Questions for ctp (and other) modmakers.

[Martin the Dane]

Pedrun I hope you realize that what you ask would mean that we would either have to get the source-code from Activision or decompile the whole game. (I guess you do.)
The first is not very likely, while the second, apart from being illegal, is, if not impossible, then extremely difficult.

I'm afraid that it would be both more productive (and a lot less work) to build a new game from scratch. So If we could persuade the Clash people to make everything so costumizeable that it would be possible to make a "CtP3 as it would have been" version. I think that will be the easiest way. But then again Clash is so fundamentally different from CtP that I don't think it's possibel.

Well I have been wrong befor. And never is such a final word.

[primemover]

Great guys... I appreciate the last few posts. To respond to them...

Ultimately... I may decide to work with the clash team... because although their project isn't exactly what I had in mind... it is closer than anything I have seen. And they WANT suggestions. If they want me to work with them and will listen to what I have to say... I may work with them

But meanwhile, to keep the play time going every once in a while...

Do you or anyone else wants to make a CTP2 mod with me? This i am sure i can help you a lot and i would love to do it.

I would not mind creating a new mod... but I have some conditions.

I do NOT have the time to create a mod from the ground up. There are some GREAT mods already in existence... even though I have my complaints about all of them.

What we should do, is analyze the strengths and weaknesses of all the mods, decide which mods have what we want... then we should take all the best things, put them together... and add some code to change some of the things we want...

There is another thread here that is talking about some of the changes/additions I would like to make, were it possible. (specifically the map).

Pendrunn... Martin may be right. Some of your "desires" would be difficult, if not impossible, from a slic point of view except perhaps one or two. I think it might be possible to "label" parts of a map as you suggest. We may try building a "city without effect" to put a label on the map (maybe build costless character that can "claim" territory for our country that builds a "city" that does not give us anything except claim over a territory and a name to go with it.... I have often been annoyed at the fact that I cannot claim a small section of a continent I have conquered just because I do not have a city nearby. If it was that way in real life... half of Nevada and Kansas would not be US territory!)

We may also be able to mod the trade system... depending on what you want to do... but as I am not completely familiar with SLIC (except what I have seen others do), I cannot say this for sure.

Now... for LDiCesare, I have a few questions.

Even before your message, I was strongly considering joining your development team... at least from a suggestions standpoint. I would love to help... especially if you are still open to new ideas or suggestions. I have taken a look at Clash and do like the attempt to incorporate at least scientific realism. I have one major gripe about C;ash though:

Clash is written in JAVA, and I CANNOT STAND JAVA from a game perspective. Java is the IDEAL language for OOP, but it requires an interpreter (i.e. a virtual machine) which is a pain in the a** for games AND does not allow the use of practical graphics interface (IE DirectX or even OpenGL) as far as I know... though I just looked it up at google. It seems there is an OpenGL interface for Java... Is Clash using this at all?

I realize that Java makes the game available regardless of platform... but that platform must use an interface that translates the virtual machine code. This seriously affects the processing speed of the game. What is the reason behind using JAVA for Clash?

How do I "join" or get on the clash team?

NOW BACK TO THE TOPIC OF DISCUSSION...

I think ultimately Martin is right. Those of us who want changes on a grand scale should participate (at least to some degree) in the development of a new game... and uphold the ability to make the game MODDABLE! Right now Clash looks the most promising (though I would like to add some major features... I have some suggestions for a game that uses an actual GLOBE... something I have wanted from the beginning for ALL Civ games...

[Pedrunn]

Primeover and Martin, I can SLIC as you cans see in some of my works like the city expansion, the Religion Code (together with mapfi), the Civ3 Barbarian Encampment, the get advance from city capture code, the Bribe code (in the last post of the thread), the New Updater for Craddle (just like the other but instead of upgrading when dicovering an advance you update when entrech when a army with obsolete units entrench ir do another order to choose inside a city) and others i havent released like the nuclear explosion risk code and the get leaders (units that make all the unit under his stack veteran) from special events code.

Not to mention the ones to go like the trade system i propose in which i do believe everything i wrote in that post is possibe.

All the four things i mentioned is what i dream about and i do know it is impossible unless if in a new game or a change in the source code. As i said all the rest of my dreams is possible thorugh slic or some work around. Prime, As for number 2 the colony as you said was me who come out with the idea but the idea mess up the national screen so i dont think it is such a good one.

I guess you are more interested with the creation of a new game. And i do believe if i had programming ability other than SLIC and free time i probably would like to see my ideas in a new game. Still if you want to you help me with the creation if you want but I can do it on my own what i am really interested is the balancing, editing, fixing and specially ideas even for the basic stuff like units and tech tree (BTW do you have an tech tree already?) or more advanced ones like new concepts.

[Mark_Everson]

Hi All:

Now that I found out from primemover about the existence of this thread, I thought I'd step by and check it out! I hope my comments are welcome here, and just in case they're not, I'll only reply back if spoken to. . .

Thanks Locutus for the detailed post letting everyone here know about the Alt Civs section, and your crude history of the Clash project.

I'm glad that several of you from this thread have already stopped by the Clash forum, and checked out the latest demo! Anyone else that is interested please come by. We need everything from brief comments, to careful analyses, to new artwork, to full committment to the project.

Originally posted by primemover
Now... for LDiCesare, I have a few questions.

Even before your message, I was strongly considering joining your development team... at least from a suggestions standpoint. I would love to help... especially if you are still open to new ideas or suggestions. I have taken a look at Clash and do like the attempt to incorporate at least scientific realism. I have one major gripe about C;ash though:

Clash is written in JAVA, and I CANNOT STAND JAVA from a game perspective. Java is the IDEAL language for OOP, but it requires an interpreter (i.e. a virtual machine) which is a pain in the a** for games AND does not allow the use of practical graphics interface (IE DirectX or even OpenGL) as far as I know... though I just looked it up at google. It seems there is an OpenGL interface for Java... Is Clash using this at all?

I realize that Java makes the game available regardless of platform... but that platform must use an interface that translates the virtual machine code. This seriously affects the processing speed of the game. What is the reason behind using JAVA for Clash?

I think Java has a lot of advantages for games. Only for the most absolute cutting-edge graphics would Java be a bad choice. Clash doesn't, and never will have cutting-edge graphics, but we think that the depth of the rest of the game will make up for that, YMMV. At any rate, we now have tens of thousands of lines of Java code, so that's what we're using. . .

For those interested in more details, this issue comes up frequently. I'll direct you to theJava Game Programming thread over in the Clash forum.

Good luck in creating a killer CTP2 mod, to those of you who want to go in that direction! For those who want something more revolutionary, its a LOT of work, but we'd love to have you in the Clash project. If Clash doesn't sufficiently match your interests, please consider one of the other Alt Civs projects rather than starting something new. The existing projects need a critical mass of committed people to succeed, and every new small project sucks off talent from the limited pool of people willing to really work to bring an Alt Civ game to life!

Regards,

[primemover]

I am interested in helping with a collaborative mod... at least to some extent, because I don't completely like the mods that exist into their entirety.

The thing I really like about CTP2 is to explore the world and to progress to a superpower with a worthy opponent superpower or two. The major mods just don't work like this:

Medieval mod has a really good tech tree and units... but the AI is terrible. (sorry Wes) It is easier to beat the AI in Medieval than in the original game (mainly because the AI is too eager to get into treaties and because the tech tree progresses too fast after the ancient age)

Cradle has a really good government and AI... but the AI is too aggressive in the beginning to allow me to do the exploring I like to do. The other empires are also very unstable. I get into a treaty with them and then they come sack my cities for no apparent reason whatsoever. (I can't trust anyone). I constantly have to watch my back. And all those dang natural disasters don't help (Plagues shouldn't always affect a majority of your empire... especially in the beginning because of the lack of traveling far that existed in the ancient days) The game also progresses way to slow for my taste. I like the speed of the original game... (thats about the only thing I like about the original game other than the idea). Basically, when I first start cradle, I get bored… and then as soon as things start to happen, I get frustrated because as soon as I can do something, I am stabbed in the back by my friendly neighbor for no apparent reason, and I have already been at war for years with the unfriendly one.

I like to explore and establish my goal in the game first... then I like to duke it up with an aggressive opponent who gets in the way of those goals. Basically Medieval Mod makes my goals to easy, and Cradle makes my goals too slow (and to unpredictably difficult) to achieve with satisfaction.

What I would like to do is modify cradle so that it has a more interesting tech (and unit) tree, so that it moves a bit quicker (and has a good long future age span), has all the bells and whistles of the other nice mods, and delays its aggressive tendancies until the late medieval age. And of course we can implement some of these new (Pendrunn's) ideas as well.

But in the end, I must be careful with my time and commitments... school is very demanding of my time.

[primemover]

Hi mark... read your response on clash. Posted an update with general goals for what I had in mind. Thanks for the visit.