Ctp Competition Rule Discussion..

[Swissy]

I thought everyone wanted a test under the toughest settings. That is why there was such a demand for 1 settler and 100 gold. If you want a real test, leave pollution on. The contest is to see who the best player is, not who can generate the most production. If you have no pirating and no pollution these games will turn into production fests.

[yoda]

Pollution Problem

Originally posted by Swissy
I thought everyone wanted a test under the toughest settings. That is why there was such a demand for 1 settler and 100 gold. If you want a real test, leave pollution on. The contest is to see who the best player is, not who can generate the most production. If you have no pirating and no pollution these games will turn into production fests.

Problem is, if one player were to control his pollution problem, but the other doesn't... BOTH get nuked by the disasters. The effects hit the planet, not the player. Therefore, it ends up being whoever can produce the most before their ground gets destroyed. So, either way it's a production fest. I don't mind playing with pollution on, but the point I'm trying to make is what type of end game do we want to have? Players struggling to survive on a black rock or players using their skills to win either by the space race or by military conquest? If we could somehow eliminate the disasters but leave pollution in play, that would be the best possible result. Anyone who suggests that you can play through a series of disasters obviously hasn't played with them yet!

yoda

[yoda]

Tech Problem

Ok, someone PLEASE tell me that they have tested the map in MP and it works. I just tried it with Paul and ran into a wall. Tech would not advance past ancient age. In other words, no Ren. age tech would come up for selection and eventually you run out of tech to learn.

I sure hope this can be fixed...

yoda

[Swissy]

Looks bad

Ran into same tech wall that Yoda did. Seems that the game belives the tech setings are ancient max. I do not know how to get past this. If there is no solution to this problem we are dead in the water.

Here is the save if you want to look. I was just cranking out settlers and burning turns to see if Yoda was right.

[Gavrushka]

We will be playing (me and quinns ) in 2 hours - come to the lobby and we will drop out at 4:00 with update (london time)

[J Bytheway]

The simple solution is to modify advance.txt so that every advance is an ancient one. (You can tell I'm a modder, I always come up with solutions like this ).

I presume that this problem only occurs in internet games since Yoda's hotseat test got to the modern age.

[Gavrushka]

I suggest we wait until me and Quinns test it?

We will break and post as game develops.

[Swissy]

JB's work-around works

You must put a copy of the default and the language file (English, Spanish, German), and place it into the competition scenario folder. Here is the modified Advance.txt file. Place it into the default folder. I played two cities until 2000AD and had made genetic.

[J Bytheway]

You make it sound like you put a copy of all of the englsh and default folders in the scenario directory. Is that the case? It should be sufficient to have just the modified version of advance.txt in scenarios\Comp2\default\gamedata\ - you shouldn't need copies of unchanged files.

[Swissy]

I just set it up like the Apolyton Pack that I already had in the scenario folder. Try it the other way, this way I know works.

[yoda]

modification option

If the advance.txt works, great. But I was just wondering... If the game has a setting for tech level (ie: ancient to diamond), isn't there a modification file that we can use to force the scenario to accept those ages for tech? It sure would be nice if we could get the "warnings" that someone has enterred a new age. It's one of the best ways to compare before the people meet.

yoda

[J Bytheway]

I have never come across anything which could exclude ages, and I have no idea what could have caused the bug you were observing. It didn't happen in your hotseat game, presumably, so it must be linked to internet games. It's very wierd...

If you want the messages I could probably write some SLIC to simulate them. Shouldn't be too hard.

[Swissy]

The messages come across fine. The age messages are tied to the completion of certain advances or combination of advances. I received the ren, modern and genetic message icons when I completed the right advances.

[yoda]

Pollution

I just looked at the default modification files. They have one for pollution. I suspect we could simply make the disaster settings ridiculously high so that we can play with pollution without having to have disasters. This might be the best solution for this problem if it works.

[J Bytheway]

Swissy: Of course - *slaps forehead* - I forgot the messages were tied to advances as listed in age.txt, not the ages in advance.txt. Thanks for reminding me.

Yoda: That would work, but... I don't know. I always thought of pollution as the last weapon of the losing nation - "stop attacks now or I destroy the world!" (evil laughter).