Tentative Project - Part Three

[Starfighter08]

WesW, you seem to know how to change the names of the empires. I'd like to do that for a normal game. Could you tell me how to do so?

Thanks in advance

[hexagonian]

...Oh, if this is possible too.

Bring back the message icons that show up on the left side of the screen.

Nah, didn't think so.

[WesW]

I am glad to see so much interest in the mod. All the posts actually make it a little difficult to address everyone, but I will comment on a few things...

To change civ names and cities, you need to alter the civilization and cityid texts, respectively.

I agree there are towns in Norway built upon whale bones, but you see whales are a special resource, and the Norwegians probably had to venture away from the coast to get all of them.
I didn't eliminate production from all sea tiles, but I just couldn't figure out how beaches give you much of anything to use in building, other than the occasional piece of driftwood.
You can usually get something out of most any land tile, whether its clay for bricks, or grass for roofs, or stone and gravel, etc.

Beach is probably the most common terrain in the game, and its original setting made it possible to build cities on ANY piece of coastline and have good results.
Also, I think that most sea-farers still got the bulk of their diet from plants and animals.

I will try and check and make it possible to build about all types of improvements on deserts. I think that it is about that way now. I know you can build both farms and mines.
Deserts are such a common tile in the game, I wanted to do something to make them a little more valuable, so that you didn't have large parts of the map practically un-useable.

[WesW]

I have gone through the strategies.txt, and made a number of changes to each AI type. The common changes are:
I have the Barbarians building some sea units, and maintaining garrison troops.
Btw, I really like how you can specify what kind of units you can have in the garrison.

-I gave all the AI types a max science percent of at least 70, public works percent to no more than 25, and a max unit support cost of no more than 40.
-Most types did not have sea or air units specified in their unit queues. I have corrected this.
-I generally reduced the number of sea transport units built to about 3.
-I inserted Monarchy and Corp. Rep. into the scientists govt list.
-I raised the establish embassy goal for peaceful types, and raised the attack goal for military types.
-Raised the goody hut and explore goal for all types.
-Military types were set to be primarily defensive in their goals. I have changed this to make them more offensive.

Except for goal settings, all of my changes are marked with a "//WW from ..." comment.

I have begun to re-write the unit build lists, and it's turning into quite a job. I didn't realize how inadequate the original system was until I got into it. I am not sure I like the current setup as well as I did the city-based ctp1 way. We will have to see how it all works out.
When I get finished, I will post the new unit build list for everyone to comment on.

[Chris B]

Thanks a bunch for this modpack, Wes. Couldn't activision have thought that forest should have more than 5 production?! Anyway, I was wondereing if you could fix obsolete advances. I am apalled by the fact that hoplites last till Gunpowder rather than feudalism and cannons last till Cybernetics! Also, you can't build a unit with reasonable attack until the Samauri, which seems bogus. Also, only four wonders are ever obsolete and they didn't think to add new govt types. I would appreciate if you could change these things in the new Mod.
-CB

[Starfighter08]

Wow, I'm impressed. Where can will we find the MedMod and the scenario pack once they are ready? BTW thanks for telling me where to alter civ names, but I got a new problem: at the start I get an error message which says something like "don't know how many civs expected" and "no sprites for civ". What's that all about?

Thanks for your patience

Regards

[MarkG]

wes, is the scenario pack feature fully working??
can you put ANY kind of game file under your scenario directory?

[WesW]

Mark, I assumed all files could be put into the scenario section, since they did so many things with the shipped scenarios. Surely Harlan would have mentioned if this wasn't the case.
One thing does worry me, though. I can't find any of the new sprites for any of the shipped scenarios. Does anyone know where they are?

Sf, it seems like you are adding civs, as well as altering them. This is different. You need to study the files you are playing with if you want to add things. There is a number at the top of one of the files which must equal the number of civs in the file. I don't remember which one right now.

I have posted a couple of text files on my homepage which list the new units, and what category they fall into.

I will post here as I have things ready for players to try out. They will be available at my homepage, but my homepage will be changing soon, so you will just have to click the 'homepage' button above and see where it takes you.
Putting together a large, comprehensive mod like the Med mod II is an undertaking measured in weeks, and usually months, so if you want to join in, you have to keep this in mind. I spent over a year on the Med mod series for ctp1, for example. I don't think it will take anything close to that for the Med mod II, since Ctp2 is so much more complete than Ctp1 was, but it will still be a long undertaking.
I will release betas on my homepage as we go along, and public versions here at Apolyton when we get everything play-balanced. With the potential of slic2, I think we can spent a long time developing it alone.
I expect to have multiple public release verisons, and that is why I like to name them; it's fun, and it gives them a little personality. The Med mod 3 was 'The Renaissance', since that era was where we did most all the work in, and the Med mod 4 was 'The Age of Wonders', since we added so many Wonders in that mod, and re-worked the Modern and post-Modern eras, living in which would seem wondrous to people from earlier times.

[MarkG]

quote: Originally posted by WesW on 11-26-2000 03:17 AM Mark, I assumed all files could be put into the scenario section, since they did so many things with the shipped scenarios. Surely Harlan would have mentioned if this wasn't the case.

that's good to hear.
sometimes i still get nightmares of trying to make the apolyton pack to work...

quote: One thing does worry me, though. I can't find any of the new sprites for any of the shipped scenarios. Does anyone know where they are?

i think they are in the default folder. if that means that they dont work onthe scenario folder, i dont know

[Depp]

WesW.
Can you please add some crude fix to the food problem. ? As it is now you can build a city anywhere and make it grow fast. The food from the tiles should be cut in half.

And another problem. I always give my people the lowest salary and make them work the longest, give them max food and build a therater you are ok, with a huge increse in science and production.
The amount of unhappiniess casued by working longer and less salary should be doubled as well.

[MarkG]

quote: Originally posted by Depp on 11-26-2000 07:58 AM Can you please add some crude fix to the food problem. ? As it is now you can build a city anywhere and make it grow fast.

and what kind of production/gold will it have if you have almost all of it's citizens turned into farmers?

[TheLimey]

It seems to me that a good game story should be divided in to 3 acts; The Start, The Struggle & The Winning (or Close Losing)

It seems as though every game can only 'dish out' a finite challenge, so while a beginning or intermediate player can get a good game, with generous helpings of each of the above 'acts', an experienced player who knows and exploits the limitations of the game engine cuts the middle act short. Then its only a question of mopping up. That becomes tedious awefully quickly.

I was thinking about this problem towards the end of the CtP1 product cycle, and looking forward to being able to maybe accomplish something in CtP2 towards this end.

It seems as though, by all accounts, the AI is defending well, but generally attacking badly. This could be due to the fact that these players are getting the AI onto its back foot, which as you can see in the AI files, minimizes its offensive capability.

Something needs to be changed in the game dynamic, and its unlikely that any game design company will do this, because they are in the business of catering to the lowest common denominator. Difficulty levels should sort this out, but never do, since they are just 'resource modifiers or multipliers' for the AI and player. If a player can achieve a greater critical mass than is necessary to overpower one single region then thats all that is necessary.

In short, a human has a critical military advantage; Divide and Conquer. A human doesn't wage wars on all fronts, but power projects in a narrow sense. The AI of the computer also 'power projects' since single targeted city attacks 'work'. What the computer does BADLY is defend against power projection. It doesn't predict troop movements or see paterns. It doesn't understand interdiction or any grand strategy at all.

What to do? Keep the status quo? In my opinion, no, at least in a mod for those that choose to have a challenge.

There are some specifics that may be helpful in resolving these game play issues;

1) Eliminate the game engine exploits. The key exploit in Civ games has been and is still ICS. If you're not sure what ICS, please search for ICS... I won't repeat whats been said here a hundred times before.

CtP2 is interesting in that it uses a different dynamic of resource gathering for cities. Essentially you gain a percentage of resources within a ring until you get to a new critical size, then you start getting increasing resources within that ring.

The reasoning behind this new model was a move away from micromanagement towards abstraction, that I am all in favor of; it allows the player to deal with the empire level stuff, yet still allows for a degree of micromanagement by city and tile improvement placement.

The ICS problem still exists because 10 size 1 cities are more beneficial than 1 size 10 city. This is easy to solve by changing the properties of improvements upwards in general, making it ultimately detrimental to keep cities small. Bigger cities should be just plain better.

There should be some amount of struggle to get them going and growing, so building that settler at size 2 will drop you back another 20 or 30 turns.

Unmodified cities in deserts or tundra should either starve or grow so weakly without serious tile improvement placement.

The PW/Tile Improvement scheme of CtP is a great component of an ICS solution.

2) The rich get richer.

This topic was started by myself in the following topic Wonders o' the world... the root of all evil? and continued to some degree in a Civ3 General discusion.

I won't repeat this topic over and over, except to say that Feats of Wonder are more of the same with regard to the rich getting richer.

I'd advocate keeping FOW's, but limiting Wonders to one per Civ, per age. That would seem to be a happy medium.

3) AI Fudging=GOOD & AI Cheating=BAD

There were two main ways Civ2 made up for the weaknesses of a finite state AI. First were the player limitations and decreased starting resources. Secondly and to me most annoying, was the way the AI players cheat; ignoring game mechanics blatantly. These are well known by now, and have been documented.

I am not opposed to playing withly handicapped rules versus the AI, but there is a critical point; the point at which reality is stretched, that the game starts to be flawed.

CtP1 was a positive step in this regard; the AI didn't cheat but had increased resources and multipliers for food and science and so on. Since they are 'hidden' they do not offend the senses in the same way.

The level at which the AI fudges will need to be adjusted based on what other changes are made.

I think that perhaps the most important will be the production bonuses; EVEN IF the AI can stay in the game, keep offensive it's USELESS UNLESS it be given the units to put in the stack, by appropriate bonuses. I believe that this can only make for a more satisfying tactical and strategic experience.

4) Guns vs. Butter

It seems too cheap for the player to build and maintain large armies in CtP1&2. Since ultimately military strength was for the majority of history the key to power and sucess, its key that the human should not be able to easily get into a lead this way.

For the reasons I mentioned above, having twelve good units, and 'enough mobile defenders' is enough to conquer the world in CtP2. Building (and perhaps more so keeping) large armies should ultimately be more difficult for the human player.

There should be a clear choice between serious defense spending and a productive society.

5) Defenders should have a serious advantage.

In the Medmod, it was plain difficult to take a town defended in strength by the AI . You were going to take losses, inevevitably. This felt *VERY* right, particularly the counter bombarding and so on. I have a memory of some of the tactical situations that 'turned the tide', in a way that I never did in Civ2. Thats the mood that you want to capture in a civ game.

I think its clear, that the advantage should be with the defenders and to this end, the defensive bonuses should be 'beefed up', along with introducing more rounded unit choices, that the AI can use too.


[This message has been edited by TheLimey (edited November 26, 2000).]

[TheLimey]

It seems to me that a good game story should be divided in to 3 acts; The Start, The Struggle & The Winning (or Close Losing)

It seems as though every game can only 'dish out' a finite challenge, so while a beginning or intermediate player can get a good game, with generous helpings of each of the above 'acts', an experienced player who knows and exploits the limitations of the game engine cuts the middle act short. Then its only a question of mopping up. That becomes tedious awefully quickly.

I was thinking about this problem towards the end of the CtP1 product cycle, and looking forward to being able to maybe accomplish something in CtP2 towards this end.

It seems as though, by all accounts, the AI is defending well, but generally attacking badly. This could be due to the fact that these players are getting the AI onto its back foot, which as you can see in the AI files, minimizes its offensive capability.

Something needs to be changed in the game dynamic, and its unlikely that any game design company will do this, because they are in the business of catering to the lowest common denominator. Difficulty levels should sort this out, but never do, since they are just 'resource modifiers or multipliers' for the AI and player. If a player can achieve a greater critical mass than is necessary to overpower one single region then thats all that is necessary.

In short, a human has a critical military advantage; Divide and Conquer. A human doesn't wage wars on all fronts, but power projects in a narrow sense. The AI of the computer also 'power projects' since single targeted city attacks 'work'. What the computer does BADLY is defend against power projection. It doesn't predict troop movements or see paterns. It doesn't understand interdiction or any grand strategy at all.

What to do? Keep the status quo? In my opinion, no, at least in a mod for those that choose to have a challenge.

There are some specifics that may be helpful in resolving these game play issues;

1) Eliminate the game engine exploits. The key exploit in Civ games has been and is still ICS. If you're not sure what ICS, please search for ICS... I won't repeat whats been said here a hundred times before.

CtP2 is interesting in that it uses a different dynamic of resource gathering for cities. Essentially you gain a percentage of resources within a ring until you get to a new critical size, then you start getting increasing resources within that ring.

The reasoning behind this new model was a move away from micromanagement towards abstraction, that I am all in favor of; it allows the player to deal with the empire level stuff, yet still allows for a degree of micromanagement by city and tile improvement placement.

The ICS problem still exists because 10 size 1 cities are more beneficial than 1 size 10 city. This is easy to solve by changing the properties of improvements upwards in general, making it ultimately detrimental to keep cities small. Bigger cities should be just plain better.

There should be some amount of struggle to get them going and growing, so building that settler at size 2 will drop you back another 20 or 30 turns.

Unmodified cities in deserts or tundra should either starve or grow so weakly without serious tile improvement placement.

The PW/Tile Improvement scheme of CtP is a great component of an ICS solution.

2) The rich get richer.

This topic was started by myself in the following topic Wonders o' the world... the root of all evil? and continued to some degree in a Civ3 General discusion.

I won't repeat this topic over and over, except to say that Feats of Wonder are more of the same with regard to the rich getting richer.

I'd advocate keeping FOW's, but limiting Wonders to one per Civ, per age. That would seem to be a happy medium.

3) AI Fudging=GOOD & AI Cheating=BAD

There were two main ways Civ2 made up for the weaknesses of a finite state AI. First were the player limitations and decreased starting resources. Secondly and to me most annoying, was the way the AI players cheat; ignoring game mechanics blatantly. These are well known by now, and have been documented.

I am not opposed to playing withly handicapped rules versus the AI, but there is a critical point; the point at which reality is stretched, that the game starts to be flawed.

CtP1 was a positive step in this regard; the AI didn't cheat but had increased resources and multipliers for food and science and so on. Since they are 'hidden' they do not offend the senses in the same way.

The level at which the AI fudges will need to be adjusted based on what other changes are made.

I think that perhaps the most important will be the production bonuses; EVEN IF the AI can stay in the game, keep offensive it's USELESS UNLESS it be given the units to put in the stack, by appropriate bonuses. I believe that this can only make for a more satisfying tactical and strategic experience.

4) Guns vs. Butter

It seems too cheap for the player to build and maintain large armies in CtP1&2. Since ultimately military strength was for the majority of history the key to power and sucess, its key that the human should not be able to easily get into a lead this way.

For the reasons I mentioned above, having twelve good units, and 'enough mobile defenders' is enough to conquer the world in CtP2. Building (and perhaps more so keeping) large armies should ultimately be more difficult for the human player.

There should be a clear choice between serious defense spending and a productive society.

5) Defenders should have a serious advantage.

In the Medmod, it was plain difficult to take a town defended in strength by the AI . You were going to take losses, inevevitably. This felt *VERY* right, particularly the counter bombarding and so on. I have a memory of some of the tactical situations that 'turned the tide', in a way that I never did in Civ2. Thats the mood that you want to capture in a civ game.

I think its clear, that the advantage should be with the defenders and to this end, the defensive bonuses should be 'beefed up', along with introducing more rounded unit choices, that the AI can use too.


[This message has been edited by TheLimey (edited November 26, 2000).]

[TheLimey]

It seems to me that a good game story should be divided in to 3 acts; The Start, The Struggle & The Winning (or Close Losing)

It seems as though every game can only 'dish out' a finite challenge, so while a beginning or intermediate player can get a good game, with generous helpings of each of the above 'acts', an experienced player who knows and exploits the limitations of the game engine cuts the middle act short. Then its only a question of mopping up. That becomes tedious awefully quickly.

I was thinking about this problem towards the end of the CtP1 product cycle, and looking forward to being able to maybe accomplish something in CtP2 towards this end.

It seems as though, by all accounts, the AI is defending well, but generally attacking badly. This could be due to the fact that these players are getting the AI onto its back foot, which as you can see in the AI files, minimizes its offensive capability.

Something needs to be changed in the game dynamic, and its unlikely that any game design company will do this, because they are in the business of catering to the lowest common denominator. Difficulty levels should sort this out, but never do, since they are just 'resource modifiers or multipliers' for the AI and player. If a player can achieve a greater critical mass than is necessary to overpower one single region then thats all that is necessary.

In short, a human has a critical military advantage; Divide and Conquer. A human doesn't wage wars on all fronts, but power projects in a narrow sense. The AI of the computer also 'power projects' since single targeted city attacks 'work'. What the computer does BADLY is defend against power projection. It doesn't predict troop movements or see paterns. It doesn't understand interdiction or any grand strategy at all.

What to do? Keep the status quo? In my opinion, no, at least in a mod for those that choose to have a challenge.

There are some specifics that may be helpful in resolving these game play issues;

1) Eliminate the game engine exploits. The key exploit in Civ games has been and is still ICS. If you're not sure what ICS, please search for ICS... I won't repeat whats been said here a hundred times before.

CtP2 is interesting in that it uses a different dynamic of resource gathering for cities. Essentially you gain a percentage of resources within a ring until you get to a new critical size, then you start getting increasing resources within that ring.

The reasoning behind this new model was a move away from micromanagement towards abstraction, that I am all in favor of; it allows the player to deal with the empire level stuff, yet still allows for a degree of micromanagement by city and tile improvement placement.

The ICS problem still exists because 10 size 1 cities are more beneficial than 1 size 10 city. This is easy to solve by changing the properties of improvements upwards in general, making it ultimately detrimental to keep cities small. Bigger cities should be just plain better.

There should be some amount of struggle to get them going and growing, so building that settler at size 2 will drop you back another 20 or 30 turns.

Unmodified cities in deserts or tundra should either starve or grow so weakly without serious tile improvement placement.

The PW/Tile Improvement scheme of CtP is a great component of an ICS solution.

2) The rich get richer.

This topic was started by myself in the following topic Wonders o' the world... the root of all evil? and continued to some degree in a Civ3 General discusion.

I won't repeat this topic over and over, except to say that Feats of Wonder are more of the same with regard to the rich getting richer.

I'd advocate keeping FOW's, but limiting Wonders to one per Civ, per age. That would seem to be a happy medium.

3) AI Fudging=GOOD & AI Cheating=BAD

There were two main ways Civ2 made up for the weaknesses of a finite state AI. First were the player limitations and decreased starting resources. Secondly and to me most annoying, was the way the AI players cheat; ignoring game mechanics blatantly. These are well known by now, and have been documented.

I am not opposed to playing withly handicapped rules versus the AI, but there is a critical point; the point at which reality is stretched, that the game starts to be flawed.

CtP1 was a positive step in this regard; the AI didn't cheat but had increased resources and multipliers for food and science and so on. Since they are 'hidden' they do not offend the senses in the same way.

The level at which the AI fudges will need to be adjusted based on what other changes are made.

I think that perhaps the most important will be the production bonuses; EVEN IF the AI can stay in the game, keep offensive it's USELESS UNLESS it be given the units to put in the stack, by appropriate bonuses. I believe that this can only make for a more satisfying tactical and strategic experience.

4) Guns vs. Butter

It seems too cheap for the player to build and maintain large armies in CtP1&2. Since ultimately military strength was for the majority of history the key to power and sucess, its key that the human should not be able to easily get into a lead this way.

For the reasons I mentioned above, having twelve good units, and 'enough mobile defenders' is enough to conquer the world in CtP2. Building (and perhaps more so keeping) large armies should ultimately be more difficult for the human player.

There should be a clear choice between serious defense spending and a productive society.

5) Defenders should have a serious advantage.

In the Medmod, it was plain difficult to take a town defended in strength by the AI . You were going to take losses, inevevitably. This felt *VERY* right, particularly the counter bombarding and so on. I have a memory of some of the tactical situations that 'turned the tide', in a way that I never did in Civ2. Thats the mood that you want to capture in a civ game.

I think its clear, that the advantage should be with the defenders and to this end, the defensive bonuses should be 'beefed up', along with introducing more rounded unit choices, that the AI can use too.


[This message has been edited by TheLimey (edited November 26, 2000).]

[MarkG]

quote: Originally posted by TheLimey on 11-26-2000 01:41 PM It seems as though, by all accounts, the AI is defending well, but generally attacking badly.

what i have noticed is that generally the ai is not very aggresive. there is a question though: if you never provoke a big ai and often give him "presents", should he ignore all that and start a war against you?

another question is: should each ai act as if it against everyone else(including the other ai's), or should all ai's be against you "underneath"?

quote: The ICS problem still exists because 10 size 1 cities are more beneficial than 1 size 10 city.

the ai doesnt use ics. therefore the problem of ics is left on the human. if the human wants a more challenging he just has to stop "cheating" through ics