The World at War! Ideas & Discussion.

[Dale]

Quick Update.....

Okay, the going has been slow (real life kept getting in the way), but here's an update of what's in the MOD so far, and running correctly:

- Advances
- Buildings
- Wonders
- Units
- Governments (only Fascism, Democracy & Communism)

All the graphics, costs and properties of all these are finalised (though the costs may change during testing).

Here's some things I've been following:
- Buildings are slightly cheaper
- Units are slightly cheaper
- Unique units are dearer, but with benefits
- Science is cheaper, but not as much opportunity to generate lightbulbs through the game

Here's some things I've got to put in next:
- I'll use a lot of AI files from Cradle (well it is the most aggressive AI we've got so far)
- I'll be putting Peter's new diplo script in the MOD as well..... IF he finishes it

So hopefully a beta soon.

[Dale]

Originally posted by Master_Darque


How about also allowing the airport terrain improvement to behave as a military base and allow both land and air units to refuel there?

Also, following this train of thought, would it be a good idea to use the port terrain improvement as a naval base to refuel ships?

The only problem I can see, is how to get the AI to recognise this. I already have a building for coastal cities which will "allow" ships to be built (except patrol boats which can be built anywhere) and it wouldn't take much to make it a repair centre either. As for SLICing the AI to sent ships back for repair, I think I have a way in mind, but will have to test it when I write it.

As for refueling, It'd be too hard for the AI to contend with.

[CJCharlesworth]

Dale,

Would the refueling ship idea not just be able to use a slightly modified version of your airunit.slc file you have already done.

For example- if we kept things simple -
Each time another ship get refueled the tanker looses 10000 fuel. when its own fuel fell below 10000 it would not be considered a refuel point and would then itself return to a port for refueling.

I dont know a great deal about the SLC at this stage but i dont see why ships should work any different to aircraft and aircraft carriers?

Thanks for your thoughts so far.

[Dale]

I think it might be possible to do. The change to airunit.slc would be minor, but going about getting how much fuel is left in a plane might not be possible.

Maybe Locotus or Wombat know of a way to find out the fuel left in a plane? *hint hint*

[CJCharlesworth]

That sounds encouraging,

Also just a quick tip if some one could please,
I have had to reinstall CTPII but now the saved games that I wsa using to develope the WWII scenario no-longer appear. Please could you let me know how to get them back
(I still ahve the origonal files)

Best regards,

[Immortal Wombat]

Originally posted by Dale
Maybe Locotus or Wombat know of a way to find out the fuel left in a plane? *hint hint*

No, I don't know. Probably you'd have to do it on a unit specific basis by keeping track of how many times it has moved since refueling last.

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by CJCharlesworth
That sounds encouraging,

Also just a quick tip if some one could please,
I have had to reinstall CTPII but now the saved games that I wsa using to develope the WWII scenario no-longer appear. Please could you let me know how to get them back
(I still ahve the origonal files)

Best regards,

Did you reinstalled the patch. If not than the program does not show you savegames that were saved with the patch.

-Martin

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Immortal Wombat


No, I don't know. Probably you'd have to do it on a unit specific basis by keeping track of how many times it has moved since refueling last.

That's what I would say as well, AFAIK you can't get the actual amount of fuel from a unit. But keeping track of all fuel-based units (using arrays) is quite easy to code; I've coded at least a dozen or so similar things. The only potential problem is that it might eat a lot of memory, but in this day and age that shouldn't a big problem either.

[CJCharlesworth]

Tanker! - What Tanker?

Ill try reapplying the patch for the missing saved games - Thanks!
Thanks for everyones input into my Tanker/Ship Refueler idea. After reading your comments and looking at the Referance information for SLIC I better understand the problems.

Becuase of the complexitity of implementation I have gone off the idea of the oil tanker unit and I suspect it will not operate in the way I had hoped. So I am having a rethink on that note.

I have changed my scenario ships properties so that they have loss of movement when damadged. I dont know why this is disabled on all units by default and it does seem to work nicely. Any reason why all units are set to- LossMoveToDmgNone?

However...
I did like the idea of Sea mines and mine sweepers which Harlan implemented in the stunning Civ II scenario of the Pacific War. how possible would that be to implement ?

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by CJCharlesworth
I did like the idea of Sea mines and mine sweepers which Harlan implemented in the stunning Civ II scenario of the Pacific War. how possible would that be to implement ?

The land and sea mines were nearly in CTP1 therefore we have the graphics. Land and sea mines would be tile improvements so that no one starts a war when he is hit by a mine. Mine explotions would be triggered by slic. But the real problem how to make the AI use the mines. I know how to add an order like ORDER_BUILD_FORT, so that I can make a goal for the AI like GOAL_BUILD_FORT. The best thing of this new fort build sollution is that the AI knows that it will do something for its defence and it is not just a road link code like the forts for the AI code. From the GoodMod thread you can see what a border region for the AI is.

-Martin

[CJCharlesworth]

My thoughts where lending more towards a mine unit that could be placed aboard a transport ship and unload into the sea. If it had special unit attributes enemy ship would not see it unless it was a mine sweeper.
Harlan managed to implement this in a CivII scenario and it worked very well.
Then when you implement the damadge causes loss of movement to ships it helps build on the tatics and scope of the game.

Im also trying to think of a way to bring another element to CTP2. At the moment it works very well on a stratigic military level. But is lacking in a logistical manner.
For example the tanker idea, once a nation has a massed a large fleet the only way to win is to build an even bigger fleet. But with the tanker idea that large fleet would have to be regulary supplied. Take out some of these tankers and greatly improve your odds of winning by rendering ineffective parts of the enemy fleet.

To my knowledge this has never been attempted. I also had the hope to extend the tanker idea to ground forces. that way a numerically superior army may advance for some distance but could be halted or slowed by targeting its re-supply chain.

Im not sure Im going to get anywhere with this, but like I say, I think it would bring many other new strategies to the game. Anyone else think the same or should I keep my over extended ideas to myself ?

[Locutus]

CJCharlesworth,
I agree that supply was *extremely* important in real military history and that it would be infinitely cool to implement it in a civ game (in fact one of the most important features still missing IMHO), but getting the AI to deal with it would be extremely difficult. I'm afraid this particular idea might be a little *too* ambitious...

[tigger]

CJ don't keep ideas to yourself, its these discussions which drive our development of the game forward. I for one want as many of these threads as we can get. If ideas don't work then maybe we can adapt them into something which can, but you approach things differently to me, Locutus' approach is different again, Dale, Hexagonian, IW etc (sorry I can't list everyone) these threads have given me ideas I want to try and shaped the ideas I have got. Keep posting!

[Locutus]

Originally posted by tigger
Keep posting!

That is certainly true. Regardless of how impossible something may seem, you never know...

[CJCharlesworth]

Im trying to get as much realism as is sensible out of CTP2.

One odd thing I've noticed is that although during land battles you can use a Flanker unit with the IsFlanker attribute to attack an emeny from the side as well as head on, Sea Battles do not allow this.

I have modified the unit properties of all warships to be IsFlanker like the tank but the game appears to ignore this fact. Am I correct and can anything be done about this ?
Note: There is a chance that my observation could be down to crap testing!

Also,
Would anyone agree that in a WWII scenario Subs should not be able to see other Subs?