Wish list for CTP2(future Mods)

[child of Thor]

I've seen this kind of thing in the Civ3 forum, and with the amount of activity here it seems a good idea for a number of reasons:

1. To help ambitious Modmakers design their Mod and help with idea's

2. There are IMO so many good idea's floating around in so many different threads, that it can be hard to keep track of them.

So i guess i better come up with some to start things of, hopefully people will follow suit and whenever you think, 'hold on that would be great if it could be done!', then stick it here.


IF having the cool 'Bloodbath' or 'Absorb' option then have some way to kill tile-improvements at the same time the above action has been taken. At least crashes to desktop should not happen when pillaging 'left-over' tile improvements? what happened to this idea? here could/did it work?

Stategic resources.
CTP2 has some great tiles, they could be used a bit like in Civ3(but not as badly executed ). Have some resources as basic pre-reqisites for units/advances/buildings.
On a simple level your civ will need wood/forest/jungle or swamp/marsh(reeds) inside it's borders/city radius to be able to research/build boats.
Need to have developed some kind of ore-working (copper/bronze/iron) AND have a mine tile working hills/mountains with an ore in them, to be able to build certain units(Hoplite/Legion?). I believe (from such discussion before) that this would be possible to impliment, using tile improvements to 'hold' the relevant characteristics for coal/iron/wood/jungle etc. Just make sure they appear librally on the world map, as in real life - non of this weird Civ3 distribution, that really can penalise a player.

Diplomacy.
I haven't tried Civ3 so i can't speak from experience, but i hear that its system offers alot but doesn't really deliver.
I think the CTP2 system is good as it is, you can counter offer, threaten etc - it's a fairly comprehensive system. The problem is the way the AI uses it(in multiplayer it works very well), and a few bugs. I think rather than getting too ambitious in this area, if the present system could be 'fixed' i think it will be good enough.

Start game.
I've been playing WAW recently and the kick-start it gives you really cancels that usual waiting 20 turns or so for not much to happen.
Maybe some kind of reduction in how long it takes to build units at the early stage of the game(the support as well?). Or some kind of early boost (upto a certain amount of cities?) where by all science/production is incresed?might be difficult to balance when(in time) units/advances come, but i really liked NOT having to press end-turn and watch another uneventfull 20 years go by!
Dales Mod maybe too extreme for what i'm thinking(but its perfect for his game - it makes sense, you can just get on killing each other!), but the result , of less waiting around, is great.

please add what you think would be great to see

[Bluevoss]

Some of these I've already mentioned, but I'll put them here anyway.

1) An OPTION to have city-crushing and army-crushing disasters, run off a user-defined percent chance. Ships sink, armys get the plague, towns burn.

2) Pirates that would attack coastal cities and trade routes.

3) A map that CENTERS on your capital city. Nothing like having a map with my east and west ends on opposite sides.

4) Ability to see what a stack in the open contains if you move a cav or fighter unit next to it (subs or PTs for sea stacks). The unit could do this once a turn.
5) The Exile game - ever had one of those games where you are way ahead, the other races exist becuase you think they are cute, and every city has everything it could possibly own? There should be a way that the player can decide that (a) he has won and (b) he can keep playing with even more challenge. So say there is some way to trigger an exile.

When the player goes into exile, he makes the following choices:

a) He picks a city he is starting from. The largest cargo boat he can possible own is put into that port, along with a nomad unit. The rest of the boat is filled with the best ground units available.

b) He gains a new color and plays as this new race. His knowledge of the world and technology is that of his original race. The trick is that he must sail to some forgeign shore, establish a new colony, and begin anew. Can he make a comeback? Israel and Carthage did it (somewhat). Can you?

Anyway, these are some dream items.

[child of Thor]

Thanks Bluevoss!
I know its a bit of a hassel to re-post stuff, but this will hopefully put an end to loseing all the good design idea threads.Oh yeah you can always post links to other threads that already exist? I'd, and i expect a few others, would find it helpfull to have access to this info. I'll go searching for links and add them as i turn them up

Ultimate CTP2(?) here

Small wonders. here

Big Wonders.
here

AI superpowers. here this was first posted here

Pop based Improvement costs here

AI talk(very indepth!) here

Stategic resources+Culture(Civ3 Flavour!)
here

Disasters here and here oh yeah, also
here and here

Happy buildings for AI here

[Harovan]

I made several tries recently to play some CtP2 again. Mostly with Cradle. Started not bad, the AI seems much better now, but I fail to have fun with the game. 30, 40, 50 turns the same one city, nothing changes, far from some slow discovery. Have a settler, settle down, wait again, 30, 40, 50 turns with 2 cities. It's boring, and strange thoughts appear, like what's in TV? Maybe we look up Apolyton? No, let's play. Have 2 settlers now, from 2 cities. Settle down, and wait again.

I have invested lots of time for the about 100 turns (with some military) so far, and what did I build? 4 cities? In the orignial Civ games (2 or 3) I have after the same amount of turns 20-30 cities, a flourishing empire and maybe the first war behind me. There pure adrenaline, here boredom. Four games I started so far, and all ended at this point, because I abandoned them in disgust to make something more interesting.

Why is that so? Your game has two very useful benefits. It has a script language and a far better combat system. And you invested a lot of work in mods and deserved that people play them. I can't see a flood of people coming here because Civ3 is soo bad. The newest version 1.21 is very good. Not yet perfect, but they work on it. It's not a Beta anymore. CtP2 was released and abandoned as an Alpha, or let's say, as a game construction set with a horrible demo.

And even if it would be so and masses would switch to your game, where are they, and why do you need your obvious spam in better frequented fora? The first page of this forum covers almost 2 weeks, compare that with the Civ fora.

Here's what I think you need to attract more people to play your mods. I understand your wishes, and tolerate your advertising, but to attract more people, you need to improve your game. Here's what I think:

- fight the ancient age tedium, don't increase (Cradle) but shorten the length of the ancient era. It's long enough, since turns are only 20 years from the beginning. WaW is no solution, because it completely lacks the earlier ages. Shorten the time needed for unit construction. 40 or 50 turns for a settler is far too much.
- make the diplomacy actually work. The AI's ignore all treaties so far, making CtP2 diplomacy utterly useless.
- make borders work. The AI's keep to violate them (MUCH worse than in Civ3). Although the Mods make withdrawing work, it's extremely annoying to demand this every turn.
- eliminate the penalty for the human player, when he makes alliances with AIs. It should be a bonus. I don't accept "Don't make alliances" as solution.
- increase the length of modern age, or make futuristic fantasies optional
- eliminate stealth units. I can see my attorney and my priest. They are annoying, add work and reduce fun.
- vastly improve the map generator - not necessary, but would be a nice bonus
- some nice graphical mods to improve the horrible map view (like Sn00py's for Civ3, which unmodded looks also bad) - well, that's a matter of taste.

[Harovan]

Re: Wish list for CTP2(future Mods)

Originally posted by child of Thor
CTP2 has some great tiles, they could be used a bit like in Civ3(but not as badly executed ). ..... Just make sure they appear librally on the world map, as in real life - non of this weird Civ3 distribution, that really can penalise a player.

The expert has spoken!

Originally posted by child of Thor
I haven't tried Civ3 so i can't speak from experience

Oops...

[Bluevoss]

Sorry the game moves too slowly for you, Ralph. Maybe Donkey Kong has a better pace for you.

When you read history, you see units like triremes holding sway over the ancient world. Huge fleets of these vessels fought in battles such as Salimas and the various Punic wars. It is as important to the formation of our world as the airplane was in the last century.

But civ, made for the "Wantit Now" generation, pretty much glosses over the ancient periods, making these into individual scouting vessles rather than a method of projecting power.

Cradle's emphisis on the ancient world is fine by me - I love the pace and the fact that you are NOT in a headlong technology rush (something only known recently in western culture, but somehow projected backward to make CIV game mechaics work). Now, I can build biremes and expect them to hold their own for years to come, rather than just build and replace, build and replace.

The work on CTP2 is a hobby for a lot of people. Its an act of creativity by a number of people who see merit in a game and enjoy tinkering with it. Coming onto the CTP2 forum to bash it, just becuase it dosn't meet with your fast-paced expections is pathetic. Look, you don't like it; fine. Just stick to your game and let us play ours.

Maybe Civ3 will be ported to the Xbox, which would be the best of all worlds, right?

[hexagonian]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
I have invested lots of time for the about 100 turns (with some military) so far, and what did I build? 4 cities? In the orignial Civ games (2 or 3) I have after the same amount of turns 20-30 cities, a flourishing empire and maybe the first war behind me. There pure adrenaline, here boredom. Four games I started so far, and all ended at this point, because I abandoned them in disgust to make something more interesting.

I make no apologies for the pacing of the game, because the Mod is set up to logically limit ICS playstyle through settler cost, among other things. Personally, the first 100 -150 turns takes me about 1/2 - 1 hour to play. This is a preference issue. (and can easily be changed by dropping the cost of a settler in a text file)

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
Why is that so? Your game has two very useful benefits. It has a script language and a far better combat system.

The combat system is turning out to be a big factor for many players. There are many reports of unbalanced combat results in civ3 because of the limited HP numbers/lack of Firepower and Armor. And add the lack of a true stacking/group movement ability for units, and the early game tedium you complain about in CTP2 is countered by the micromangement issues of civ3 (unit movement, combat and worker movement for tile improvements).

As for the scripting/Moddability issues, there is no comparison between civ3 and CTP2. Can civ 3 add (and I mean add, not change existing elements) units, techs, wonders, advances, AND create scripting elements that reach outside of the normal rules of the game (things such as a Unit Updater)?

Granted, many players would like to have the game playable out of the box, with no need to have to modify the files. Nothing wrong with that either. But I see the same criticism leveled at CTP2 (the game needed to be modded) also leveled by fans at civ3 - the problem is that Firaxis is basically holding the real cards in the Modding process - the players can bring up their problems to Firaxis, but they are at the mercy of Firaxis, because Firaxis has their own vision for the game.

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
And you invested a lot of work in mods and deserved that people play them. I can't see a flood of people coming here because Civ3 is soo bad.

I have never said the civ3 is a terrible game, nor do I expect a lot of people to suddenly drop playing civ3 to play CTP2. Any comments that I make in the civ3 forums are directed to those players who want a civ-style experience and feel that civ3 has fallen way short of expectations - based on preference issues. Most of the issues related to what a player feels about a game boil down to preferences - and the performance of the AI.

In regard to the AI, Modded CTP2 offers as much as a challenge as civ3 - so it comes down to preference in areas such as interface, in-game elements such as PW vs Workers, combat and so forth.

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
CtP2 was released and abandoned as an Alpha, or let's say, as a game construction set with a horrible demo.

No longer the case, given the state of the Modding community - bottom line is where the game stands now, not a year ago.

And this is at the crux of the issue for me regarding civ3 - it is unfinished, and coupled with many preference issues that I have (PW, combat, broken corruption, a weak tech tree) and I have little interest in even loading up the game. Still, I keep an eye on what is happening over there in the civ3 forums because there is potential to get the game to where I may enjoy it. I probably will get around to playing it - but not as it stands now - even with the current patches.

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
...why do you need your obvious spam in better frequented fora?

Funny...I tend to look at it as enlightenment!

There must be a fear over there that 'Modded CTP2' is actually very good and may syphon off players from the civ3 community because it is now thought as a superior game by some former civ3 loyalists.

It's nice to be considered a threat!

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
The first page of this forum covers almost 2 weeks, compare that with the Civ fora.

Again, I'm not so tied up into sheer numbers - I already know that the built-in audience for civ3 is larger. (but most people would rather eat hamburger rather than steak too.)

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
Here's what I think you need to attract more people to play your mods. I understand your wishes, and tolerate your advertising, but to attract more people, you need to improve your game. Here's what I think:

- fight the ancient age tedium, don't increase (Cradle) but shorten the length of the ancient era. It's long enough, since turns are only 20 years from the beginning. WaW is no solution, because it completely lacks the earlier ages.

1. ...probably not going to happen with my Mod because the Ancient Age is the focus of Cradle. At the same time, there are Mods (MedMod, Apolyton Pack) that have a broader focus.

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
Shorten the time needed for unit construction. 40 or 50 turns for a settler is far too much.

2. ...based on a pop. 1 city - Again, this is a preference issue tied into reducing the use of ICS. And at the same time, yours is the first comment from players where this is even an issue.

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
- make the diplomacy actually work. The AI's ignore all treaties so far, making CtP2 diplomacy utterly useless.

3. ...again, one of the challeges witin this Mod is that if you are in a low position on the power graph, getting other civs to deal with you is hard. It is possible to work up tech trades and such, but at the same time, the AI is rather unpredictable too. The bottom line is that you will not be able to effectively exploit diplomacy to beat the AI, nor can you count on a friendly AI keeping its word....Just like the real world, given the history of broken treaties throughout time.

At the same time, there is a Diplomacy rewrite happening in the Modding community - however, it is a very ambitious project, so it will take awhile.

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
- make borders work. The AI's keep to violate them (MUCH worse than in Civ3). Although the Mods make withdrawing work, it's extremely annoying to demand this every turn.

4. Modern society has a much more clearly defined idea concerning borders. The Ancient mindset is different, as those borders between nations was more fluid, and more prone to dispute. And given the nature of ancient civs and their warmongor mindset, it wasn't uncommon for civs to habitually invade other civs for little logical reason other than perceived racial superiority. Borders (and tresspassing), as they are defined in Cradle fits in with the atmosphere of the timeframe, IMO.

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
- increase the length of modern age, or make futuristic fantasies optional

5. ...see above concerning the length of the Ancient Age

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
- eliminate stealth units. I can see my attorney and my priest. They are annoying, add work and reduce fun.

6. ...not going to happen in my Mod because stealth units are an accepted feature of CTP2 - and one that I like anyhow.

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
- vastly improve the map generator - not necessary, but would be a nice bonus
- some nice graphical mods to improve the horrible map view (like Sn00py's for Civ3, which unmodded looks also bad) - well, that's a matter of taste.

7. Map generation and the map view are more preference issues.

Points 1, 2, 5, and 6 are easily modified through txt files and if you want to customize your setup, the Modders can tell you how. The map generator is something that I have not done too much of, but I know where to do it.

I do thank you for trying the Mod. As I said before, most of the issues do boil down to preferences, and there is nothing wrong with preferring one game over another. As a player, I like to know what the thoughts from other players are about different games, so I can ultimately make the decision as to what I want to play. In this regard, your post may help other players decide what is best for them.

[centrifuge]

Very eloquent and well spoken hexagonian. I'm one of those that have just started to take full advantage of CTP2, and enjoy it very much. I like Civ3 as well, but i need Mods and scenarios to be truly satisfied with a Civ game. Cradle is an extremely good Mod, and IMO those who don't like it must be playing it with their judgements already preconceived.

[Harovan]

Bluevoss: Thank you for teaching me how I have to feel about CtP2. I'm certainly missing your experience, even though I played it for almost a year in 2001. Your history lesson was also appreciated . Sorry if the analysis of my recent experiences with modded CtP2 offended you. And I truly apologize, that my added wish list for CtP2 was so much off-topic. But wait... What was the topic of this thread?

By the way, I don't possess any game console, and if I bought one, it would be certainly not of Microsoft. My son had a Sega, but it ended in the trashbin long ago.

Hexagonian: My post was meant as an analysis, why I am not able to return to CtP2 even though I seriously tried (and still have to try the other mods). It was a try to help in future mods and not intended to run the game or your mods down. Just a try to understand, why so many people don't even think to play it, althought they are disappointed with other Civ games. And about Cradle, no offense to you, it's a lot of great work, but probably not meant for me. All is a matter of taste.

As for your "spam" , well, it's not a threat, rather annoying, but oh well, not the worst here at Poly . As you have seen in Bluevoss' response, he felt also annoyed by my posting, so why should I be better than you? I just notice, that in every rant fest over ther in the Civ3-General (and there are a lot of them, mostly by the same few posters) it's bound to be one or more of you guys telling that modded CtP2 is soooo much better. And I also posted, that I understand and tolerate it, so no offense was meant or taken.

And about modding my wishes myself... Thanks, but I'm not a modder. I sure easily could learn event programming with SLIC, I know C very well, but I have no patience. And shortening the build time of a settler without changing all other values would be quite imbalancing, wouldn't it? I guess if the other mods don't fit my wishes, I'll just put the CD back at the stack of old games.

[Immortal Wombat]

Trouble is, that finding a mod that will fit the majority of people's preferances is very very hard. My Ultimate Tech Tree thread is a beginning of finding the majority view on civ gaming, and I will be doing more surveys to guage opinions on all sorts of things, then compiling them, and making that civ game in CtP2 (no way am, I alt-civving )

[Peter Triggs]

Re: the map generator

This is clearly a preference issue, but I've never liked CTP1/2 maps either. So here's my map generator; see what you think of it. I'm pretty happy with it but a lot of people might not like it: it gives very sterile and I guess you could say boring maps. IIRC, they're more like the ones in Civ2.

On a scale of 0-10 these are the map settings I use:

     wet           3
     warm          3
     ocean                    8
     island                   8
     uniform                         10
     few goods                       10

BTW, I also changed the city border radius (makes it easier for the AIcivs to build roads between their cities). I think I customized some of the other data too (can't help tweaking data).

[Pedrunn]

WishList,
City Expansion based on Tile improvement and not in goods/terrain.

[Bluevoss]

Actually, the map generation is one of the things I like best about CTP2. I enjoyed Civ2, but to me, the maps had islands that were long and stringy and never seemed to end. It was like some sort of Baja magnified. I couldn't imagine the continents or their relationships, since they were as intertwined as a bowl a spagetti.

CPT2 (to me) has much more clearly defined continents. Also, the settings allow me to make bigger deserts and mountain ranges that ARE mountain ranges, not just individual mountains.

On the other hand, everyone who plays CTP2 wishes the AI could be better. Civ2 was far more likely to suprise me, to attack my citys, and to put me against the wall. Cradle works to make the competition a little more stiff, but its still not quite to C3's level. So it goes.

Its simply a matter of choice.

[child of Thor]

Sir ralph,
Sorry you don't like CTP2, and your opinions are welcome, as are your suggestions for improving the game.

Back to tile improvments as resources, maybe resources can also be used in the same way? So for instance (in Med mod) you want to get the Elephant special unit, it makes sense(?) that you will need elephants(Trade Good) in your area of influence, or in a trade deal?
Why do this? Well realism i guess, plus it would add an extra strategic element.I don't believe these options need be very rare(ala Civ3, i speak from reading the Civ3 forum and the posts there on this subject ), to make them strategic. Keep the amount of trade goods as normal - i think the current setup for distibution(in all mods i've tried) works well; Oil in deserts,diamonds in mountains etc. I don't think i've ever seen an unbelievable placement of a Good, so could Goods be used as prerequisites for units/improvements/advances? Martin?

I think the Maps are pretty realistic(as games go), but it does depend on the settings alot. I tend to use the same kind of setting 80% of the time -world style(2/3 ocean etc) on Peters scale : 8 for Goods/Uniform, 5 for warm/wet.

Pedrunn,
care to expand on city expansion I get the first bit; do you mean the rate at which a city expands numericaly? Or maybe you are refering to the city 'sprawl' code where your city increases its tile coverage as it grows(an old mod i think)?

Bluevoss,
The AI is CTP2's greatest problem, but its getting better at attacking(check the succsesion game threads for Barbarian horror stories!), In WAW(at present) its very pro-active, at the expense of city defense. And as it is at present with the various mods, i prefer to play CTP2 over Civ2. The extra features/timeline etc of CTP2(modded) just make Civ2 feel very dated(its still a great game).

I think Wes's thread(one of the links above) on changeing costs/gold in the game is a good thing to look into, it sounds fairly simple and would give more scope for the use of money in the game in general.

The wonders thing is very exciting(i didn't link it as its new and holding it's own), and when this becomes part of the Mods as standard it will be great.(note: my points about crashes from pillageing tile imps may apply here too?)

I would love civ-specific units(if only in form - not stats), but i've been told the work involved would be HUGE!, still i got a good 40-50 years left, so maybe i'll get around to it. Seeing short/dark welsh archers+spearmen taking on taller/fair english(saxon)swordsmen would IMHO be great fun!(or greek Phalanx's take on persian horse etc.). What's great about CTP2 is that this IS entirely possible to do.

On Diplomacy i think stronger bonds should be built(i'm sure Peter is looking at this), but not for a 300 gold bribe.The fact that you show benevolence towards anther civ(especially over a period of time) should be better reflected in game. Its difficult to make the game more aggressive on one hand and better at diplomacy on the other. Maybe Wes's link on costs/gold would allow a more realistic level of gift(10,000 gold instead of 1000?), to get a more lasting gain in diplomatic relationships?
All civillisations conducted diplomacy on some level and it is one of the fundementals of how well any civillisation fares in the world.
So a more coherent level of diplomacy would vastly improve the game.

Combat. We probably have the best version in a game of this type.In fact i'm nearly always happy with the results,still it's not 100% perfect. I'm not sure yet which way works best for me with unit upgrades(for AI as well). I spend a lot of time placeing units within a stack to make sure that my ranged units are always at the rear, not a big problem - it gives me something to tinker with. I like the upgrade offer in Craddle, it keeps old units(unlike in Med mod?), but you can upgrade what you can afford. Phalanx vs tank/jet? hmmm. A guy with a pointy stick should not be able to destroy a tank in pitched battle(he could jam the gun with his stick - no? ). Luckly this doesn't happen very often in CTP2. But how about this. I feel that when a jet is in a city its resting in its airbase, and vunrable to the man with a pointy stick? A tank not in the open-field, say in the tight confines of a city block, is more vunrable to the lone foot soldier. So maybe there should be different active states for units, depending on their location? This would allow less advanced civs to compete a bit better without having to constantly 'kill' the majority of a civ's out of date units(and leaving them vunerable to a quick take over?).Too complicated/impossible to do?its just a thought that might make combat abit more realistic?

Anymore for anymore?

[Pedrunn]

Originally posted by child of Thor

Pedrunn,
care to expand on city expansion I get the first bit; do you mean the rate at which a city expands numericaly?

Actually the growth rate can be easily changed by modifing the following lines:

Const.txt

MAX_ABSOLUTE_GROWTH_RATE 10000

This is to set the max amout of pop per turn (note this must be this value must be the maximum or it will give sime bugs)

citysize#.txt

GrowthRate 	 300

And this is the amout of growth per food point avaliable.

Or maybe you are refering to the city 'sprawl' code where your city increases its tile coverage as it grows(an old mod i think)?

I use city expansion in my mod, but it gives some annoying bugs that i cant solve myself. Since cities are good and can be traded.
But the worse is that i cant set the cities per age correctly. This way i get modern cities in renassaince . Not to mention annoing stuff in it installation like having to add more than 10 goods, more than 20 terrains and impossibility to condense slics so i have 5 different slic files to implement this feature. This is why i want to change to TI expasion rather than the existing one based on goods just like IW said he could?