A simple question....

[Maquiladora]

AgroBastard - Script to enhance the attack of the AI
GreedyBastard - Script to enhance the economics of the the AI
SmartBastard - Script to enhance the science of the AI
GrovelBastard - Script to enhance the diplomacy of the AI
PanicBastard - Script to enhance the defense of the AI
WetBastard - script to enhance the navy of the AI
SwoopingBastard - script to enhance the air useage of the AI

Cant wait!

[ahenobarb]

Originally posted by Dale
I anticipate this to cause problems for the human later in the game when the Civ is very spread out, and the cost of maintaining those armies (I like to call it beauracracy) will create weaknesses in the humans defense. Consequently, the AI should be able to take advantage of these weaknesses.

I am also throwing around the idea that any unit outside of the Civ's borders gets hit by double-maintenance (cost of shipping supplies to that area).

How about adding triple cost for more advanced mechanized units (cost of fuel and maintenance)? The logistics of modern mechanised armies are much more difficult than those invovled in warfare from previous eras. In the old days it was mostly getting food and ammo (arrows and swords or bullets and guns) to them, sometimes not even the food, if they plundered or lived off the land in remote areas.

[Dale]

Originally posted by hexagonian

Wellllllllllll, I was smart enough to figure out how to Mod CTP2, so I guess I can put 2 and 2 together... Ben said nothing either...

Anyhow, welcome back.

I knew I couldn't stay out of modding for too long.

Looks good - a few questions

Shoot away....

Sounds like this will help the AI to establish a good network of cities - provided that the settings are high enough to prompt to AI to aggresively explore. Is it first come, first shot at the lands then?

Yep, first in, best dressed. One thing I see as a problem for the AI is city placement. From my experiments so far with the colonisation script, just the first draft of the script has improved it. Unfortunately, there's no way to tell if a player has explored or not a square. So I updated the city vision range. *shrug* It still plays OK so far. Couple that with "speedy units" (ala WAW) and it'll recompensate itself.

I would guess that this would make upkeep easier in the later game. Currently, the CTP2 setup usually is 10% of unit cost, so once your units pass the 500 production cost level (per unit), you will start to break even on upkeep between the systems. (I know that a player generally has lower level units as part of his armies, so the maintenance costs would average out lower than 5 per unit, but that gap would close quickly due to upgrades and replacement of lost units due to warfare.

As you get to the higher costs (say averaging 1,200 production per unit to build) you would be only paying 5 production for upkeep per unit as opposed to 12 production per unit in the default game.

A lot will depend on how you work the production settings though.

Maintaining armies in enemy territories should be expensive as you are planning. This is great!!!

I'd already decided last night for double-maintenance in enemy territory. As for the maintenance costs, I did think of that last night and just came on a solution. How about the original table, just each level multiplyed by Epoche? See below:

Military Maintenance:
---------------------

No longer will there be the original military maintenance of CTP2. A new concept first pitched by myself in July 2002 will

make an appearance. Military maintenance will still be based on how many units you have in the field, but on the following

scale (to be finalised):

0 - 25: 1 PW per unit * Epoche.
26 - 75: 2 PW per unit * Epoche.
76 - 150: 3 PW per unit * Epoche.
151 - 300: 4 PW per unit * Epoche.
301 - XXX: 5 PW per unit * Epoche.

This means if you have in Epoche 1:
20 units: 20 = 20 PW maintenance per turn.
40 units: 25 + 15*2 = 55 PW maintenance per turn.
80 units: 25 + 100 + 5*3 = 140 PW maintenance per turn.
150 units: 25 + 100 + 225 = 350 PW maintenance per turn.
200 units: 25 + 100 + 225 + 50*4 = 550 PW maintenance per turn.
500 units: 25 + 100 + 225 + 600 + 200*5 = 1950 PW maintenance per turn.

This means if you have in Epoche 3:
20 units: (20) * 3 = 60 PW maintenance per turn.
40 units: (25 + 15*2) * 3 = 165 PW maintenance per turn.
80 units: (25 + 100 + 5*3) * 3 = 420 PW maintenance per turn.
150 units: (25 + 100 + 225) * 3 = 1050 PW maintenance per turn.
200 units: (25 + 100 + 225 + 50*4) * 3 = 1650 PW maintenance per turn.
500 units: (25 + 100 + 225 + 600 + 200*5) * 3 = 5850 PW maintenance per turn.

I anticipate this to cause problems for the human later in the game when the Civ is very spread out, and the cost of

maintaining those armies (I like to call it beauracracy) will create weaknesses in the humans defense. Consequently, the AI

should be able to take advantage of these weaknesses.

Any unit outside of the Civ's borders gets hit by double-maintenance (cost of shipping supplies to that area).

As you can see, the maintenance costs skyrocket each Epoche.

Are you planning on using a color code system for the tgas? I can provide you with tgas for different levels of specific units, based on the current available CTP1/CTP2 units that are available.

I will be including different coloured graphics for specific unit types. EG: For muskateer: Red - infantry. Blue - conquistador.

The one problem is that you will not be able to tell the strength of the units you are fighting (Is that a low- or high-level warrior facing me?) But actually, that would make the game more interesting (a level of uncertainty is always good) and make the need to maintain an eye on where other civs are at in tech even more important.

I don't see a problem in this. When armies faced each other, they didn't know about new tactics. Did the Poms/Polish/French REALLY know how Blitzkrieg worked in WW2 when the Germans invaded Poland? No. It's all part of the surprise I'd say.

[SMIFFGIG]

quote:

Originally posted by Dale
No longer will there be the original military maintenance of CTP2. A new concept first pitched by myself in July 2002 will make an appearance. Military maintenance will still be based on how many units you have in the field, but on the following scale (to be finalised):

0 - 25: 1 PW per unit.
26 - 75: 2 PW per unit.
76 - 150: 3 PW per unit.
151 - 300: 4 PW per unit.
301 - XXX: 5 PW per unit.

This means if you have:
20 units: 20 = PW maintenance per turn.
40 units: 25 + 15*2 = 55 PW maintenance per turn.
80 units: 25 + 100 + 5*3 = 140 PW maintenance per turn.
150 units: 25 + 100 + 225 = 350 PW maintenance per turn.
200 units: 25 + 100 + 225 + 50*4 = 550 PW maintenance per turn.
500 units: 25 + 100 + 225 + 600 + 200*5 = 1950 PW maintenance per turn.

I anticipate this to cause problems for the human later in the game when the Civ is very spread out, and the cost of maintaining those armies (I like to call it beauracracy) will create weaknesses in the humans defense. Consequently, the AI should be able to take advantage of these weaknesses.

I am also throwing around the idea that any unit outside of the Civ's borders gets hit by double-maintenance (cost of shipping supplies to that area).

Hey dale, I really like the idea of this. Right now in CtP2 exploring is no problem (not even a task) if u know what i mean. The fact is if a unit cost double the amount of PW then exploring will better mimic what it was like in real life as a more mager task. The player would then designate a certain amount of units to go exploring, rather than sending any spare unit they have to explore the map as quickly as possible (although its not a problem, as in crappy Civ3).

This could also bring rise to the explorer unit and it having an actual use You could make it cost no extra pw or none at all

Anyway good luck with the mod, when do u think the first (ALPHA ) will be released ?


SMIFFGIG

[Dale]

SMIFFGIG:

Yes! Exactly what I was planning on! Like I mentioned above, the Conquistador unit, which doesn't cost the double outside of borders.

As to first playable game? No idea. I've got 3/4's of colonisation scripted, but other than that, not even a new advance is listed. But if you build it he will come!

[Dale]

I just noticed I just turned into a King! WOOHOO!!!!

[SMIFFGIG]

lol, and i now have an icon next to my name


Cyberninja

[child of Thor]

Cripes! I'm all worked under at the momment and this comes along!
Dale - goodluck with this endevour, and i will look forward in anticipation to it's release. It sounds really great and i'll post more detailed comment when time allows. Great news

[hexagonian]

Originally posted by Dale
Yep, first in, best dressed. One thing I see as a problem for the AI is city placement. From my experiments so far with the colonisation script, just the first draft of the script has improved it. Unfortunately, there's no way to tell if a player has explored or not a square. So I updated the city vision range. *shrug* It still plays OK so far. Couple that with "speedy units" (ala WAW) and it'll recompensate itself.

Have you seen the same type of AI city expansion that you were able to pull off in your experiment in WAW?

Originally posted by Dale
I'd already decided last night for double-maintenance in enemy territory. As for the maintenance costs, I did think of that last night and just came on a solution. How about the original table, just each level multiplyed by Epoche? See below: As you can see, the maintenance costs skyrocket each Epoche.

Looks like in Epoch 3 this would be the base breakdown (approx)
20 units - 3 support per
40 units - 4 support per
80 units - 5 support per
150 units - 7 support per
200 units - 8 support per
500 units - 12 support per
This is not including double maintenance for units in enemy territory either. The bottom line is if you make offensive warfare more expensive than defensive warfare, you simulate a historical fact. Related to this is that there are settings in govern.txt that allow you to adjust support coefficients, so you can give those numbers even more importance. (The double maintenance costs alone could really skyrocket under certain governments - making those governments VERY impractical for an aggressive war.

Question - is this system applied to the AI? If so, you probably will have to SLIC into the AI the need to jump to a different government if it finds itself in a offensive war. The AI is hard-scripted to move from government to government, and it does not have the flexability to decide which is the best government to be in at a particular moment. (One of the reasons why the governments are progressive in CTP2)

Originally posted by Dale
I will be including different coloured graphics for specific unit types. EG: For muskateer: Red - infantry. Blue - conquistador.

Let me know if you want them done - I have all the files on my system to do this easily.

Originally posted by Dale
I don't see a problem in this. When armies faced each other, they didn't know about new tactics. Did the Poms/Polish/French REALLY know how Blitzkrieg worked in WW2 when the Germans invaded Poland? No. It's all part of the surprise I'd say.

Why give the human player any advantage at all?????

[Locutus]

Sounds interesting, to say the least...

[Dale]

Originally posted by hexagonian

Have you seen the same type of AI city expansion that you were able to pull off in your experiment in WAW?

I can't exactly say anything on colonisation yet, I still don't have the complete code written. I'm got to finalise what exactly in a cell influences (+ or -) colonisation. What'll happen is when a city pop-growth gets grabbed for colonisation, it will search in a radius from that city to a distance between 5 & 7 (3 circles) scoring each cell. The cell with the highest score wins. As for speed of colonisation, that's determined by the government policy for colonisation encouragement. The higher the encouragement, the more cities you have with less pop. The less encouragement, the less cities you have with higher pops. You'll be able to change this during the game. EG: You start on an island. At the start you put on high encouragement and fill your island with cities. You then change encouragement to none, causing no colonisation.

Just thought of an idea:
- If gov policy is to encourage colonisation, and the city cannot find a cell to colonise (surrounded by cities/water), you get the option to return it to home city.
- A new tile improve useable outside borders like fort, which creates a "Colonisation Point"? If you have a CP specified, there's a good chance that a pop-growth from anywhere will settle there before the normal search. This will get over the problem of not being able to island-hop in my original design.

Looks like in Epoch 3 this would be the base breakdown (approx)
20 units - 3 support per
40 units - 4 support per
80 units - 5 support per
150 units - 7 support per
200 units - 8 support per
500 units - 12 support per
This is not including double maintenance for units in enemy territory either. The bottom line is if you make offensive warfare more expensive than defensive warfare, you simulate a historical fact. Related to this is that there are settings in govern.txt that allow you to adjust support coefficients, so you can give those numbers even more importance. (The double maintenance costs alone could really skyrocket under certain governments - making those governments VERY impractical for an aggressive war.

And vice-versa:
Expensive for Republic/Democracy/V-Democracy.
Cheaper for Monarchy/Facism/Communism.

Question - is this system applied to the AI? If so, you probably will have to SLIC into the AI the need to jump to a different government if it finds itself in a offensive war. The AI is hard-scripted to move from government to government, and it does not have the flexability to decide which is the best government to be in at a particular moment. (One of the reasons why the governments are progressive in CTP2)

If we implement this, we'll have to decrease the anarchy time. We can't have an AI jumping govs all the time, not when you could you lose 2-5 turns per change to anarchy for science and stuff. Any disagreements on this?

Let me know if you want them done - I have all the files on my system to do this easily.

At this point, I've got what I need. I'll let you know if something comes up though.

Why give the human player any advantage at all?????

Exactly!

[Dale]

Well, in the tentative tech tree I currently have 176 advances, and that's only till 1950! I got another 50 years to do.



I think I might have to cull some.

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by hexagonian
Have you seen the same type of AI city expansion that you were able to pull off in your experiment in WAW?

Actual I am content with the AI expansion in GoodMod. The different in strategies.txt is that I have 6 settlers instead of 3 (changes from April) in the early expansion strategies. And maybe the settlers of the original game are cheaper than the Cradle Nomads. (I didn't check this.)

-Martin

[Peter Triggs]

RE: "infinite"

[MarkG] [DarthVeda] I have a question: what is the max number of units in the game?
[MarkG] (if one exists)

[mrogre] 2 to the 28th power.

[StSwithin] minus 1

I couldn't think of any comment that couldn't be misinterpreted.

[Adriano]

First of all :
Thank you Dale for the greatest Mod of the History of this incredible community .........

Anyway I suppose you'll need hardest work to balance the impact of all that features..

For example I suppose you ''ll have to raise the PW points from factories or tile imp mine adv mine to keep the game playble...

It shouldn't be better in tile improvement process ( e.g. from mine to adv mine or from net to fisheries ) to pay only the difference between and not the full cost in terms of PW??
Just an idea.................