changing trade goods (Nordicus')?

[Elucidus]

I am converting Nordicus' Trade Goods from CTP 1 to CTP 2. But there are a lot of general tile diferences between the two files (not just with the goods). I am wondering if I should keep the new values and just change the goods values or if I should use all the old values?
Also I am wondering if I should change all of the goods to only what was in Nordicus' Trade Goods or if I should just add Nordicus to what we currently have (with some chages to the values, of course). For example keep "Tea" in the mountains and add "Coal" or simply replace it with "Coal". Tell me what you think. Thanks.

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Yours in gaming,
~Elucidus

[OmniGod]

When converting I think just converting is a start, not worrying about the values... easily changed post-conversion... the advantage to CTP2 I believe is that you have 4 types of goods per terrain type... so leave the tea and just add coal as a 3rd...

This could be good... any time frame for full conversion?

Omni

[Elucidus]

I must be missing something. It isn't working. I know the syntax has changed a little, but it just isn't working. It's late maybe I typoed something. I'll check again tomorrow. If anyone knows if the syntax changed and what to that would help. Thanks and sorry about this.

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Yours in gaming,
~Elucidus

[OmniGod]

It's okay... I may start to dabble since my map is very near complete... only an hour left I hope.. still can't save as a scenario though... so what type of problems are you running up against...

[Elucidus]

Identifying the goods to the program is the problem. Getting the program to recognize the "goods" areas of the file. I can't figure out the value that IDs it. Like I said probably something simple and stupid that I missed. I'll try again tonight.

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Yours in gaming,
~Elucidus

[MarkG]

just noticed it: we've got many "settlers" and "chieftains" in this forum. the second generation of ctp mod creators...

[Locutus]

Yes Markos, I think the first generation is still waiting on their CD Looks like Activision is screwing up for the second time

Eludicus, if I have time I'll have a look at it tonight, maybe this old fart and his beta can still do some good

[MarkG]

quote: Originally posted by Locutus on 12-01-2000 10:25 AM Yes Markos, I think the first generation is still waiting on their CD Looks like Activision is screwing up for the second time

i was under the impression that they have already been sent more than a week ago...

[Locutus]

Well, I didn't see anything yet and neither did any of the other A-team members, or at least not as far as I know, so apparently not. I think I'll email one of the Activioners about it tonight or tomorrow, 'cause I'm having a very unpleasant deja-vu here

[OmniGod]

quote: Originally posted by MarkG on 12-01-2000 09:36 AM just noticed it: we've got many "settlers" and "chieftains" in this forum. the second generation of ctp mod creators...

I'll take an automatic upgrade to Prince if you want to cut down on the number of settlers

Omni

[skorpion59]

Wes and I got our copies today so you should start seeing some 'aged' work come out. And, once we spend some time playing the game, some more help for the newbies.

[OmniGod]

Yeah the aged ones hath returneth.... CTP2 you ready to change... anyway... how's the changes going Elucidus
?

[WesW]

Since the use of goods and the trade system has been changed so much in Ctp2, I was thinking of leaving them alone, and just letting them be used for gold.
If some other guys want to play with them, that would be fine, as we can use all the info we can get on how the files relate and so-forth, but I am going to concentrate on other things right now.
It's nice to have a lot of people trying their hands at things, btw.

[Elucidus]

Well Omni & Everyone else for that matter,
I apologize. It is beyond me how to add the goods values to the terrain. I just cannot figure that one out. I have tried everything I can think of, and I think I will take a break from it this weekend. Maybe it will come to me if I stop thinking about it. If anyone figures it out, let me know and I'll finish the trade goods thing, if you want me too, that is. Well, again everyone I am sorry to have gotten your hopes up. Good day and good luck.

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Yours in gaming,
~Elucidus

[Locutus]

Don,

Good to hear people are finally getting their copies, about time. Haven't seen mine yet but I guess it can't be long anymore then.

Elucidus,

Well, I for one had no problems adding a trade good myself, so you probably overlooked something simple, as you already said before. I'll just describe how I did it so you will hopefully see what you did wrong.

A few remarks first:
- It doesn't matter where you put the files, in standard game folders or in scenario folders (or some in standard and some in scenario), it's all the same to CtPII (a big improvement over CtPI, esp. for sound and ai files).
- Another wonderful improvement over CtPI I just noticed today is that if you make a typo or some other minor error, you don't have to quit the game and restart it, just Alt-Tab to a text editor, make the change, Alt-Tab back to the game and load the scenario again. Fan-tas-tic!!! this will save lots and lots of frustrations and restarts, at least for me
- CtPII uses 22 goods but there are 24 sprites, so it looks like there are 2 bonus-goods (though I haven't tried them so I don't know what they are, probably CtPI sprites).
- I tried giving goods food and shields, but giving shield causes an error and giving food doesn't seem to do anything, so it looks like adding extra recourses to goods the way Timothy (& Nordicus) did is no longer possible, unless it's possible in some other way
- Goods are no longer concepts, as in CtPI, so the sprites and files and everything else of Nordicus' files that's related to concepts, should be ignored.

Well, here we go:

1) Copy the graphics (2 per good) to default\graphics\pictures.

2) Copy the sound file to default\sound.

3) Copy the Ggxx.spr (with xx a number between 20 and 52) file to default\graphics\sprites and rename it Gg0xx.spr (so 025 instead of 25 FE). Keep in mind that the numbers 20 to 24 are used by CtPII now so rename those using the numbers 53 to 57.

4) Copy the relevant part of Nordicus' gl_str.txt to the english\gamedata\gl_str.txt of CtP (as I said, ignore the concepts part of Nordicus' file).

5) Edit terrain.txt to add, for all terrain types that get new goods, the lines "Resources TERRAIN_{type}_GOOD_*", where {type} is the name of the terrain type and * is ONE, TWO, THREE or FOUR, depending on how many goods there already are and how many you're adding.

6) Edit sound.txt to add the line SOUND_ID_* "xxx.WAV", where * is the name of the good and xxx the name of the soundfile.

7) Go into uniticon.txt and copy an existing entry on a trade good. Now, paste it once for every new good you add and make necessary changes. So rename the entry, the two icons and, optionally, the GL entries. The FirstFrame icon should refer to the 'big' tga (about 40k) and the Icon icon should refer to the 'small' tga (about 2k).

8) Edit goodsID.txt to add all the new goods here. The number here must be the same as the number in the sprite. So the good with sprite Gg025.spr should get number 25.

9) Edit goods.txt to add the new entries. I have no idea what happens if the Probability of all goods for one terrain type is anything else than 1, so to be on the safe side, make sure the totals are always 1. Here's an example, should you need it:

# Apple
TERRAIN_FOREST_GOOD_TWO {
SpriteID 56
Sound SOUND_ID_APPLE
Gold 1
Probability 0.25
Icon ICON_GOOD_FOREST_THREE
}

10) Optionally, add entries to the Great Library. Simply copy the contents of the appropriate files of Nordicus' Trade goods to the correct section of Great_Library.txt. Names of these section should be GOOD_{type}_*_{GAMEPLAY|HISTORICAL}, where, once again, {type} is terrain type and * is the number of the good (as a word).

That should be all. If it doesn't seem to work, it could be useful to try and add the good through the cheat menu see right click the tile with the (missing) good. If the name of the good is depicted in the window but there's no picture anywhere, you simply mistyped the sprite file's name (that's what I did wrong the first time ).
[This message has been edited by Locutus (edited December 02, 2000).]