Introducing the Medieval Pack II

[WesW]

From what games I have played, cities in rough terrain didn't grow well at all without help, unless they had beaches to support them. We'll see...

As you may or may not know, the const.txt contains all kinds of flags for map creation, slider settings, unit bonuses, city settings, bombard and pollution settings and effects, plus all the special attack settings.
The flags are placed in an almost random order, however. So, I just spent about 30 min. grouping them in four general areas:
1)Map creation
2)Unit, city and pollution
3)Special attack
4)Unused ctp1 flags

I will post the file soon at my website. I have made some changes to bring the file in line with the Med mod I, but I think any mod-maker would be happy to use this file, since it makes finding things much easier.

Also, I have made it possible for Spies and Cyber Ninjas to Sue and be Sued, and for Clerics, Abolishionists, and Slavers to be Sued.
This gives you a way of killing those units without going to war with their owning nation. I wish I had thought of this a long time ago.

Sorry, colorme, but I don't know how to do any hacking.
I tried to tackle some of the same problems you mentioned in that thread in ctp1, with limited success. About all you can do is play with the "goals" settings in the strategies.txt. That should have some effect.
Also, I am re-working the AI's unit build lists, which has a lot to do with what units the AI is producing (or not producing).
As bad as it seems, if you could watch the ai moves in any of the Sid games, I bet you would see the same types of things, if not worse. I know that the AIs do a much, much better job of growing and developing their cities, and from my limited perusing of the diplomatic files, it seems that those are pretty involved as well.
In playing and now searching the text files in depth, I can see that the people at Activision were not wasting their time since the release of Ctp1. Whether they were given all the manpower and resources that they needed might be up for discussion, however.

[Elucidus]

Well, I believe city sizes are controlled by files named citysize1.txt thru citysize5.txt. I don't know what any of them do or any differences they have, maybe each one is for a different difficulty, I don't know. They may not even play a role, although I think they do. I may play with this file later, but haven't as of yet. I just thought I would share this little tid-bit of info in case anyone missed/overlooked it.

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Yours in gaming,
~Elucidus

[colorme]

Wes,

Thanks. As long as there are guys like you, there is hope for a better CTP2 .

I think we should stop comparing CTP2 with Civ2 though. CTP1 was good (in my view), but CTP2 doesn't offer anything substantial beyond CTP1. OK correction: it offers substantial things like mayors, but I don't think these could have been too hard to implement.

Better AI IS harder to implement, and there doesn't seem to be any change in CTP2 over CTP1, in that respect.

[Diodorus Sicilus]

Depp and anyone else interested...
I'm playing a couple of test game setups now with the following modifications to the game.
First, in the terrain values that Wes posted at the beginning of this thread, I changed to the following:
Terrain Food-Prod-Gold
Grassland 10----5---5
Plains ---10---10---5
Forest---- 5---15---5
Jungle--- 5---10---5
Desert---- 0---10---5
Swamp--- 0----5---5
Hill---------5---10---5
Sand Dune--0---10---5
Polar Hill---0---10---5
Mountain---0---15---5
Brown Mtn--0---15---5
Polar Mtn--0---15---5
Tundra-----5----5---0
Glacier----0----0---0
Beach----- 5---0---10
Shallow---10---0---10
Shelf-----10---5---10
Trench-----5--10---10
Kelp------10---0---10
Reef------10---5---10
Deep Water10---0---10
Volcano---10--20---10
Rift-------5--20----5
Special1--15---5----5
Special2------------5
Basically, I reduced the amount of food from a 'raw' tile in Grassland, Jungle, Swamp, Beach. Then I increased the Food added by Farms, Advanced Farms, Nets, Fisheries by +5 each. In a nutshell, to get the same food and population increase as before you now have to improve the tiles with PW. In addition, I jacked the effect of the Food Silo improvement (comes with Railroad) to +25 Food instead of +15. I haven't played that far yet, but I hope the result will be a near-historical "surge" of size in cities with the railroads.
In combat, the only change I've made is to give the Longship an attack factor of 10 instead of 0 and to increase the effect of City Wall from +15 defense to +25. I would love to introduce the Legion and a Chariot or Light Cavalry Flanker unit for early in the game and slow down the introduction of Knights and the Renaissance advances in general, but that will require more work than I have time for right now - I'm working all this coming weekend, and introducing the 4-7 new tech Advances in the Ancient -Renaissance era plus new units will take some time to do right.
On a completely different note, has anyone else noticed an alternative 'resource' buried in the game? There's a Sprite GUO1.SPR described as "cattle" which was apparently left out of both CtPI and CtPII. This would make an interesting variant - a Tile Improvement which provides Food and Gold in the same PW element. Since cattle were considered money (the first metal ingots were cast in the shape of a stretched cowhide) this could be introduced early, say, by returning 'Domestication' to the tech tree. The trick would be to provide a boost to terrain values lowered even further from my current test totals, but the totals from Cattle would be less than what you could get later from Farms, Mines, Trading Posts and such separately.
Another Hidden Goodie in CtPII: in the ColorsOO.txt file in gamedata/dfault there is a listing of codes for color sets for Players numbered 0 thru 16 - a total (potentially) of 17 civs (or 16 if, as I suspect, one of them is Barbarians). Wes or somebody with more experience with tweaking the internals, is this a clue as to the real limits to the number of civs we can pack onto a single map?
What intrigues me is the idea that there may be 'extra' civ colors built into the game already, just waiting to be used. In playing CtPI with the CD mod I had several games in which at least one civ was wiped out by barbarians (which, incidentally, NEVER happened in an unmodified CtPI game). Is there some way to take that process one step further? That is, after X turns in which a city has been controlled by Barbarians, it changes color and becomes a new civilization with, perhaps, the tech the original city's civ had plus some random tech (supposedly) picked up by the barbarian tribes as they traveled. This would, it seems to me, add a very interesting set of variables to the game: you would not be faced by the same opponents throughout a long game, but might suddenly find that peaceable green neighborly state replaced by a bunch of expansionist fuschia fanatics! I noticed a list of 'barbarian city' names and barbarian leader data in the txt files already, so some thought was given somewhere in the design process to having a much more 'player-like' Barbarian presence, but they apparently never followed through with it.

[Alpha Wolf]

If I might add my 2 cents on terrain values. I would make all water squares 10f-0p-5g, but jack up the benefits of tile improvements for production, i mean what exactly do you get out of water except water and sand? grasslands should still the most productive food source at 15f-0p-0g. the reason its so productive is because the soil is good ole black nutrious dirt, and not part clay or partially dried out like the plains. No matter what the desert type, it should produce no food until improved. And white hills and white mountians should take a 5p reduction to account for the difficulty in working in the cold. Plus from my experience from visiting New Orleans, they get a ton of different foods from the swamps so I'd give it at least a 5f. I played these values in CtP1 and liked the growth rates of my cities as being more in line with reality.
Although with the new production model used in CtP2, all this may be moot.

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History is written by the victor.

[Big Dave]

Wes,
When you're tinkering with the Happiness value don't forget that cities need to be further apart in CTP2 than they did in C:CTP.
Respectfully,

------------------
Big Dave

Do the Vatican police speak Pig Latin?

[Joseph]

Wes
When you build an Advanced Farms on grassland or plains you receive + 20 food.
However if you want to build a Trading Post, Outlet Mall, or Nature Preserve you loose the + 20 food. So the question is could you retore the +20 food to Trading Post, Ourlet Mall or Nature Preserve and I almost forgot the Airport? If not can someone tell me were I can change it in my game?

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[This message has been edited by Joseph (edited November 29, 2000).]

[Paulypav]

I'm still waiting to get the game for X-Mas.

Actually, not such a bad thing since I have lots of school work to do. I'm very excited that there may be versions of Wes' mod before I get the game.

If explosive city growth is the problem everyone says it is I would appreciate a mod that reduces the base values for tiles and increases the strength of tile improvements. Is there a way to reduce the value of the city tile and thus reduce ICS? I don't think it was possible in CTP 1, so I imagine it would be difficult for CTP 2 as well.

Thanks to all the players out there who are working hard on modifications.

------------------
“The American people have now spoken, but it’s going to take a little while to determine exactly what
they said.” — President Clinton

[Alpha Wolf]

changing the city values was easy in CtP. In the terrain.txt, until each terrain was a bonus for the city. I had modified mine so that cities in the mountains only got an extra 5f, and desert and snow cities got 0f. I havent delved into the CtP2 files yet, but thats were I'd look first.

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History is written by the victor.

[WesW]

Diodorus' terrain and improvement changes look very interesting. There is also another thing you can try as well. In const.txt, there is a setting for the amount of food that must be stored before the pop increases. By default it is 175 times the current pop. I am not 'sure' if it is still active in ctp2, but I would think so.

I have thought about changing the city bonus, but I figured it was necessary to get the city going, especially on rough terrain.

Joseph, you can only have one 'standard' improvement (food, prod or commerce), and one 'special' improvement (airport, lookout tower, etc.).

Btw, the risks.txt, which sets goody hut gifts and Barbarian appearances, is exactly the same as in ctp1, so I have simply dropped the risks.txt from the Med mod into the Med mod II.
There is also a flag in the diffDB pertaining to the max advance you can get from a hut, but I haven't experimented with it.

In the strategies.txt, Barbarians are listed with the same flags as all the other personalities, so you can make them whatever you want them to be.
I have made a few changes to them to get them to garrison their cities, for example.
There was also a line in the userprofile.txt in ctp1 that you could set to make new, regular civ whenever a city revolts, rather than Barbarians. I don't know what to do about giving them the old civ's techs, however.

I have had some trouble implementing Harlan's Graphics mod into the Med mod II. The file setup is slightly different in ctp1 and ctp2 when it comes to the ages and building styles, and I can't figure out how to implement the city graphics. If anyone can figure this out, it would be a big help.

I have been working on implementing the new units into the mod, 26 new units in all. Below is a list of them, with where they came from, and their ctp2 name, followed by their sprite's number. The list will be hard to read here, but when I post the file, it will make sense.

Old name New name
------------ ------------

Inserted Ctp1 units SpriteID no.
-----------------------------------------
1)Ctp1 Cannon Cannon 19
2)Ctp1 Cavalry Dragoon 20
3)Ctp1 Musketeer Musketeer 22
4)Ctp1 Artillery Artillery 28
5)Ctp1 Plasmatica Plasmatica 70
6)Ctp1 Sp. Marines Storm Marines 73
7)Ctp1 Fusion Tank Hovertank 78
8)Ctp1 Swarm Swarm 79

Re-named Ctp2 units Newsprite no.
------------------------------------------
Ctp2 Warrior Man-at-Arms 003
Ctp2 Samurai Samurai 006
Ctp2 Cannon Culverin 019
Ctp2 Spy Secret Agent 034
Ctp2 Aircraft Car. Nuclear Car. 036*
Ctp2 Bomber Jet Bomber 047
Ctp2 Fusion Tank Plasma Cannon 078*
Ctp2 Frigate PT Boat 080
Ctp2 Artillery Self-Prop. Gun 082

New units
---------------------------------
09)EB Zulu Warrior Warrior 001
10)EB Zulu Archer Javelineer 009
11)TD Slinger Slinger 018
12)TD Javelin Cav. Light Cavalry 028
13)TD Noble Cavalry Heavy Cavalry 066
14)TD Swordsman Swordsman 067
15)TD Ironclad Monitor 070
16)HT Horse Archer Horse Archer 071
17)TD Egyptian Spear Spearman 072
18)HT Frigate Frigate 073
19)TD Spy Spy 074
***Militia pic Militia pic 076
20)TD Noble Noble 081
21)HT Galleon Galleon 083
22)HT Carrier Carrier 084
23)AP Missile Cr. Missile Cruiser 085
24)HT B-17 Bomber 086
25)HT Dive Bomber Dive Bomber 087
26)AP Helicopter Attack Heli. 088

TD Fyrdman (unused) 091
TD Arquebusier (unused) 092
TD Bombard (unused) 093
TD Cog (Caravel) (unused) 094
95+ open
* civ_str change only

I have been noticing some interesting unit flags as I go along. I will try and put these observations together along with some others I have made in another post or thread in the future.

[TheBirdMan]

Nearly can't wait to get my fingers on the game...

Wes, when you write, that slavers/abolitionist/clerics can be sued - then I think we are missing a form for an "old" lawyer to do the job?! Just as we have "old" spies and so.

The idea sueing these units are very good indeed.

[WesW]

I was going to let the early spy be used for all the sueing until the other units came along.

A few notes:
1)How are the pollution settings? About right, too low?
2)Does anyone want to re-insert the Subneural Ad? I never used it, preferring to build offensive units at that stage of the game, but some people have called for it in other threads.
3)Is the Nanite Factory unbalancing?

In looking through the DiffDB, I noticed some new flags; max ahead, min ahead and max behind and min behind. They appear to be aimed at working like Gedrin's Disseminate triggers that I put into the Med mod I. I am glad to see them in there. They should help keep the AIs from getting either too far ahead or behind the human.

In the units text, there are a couple of new flags; IsMounted and Explodes. I don't know what the IsMounted does, but the Explodes gives the unit's bombard attack what was called 'splatter damage' in Warcraft. I thought that I had seen evidence of this playing the game, and finding this flag proves it. Another improvement, as far as I'm concerned.

Finally, here is a paste of the new unit build lists. I feel pretty good about this arrangement.

# 13

UNIT_BUILD_LIST_SPECIAL {
Unit UNIT_DIPLOMAT
Unit UNIT_SLAVER
Unit UNIT_ABOLITIONIST
Unit UNIT_CLERIC
Unit UNIT_SPY
Unit UNIT_LAWYER
Unit UNIT_CORPORATE_BRANCH
Unit UNIT_TELEVANGELIST
Unit UNIT_EMPATHIC_DIPLOMAT
Unit UNIT_NUKE
Unit UNIT_CYBER_NINJA
Unit UNIT_INFECTOR
Unit UNIT_ECO_TERRORIST
Unit UNIT_ECO_RANGER
}

UNIT_BUILD_LIST_SPECIAL_PEACEFUL {
Unit UNIT_DIPLOMAT
Unit UNIT_ABOLITIONIST
Unit UNIT_CLERIC
Unit UNIT_NUKE
Unit UNIT_LAWYER
Unit UNIT_CORPORATE_BRANCH
Unit UNIT_TELEVANGELIST
Unit UNIT_EMPATHIC_DIPLOMAT
}

UNIT_BUILD_LIST_SPECIAL_MILITARIST {
Unit UNIT_SLAVER
Unit UNIT_SPY
Unit UNIT_LAWYER
Unit UNIT_CORPORATE_BRANCH
Unit UNIT_CYBER_NINJA
Unit UNIT_NUKE
Unit UNIT_INFECTOR
Unit UNIT_ECO_TERRORIST
Unit UNIT_ECO_RANGER
}

UNIT_BUILD_LIST_SPECIAL_NUCLEAR {
Unit UNIT_NUKE
}

UNIT_BUILD_LIST_LAND_SETTLER {
Unit UNIT_SETTLER
Unit UNIT_URBAN_PLANNER
}

UNIT_BUILD_LIST_SEA_SETTLER {
Unit UNIT_SEA_ENGINEER
}

UNIT_BUILD_LIST_SCOUT {
Unit UNIT_SPY_PLANE
Unit UNIT_SCOUT_SUB
}

UNIT_BUILD_LIST_DEFENSE {
Unit UNIT_SPEARMAN
Unit UNIT_HOPLITE
Unit UNIT_PIKEMEN
Unit UNIT_MUSKETEER
Unit UNIT_INFANTRYMAN
Unit UNIT_MACHINE_GUNNER
Unit UNIT_PLASMATICA
Unit UNIT_LEVIATHON
}

UNIT_BUILD_LIST_OFFENSE {
Unit UNIT_WARRIOR
Unit UNIT_SWORDSMAN
Unit UNIT_MAN_AT_ARMS
Unit UNIT_SAMURAI
Unit UNIT_MUSKETEER
Unit UNIT_INFANTRYMAN
Unit UNIT_FASCIST
Unit UNIT_HOVER_INFANTRY
}

UNIT_BUILD_LIST_RANGED {
Unit UNIT_SLINGER
Unit UNIT_ARCHER
Unit UNIT_CATAPULT
Unit UNIT_CULVERIN
Unit UNIT_CANNON
Unit UNIT_ARTILLERY
Unit UNIT_FUSION_TANK
}

UNIT_BUILD_LIST_MOUNTED_RANGED {
Unit UNIT_JAVELINEER
Unit UNIT_MOUNTED_ARCHER
Unit UNIT_HORSE_ARCHER
Unit UNIT_SELF_PROP_GUN
Unit UNIT_WAR_WALKER
}

UNIT_BUILD_LIST_MOUNTED_FLANKER {
Unit UNIT_LIGHT_CAVALRY
Unit UNIT_HEAVY_CAVALRY
Unit UNIT_KNIGHT
Unit UNIT_DRAGOON
Unit UNIT_CAVALRY
Unit UNIT_TANK
Unit UNIT_HOVERTANK

}

UNIT_BUILD_LIST_MARINE {
Unit UNIT_MARINE
Unit UNIT_STORM_MARINE
}

UNIT_BUILD_LIST_PARATROOPER {
Unit UNIT_PARATROOPER
Unit UNIT_SWARM
}

UNIT_BUILD_LIST_ANTI_AIR {
Unit UNIT_MOBILE_SAM

}

UNIT_BUILD_LIST_SEA_TRANSPORT {
Unit UNIT_CATAMARAN
Unit UNIT_GALLEON
Unit UNIT_TROOP_SHIP
Unit UNIT_CRAWLER
}

UNIT_BUILD_LIST_NAVAL_ATTACK {
Unit UNIT_FIRE_TRIREME
Unit UNIT_CARRACK
Unit UNIT_SHIP_OF_THE_LINE
Unit UNIT_IRONCLAD
Unit UNIT_DESTROYER
Unit UNIT_BATTLESHIP
Unit UNIT_PLASMA_DESTROYER
}

UNIT_BUILD_LIST_NAVAL_DEFENSE {
Unit UNIT_LONGSHIP
Unit UNIT_MONITOR
Unit UNIT_PT_BOAT
Unit UNIT_FRIGATE
Unit UNIT_MISSILE_CRUISER
}

UNIT_BUILD_LIST_SUBMARINES {
Unit UNIT_SUBMARINE
Unit UNIT_NUCLEAR_SUBMARINE
Unit UNIT_MOREY_STRIKER
Unit UNIT_KRAKEN
Unit UNIT_DREADNAUGHT
}

UNIT_BUILD_LIST_AIR_ATTACK {
Unit UNIT_DIVE_BOMBER
Unit UNIT_ATTACK_HELICOPTER
}

UNIT_BUILD_LIST_AIR_DEFENSE {
Unit UNIT_FIGHTER
Unit UNIT_INTERCEPTOR
Unit UNIT_STEALTH_FIGHTER
}

UNIT_BUILD_LIST_BOMBER {
Unit UNIT_BOMBER
Unit UNIT_JET_BOMBER
Unit UNIT_STEALTH_BOMBER
}

UNIT_BUILD_LIST_AIR_TRANSPORT {
Unit UNIT_CARGO_HELICOPTER
Unit UNIT_AIRCRAFT_CARRIER
Unit UNIT_SPACE_PLANE
}

UNIT_BUILD_LIST_FREIGHT {
Unit UNIT_CARAVAN
Unit UNIT_Z_FREIGHT_TRANSPORT
}

[skorpion59]

Wes,

Looking good so far but playtesting will be the ultimate test. (Fondly remembering the many MONTHS spent playtesting all the mods). Of course, since I still have no copy at all of CtP2, I am going to have to sit this one out for a while. (Maybe Mr. Ogre can go down on his lunch hour and put the copies in the mail). Just seems a little ironic that none of the CtP1 mod/CtP2 beta people, who are in the best position to answer questions and stiple all this insane negativity/problems, have no copies.

One question though, what if you replaced some of the special units in the 'Special Lists' with offensive units? I for one, would rather have more offensive units than special units? From your experience, do you think this would give more offensive punch to the AI or just mess up the game balance.

[Paulypav]

Wes,

I've noticed in one of the other threads that there seems to be a problem building fusion plants due to the Nanite Defuser. The Nanite Defuser destroys all nukes including nuclear plants, however the nuclear plant is a prerequisite for building the fusion plant. Therefore, once the Nanite Defuser has been built Fusion Plants are unable to be built.

First, and anyone can answer this. Would this be a glitch or is the Fusion Plant a quasi-nuclear energy source that would not be buildable with the Nanite Defuser.

Second, if this is a glitch, is it possible to modify the code so that the Fusion Plant is not dependant upon building the Nuclear Plant

------------------
“The American people have now spoken, but it’s going to take a little while to determine exactly what
they said.” — President Clinton

[Metamorph]

It's Deja Vu all over again...

Are you interested in hearing some suggestions and ideas for altering the economic model to one which is, uh, better? Less conducive to cheese, more challenging in higher difficulties and harsh terrain, and so forth?

My, how this all sounds familiar, just like old times... Sigh...

- Metamorph