Introducing the Medieval Pack II v1.0 Alpha

[WesW]

Call me Santa. (Sometimes I feel more like Ishmael, but that's another story.)

The Medieval Mod II Alpha version is posted at http://apolyton.net/wes .

It is in 4 parts: sprites1, sprites2, pictures and texts. It is a total download of 16megs(!), and you must have Winzip to decompress the files. If things go as I plan, you will not have to download the sprites portions of the mod ever again. As you will notice when you sample the mod, however, I still need many more pictures.
Unzip the files into the Scenarios folder. This is a different place than you unzipped the Med mod I files, so take note.
You will see several other files on the site. Most of these are place-holder files Mark put up until I get my real webpage. The three that people might be interested in are:
1)The Gedrin v1.0, which is the spreadsheet he put together for his mod,
2)The Med mod 4 update, for those of you still wanting to play that mod or perhaps compare it to this one, and
3)The Ctp2 Adv. Chart, a copy of which is included in the texts zip.

Once you have unzipped the files, you need to go into the Medieval Pack II scenario folder, and find the Med readmes folder. This folder, as the name implies, contains all the readmes and charts for the Modpack. The files in it are in various states of disorder right now, since I am just getting things figured out as far as the mod goes. The readme folder will become more important and helpful as the mod progresses, so you need to become familiar with it right away.

Order the files by date modified. The three modified most recently are the ones you *need* to read at this point. A couple like the Med 4 readme and Med 4 Adv. chart are there for you to cover for a better understanding of my attitudes towards certain areas of gameplay and to see what I did in the Med mod I. The two text files are there if you want details on Harlan's graphics mod or a listing of slic stuff that Locutus sent me a couple of weeks ago.
*Note: the Med 4 readme gives a detailed description of the Militia units.

As for the three that really matter, the Terrain and Tile Improvement readme describes the changes made to those two areas of the game, while the Miscellaneous readme retails changes made to the const.txt, civs, and various other odd things that don't fit into any other readme (there will probably be additional readmes added once we get further into the mod).

The most important file, however, is the Med charts spreadsheet. This file lists the current settings for terrain types, governments and city improvements as well as proposed settings for the standard units in the game. There is a page for the Wonder units, but you can see that it is simply a list of their names and the age they belong to at this point.
I have not started to place the standard units with their advances, since we have not decided what we are going to do in that area of the game yet. Please study the unit stats, though, and give any opinions/suggestions that you have.

Once you start the game, you will see two versions of the Medieval Pack II.
The top version is for using the cheat mode to look at the proposed new units. This verison is NOT meant to be used to play-test the mod. You will notice that many of the pictures do not match the sprites. This is something that I will be working on soon. If you hold your cursor over the unit, however, its proper name will show up onscreen.
This leaves the bottom, "Domestic" version of the mod as the one to be used for play-testing. The only changes made to the units in this verison are a reduction in Caravan and Freight costs, and the implementation of the Militia triggers. All the other changes discussed in the first Intro thread are contained here.

Things to look for:
1)Overall changes to AI behavior, except for unit choices and use.
2)City growth and development, especially in the areas of city size, production and commerce.
3)Diplomacy. I fooled around with the diplomacy files tonight, trying a few things. Tell me if you see any noticable changes to AI behavior. Also tell me if you don't.
4)Barbarian occurrances and prizes from goody huts.

Balancing the game may be pretty rough in the early going. Expect frequent updates to the website as we go along. I will put a notice in the thread here when that happens, probably at the beginning of a post.
I am sure there are things I should have covered here that I overlooked. If you get confused, try covering the readmes again, and you can even peruse the various text files. I have marked my changes in some of them with "WW from ...". If you can't figure out what is going on, let me know by posting here, and I will address your questions.

Known issues: The civ you select to play may not be the civ you get. This is an issue with Harlan's mod which I have yet to work on. It will not cause any problems with gameplay. Other than that, play and enjoy!

[Avalon_Grey]

Merry Christmas!..

Looks like alot of work went into the pack.
But either 2 things have happened either
1) Im an idiot
2) houston we have a problem

After unzipping the 4 files (Sprites 1 and 2, Pictures and texts) into the med directory which i placed under the scenario directory. I launch Cpt2 go to scenario's and choose the med 2 scenario choose the bottom version and it loads..

Durring loading i get these errors..
DB Error
ICON_TILEMP_PILLBOX not found in icon database
ICON_TILEMP_BARBEDWIRE not found in icon database

of course this stops the loading, so i figure ok lets try to bypass it go back to the selection screen after clearing the errors by pressing ok, notice the bottom says the scenario name launch the scenario and GPF CTP2 after a DB error.

Hope this helps

[FALVES]

Hey, same thing happens to me!
Wassup wes?

[WesW]

Sorry guys, it's fixed now. For those of you who haven't gotten the alpha yet, you don't have to worry about this bug.
For those of you who do have the bug, you can either get the texts files again, or simply go into the original game files, and copy the tileimp.txt from the default\gamedata folder to the same folder in the scen0001 directory of the Med pack scenario.

The pillbox and barbed wire were not supposed to be in the domestic version of the mod. I put those two things in yesterday, and checked the "units" version to make sure it worked. I didn't think to check the domestic version for conflicts.

For those of you interested, the units version is the real mod, and the domestic version simply has unaltered files placed into it to block out the changes made in the units version that are not ready for play-testing yet.
It's the same theory they use to block cable TV stations from your house.
[This message has been edited by WesW (edited December 25, 2000).]

[WesW]

This is embarrassing, but this fix I posted earlier was incorrect. By using the original game file, I was leaving out the tile improvement changes I had made to the game. Nothing major, but they need to be in there to properly evaluate everything.
So, for those of you who already have the mod, you need to download the texts portion again.
Also, I would recommend that you delete the english folder of the "units", or main, version of the mod before you unzip the new texts portion. This is the english folder located on the same level as the Med readmes folder. I have removed a couple of unneeded text files from that folder. It should not hurt anything if you want to leave them in, but I would prefer we all have the exact same setup.

You will notice that the scen0000 folder is empty. This setup allows you to have a "default" version of the mod, and use the other scen**** folders to contain only those files which are differnet from the default version of the mod, in the same manner that scenarios only require those files which are altered from the original game files. This allows myself and others to make variations of the basic mod without having to copy all of the graphics files, or even those text files which are not changed. This should come in handy if any of you want to tinker with my tinkerings, or try out your own ideas and concepts.

Finally, one suggestion: Keep the zipped portions of the mod, in case you accidentally delete or over-write something. Create a folder somewhere, like inside the Activision folder, and stick the zips in it. This could possibly save you from having to download several megs worth of stuff someday.

[Avalon_Grey]

I hate to say it, but can we get some version control and change logs up?..

Just a sugestion..please dont shoot me..

So far what ive seen great job, having a problem loading after the latest update going to re-install from scratch and see if that helps, was an error loading chinease city #31 or something expected number of civs not found..will update if it still occurs after the re-install...

Ok works fine after the re-install..


[This message has been edited by Avalon_Grey (edited December 26, 2000).]
[This message has been edited by Avalon_Grey (edited December 26, 2000).]

[Avalon_Grey]

Ok wes some thoughts on the mod so far..

Played till 1AD here is what i noticed

- Growth for cities is WAY slower, my largest city is size 6 at this point, this is partialy due to me not having more than 3 hex's of grasslands in my 9 city empire

- Barbarians seemed more agressive

- Food was actualy for the first time in my CTP2 history almost a problem in a few city's

- The AI for the most part kept its distance, except for one race who declared war on me for no reason, but did not attack in mass it was still early at that time and im sure he did not have the units, I was able to get 2 defensive units to a landblock and was able to keep them at bay

- Monarcy was my first goverment, usualy i skip over it, i was unable to skip it so i went for it and got it a bit before 1ad

- Keeping people happy is hard, work week can not be maxed without some major re thinking of my build order at monarchy a max was -12

- I find myself deleting the milita units after i build two of my first defensive units, the milita alter the build order a bit and the starting strategy im not sure if i like them or not, although its nice to have at least something in the way of defense to start.

- The overall pace of the game seems slowed which is a good thing in my opinion. I was able to get some huts with some tech at start but still the most advanced tech I have is monarchy.

Unfortunatly i did not see a AI city yet so i dont know how there doing. And im of the anti-cheeting type

According to the power graph I am in the top jumble of lines

Enjoying the heck out of it so far...
Hope the feedback helps..

[Pintello]

Hi Wes,

I have played your alpha mod to about 400 AD.

Some observations:

Militia units work fine. It is nice to finally have them back.

Barbarians are tending to use stacks, but they don't attack every city in site any more. Bummer, because that is how I get most my slaves. Good because it shows the game is playing smarter. Barbarians still attack units out in the field so that is good too.

Civilizations are more chatty now. They will actually offer Peace Treaties and such earlier in the game depending on their personality type and how week I am. They will also threaten me for money. I had the Brazilians do the. I told them no, but before they could follow up on their threat, they were attacked by someone else and went to war. Later in the game I saw what looked like a mixed stack of 5 Brazilian troops nosing around my capital, but they didn't attack, at least not yet. They would have probably lost because I had 4 units in that city including the Militia unit and one ranged unit, all were fortified, and the city was on a forest square, so they were probably playing it smart.

City growth is much slower and food is now actually a concern in the game. I had to use food specialist in some cities because of the nearby terrain, so over all I would say this is a good thing.

AI cities also grow slower, but they also seem to do a better job than I do at it. I have cities of 4 or 5 while they have cites of 5 to 7 or 8. This is around 400 AD, so again this shows that you have accomplished your objective in this regard.

AIs also seem better at getting more cities more quickly than I do also, but this could be a combination of several factors. 1) In the test game I played, I ended up with just one settler to start with while the AIs all seem to have had at least two. This is a random thing, but it did affect it. 2) Because of more initial cities they may have been able to find more Goody Huts than I did. 3) The Goody Huts I got to first contained money or nothing for the most part, so I did not get the random settler or city that the AIs might have gotten. 4)I had mostly swamp, forest, and mountain tiles near me. This also probably resulted in my slow start comparted to the AIs. It will take more games to determine the reason for the few cities, but I think the 4 I outlined are the most likely. Oh, I also ended up on a large but not huge size continent with 4 other civs that got out troops and explorers faster due to the issues discussed above. That may have had somthing to do with it too. This resulted in my being forced into a relatively small area. Much smaller than I usually am forced into. At most I would have been able to build one 7 or 8 cities. When I quit, I only had 5 with room for 2 or 3 more.

I did not see the AIs using slaver units. This suprised me because in the past they have used them. This may have been due to several factors also. 1) They may not have yet discovered the prerequisite tech yet. I didn't get it until much later than usual because of the much slower tech rate. 2) They were at war with each other fairly early so they may not have had time to get them out once they discovered them because there were in hot war at that point. 3) Your giving it a lower priority in the AI Strategy files may have limited it as well. At any rate, I am glad they didn't because I would have been in big trouble if they had.

This last post brings up a new question. Is there some way to bring back the trigger that says if you have walls slavers cannot capture slaves from within you cities? I think this is an important flag. Otherwise, it becomes very hard to survive if you are near a slaver type civ.

Can't think of anything else to discuss right now. As I playtest more, I will give you more information.

Timothy Pintello
[This message has been edited by Pintello (edited December 26, 2000).]

[FALVES]

oops! Ignore this, and read ahead plz...
[This message has been edited by FALVES (edited December 26, 2000).]

[FALVES]

I've been playng the alpha too (don't remember where in time I left), and I've been observing more or less the same things. So far I'm pretty pleased with the overall feeling of the game, there's just two things that are bugging me:
1-in the start new game screen, when I choose a Civ, it always shows another, although the name of the leader is the correct one for the civ I chose.
2-when I was exploring the map, I found a hut that contained a unit: militia, what's the point, if it has zero movement points and can't leave the tile where the hut was?
I'm gonna alpha-test a bit more and will return here.

[Harlan]

I started playing a game, but didn't get very far, cos one thing really bothered me. I hope you fix it soon.

As Pintello points out, the AI gets more cities, sooner. This is because I was playing at the second to most difficult level, and at the higher levels you have the AI start out with lots of extra good stuff. I happened to start the game in an ideal spot, but before I could even build a second warrior unit, AI units were already wandering near my only city. I used the cheat editor to peek, and saw the AI civs already had 2 to 4 cities each, a decent number of units and PW, while I was still working on my second unit.

That's when I quit. I would really like to see much less up-front cheating by the AI, and more long term cheating. The end result should actually be better. Instead of the game starting tough and getting easier, leading people to quit once they see they're dominating, it should start relatively easier, and get tougher as it goes along. I'll wait to play it more until this area is improved.

Of course this was a big problem in the regular CTP2 rules, but since everything goes slower in your scenario, the early cheat advantage of the AI is much more noticable.

[Alpha Wolf]

I'm hoping that mods are like an extension of the impossible level and arent being designed for the lower levels.

------------------
History is written by the victor.

[Avalon_Grey]

Ok another bug, possible..

After 2 saves Im now getting this error trying to restart my saved game

Paths Error
GC104.spr not found in asset tree

Not sure why this comes up after this being the second time ive saved the game..

No modification to my system has occured...
Strange Eh?

[WesW]

Well, the comments are generally positive, so I am glad to hear that. I am especially glad to hear that the growth problem seems to be under control, and with it the tech problem which had you getting gunpowder a 1000 yrs too early.
How about gold? How is the new improvement cost system working? City growth and the cost system were the two big questions that I wanted answered and fixed in the alpha.

Do NOT delete your militia units! They are the same strength as regular units of their type, provide martial law, and cost half as much to upkeep as regular units.

Barbraians should act like they have half a brain now, rather than just mindlessly attacking. Normal civs should also not attack unless they have a realistic shot at winning.

I don't remember doing anything to affect slavery, so you might have been in with civs who don't use them.
Yes, you can set City Walls to prevent slavery completely, as well as conversion. Since you can get Walls so early, it may be better to leave it as is, or perhaps raise it to 75% prevention. Anyone else have opinions on this?

The choosing civ problem I noted at the bottom of my initial post in the thread. I have never heard of getting a militia unit from a goody hut. I will have to check into this. The sprites for militia units are the same as those for regular units of their type, so you need to try and move it to be sure.

Harlan's comment were odd. I have done nothing to the diffdb except line up the columns for easier viewing. I checked the advantages given to the AIs on Very Hard level, and they didn't seem too much, certainly not enough to explain what you saw.

AG, are you sure you downloaded and properly unzipped both sprites portions of the mod? If you have, check the default\gamedata\graphics\sprites folder to see if gc104 is in there.

Have the rest of you noticed any changes in the diplomatic aspect of the game?

[Avalon_Grey]

Wes having a BAD problem...well not realy BAD but BAD

Ok I jump started the game, what i did was start a new game, selected the mod and then when in that game loaded the save I had which bypassed me from the error.

Now the msg's in the msg tab are well for lack of a better term F'd up..

Alot of them say just
"Turns" with the eye graphic, clicking on it centers to a city..(i belive that city had built something)

Also i get in the msg window
[madlib.dip_res_head] rejects your [madlib.emote_demand_r] [madlib.res_demand_piracy][madlib.res_restall.attatude]

I have done no diplomacy! nor any piracy
clicking the eye graphic centers me to my capitol.

gc104.spr IS in my
F:\Program Files\Activision\Call To Power 2\Scenarios\Medieval_Pack_II\default\graphics\spri tes


Lets see 560 AD all my citys have 2 farms at least, a few nets if there close to the water 2 mines and full roads, infostructure is growing slowly but shurly and it seems to be slowed well in constant with the rest of the game.

When my milita "upgraded" to pikemen it just about scared the hell out of me, i guess to do it in slic you have to kill the unit well i heard all these death sounds jumped trying to figure what went wrong

AI seems to be occupied elsewhere and is respecting my borders I have a good view of the indians (mad genius ai type) who flucuates between hating me, and liking me and sending maps..he's an odd cookie, he also hates diplomacy...

He has 9 cities of size 1-10 very varied while my cities are between 4-8 his cities are also closer together than i would have placed them and has a few with mostly mountains in there radius and no farms in the space that is non mountains im wondering how those will ever grow..(there size 1 now)

Gold seems to be working on line with the other slowdowns while its not been a problem i dont have 1 billion gold lying around its been borderline to low..causing me to micromanage gold and trade a bit more, which is good!..

[This message has been edited by Avalon_Grey (edited December 27, 2000).]
[This message has been edited by Avalon_Grey (edited December 27, 2000).]
[This message has been edited by Avalon_Grey (edited December 27, 2000).]