Tentative Project - Part Three

[Martock]

Wes, would it be difficult to incorporate the fusion tank from CTP into this game as an early version of the fusion tank. i really did like that sprite and though i like the new fusion tank sprites too, it'd be nice to have them both in there. maybe even adding the old war walker as the genetic ages SAM unit of choice. lastly, i'd like to see the old space marine unit brought back in as a heavier version of the hover infantry (which i like too). i don't know much about modifying the files to do this on my own so i'm hoping you might do just that.

thanks!

[wheathin]

Wes, couple of things:

1. Great idea with the negative values. By combining them with a static upkeep value (positive or negative) you can get an even greater range of maintenance costs. Example: power plants have a high fixed cost - the plant itself, and then a low per-user cost. SoO maybe a 50 gold fixed maint cost, plus 1 gold per citizen?

2. Negative values can be useful in other aspects of the game as well: negative science for slaves (I don't know if CtP2 uses a Pop.txt file like CtP did) to mimic the real-world effects of slavery. Negative food values for glacier/polar/tundra terrains might be a way to have those areas provide less fertile ground for coastal cities, offsetting the productivity of the ubiquitous beach tiles. (Weighted such that a city founded on or near a glacier tile would have to have beach or other productive terrain in 6, 7, or 8 surrounding tiles in order to grow? - I'm talkin' large penalties here...)

3. Have the militia units have increasing vision ranges. In CtP I adjusted the vision range of the Musketeer and later militia units to have 3 or 4 square vision ranges, effectively increasing the visibility radius around my cities as time progressed.

4. Finally, I would be worried about the effect of repair costs on the AI. If it is too high, the AI might end up bleeding production and not realize it. There would certainly be no way for the AI to decide *NOT* to repair a unit because it is running low on production. More than anything, this would necessitate large roduction bonuses for the AI.

5. Related: make sure units are only repaired to the current readiness setting for the unit.

[WesW]

Martock, you will be happy to know that I have replaced the Ctp2 Fusion Tank with the Ctp1 version. I am going to use the Ctp2 version as the Diamond age Mounted Artillery (Ranged) unit. I plan to use the Ctp1 Space Marines as the Diamond Age Marine unit, called Storm Marines.The Ctp1 War Walker will be in the mod as well.

Wheathin, there are settings in the files pretaining to AI public works and so-forth. I feel confident that we can get the AIs adjusted to handle the new trigger properly. This is going to be such a big change to the game, it will be worth whatever effort it takes to implement it. Seriously, if we get this going, it would be worthy of some press in the strategy gaming community, though that stuff doesn't happen with fan-created mods as far as I know. I mean, if this feature was part of the standard game, I think that Activision could, or should, have promoted it as one of the most significant innovations in the game.
With the game as it is now, once you get a tech advantage and start taking cities with your units barely surviving, you can wait one turn, and it's like you suffered no casualties at all. This is completely unrealistic, as we all know.
If you start having to choose between healing hurt units and building other things, or simply not having enough production to immediately heal your units after a large battle, it is going to cause major changes in how the game is played. Think about how this trigger would affect something like the Alexander scenario, or notice how it would affect you the next time you go into conquest mode.

I am in the middle of semester exams this week, so I will have to slow down on the mod for a few days. However, I am through with school next Tuesday, so I hope to really get things going then. I plan to keep tinkering with things, and throw out some polls and such on the forums, to try and get specific ideas on new terrain values and a couple of other things. If someone wanted to throw some things out on their own, that would be great too.

One thing: I wish someone would take some time to look at the diplomacy files which contain the AI replies, and see if they could be altered to fit the situation. Right now, all you get is "offer accepted" and "offer rejected". If someone could customize the messages to reflect why the AI decided as it did, it would address one of the main gripes people are having with the game.
I may start a thread about this on the general forum to see if it can be done, hoping to get one of the Actigrammers to respond. (If someone else wants to start the thread instead, be my guest.)

[Martock]

GREAT!!!! i'm really glad to hear that Wes. one thing though, can we leave in the hovering factor for the CTP2 fusion tanks...that way we don't have to seperate our forces for over shallow water invasions.

[MrFun]

For anyone who downloaded my North America map from OmniGod's link, if you have any comments good or bad, please post them under this post.

thanks

[MrFun]

For anyone who downloaded my North America map from OmniGod's link, if you have any comments good or bad, please post them under this post.

thanks

[TheBirdMan]

The fusion tanks and shallow waters: Hooverunits should be able to pass shallow waters (I think) - but if not - this can be altered easily in the txt files by the players if wanted.


About help for diplomatic strings:

For the ancient and up to the modern age, try ask St Jon, The Deleted (Sophix), Mobius, Lung and The True Demos(can remember rest of the name) to supply you with sentences/proposals for the text. Just to mention some. They are doing a lot of this stuff in their PBEM games. I simply enjoy reading their comments (and be part of their games).

[WesW]

Yes, I plan to leave the hovering ability in.
I have spent today thinking about units: unit names, abilities, wonder units and so-forth. What I have come up with is really exciting. Below I have pasted a version of the unit build list text which I am using to try and keep track of everything.
Notes: TD- Tom Davies' unit, HT- Harlan Thompson unit, Wonder unit- enabled by building a wonder, Advance unit- enabled by being the first to get an advance, wonder militia unit- second type of militia unit created in all your cities, Alexander & Mag. Samurai- unit is from one of those scenarios.
Special Abilities:
Mongol Horsemen will have both ranged attack and flanking attack.
Ctp1 War Walker will be an all-around offensive and anti-air unit.
AT-Artillery stands for All-Terrain Artillery, and uses the Ctp2 War Walker sprite. This unit will be able to move on any terrain, including Mountains and Undersea, as will Storm Marines. This way, you can have combined-arms assaults on undersea cities.
Hover Infantry will be able to cross shallow water.
I am still thinking up stuff, so feel free to make suggestions, though please write a short passage on why your idea is an improvement over the current setup.

UNIT_BUILD_LIST_DEFENSE {
Unit UNIT_SPEARMAN
Unit UNIT_PHALANX
Unit UNIT_LEGION (WONDER UNIT)
Unit UNIT_PIKEMEN
Unit UNIT_ARQUEBUSIER (TD, WONDER UNIT)
Unit UNIT_MUSKETEER (CTP1 UNIT)
Unit UNIT_INFANTRYMAN
Unit UNIT_MACHINE_GUNNER
Unit UNIT_PLASMATICA (CTP1 UNIT)
Unit UNIT_LEVIATHON
}

UNIT_BUILD_LIST_OFFENSE {
Unit UNIT_WARRIOR (CTP1 UNIT)
Unit UNIT_SWORDSMAN (TD)
Unit UNIT_HOPLITE (CTP1, WONDER UNIT)
Unit UNIT_HEAVY_SWORDSMAN (ALEXANDER PHALANX)
Unit UNIT_BERSERKER (TD HUSCARL, WONDER UNIT)
Unit UNIT_MAN_AT_ARMS (CTP2 WARRIOR)
Unit UNIT_SAMURAI (WONDER UNIT)
Unit UNIT_MUSKETEER (CTP1 UNIT)
Unit UNIT_INFANTRYMAN
Unit UNIT_FASCIST
Unit UNIT_HOVER_INFANTRY
}

UNIT_BUILD_LIST_RANGED {
Unit UNIT_SLINGER (TD)
Unit UNIT_ARCHER
Unit UNIT_LONGBOWMEN (ALEX, WONDER UNIT)
Unit UNIT_CATAPULT
Unit UNIT_BOMBARD (TD, WONDER MILITIA UNIT)
Unit UNIT_CULVERIN (CTP2 CANNON)
Unit UNIT_CANNON (CTP1 CANNON)
Unit UNIT_ARTILLERY (CTP1 ARTILLERY)
Unit UNIT_AT_ARTILLERY (CTP2 WAR WALKER)
}

UNIT_BUILD_LIST_MOUNTED_RANGED {
Unit UNIT_JAVELINEER (EB ZULU ARCHER)
Unit UNIT_MOUNTED_ARCHER
Unit UNIT_BANDIT_HORSEMEN (ALEX, WONDER UNIT)
Unit UNIT_HORSE ARCHER (HT)
Unit UNIT_SELF_PROP_GUN (CTP2 ARTILLERY)
Unit UNIT_FUSION_TANK (CTP2 UNIT, RE-NAMED "PLASMA CANNON")

UNIT_BUILD_LIST_MOUNTED_FLANKER {
Unit UNIT_ZULU_WARRIOR (EB, WONDER UNIT)
Unit UNIT_LIGHT_CAVALRY (TD JAVELIN CAV.)
Unit UNIT_ELEPHANT (ALEXANDER, WONDER UNIT)
Unit UNIT_HEAVY_CAVALRY (TD NOBLE CAV.)
Unit UNIT_KNIGHT
Unit UNIT_DRAGOON (CTP1 CAVALRY)
Unit UNIT_CAVALRY
Unit UNIT_TANK
Unit UNIT_WAR_WALKER (WONDER UNIT)
Unit UNIT_HOVERTANK (CTP1 FUSION TANK)

UNIT_BUILD_LIST_MARINE {
Unit UNIT_MARINE
Unit UNIT_STORM_MARINE (CTP1 SPACE MARINES)

UNIT_BUILD_LIST_PARATROOPER {
Unit UNIT_PARATROOPER
Unit UNIT_SWARM (CTP1 UNIT)

UNIT_BUILD_LIST_ANTI_AIR {
Unit UNIT_MOBILE_SAM

UNIT_BUILD_LIST_NAVAL_ATTACK {
Unit UNIT_TRIREME (CTP1 UNIT)
Unit UNIT_FIRE_TRIREME (WONDER UNIT)
Unit UNIT_CARRACK
Unit UNIT_PRIVATEER (HT GALLEON, WONDER UNIT)
Unit UNIT_SHIP_OF_THE_LINE
Unit UNIT_IRONCLAD
Unit UNIT_DESTROYER
Unit UNIT_BATTLESHIP
Unit UNIT_PLASMA_DESTROYER

UNIT_BUILD_LIST_NAVAL_DEFENSE {
Unit UNIT_LONGSHIP (ADVANCE UNIT)
Unit UNIT_MONITOR (TD IRONCLAD, ADVANCE UNIT)
Unit UNIT_PT_BOAT (ADVANCE UNIT)
Unit UNIT_FRIGATE (HT WWII PACK)
Unit UNIT_MISSILE_CRUISER (APOLYTON PACK)

UNIT_BUILD_LIST_SUBMARINES {
Unit UNIT_SUBMARINE
Unit UNIT_NUCLEAR_SUBMARINE
Unit UNIT_MOREY_STRIKER
Unit UNIT_KRAKEN
Unit UNIT_DREADNAUGHT

UNIT_BUILD_LIST_SEA_TRANSPORT {
Unit UNIT_CATAMARAN
Unit UNIT_COG (TD)
Unit UNIT_TROOP_SHIP
Unit UNIT_CRAWLER

UNIT_BUILD_LIST_AIR_TRANSPORT {
Unit UNIT_CARGO_HELICOPTER
Unit UNIT_AIRCRAFT_CARRIER
Unit UNIT_SPACE_PLANE

UNIT_BUILD_LIST_AIR_ATTACK {
Unit UNIT_DIVE_BOMBER (HT WWII STUKA)
Unit UNIT_ATTACK_HELICOPTER (APOLYTON PACK)

UNIT_BUILD_LIST_AIR_DEFENSE {
Unit UNIT_FIGHTER
Unit UNIT_INTERCEPTOR
Unit UNIT_STEALTH_FIGHTER

UNIT_BUILD_LIST_BOMBER {
Unit UNIT_BOMBER (HT WWII B17)
Unit UNIT_JET_BOMBER
Unit UNIT_STEALTH_BOMBER
[This message has been edited by WesW (edited December 06, 2000).]
[This message has been edited by WesW (edited December 08, 2000).]

[Phalanx2000]

Please forgive my ignorance, but I found two mapes at the link you posted in a thread on this site. Currently I am playing the one that supports 14 civs. Would that be yours?

If so, I dig it, but I would have added more trade commodities to it. Are they random? I started as the Native Americans, killed off the Mexicans and the Americans and am doing ok, but all I have is tea in the rockies, a couple hardwoods towards florida and emeralds somewhere else... need oil in Texas, man!!! Lots 'o oil!!! (or whatever commo works for that)

If yours is the other map, it'll have to wait.

[Phalanx2000]

Please forgive my ignorance, but I found two mapes at the link you posted in a thread on this site. Currently I am playing the one that supports 14 civs. Would that be yours?

If so, I dig it, but I would have added more trade commodities to it. Are they random? I started as the Native Americans, killed off the Mexicans and the Americans and am doing ok, but all I have is tea in the rockies, a couple hardwoods towards florida and emeralds somewhere else... need oil in Texas, man!!! Lots 'o oil!!! (or whatever commo works for that)

If yours is the other map, it'll have to wait.

[Phalanx2000]

Ignore my last post, i am ignorant... I didn't realize you did the N. America one only

[Phalanx2000]

Ignore my last post, i am ignorant... I didn't realize you did the N. America one only

[OmniGod]

If your talking about Omni's World Map... the goods are random, until someone comes up with a way to implement more than just monetary changes for goods... hopefully in the near future...

Omni

(sorry didn't mean to interfer with your review thread)

[OmniGod]

If your talking about Omni's World Map... the goods are random, until someone comes up with a way to implement more than just monetary changes for goods... hopefully in the near future...

Omni

(sorry didn't mean to interfer with your review thread)

[MrFun]

Don't cha worry Omni - I won't go and nuke your cities for posting.

Seriously, any thoughts from you are welcome in this topic just like anyone else.