Cradle - 1.1

[Frog_Gamer]

I used to use Modswapper and one day I got so confused as to what version I had in there, that I have taken another approach: for each king of set-up I created zip file that changes only the 3 or 4 files needed to go from version to another. Its easy to use as the name of the zip tells which version I am using god ma I lazy

[hexagonian]

More news from the front lines...

I have become the second-most powerful civilization in the world, trailing only the Ethiopians. However, the Mexicans are still right behind me.

To the east, I have pushed into Thai territory and have taken the city of Lampang. After taking the city, I immediately demanded peace, which the Thai gladly accepted. I have initiated diplomatic contact with them, and it is my hope to eventually gain them as allie as they trail me in all aspects of a cultured civili zation, I am planning to augment their science - over time it is my hope that they will work side-by-side with me.

To the north, I have embarked on somewhat of a peaceful expansion of my empire. The Vikings have not been seen for a long time, and they have all but disappered from the annals of the graph. My advisors say that I should let sleeping dogs lie...However, the Nubians had been parading their forces around the city of Goteburg, and without warning attacked the city. I did not lose a unit, and immediately they sued for peace. I demanded their maps as a show of their sincerity - the grovelers accepted. They too have all but disappeared from the annals of the graph. The maps revealed that they are a great distance away, to the northwest, it seems.

To the Northwest, there is a large range of mountains and plains, between me and the Nubians, a perfect location to build a city that will someday be a jumping-off spot for future expansion. I assembled a settler stack of 4 units and proceeded to the spot. When I reached the mountains, there was a stack of 7 Nubian units in the vicinity of the spot I wanted to settle. They immediately vacated, and I have built my city.

Ahhh... the perks of being near the top. It is my feeling that if I had been trailing the Nubians, they would of attempted to destroy my settler stack.

To the west, I have managed to take back the city of Cabo San Lucas from the Greeks - also forcing peace on them at the point of a sword a short time later. (as they are also too far away to pursue an effective war) Before retaking the city, I had a scare when the Assyrians took my westernmost city in another suprise attack. I was able to retake the city a short time later because the troops that were on the way to help on the assault of Cabo San Lucas were in the vicinity. The Assyrians lost a lot of troops in the assault of my city, so it was rather easy to retake. The Assyrians also sued for peace a short time later - I demanded their maps as a show of faith, which they accepted. They too are far away for the moment. It is my intention to build up a sizable force to bring to bear against the Mexicans, but this takes time and I fully intend to be able to leave a large defensive force behind.

To the south, I am amassing troops to bring a large scale war to the Ethiopians, as they have the audacity to claim they are the most powerful civilization. I managed to take care of a couple of large Ethiopian stacks in my territory in a series of feints and counterfeints, which eventually brought the largest Ethiopian stack up against my stack of legions/archers/cataphracts. After defeating the Ethiopian advance forces, my units are proceeding southward. Even now, advancing cavalry units are scouting out the south.

After reading the posts above, I will probably go ahead and convert to Modswapper, but it will wait until I resolve this game I am playing now. Lately, I've been more interested in actually playing the game instead of worrying about file alts/additions and so forth. The last few times I would start a game and then would also modify files at the same time, so my earlier games were more like playtests than an actual game.

I had also run a short playtest for the POW and Diplo 3.6 slic files, but when I attempted to load the altered SLIC files for my current game, it would scramble the messages, so I went back to my older setup for the time being - however there isn't any problems with new games started with the updated files - this has been tested.

Martin, I hadn't noticed any discrepency with the normal scenario setup regarding extra gold and movement. Generally I move all of my units on my last turn and then save the game at that point, then when I reopen the turn I scroll around the map to refresh my memory and then I end my turn. I did write down what I had in terms of gold/production/food this last time and will compare. I also want to take a look at what I can do with incorporating CityMod, more from the point of using the new city graphics.

Ben, if you are willing, I would also like to see if you can get that random population reduction SLIC file to simulate events such as plagues to work in Cradle. That would fit into the historical aspect of my Mod.

I used the standardized unit list that Wes used for his Mod. There is a file conflict (not really a conflict though) I have numbered the Zulu warrior sprite #124, which is the standardized CTP1 warrior in the MedMod. The reason why I did this was I was having a problem with the original number (72) that would cause my game to crash. I read somewhere that units 'should' be numbered between 100-200, and I really wanted to use that Zulu sprite. There was a workaround for this, but I never used it and just renumbered the zulu sprite. So if you are someone who puts all of your sprite files in the same folder for all of your scenarios, and Wes's warrior sprite is allowed to overwrite mine, you will get the CTP1 warrior sprite instead of the Zulu sprite in a Cradle game. I believe there isn't any other conflicts in that area - as for the advances/wonders tgas, there wasn't any standardized list to go by.

Engineer - glad you like the charts - makes for a nice poster.

[Immortal Wombat]

Ben, if you are willing, I would also like to see if you can get that random population reduction SLIC file to simulate events such as plagues to work in Cradle. That would fit into the historical aspect of my Mod.

Sure, I'll take a look at it, and see if I can make it work really well. I'll send you the basic plague/quake code, then I will look at making it into a proper code like how it was suggested when CTP2 was new. ie. Tsunamis near the sea, quakes near mountain ranges, plagues near swamps etc.

- as for the advances/wonders tgas, there wasn't any standardized list to go by.

True. I guess we'll jump that hurdle once it arises.

I also want to take a look at what I can do with incorporating CityMod, more from the point of using the new city graphics.

I have found it is very easy to take Civ2 city graphics, and with minimal effort make them into CTP2 city sprites. The vast range of Civ2 scenarios is a good place to start from as regards city making. For another LotR scenario, I coped Harlan's yurt/tent graphics, so I have an "encampment" city style nearly done if anyone wants it.

[hexagonian]

NEWS FROM THE FRONT

Well, I am running neck and neck with the Ethiopians now - although I have lost a good part of my initial strike force against some incoming Ethiopian stacks. My military is now the largest again though.

I also put a world of hurt on the Thai, as they decided to sneak attack one of my cities. So I marched in and split their empire in two. I took the capital after heavy fighting. I was fortunate to have an extra horseman around to march in and finish off the lone archer in the capital after the main battle. I then demanded peace, which they accepted. No more free advances and gold. I will be building up more military and continue the war at a later time.

Same strategy with the Mexicans....

I am at turn 580. It got me to thinking though - this is the farthest that I have ever played any CTP game (I've usually been too far ahead and lost interest in continuing). In fact, in number of turns, this would equal a CTP1 game.

Not bad at all - and by the sound of things in the MedMod2 thread, this shows what can be accomplished with this game.

On the modification front, Peter Triggs sent me a SLIC file that will allow a player to upgrade units for gold (the AI auto-upgrades). From a play standpoint, this will only make the game better. I have to set up the file for Cradle and then run it through some testing.

Actually, it is my hope to make the harder levels truly hard. I want to get beat up on the toughest levels.

I also am planning on creating my own set of leader pics for the embassy screen. Dale has discovered how to use leader pics, and has set about to create a nice set of them. I have a different style in mind though. This is more of a long-term project for me though.

[ENGINEER]

How much compared to production cost would the gold upgrade be? Wes was looking into doing mercs for the Med Mod II that used gold, maybe he could use that trigger to further that goal. If the AI auto upgrades would that not make them unstopable

[Immortal Wombat]

The default gold starts at 205 gold per unit. (that is warrior to pikeman I think), then it increases further up the tech tree.

Should make getting a sizeable tech advanctage quite difficult at least

[hexagonian]

I was looking at the file last night, and started to work on in. I have yet to try in in a playrtest, because I still have to figure out all of the combos that I want to upgrade to.

In light of the fact that I actually used gold in my current game (I always had to RB Apothecaries - somehow they were being destroyed when conquering a large city and the people were starving ), I am setting up the gold upgrade cost to be 1/2 of the production cost of the new unit.

I suspect that the Auto-upgrade for the AI will be somewhat nasty to deal with...

[Martin Gühmann]

Martin, I hadn't noticed any discrepency with the normal scenario setup regarding extra gold and movement. Generally I move all of my units on my last turn and then save the game at that point, then when I reopen the turn I scroll around the map to refresh my memory and then I end my turn. I did write down what I had in terms of gold/production/food this last time and will compare. I also want to take a look at what I can do with incorporating CityMod, more from the point of using the new city graphics.

I also tested it and I wasn't able to detect this bug in your mod. So I started one of my own mods based on the scenario file structure. And the bug was there so far as I remeber also in Ben's Mars2010beta scenario. You can also find this bug in the Alexander Scenario. Very interesting to know that you can avoid this bug in the scenario file structure. I remeber that this bug didn't appear in CTP2 V1.0, so is your mod based on files of the unpatched CTP2?

-Martin

[hexagonian]

Heheheheheh...


I have here the adapted UnitUpdater file modified for Cradle. Thanks Peter, this looks very nice indeed... You would-be warmongers may have your hands full!!!

The file is combined with Ben's POW SLIC file that was available earlier in this thread. I bundled them together to make sure there is no conflict in the strings.txt and scenario.txt files.

Make sure you look at the readme file, as it will spell out exactly what to expect from these codes - as well as the all important installation instructions.

I may have to bump up the gold costs of upgrading, but this will have to come through playtesting.

Originally posted by Martin Gühmann
I also tested it and I wasn't able to detect this bug in your mod. So I started one of my own mods based on the scenario file structure. And the bug was there so far as I remeber also in Ben's Mars2010beta scenario. You can also find this bug in the Alexander Scenario. Very interesting to know that you can avoid this bug in the scenario file structure. I remeber that this bug didn't appear in CTP2 V1.0, so is your mod based on files of the unpatched CTP2?

-Martin

Hmmm, when I bought the game, I had a dual setup on my system - one with the default game with no file alts and one with all the file alts. (I had done the same in CTP1 with the email games I was in and the MedMod - there were file conflicts between the two - I actually tried to use Modswapper with that, and it really screwed up my setup, because one of my email games was unplayable with even that) One of the reasons why I have been dragging my heels on using Modswapper is that experience.

I had loaded the patch on my dual setup - though in hindsight, the patch should of loaded on only one of the installs. I remember switching out the directories and trying to load the patch a second time - the installer would say that the patch was detected and was not needed.

Early on, I pulled the extra installation off of the system, especially since I read about the ease of using the scenario structure for Mod work.

I just checked my setup again to see if the patch was needed by trying to install it - I get the same message that the patch wasn't needed (patch 1.11) since the installer detected the patch on my system.

This has got me stumped too

[Martin Gühmann]

Yes you can really screw up things if you try to laod a savegame with the wrong mod, savegames act like corupted ones and the only reason is the wrong mod therefore you should to your game a save note that will identify the savegame and its mod.

-Martin

[Chris B]

Hi Hex-
This is my second day with yor mod after I had my CTP2 resurgence. I have a great many Comments.

First of all, this mod has come along way since version 1.05 when I last saw it. The problem of the Dead zone with advances was easily solved, And in my best game I made it to about 700 AD on Medium Difficulty and no Barbarians (I didn't know that at the time). I got all the land units on time, Though I think Triremes came rather late. I got most of the Wonders and Got 4 wonder Units- Ramses, Alexander, Nebchednezzer, And Caesar. The Game Went Along Well. I conquered the Americans and by 1 AD was the most powerful Civ.

Just a few Bugs to Report- I really think Obsolete advances need work. You can still build Chariots when you have Horseman And Hoplites when you have Legions. The AI also attacks me in Weird ways. It Huled huge Armies at my cities made up mostly of Slingers and Nomads, while its offensive units that could have kicked my butt were assigned defensive roles. I also found my militias didn't upgrade.

Other than that there is that I think the best improvement to make would be adding Great Library entries for buildings and Wonders. Also, When you start the Game some civs are confused. The game my also be godd with the Towns trigger provided In BlueO's mod.

I had only one major bug to speak of. When I loaded my save for the fourth time, the game crashed complaining I was missing sprite GU156, even though it did exist.
Thanx- this mod rocks overall.
-CB

[Immortal Wombat]

Welcome back Chris

and Got 4 wonder Units- Ramses, Alexander, Nebchednezzer, And Caesar.

I also found my militias didn't upgrade.

That is deliberate, or rather the upgrade was left out, because it was buggy I think.

Also, When you start the Game some civs are confused

Told you Dave

[hexagonian]

Chris

Thanks for the impressions about the Mod. I’m glad to hear that you are enjoying it. Still a work in process though...

RE: Playing levels
There are some factors in the early going that will determine the tone of the entire game. Below are the main issues listed in importance, IMO
- Starting number of cities or settlers for Human vs AI
- Barbarian Settings
- Starting Techs Human vs AI
- Starting Terrain
- Items obtained from Goody Huts

The difficulty levels give more benefits to the AI on the tougher levels, so as you play on harder levels, it will be harder to catch up. One thing that really will change the tenor of the game is the Barb settings, especially when you are trying to get established. I do think that playing on Raging Hordes will make the game a lot harder (my settings are about triple what was set up in the default game).

RE: Militias
I checked my gamefile for the militias to see if they were upgrading. Seems that they are not – but as a city is built, it will get the most powerful militia unit available. Locutus had a lot of difficulty with the creation of this SLIC file. I looked at the file and there is not a trigger for upgrading militia units, and based on the difficulty Locutus had in its creation, I do not know if it is possible to accomplish this through his code. However, I do have a possible solution. I think that I can use Peter’s SLIC code to give the player the ability to upgrade the militias for gold. The AI will auto-upgrade it’s units too.

I am using the same Militia code that is used in MedMod2. Has anyone else noticed this issue with his Mod (I have yet to play it)

RE: Unit Obsoletes
I have set up the unit tree more along the lines of giving the player a large selection of options. Generally, I have set up the following unit breakdown per age and obsoleting units after two similar unit progressions into the future.
- Defensive Infantry
- Offensive Infantry
- Flanker
- Ranged
- Bombard
- Hybrid unit

There are exceptions to this in my setup though. The earliest infantry units are obsoleted with the discovery of the next infantry unit in the progression. The Dark Ages obsoletes all previous infantry units. And you will have a lot of options in the mobile units until you get to Cavalry Tactics.

Granted, this will make for a lot of options in your purchases, but playing styles differ from player to player. I used history as a guide, but I also did not let history limit my decisions either for the sake of flexible gameplay in unit selection, especially in light of the fact that I severely limited flexibility in other areas of the game such as your empire sliders. However, if this becomes an issue with a lot of people, I can tone it down easily.

I usually build the most advanced unit available, but there might be situations where I need to build a cheap unit instead. (A just-established city might need to build a garrison unit to get a martial law bonus, so building a cheap unit might be the way to go) And I believe that the AI generally builds the most-advanced unit available. It’s just that the AI still could do a better job of managing those units into an effective force. Which brings me to the next issue.

RE: Army Composition
This is the one area that is probably most frustrating for me. I have, for the most part, seen a pretty good mix of units in the stacks that I have encountered. However, I have run into
- stacks of archers unsupported by infantry
- stacks that have contained settlers (which is not necessarily bad as long as that settler was going somewhere to build a city)
- very weak stacks of old units

Now the first issue is a problem – the coding is structured for the AI to build a certain % of unit type. I have ranged units to be around 25% of the total AI military. However, I have not seen in the coding, and do not know how to dictate to the AI how to build its combined armies in a balanced fashion.

Related to the second issue is the whole aspect of the AI’s ability to build new cities and expand in that fashion. I do think that the whole issue of borders may play a negative role in this, because ‘I believe’ that the AI will not establish cities in tight areas that will not allow for future growth. As the game goes on, borders expand, making free space harder to come by too. If anyone has some insight into this issue, let me know. I have made some adjustments to this area, but I am still not completely happy with it.

As a sidenote, in my current game (very hard), I have used the cheat mode to monitor the AI civs every once in awhile for info on how they were handling infrastructure issues. My civ is at 26 cities – it is double that of the next largest civs (Ethiopians and Mexicans). However I have just managed to catch up in science (at 580 turns) and am finally ahead in the military department – with a lot of bloody wars from the start of the game which slowed down my aspirations. I would still like to see improvement in this area though.

The third issue I am hoping will be resolved with the unitupdater code that Peter has sent to me and is available for download for my Mod.

I do not believe that it is possible yet to program in any civ-style game a truly revolutionary AI in terms of taking a grand overview of the map, and planning a well-coordinated assault that may take a long time to accomplish. There are just too many variables involved. But I am not a computer expert either. It’s just that I have read the posts of a lot of players (Civ2 and SMAC) who grouse about the AI’s limitations in this area. Maybe there will be hope for Civ3, but I’m not holding my breath either.

RE: Great Library
I just scrolled through the Great Library, and the correct info is there for Wonders and City Improvements (but that is a massive document to begin with, so I may have missed something). Specifically, what info is not showing up in your setup – and what Wonders/City Improvement info is inconsistent with gameplay?

RE: Error messages
This is pointed out in the readme file. You have to launch a new Cradle game every time you want to play your saved game to activate the Cradle Mod – then load your saved game. Missing this once will automatically corrupt the gamefile to an unplayable state. At least I am assuming this is the problem, as I have not had that occur other than when I failed to launch a new game before loading.

I do not know if this is also an issue with Modswapper, but I am looking into setting up a Modswap-compatible file in the future.

Again thanks for the feedback.

Hey Ben,
I thought you would have that problem about 'confused civs' solved already. Rats!!!

[Frog_Gamer]

One thing I can confirm for sure is that the free militia unit you get is upgraded when you move up the time scale in MM2. If you found a city 1900 you don't get the same unit as in 4000 BC

On the other hand once you have one militia, it stays the same till you destroy it to make room for newer units. There is no modernisation of units. Why should there be as this is not implemented for the standard units

I have started a new game with the cradle mod, and found myself sharing the same continent with yellow(I forget the civ). I am 850 or so "After Deo", and have caugth up with civ N°1 the green (namely the English) in both science and economy. Military he is a wee bit ahead but that is only because of what follows.

We have had a running battle with the yellow civ, with both of us expanding stacks galore!! Boy does he want my towns!! And as I have now the same tech level, I want his!! BTW this is on Hard, normal map, 5 civ and raging hordes. The weakness is that Frenzy seems to make it easier: let me explain. I put a stack of 12 assorted units 3 squares from one of his cities. I had been attacking like crazy with up to 36 units dead!!, hence he didn't like me at all. Frenzy made him come at me in the open, and there I had him. He had only left one defense unit, which was easy. If he had stayed entrenched, there was no way I could have taken him, as I had been trying for the last 50 turns!!

I did that twice in a row, and he has only his capital left on the continent.

Earlier, he was the one who opened hostilities when I created a town about 7 squares from his town. Every 5 or 6 turns, here comes a stack to attack. It never went right to it, but after one or two turns he was at it. The funny thing was that every attack, I built more units inside the city, and he come at me with the same number or more! He changed mixes every time with a variety of units but always with attack, defense and range units.

I really had a whale of a time

[hexagonian]

It's great having internet access at work...I can respond quickly to any posts.

Sounds like you had a good game Frog_Gamer

RE: Frenzy (for those who are not aware of how it works)
Frenzy works on the principle that as the AI reaches a certain hate level, it will assemble units into stacks and assault the human player's cities and armies. In the last version of Frenzy released by BlueO, he also tied the hate level into the tech tree - certain advances will raise the bar in Frenzy's code to a suicidal level. In Cradle the advances are the following, with the later ones raising the bar higher.

- Iron Working
- Industrial Rev
- Arcologies
- Fusion

So (in theory) the highest suicidal levels of Frenzy should not be reached until Fusion.

Also tied into the formula is how the strategies.txt and goals.txt are formatted, because the SLIC code for Frenzy merely assembles the stacks and move them into position. Cradle's strategies place a high priority on attacks and sieges and puts those stacks in an attacking frame of mind. Actually, I had used Frenzy's strategies.txt settings as a base to work from when I started working on Cradle, and had gotten reports that the AI was more aggressive with those settings without using the SLIC code.

I had released early versions of Cradle without Frenzy. I included Frenzy this time because according to the creator, the Frenzy effect had been weakened through the use of advances to put the brakes on Frenzy's suicidal tendencies. Using Frenzy in conjuction with the advantages I gave the AI at the beginning of the game, the way I limited the sliders, the removal of in-the-field healing for units, and the high level of Barbs was a way to put the AI on an offensive mindset early on and prevent the human from being able to peacefully expand easily. The AI seems to work better when it has the lead.

Frog_Gamer, if you are willing on your next game, would you disable Frenzy (in scenario.txt, remove the line #include "frenzy.slc") and see how your two games compare?

This does go back to the difficulty in programming an AI that is able to take an overview of the map and be able to formulate a long-term strategy.