Medieval Pack II v2.1: Crusade! update

[WesW]

Here is the readme for the Crusade update. Attached in the following post is the zipped update files. Unzip them into the Call-to-Power folder as usual.
I have sent Mark and Wouter the zip, so if you have trouble with attachments like I do, I hope the file will be available at other locations shortly.

Medieval Mod II v2.1: Crusade! readme
by Wes Whitaker.

This file covers all the additions made in the 2.1 update of the Crusade! version of the Medieval Pack II.

Thanks to all of you who offered feedback on the forums. Hopefully this update will address your concerns.
For this update of the second version of the modpack, I have again tried to address the remaining failings of the AI.
The changes made in the update are not very numerous, but they involve many of the most fundamental settings in the game, so I believe they may produce a big change to AI performance.

Production changes:
I have reduced the effect of the production improvements from 30%, 60% and 90% to 25%, 50% and 75%. I also reduced the pollution unhappiness from production by 25% for all government types. Finally, I corrected a bug by adding the flag to the Diplomatic personality which told it how long to wait before cleaning up pollution.
I hope that this will help keep the AI from building its cities into chaos due to production unhappiness.

New AI priorities and forcematching:
I have added several new priorities to the strategies.txt, which deal with special attacks and using paratroopers. Thanks to Martin Guhmann and Player 1 for alerting me to the fact that these priorities were missing, and offering their settings for me to paste into my file.

I also altered the force-matching settings the AI uses to determine whether it is strong enough to launch attacks, as well as the force strength necessary for defense.
After making my reductions in these settings, I reviewed those in the Cradle mod, and saw that my new settings were about halfway between my old settings and those in Cradle.

Martin also found and fixed a bug with the commerce tile improvements trigger that he wrote.

Diplomacy:
I fixed part of the personality-switching trigger so that the switched personalities mirror the originals.
I hope that this will make newly militaristic civs act more like militarists.

Difficulty levels:
I increased the max-ahead and max-behind bonuses given to the AI on the Emperor and Deity levels so that they match those found in the Cradle mod, except for the starting gold amount, which I believe the AI uses to rush-buy too many units and thus burden it with excessive support costs.
I also found that I had reduced by half the gold, science and production bonuses given to the AI on Emperor level, and I have raised them to their original settings.

Note: The mod is balanced assuming that the human disbands his second starting settler. I usually use mine as a scout for several turns before disbanding it.

Unit updater and frenzy options:
If you want to use the unit updater and/or frenzy triggers from Cradle in the modpack, simply open up the MM2_script slc file, located in the
C:\Program Files\Activision\Call To Power 2\ctp2_data\default\gamedata folder, and remove the two "//" that out-comment the files.
Example:
// #include "MM2_SLC_unit_updater.slc"
to
#include "MM2_SLC_unit_updater.slc"

Thanks again to Martin for performing the extensive changes needed to convert the unit updater file for use in the Medpack.

[WesW]

Here is the update zip.

[Locutus]

Wes,
I will post the file later today, I'm kinda busy right now.

BTW, do you want this thread topped and the v2.0 thread untopped or do you want to keep the current situation (or perhaps even something else entirely)?

[Locutus]

The file can now also be downloaded from here.

Wes, if you want to, you can also add files to that website yourself, I already created a subfolder 'Wes' for you. Ftp at ftp.250free.com (username: ctpmodmakers, password: bl00drun). Background and details can be found here (and to a lesser extend here).

[WesW]

Thanks, Wouter.
The 2.0 thread needs to be un-topped, since the 2.0 readme is in the texts (all-but-stoney) part on my webpage, and the attachments in that thread are all either contained on the webpage or out-dated.

For those of you new to the Medpack, the 2.1 update is part 7 of the modpack, and needs to be installed after the other 6 parts, which are available at my Apolyton-hosted site, linked to through my title to the left. It does not matter in which order you install in the other six parts.

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by WesW
Note: The mod is balanced assuming that the human disbands his second starting settler. I usually use mine as a scout for several turns before disbanding it.

Let's compare the extra settler change in the DiffDB.txt's for each difficuilt settings in MedPack2 and ApolytonPack:

[SIZE=1]Extra settler change in ApolytonPack for each difficuilt setting[/SIZE]
EXTRA_SETTLER_CHANCE		1000000
EXTRA_SETTLER_CHANCE		1000000
EXTRA_SETTLER_CHANCE		2500
EXTRA_SETTLER_CHANCE		1
EXTRA_SETTLER_CHANCE		1
EXTRA_SETTLER_CHANCE		1

[SIZE=1]Extra settler change in MedPack2 for each difficuilt setting[/SIZE]
EXTRA_SETTLER_CHANCE		1000000
EXTRA_SETTLER_CHANCE		1000000
EXTRA_SETTLER_CHANCE		2500
EXTRA_SETTLER_CHANCE		2000
EXTRA_SETTLER_CHANCE		2000
EXTRA_SETTLER_CHANCE		2000

So if you don't want an extra settler for the human, why you don't lower the extra settler change for the human player in your DiffDB.txt like it was done in the APOL_diffDB.txt. I usually play on the fourth difficuilty setting and I never got with this setting in GoodMod for ApolytonPack an extra settler. Not if yoou want to give the AI extra settlers than you have to increase the number for the AI_START_UNITS tag, like in Apolyton where the AIs start with five settlers on impossible.

Originally posted by WesW
Thanks again to Martin for performing the extensive changes needed to convert the unit updater file for use in the Medpack.

And I thought Cube converted it, I just downloaded the attachment here from the forum and sent it to you.

-Martin

[WesW]

Originally posted by Martin Gühmann

Now if you want to give the AI extra settlers than you have to increase the number for the AI_START_UNITS tag, like in Apolyton where the AIs start with five settlers on impossible.

Oh, I didn't know that. I thought those units were warriors or something. I thought that the settler chance applied to both the human and AI.

And I thought Cube converted it, I just downloaded the attachment here from the forum and sent it to you.

-Martin

Sorry, my bad.

[The Rusty Gamer]

Ok, I unzipped all the files and they all went into folders within CTP2 directory as designated. But the modswapper still says 2.0, there seems to be no game pointer to the new files, since they are all in a folder called 2.1texts. Have I missed something?

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by The Rusty Gamer
Ok, I unzipped all the files and they all went into folders within CTP2 directory as designated. But the modswapper still says 2.0, there seems to be no game pointer to the new files, since they are all in a folder called 2.1texts. Have I missed something?

From the *.zip file all the files went into folders like ..\2.1texts\.. so there aren't in the CTP2 folders. To fix this problem just move all subfolders of the ..\2.1texts\ folder to your CTP2 main folder. If you get a lot of overwriting messages than you placed the files in the correct folder.

By the way from a first look on the files it should be no problem to run GoodMod for MedPack2 v2.0 with these new files.

-Martin

[WesW]

I am having some trouble with my winzip. I have the paths flag checked, but the files are not being put into the folders like they should be. All the files are just dumped into the Call to Power 2 folder, no folders or anything. I am using version 8.1. Any suggestions?
Has anybody else had problems extracting the mod?

[The Rusty Gamer]

Error at 4000AD!

Started my first game. Right at the first turn, according to the science screen, if I research Stone Working, I'll get the ability to build undersea bases! The save file (zipped) is attached.

[WesW]

This error is part of Martin's work with the tile improvements code.
Martin, the undersea fort, right above the test tile improvement in tileimp.txt, is the problem. I don't know if this improvement works or not. If so, it needs to be enabled by the same tech which enables undersea colonies.

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by The Rusty Gamer
Started my first game. Right at the first turn, according to the science screen, if I research Stone Working, I'll get the ability to build undersea bases! The save file (zipped) is attached.

Enabling advance is Stone Working and obsolete advance is Stone Working as well, so you will never be able to build it. Of course you can go to the MM2_tileimp.txt in your ..\ctp2_data\default\gamedata\ folder, and replace this line in the TILEIMP_UNDERSEA_FORTIFICATIONS block:

EnableAdvance ADVANCE_STONE_WORKING

by this one:

EnableAdvance ADVANCE_NANO_ASSEMBLY

And delete this line:

ObsoleteAdvance ADVANCE_STONE_WORKING

So you can build this tile improvement afterwards you discovered the advance that allows you to build undersea tunnels, this tile improvemnt has the same effect as a land fort, but it cost as two land forts, and you won't find an GL entry until you remove the GLHidden tag in the block of this tile improvment, but also if you removed the GLHidden tag the entry in the Great Library is still empty, unfortunatly I have no idea if Wes included all the images for this tileimprovement otherwise you could be a little bit suprised by what you see on the map instead of the undersea base. If you installed GoodMod or Cradle than the improvment will look like an undersea base. If you don't like to have this tile improvement in than you should replace enable and obsoleta advance by the ADVANCE_SUBNEURAL_ADS.

-Martin

[joseph1944]

Just downloaded the file. Will install later. My wife said dinner or else.

[WesW]

Unit updater update

I looked thru the unit updater slc, and there were a few updates missing. I also adjusted some of the update costs.