Medieval Pack II v1.1: A Call to Arms

[Caranorn]

Just played two hours and now most of that has gone to waste.

I end one turn by giving one of my barbarian round up teams a move order it can't finish due to lack of movement points. Next turn a stupid American (with whom I have a peace treaty and roughly 2/3rds of my trade) stack has moved right into that tile and my patrol attacks them right away. First I tried to reload from the auto save, but the attack always occurs first thing in the turn. So I decided to just retreat from the combat (attacking a phalanx and bowman at war establishment in a forest with a peace time chariot and light cavalry ends up with the b****y footfolk winning) and establish a cease fire right away. That would have been bad enough as it was (losing several caravans and trade, reputation with my neighbours etc.). But then while the US apparently accepted the cease fire (and my hard earned money;-), they did not respect it and next turn they destroyed my two offending units. making another cease fire (and some more bribes), and they attack my border posts next turn, apparently those cease fires never took effect (I offered them my capital that turn just to check how they'd react, that time they actually abided by the cease fire, but giving away your best city with it's wonder and all is rather expensive).

Anyhow, Wes, did you put in some delay between a declaration of war and when a cease fire can occur? Or is this just a bug (it looks the way as they did accept the cease fires and gifts). It's certainly rather annoying, I will start over at my last saved game (one turn before completing my first wonder iirc).

On a positive note, Atilla is rampaging through France, he now has taken a second city and has 22 military units in tht area (most cheap foot, barbarians have to get better military advances early on, makes no sense for their captured cities to build wonders and spearmen). And the French started a new wonder too, which is rather astonishing when you have had half your cities captured (and lost at least 5 units to account for the slaves in the barbarian cities).

There definitelly is a problem concerning when the ai builds wonders. Prestige won't do them any good once they are conquered (of course France was trying for the Great Wall, which would make sense, but I doubt the ai is that good). I think most civs start building wonders when they have no other buildings to complete and a relatively big military already. Personally I'd consider PW and settlers more important.

Enough again, I will return to the game now.

[WesW]

Sorry I have been away the last few days, but I have been pretty sick and have been unable to focus enough to help out with bugs and stuff. I managed to read page three and the previous post.
I corrected the city size problems Chris B mentioned. I also corrected the descriptions of the Kraken and Dreadnaught. These corrections will be included in the Crusade beta whenever I get that posted.
The two ships cannot bombard ships because these two are capital ships and do not occupy the submarine role in their ages. I wanted subs to have the special ability to bombard ships to mask their defensive weakness. Most other ships cannot bombard water because that would enable them to counter-bombard subs as well.

Did someone post complaining that the mod was too difficult for them to figure out how to download and install? Hope they never need to update a file or anything.... Just read the Introduction and Installation text a couple of times and you should not have any problems.

I did not put in a delay between the declaration of war and the cease fire. Yes, the AIs can do some dumb things when the game does not go normally, like when they start getting conquered, but fixing this would require changes to the AI routines in the exe.

Lordmore, I think you need to download and install the texts again. I think you have the buggy original upload.

Blue, I expanded the timeslice settings, but you may want to expand them even more if you have a slow pc (see the Misc. readme).

As for the building obsolescence, that is covered in the buildings section of the Main readme. It is definitely one of the mod's new concepts.

Jani, I think you are expecting a little too much military conflict from a typical civ game (this isn't Starcraft), but if you try using the cheat mode to change the AI civs to militarists, that might help give you what you want to see.

Tim, if you are still having the hang-up, try out-commenting line 2751 of the MM2_script.slc and see if that fixes it. I am not sure what to tell you otherwise right now, though I welcome any suggestions.

I know that some of you posted questions and comments over the last week or so that I have not addressed. If you still need them answered, post them again and perhaps I or someone else here can help you out.

[janilxx]

Originally posted by Bluevoss
Speaking of the time-slice setttings - are those in the MedMod as shipped? Or do you need to go in there and do it yourself?

Wes did increase Time_slice settings. If I remember right he multipliced original values with 5. And I usually do multiplice Wes's values with 2(sometimes with 3) from MM_CONST.TXT.

[janilxx]

Originally posted by WesW
Jani, I think you are expecting a little too much military conflict from a typical civ game (this isn't Starcraft), but if you try using the cheat mode to change the AI civs to militarists, that might help give you what you want to see.

You are right. My dream to have citycapture for example in average of every 20 turn was too much.

But it seems that every other players are getting a way more city captures than I am. For example one game... I got 3 city captures and I was in year 1800AD.

That means that I was actually the only one who could kill other country and take his all cities. And If I would do that once or twice I would be superb nation and the rest of the game would only be waiting of my victory. I just want to get challenges!

Have anyone ever been killed(totally) in the game after turn 100? I think if you can play 100 turns you can surely play to the end of the game.


BTW I have not ever played starcraft. I have to say that I have heared that name but I do not even know what kind of game is that

Actually I have not played anything for a years before CTP2. Ok Ok I have... but it was a play by mail game that could be played by email too and I played that but that can not be counted

[The Rusty Gamer]

Oddities and questions...

Well, I've been playing the mod for a few hours now and I've noticed a couple of minor oddities.

1. At one point when I look at my army advisor he was suggesting to me that I needed to build more longships. Just one problem. It's an elite unit that I missed out on getting!

2. In the great library description and also in the description when you select a unit on the build screen, it says that the cog is for shallow waters only. Imagine my surprise then, when I found it could sail through deep waters! Either the description is wrong or the unit is defined incorrectly.

I'm really enjoying the game overall Wes. Unfortunately there is the unavoidable bugs in the exe like the ruins delay. I don't suppose there's a slic command that would turn the ruins off somehow (and the tutorial on the lower levels for that matter).

Speaking of the tutorial, those five slics errors at the beginning of the game on the lower levels could be fixed I believe since they don't occur in the Apolyton pack or Cradle.

Another problem is when you accidentally attack a unit of a country you have peace with (by misjudging the direction when moving) there is no warning whatsoever, you are suddenly at war with them which is another problem with the exe isn't it? Had to go back to a saved game on that one. However, I noticed there is a line in userprofile.txt which says Useattackmessages=No . Does anyone know what that does if switched to Yes? Will that solve the problem?

By the way, is it my imagination or is this game take longer than Civ 2 now with the mod pack? Out of curiosity, how many techs are in the mod pack compared with Civ 2? I know the readme says 60 have been added but what is that overall?

Finally, has anyone know where there is a description of what each individual line does in userprofile.txt? I'm curious to know just how many civilizations max you can have and also if it's possible to create a map that links north to south but NOT east to west by use of Xwrap and Ywrap.

[Caranorn]

Yep, Wes multiplied CTP2's original ai time slice by 5 in the const.txt

In the game I reported earlier, I noticed two cities captured by the barbarians. Apparently all on that continent are now advanced sufficiently to defend their cities, but the barbarians have a lot of slaves which tends to indicate military victories in the field. The french still build wonders of the world when they have an equal population with those barbarians, which I can only call astonishing. And Japan has actually expanded onto that continent (that is a 10 turn or more sea voyage and fortifying against barbarians). Two civilisations have each conquered one city of another civ, but that is all the visible conquest (some cities might have been destroyed). But then only one civ has a land border with two civs, all others only with one or none (one civ is on a swamp island surounded by deep sea and to the best of my knowledge they think that's the extent of the world).

And yes that military advisor is annoying recommending you build elite units you don't have (he always recommends elite units to me, best is to leave him off, no need anyhow).

I think you could set the const.txt so that no barbarian huts are placed, but I'm not 100% certain. At least you can make huts very rare. from memory I'd say change the two values associated with huts to high numbers (try 1,1 for fun if you have the time, I'd not play that of course).

Useattackmessages=No, isn't that to see all attacks in the world or something of the sort? Just set it to yes and try it out.

As to the lines of the different text files in teh game, there used to be explanatory files on Apolyton for CTP1, those should still be mostly valid (a lot of unused trash seems to be left in CTP2, I wonder how the programmers ever managed to get that thing going). I will have to look for those files myself in the next days, I thought I had copies left on my disks, but could not find them yesterday. And there are some parts in the files I messed about so far which no ammount of testing could elucidate (there are two values to set borders, what is the first one? it's set to 4 in the original. I know that borders drawn on the map are set by the second). And that's just one of the examples of things where I found no answer by testing.

Oh and speaking of stupid ai's, in my game the Americans just built 2 cities in arctic mountain terrain (I turned settle mountain on again), those cities will have only 15 food and therefore condemned. The ai can do strange things if it's cornered (early epansion is still best I feel on a small landmass).

[Cube]

Oh and speaking of stupid ai's, in my game the Americans just built 2 cities in arctic mountain terrain (I turned settle mountain on again), those cities will have only 15 food and therefore condemned. The ai can do strange things if it's cornered (early epansion is still best I feel on a small landmass).

I turned settle mountain on when I noticed the AI would move It's settler to a mountain and just stay there. The thing is that the AI doesn't use farmers in size one cities. I settle on mountains sometimes, but I use settlers when my food starts to get low. I still don't know if the AI uses farmers when it has a small city that is starving. I gave mountains and other terrains with 0 food some food, since I find it strange that theres no food. In real life there is food on these terrains, but its very little. I gave mountains 3 food, deserts 2 food, and reduced swamps to 2 food.

I have seen barbarians take over cities, In my current game they control 3 cities. They are full of ancient age units, while the civ they took it from has gunpowder units, but they don't try to take it. These cities where captured by barbarians using one or two gunpowder units, while the AI didn't have any gunpowder units.

I have noticed that with the refuge code, refuges flee to size 20 cities, and other cities that are at their max populations, this causes the city to start starving and eventually reach negative population. Why don't starving cities become smaller, like go from twenty to 18? I don't think there should be negative population, the city shold just die. I have also noticed that the AI starts building farms and adding farmers when it's cities reach max size.

I used cheat mode and noticed the AI reduces its workday, in order to increase happiness. It does this becuase it doesn't have enough happiness buildings in it's cities, so when they start polluting the cities start getting unhappy. almost all of the civs have done this in my game except the populist zealots, and other civs with small cities. This is bad becuase I want cities to have good production, and as a result pollution. How can I change this. Do I have to increase the bonus for building happiness improvements, or do I have to increase the priority for hapiness buildings?

I started a game on Impossible and I'm at 1800 bc or somewhere around there, and I'm the last civ in the rankings. It's going to take some effort to change this especialy since I haven't gotten any advance from ruins. Does any one have any advice on how to get ahead on Impossible. I'm building the pyramids, and I have barely developed units with slaving ability, and I'm starting to attack barbarians with them.

[Gen.Dragolen]

After Action Report

To: Emperor Pedro II
From: Court Intelligence Officer

Subject: Recent Network Data Interception

(Taken from the debriefing given to His Most Holy Pharoh Cheops, 1530 Z, 7201st year of the Dynasty)

... after having persued the Poles into all corners of their former territories and concluding our military obligations to the Emperor Pedro II, the Royal Dynasty was at peace again. We added 11 new cities to our 45 existing, and have spread the word of your glory to their deaf ears. We ended all partizan activites in the new territories by the 7005th year of the Dynasty.

This lead to new problems in keeping the peace in the older territories and required enormous sums of labour and gold to create new distractions for your subjects. Also, several different approaches to governing were tried: in the end the Virtual Democractic Assembly proved useful, although it was still inadequate to prevent repeated disturbances. Your local administrators were able to pacify the peoples in all cases.

As your Royal Scientists were finally able to solve many key problems associated with the sheer size of the Royal City of Thebes at greater than 50 districts and Luxor the same, we found that we no longer had the Economic means to support these sized cities. Despite the Wonders they created, and the buildings created, we were in danger of the Royal Treasury being bled dry.

We also continued to neglect the Dyansty's defenses until very recently as there was no excess production capacity to use for Military Units. Despite this, we were able to give the Magi, the Royal Bodyguard Regiment, several new Walkers and a Leviathan to defend the Palace.

Alas, in the end, we were unable to Complete the Gaia Controller as we could not finish the Ignition Sequence. The Royal Scientists are still trying to accertain why the Controller would not start despite the countdown's success full completion.

In future matters...

Transmission fades to static.

[Apollon]

Suggestion for Flak Towers:
Since Fighters can't attack (normal) anymore, Flak towers are useless IMO. Is it possible to give them some kinda active air defence? Not too powerfull or such... But is it possible? Or give them some other use, or just replace them with another building...
Cuz now they're just taking space in my building list

[Myrddin]

Cube - tackling Impossible

It's not possible to get ahead without serious military expansion as the AI can outgrow and outresearch you. Taking out 2 other civilisations should get you about level with the rest. Aim to get catapults as early as possible and take out one neighbour, then head for cannon making to help take out another neighbour, with the bonus of absolute monarchy to allow you to rule your expanded civ.

[Cube]

I agree with you on the research, but that's because they get 3 settlers and I get two and they get five more advances. I'm going to lower my gold and increase food on the sliders. I expand quite fast , right now I have 8 cities while my neighbor has 5, but the expansion you're talking about might happen later in the game. Have you had the AIs reduce their production(see my other post.)

[Paulypav]

Wes, thank you and all the people who assisted you for once again making CTP and CTP II playable.

You can expect my money in the mail shortly.

I have seen the AI act aggressively towards me, although more often than not they do not attack because my military is superior, their cities are well defended, they have expanded all over the globe, and the AI's have had constant warfare with each other.

In the game I am currently playing I have noticed something unusual. I am playing with 7 civs (the usual because I forgot to adjust NonRandomCivs), on a huge map. There is basically one large continent with lots of ocean surrounding it. Between the other six civs, they have built 4 port cities and it is the late 1800's. Has anyone else noticed the AI seem to avoid building on coastal tiles. Can this be a result of the changes to the values for beach tiles?

Can't wait for MedMod 2. Keep up the good work everyone as I couldn't figure this stuff out myself.

[Paulypav]

oops, double post

[Caranorn]

Yep, noticed the low number of ai coastal cities as well. It could indeed be due to the low values atributed to beach terrain. Though some other factors might influence this as well.

Strangely enough with CTP2 I myself started building fewer coastal cities as well due to the apparent increased risk of naval shelling (bombardment). In CTP I tended to pursue agressive naval policies (some which would not work anymore, including massive blockades of other land masses and strong patrols near my own ports). That way I tended to open most expansion to myself and my allies. In CTP2 I seem to use an entirely different strategy limited mostly to land expansion (much more compact and therefore less trouble with capital distance). And of course I love my barbarian round up teams (don't work this game, I fully expanded into all empty land north and ne of my capital this time right after my initial victory against the barbarians (8 slaves from 11 land battles, 9 of them victorious)). To the south and west the land rapidly turns into terrain unfavourable for my cavalry (I changed glacier to movement type mountain, might return to the old settings there, though it makes sense). So now I can't even follow the buggers that appear there.

Just for fun I destroyed the neighbouring American Empire this time (forced them to surrender one city for 2500 silver lest I wipe their entire civ of the face of the Earth, then I organised a revolution in their next city and marched in victoriously, a few turns later I took their third city the same way and asked whether their capital city would not like a nice cosy protectorat and made them sign a peace treaty).

Somehow I must have been in a destructive mood, overall the expansion weakened my empire I'd say (3 big cities with hardly any improvements requiring centuries of work to build up to my Roman standards).

This is essentially a test game to check out my terrain modifications (all production, food and gold has changed for both the terrain and terrain improvement files, movement and freight values have also changed for most river and road tiles and improvements). Some definitely require changes yet. (Possibly all grows too fast yet, but I might fix that by adjusting governments or other factors maybe).

[Der PH]

Originally posted by Paulypav
Has anyone else noticed the AI seem to avoid building on coastal tiles.

The AI does not only avoid beach tiles, but also builds its cities extremely close to one another.
Often there are only two tiles between the AI cities, although there is plenty of space to expand in every direction.

In the original game this happened, too, but not as regularly as in MedMod2.