it Tech

[techumseh]

That sounds encouraging. I was thinking of posting it on the SLwiki, with the idea that it could be changed or added to by others. Sort of an "open source" project. There's lots left to do - extra techs, icons, people. Some sort of events file might be possible too.

Here are some screenies to whet your appetite.

1. British attack on India in WWII era.
2. France and the Celts tangle in the Renaissance.
3. An ancient free-for-all.
4. Babylon overruns Rome in the endgame.

[techumseh]

These are the common units. The main changes are as follows:

1. Ancient units are weaker, so they are no longer competetive with medieval units. Horsemen are now 1 on the attack, reflecting the poor combat power of horse before the invention of the stirrup. The phalanx is now an offensive unit, with a 2 AF, it's the main offensive unit until the legion. The archer replaces it as the primary defensive unit.

2. Researching gunpowder now allows arquebussiers to be built, along with cannon. They are a good offensive unit, but weak in the defense so they need to be protected with pikes -an attempt to recreate the tactics of the English Civil War and the 30 Years War.

3. Since Mountain units appear at the same time as Cavalry, they are represented by a mid-19th century Austrian jaeger. Since they alone (exception: Explorer) can enter mountain terrain, I've made 2 changes so they aren't completely invulnerable to attack. First, the defense factor is reduced to 3, and second, mountain terrain is now only doubled, not tripled. Mountain units can now be successfully attacked in mountain terrain by other mountain units. It remains to be seen if the AI will build them with the new stats.

4. Jet propulsion replaces 'Stealth'. Unfortunately, there weren't enough slots to provide English and Russian jets, so I used WWII German jets as a common unit.

[techumseh]

These are the 3 streams of dedicated units; English, German and Russian.

1. Cannon appear with Gunpowder, along with Arquebussiers. They remain the only artillery unit through the Renaissance, Napoleonic and Civil War periods, gradually decreasing in effectiveness as infantry increases in defense capability. Sieges become progressively more difficult.

2. Musketeers now appear with the discovery of Leadership, along with Dragoons.

3. There are now three aircraft eras: The Flight tech allows biplane fighters and Zeppelins. Biplane bombers appear with the discovery of Radio. Advanced Flight permits monoplane fighters and bombers, along with Aircraft Carriers. Jet Propulsion (Stealth) allows jet fighters and bombers to be built.

4. The British and Russians use the same unit for Mech. Inf. Ironically, it's the American White Half-track.

[McMonkey]

Sounds really well thought through. I look forward to playing this.

Attached is the units file I made for my expanded MGE version. Obviously the units are generic ones. Here are their stats:

Horse Archer, Ldr, 0, 2.,0, 4a,1d, 1h,1f, 3,0, 0, Tra, 000000000000011
Cataphract, Ldr, 0, 2.,0, 3a,3d, 1h,1f, 4,0, 0, Feu, 000010000000000
Arquebusier, Gun, 0, 1.,0, 2a,2d, 1h,2f, 3,0, 1, Inv, 000000000000000
Man-at-Arms, Gun, 0, 1.,0, 3a,2d, 2h,1f, 4,0, 0, Chi, 000000000000000
Crossbowman, Gun, 0, 1.,0, 2a,3d, 1h,1f, 4,0, 1, Eng, 000010000000000
War Galley, Mag, 2, 3.,0, 3a,2d, 1h,1f, 4,1, 2, Sea, 000000000100000
Three Decker, E1, 2, 4.,0, 4a,3d, 2h,1f, 6,2, 2, Eco, 000000000000000
Biplane, Rad, 1, 8.,1, 2a,1d, 2h,2f, 5,0, 3, Fli, 000000000010001
Machinegun, Lab, 0, 1.,0, 3a,6d, 3h,1f, 5,0, 1, Ind, 000010000000000
Tank, Mob, 0, 2.,0, 8a,4d, 3h,1f, 7,0, 0, Aut, 000000000000000
Infantry, nil, 0, 1.,0, 5a,5d, 2h,1f, 4,0, 0, Cmn, 000000000000000

I am considering replacing the Cataphract with the Hoplite unit which will arrive with Bronze Working. The Phalanx will then represent the later Hellenic Sarissa armed unit and will arrive between the Hoplite and Legion. Just some ideas.

One other thing about the original game that I find hit and miss are the randomly generated maps. Sometimes you can get something fairly decent with a good mix of islands, continents etc... Other times the maps are a real mess and you begin in a remote northern tundra with nowhere nearby to found your kingdom. When this happens I will normally begin again. I know for some players this might be part of the appeal of the game, part of the challenge, but for me it is just too random.

How about we create a series of pre checked maps to include with the file. They would still be randomly generated by the game engine but checked in cheat mode to see if they look OK then saved as MAP1, MAP 2, MAP 3 and so on... When you begin a new game you can pick one of these pre checked maps at random and you will should be guaranteed a more sensible game.

[techumseh]

Looks good, Drew. Does the AI build all of the new units and use them appropriately? I tried a "Swordfish" torpedo plane by giving it the sub flag. But although the AI built lots, they didn't attack ships (or anything), just parked next to my cities until I shot them down.

I'm not sure how we could make the selection of pre-made maps random.

[McMonkey]

All of the units I added have pretty conventional stats and the AI has been building most of them up to the nineteen-hundreds where I am currently up to. They made particularly good use of the Horse Archers on a couple of occasions.

Regarding the pre-made maps, we would just generate a random map as usual but then open it with the cheat menu to see if it looks interesting and well balanced. If it looks OK then we save it as MAP1 etc... and put it into the folder. If it looks naff we just begin a new random map. When a player begins a game they can chose to play on a pre-made world and pick a map from the list at random. The next time they play they just pick another map number. If we had about 50 maps that should be enough to keep people going. We could include large maps, small maps, continent maps and so on.

I hate putting in hours of effort into a game only to find out that the map is terrible, however it spoils things a little if I open the cheat mode to take a very quick peak at the overall map shape. The method I have outlined would solve this problem for me. Perhaps this isn't a problem for other players though. Just an idea

[curtsibling]

Wow - Looks cool!
Can't wait to try this mod out...

But if I could be so bold as to make a suggestion or two...

Mostly unit-related...
*There is a more up to date airship by fairline kicking around, I can post it if you want.
*The half-track for the Russians I would replace with the Austin-Pulitov by fairline.
*I would make the jet aircraft generic - The Me 1101 and Arado 555 models are suitable.
(I can post these.)
*What happens when a non Brit/Russian/German civ is selected? EG: Do French end up with German units?

It would be awesome to do a batch file, and create a unit list for each player civ...
Keeping the other civ's unit list generic...Just an idea!

Great work, Tech - Another classic on the way, I think!

[techumseh]

Appreciate the comments, Curt. I would like the units, thanks. I'd keep the White half-track, for a couple of reasons: it gives a consistent WWII look at this point in the tech-tree, and a unit slot was saved by having the British and Russians share the Mech. Inf. unit.

Yes, these three styles are standard, each for all civilizations of 2 or more colors. It was a compromise between the number of styles, and the number of dedicated units. In the end, I cut the number of styles down to three in order to get 13 dedicated unit slots for each style.

Your idea would provide a great variation, although it would be impossible to do a historic set for all civs - what tank would the Aztecs use, for example? I think another set of units, for say, the Japanese, French and Americans is doable.

What do you think of the idea to post this as an open source type project on the SL site?

[McMonkey]

My approach to the nations in my mod was to group them under several larger umbrella nations such as SLAVS, ARABS, GREEKS, LATINS, AFRICANS, ANGLO-SAXONS, NORSE, ASIANS etc... One thing I have never liked about the original game is seeing Americans in the ancient world or Carthaginian spaceships. My method also gives a more inclusive representation of the world as a whole. For example the Arab nation can include both modern capitals such as Cairo and Algiers as well as ancient ones like Persepolis and Babylon without looking too weird. Of course by grouping them in this way you create new headaches for yourself. For example Persians are not Arabs but their cities are grouped together. I think overall this system, with some tweaking, could represent the majority of the worlds major cultures in a more logical way than the original.

Again this is just my own personal preference. Feel free to ignore the idea if you think its unnecessary