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**hexagonian** · July 10, 2001, 08:58

These all look like they can only be accomplished through SLIC coding.

Contact Dale, Immortal Wombat or Locutus to see what can be done.

**Fidel2** · July 10, 2001, 11:18

I was afraid of that...

**Immortal Wombat** · July 10, 2001, 16:41

Re: Bit off more than I can chew! Help!

Hello

Welcome to the frustrating world of CTP2 scenarios

POPULATION CONTROLS
*Specify starting FOOD, varies per Civ

I don't understand what you mean. You can set tile improvements in the scenario editor, and you (should) be able to add and delete them via SLIC...

*Population caps: Civ1 = 20, Civ2 = 40
(no further growth allowed)

That is relatively simple SLIC. (I think). Just whenever a city owned by civ1 grows, kill it back one. I need this code for a scenario I am helping a friend with.

*Assign Civ2 cities a starting # of SLAVES.
Max 5 citizens per city. Any over #5 is
ALWAYS a slave, PERIOD.

There is no way of doing this directly, but you can set up at the start of the scenario an invisible event where a slaver captures settlers and sends them to their cities.
You could also play through the first few turns, enslave some slaves to civ1 cities, then reset the unit locations, and game turn and re-save it as a scenario.
The SLIC would be complicated, and I think Dale would know best how to do it.

The only way in which (the documented) SLIC deals with slaves is by capturing or freeing. To implement the second part of that, you would need to, every time the city grew, kill the new pop, create a settler and slaver, enslave the settler and kill the slaver again afterwards, making sure the slave went to the right city...

GAMETIME TRIGGERS
*Learn an Advance at X turns

easy SLIC

*Remove a building from Civ2's capitol at X turns

Easy SLIC

DEFEAT CONDITIONS
*Cease-Fire

SLIC-able...

*Civ2 pillages 5 Tile Improvements at XY coords.

Also need to know how to make this a Civ2 goal.

Possible, I should think, but what if Civ1(?) replaces them after being pillaged?

VICTORY CONDITIONS
*Revolution in any Civ2 city

Should be possible...

*Complete X turns (how many total are allowed?)

Yep, that too can be done. (SLICked)

JUST BECAUSE
*Specify city icons per civ, including which size
city to display regardless of Age or population

Can't be done by SLIC, because it can only read the textfiles, not alter them to change the graphics. If by icon you mean the graphic displayed in the game, you can easily change that, in agecitystyle.txt I think. Just find for each style (roman, asian, arab) which one you want, and copy it in the place of the others for each age and size.

Good luck though! If you want to learn SLIC then even more good luck to you! If you want me to do some for you, then I will look at it, but I am busy 'til the end of August I'm afraid

**Fidel2** · July 10, 2001, 19:50

Originally posted by Immortal Wombat
whenever a city owned by civ1 grows, kill it back one. I need this code for a scenario I am helping a friend with.

Could you please share it when it's ready?

[/QUOTE]
Good luck though! If you want to learn SLIC then even more good luck to you! If you want me to do some for you, then I will look at it, but I am busy 'til the end of August I'm afraid

[/QUOTE]

I'd really appreciate that. As for the part you didn't understand, forget it. It was one of those "did I say that out loud?" kind of things. I was actually making a note but I put it in the message instead. Gimme a break, it was the wee hours.

Doh!

I didn't think of just playing a slaver for a few rounds...that means all I'd need are population caps. I was kind of hoping the turn-based stuff was easy and maybe even already written...I'm not a programmer by any stretch of the imagination.

The city sprite thing looks like it's going to be a pain, but I can kind of see how it works, now that I know which files to look at.

Come to think of it, that's half my problem right there...figuring out which file/variable does what.

Do you know which TXT file to mess with to really

the AI? They're not exactly the overwhelmingly powerful, studly conquerors they're supposed to be here.

Anyway, I was making my notes in HTML so I may as well go ahead & publish it so you know what I'm talking about.

http://www.redlionpc.com/masada/

**ENGINEER** · July 10, 2001, 22:24

Good luck, the scenario looks good on your website. As far as getting the Roman AI to attack you, try AI Frenzy Mod or maybe set the regard really super low for the other civ. Let us know when you finish it.

**Immortal Wombat** · July 11, 2001, 05:37

That is an amazing scenario description. I've never seen a better website dedicated to a CTP2 scenario I think!

How did you make it so the units can only pas over that one bit? It lossk like something that could be done by changing the flag - MovementType: Mountain for the terrain, and units, but I can't see how any variation on that would result in that pathing line...

Anyway, I'll take a look at the SLIC some time, and email you about it. I won't be able to test it, as it will probably require the correct set of text files, or the right map. (The download on the site doesn't work for me)

**Fidel2** · July 11, 2001, 14:53

That is an amazing scenario description. I've never seen a better website dedicated to a CTP2 scenario I think!

Thanks!

I was really just making an elaborate set of notes for myself so that all my pics & references would be in one place...but it did turn out kinda nice. :P Just keep in mind that it's still kind of like The Phantom Menace...it can't live up to its billing.

How did you make it so the units can only pas over that one bit? It lossk like something that could be done by changing the flag - MovementType: Mountain for the terrain, and units, but I can't see how any variation on that would result in that pathing line...

I was wondering if anyone was gonna ask me that...

Given the scenario, it was kind of a critical thing and it took me FOREVER to figure out

. Some of those mountains and deserts aren't what they appear...in TERRAIN.TXT they're DEAD and GLACIER tiles with "MovementType: Air" ONLY. Then I changed both icon tags for each to display BROWN_MOUNTAIN and DESERT, respectively. For as much brain-busting as it cost me, it's a maddeningly simple solution.

Anyway, I'll take a look at the SLIC some time, and email you about it. I won't be able to test it, as it will probably require the correct set of text files, or the right map. (The download on the site doesn't work for me)

You probably got a 404 didn't you? I killed the ZIP last night because I had to do a major rollback: some edit I made started crashing the game on every load.

Of course I couldn't remember EXACTLY where it was so I had to dump default files back in. I'll put it back up here in a bit. Just remember that the TXT files are still subject to heavy alteration...the only thing I'm completely done with at this point is the map.

THE BIGGEST PROBLEM is the Romans are STILL completely ignoring Masada, and the frenzy mod doesn't seem to matter.

From what I can tell I'd need the Romans to start off in FRENZY_MODE_4 but don't know enough about coding to make it happen. Also, it takes one each of my Roman cities and gives them to the Irish, Americans, Germans, etc.

I pulled it out of the scenario for that reason alone. Maybe it can't work where there's only one AI?

**Peter Triggs** · July 11, 2001, 16:23

Quote
---------------
The only way up or down is via that single mountain tile; try another way and your unit falls to its death
---------------

I thought you might be using MrOgre's 'location of death' handler for this. You might want to consider using it for at least a few of the more crucial locations: you should get get nice sound effects as the Romans fall from the cliffs. I'll have a think about it as soon as I get a copy of your map.

**Immortal Wombat** · July 11, 2001, 17:28

Well it was something to do this afternoon

I wrote some code, and I put some comments in the file. You will need to add some stuff to the file, but I explained that in the file. I also suggested a way around the "masada cant starve" problem - Make the granary prevent starvation like a CTP beef-vat.

Take a look, obviously I couldn't test it, so if there are any syntax errors, just email me (weaver1@tinyworld.co.uk) and I'll do my best to find the problem.

**Fidel2** · July 11, 2001, 18:47

I thought you might be using MrOgre's 'location of death' handler for this. You might want to consider using it for at least a few of the more crucial locations: you should get get nice sound effects as the Romans fall from the cliffs. I'll have a think about it as soon as I get a copy of your map.

I've not heard of that...the way it works right now is that if you try to go on a "forbidden" tile, your cursor turns into that "can't get there from here" red line. Basically those tiles are impossible to travel and if you look at the photos...

I'd like to take a look at it though, it certainly sounds interesting!

**Fidel2** · July 11, 2001, 18:57

Originally posted by Immortal Wombat
...I wrote some code, and I put some comments in the file.

...Take a look, obviously I couldn't test it, so if there are any syntax errors, just email me...

Impatiently looking forward to seeing it...you sent via email I suppose? Gotta love lag time...

BTW for anyone who wants it at this stage, I have re-posted the ZIP. It's still under some rather serious revision, but you can at least look at the thing as a whole.

The final "release" version will also have a different set of victory/defeat movies. I'll have to find some freebie stock AVI's of gladiators or something...War Walkers are just WAY wrong.

**Fidel2** · July 11, 2001, 23:37

This is totally unrelated to the Masada scenario, but while I was poking around in the default GAMEDATA directory, I came across this priceless little gem...TUT2_MAIN.SLC (part of the tutorial)! It was evidently written by an Activision programmer who was:

A) disgruntled,
B) a smartass, or
C) all of the above.

It had to have come directly from Activision like this because I haven't TOUCHED that file. Sample comment lines:

// No lemurs were harmed in the opening of this file.

//dumbass workaround for dumbass design flaw

Tired of cleaning up other people's code, are we?

//make sure nobody's rioting or starting cults or sodomizing goats

I laughed for 5 minutes over this one!

//tells the player how to move the little dude out of the city

//if the player manages to click the CityMgmt button, tell them to click Edit Build Queue

I can feel the love for the player here...

//more workarounds than you could shake a lemur poo at

//note to self: bad design always finds a way of biting you right on the butt

//general warnings n' info about **** that happens in the game
//there's a lot of them; I don't ****ing care enough to comment each one

Overworked & underpaid programmer?

I got a much-needed laugh out of this file! After dealing with a bunch of files that don't make sense, I was glad to see that someone at Activision clearly shares that opinion.

**Dale** · July 12, 2001, 01:37

Fidel:
It's amazing how many people comment on the tut slic. To me it just shows a lack of QA at Acitivison. Surely if someone had QA'd this game they woulda seen this stuff and got rid of it. Plus they might have made the game playable too.

But lets not get into that, there's PLENTY of threads on that topic.

**Immortal Wombat** · July 12, 2001, 10:27

Originally posted by Fidel
Impatiently looking forward to seeing it...you sent via email I suppose? Gotta love lag time...

Actually, I was meaning to post it here, but then Apolyton went weird, and I couldn't post, so I never got around to it. Its attatched to this post...

BTW for anyone who wants it at this stage, I have re-posted the ZIP. It's still under some rather serious revision, but you can at least look at the thing as a whole.

Cool. As long as the forts stay in the same place, the code should work.

I would avoid a location of death, because the Romans wont know how to handle it.

I think... that using the unhappiness code in the scenario.slc here, the AI will go into Frenzy_4 very quickly, if not straight away.

lol tut2_main.slc... Great file that one. Doesn't give the best impression of Activision though.

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