Introducing the Medieval Pack II v1.0 Alpha

[Locutus]

That's great to hear, Tim (well, the SLIC part anyway). Thanks for letting me know.

I guess it's save to say it works then, I ran some more tests myself and couldn't recreate the bug myself either. Best thing is that the final solution turns out to be even better than the original one: it used to be possible to give militias move-orders (you'd be able to see a gray movepath, but the militias would of course never move), now that's not possible anymore.
[This message has been edited by Locutus (edited February 06, 2001).]

[WesW]

Tim, it may be that parts of the const.txt are not read when placed in the scenario section, just like in Ctp1. Hopefully this will be corrected when I place the files in the default section.
I did not have a problem in Ctp1 with militia units coming out of goody huts, either, so we may have to do something about the slaves eventually.

Dale, how would you like to do the entire city lists for Australia and Canada? Harlan's mod added 20 more city names to the civs, but he replaced these two civs in his mod, and he has declined to make extra cities for them.
I also need the extra cities for the Native Americans if someone wants to volunteer.

As far as the mod, it is still coming along, but I had not realized just how much work there was to do, so it will be this weekend at the earliest before the beta is ready.

Also, please see my new threads in the AI forum, and help out if you can.

[Dale]

Wes:
I'll do the Aussie cities for you, but I have no idea on Canadian timelines. Anyone else to do Canada? When do you need updated city lists by? I'll come up with 40-50 based on when they were founded.

------------------
Author of Diplomod. The mod to fix diplomacy.

Rommell to a sub-commander outside Tobruk: "Those Australians are in there somewhere. But where? Let's advance and wait till they shoot, then shoot back."

[Alpha Wolf]

quote: Originally posted by Pintello on 02-06-2001 09:08 AM The slaves had 5 units on the front row, two of which were Hoplites, 5 Archers on the back row, and 2 Archers on the row behind that! I never did figure out how they managed to have a battle line 3 deep, but they all attacked every turn and really tore me up. That triple battle line is what did me in each time.

I'm also trying to figure out how battle lines are figured. In your battle, how many units/types did you attack with? It seems that battle lines are not onlydependant on your forces but also the opposing forces. The weirdest one I've seen had 3 lines, but alot of the ranged units were in the front line while non ranged were in the back 2 lines. Best i can figure out so far is that my unit with the highest attack (or defense if defending) will be front center regardless of range or flanking ability.

Wes, is this an ok question to pose to our CtP2 contact?

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

[WesW]

Dale, there is no rush on the cities.

AW, this would be a fine question for Richard, but I think that you have already figured out the answer.
From what I can tell, flanking units are placed first, then front-and-center units based on either attack or defense strength, then ranged units.
I think the game matches up a unit from your force to match each opposing front-line unit, then fills up the second line with remaining ranged units. If extra ranged units are available, they are then placed in the third row.

[Alpha Wolf]

quote: Originally posted by WesW on 02-07-2001 09:05 PM AW, this would be a fine question for Richard, but I think that you have already figured out the answer. From what I can tell, flanking units are placed first, then front-and-center units based on either attack or defense strength, then ranged units. I think the game matches up a unit from your force to match each opposing front-line unit, then fills up the second line with remaining ranged units. If extra ranged units are available, they are then placed in the third row.

I think we are close, but too many unexpected battle lines makes building efficient stacks more difficult than it should be. Every time i see hoplites BEHIND archers, or flankers in the middle, it drives me crazy. And I'm having alot of trouble getting pikemen to stay in front of infantrymen. For instance, I had a stack of 2 pikemen, 2 infantrymen, and 2 cannons that was attacking 2 of something, I expected to have 3 lines in the order I described, but they dont always line up that way (I cant remember the exact lines, but one cannon was in front and a pikeman was in the second row) I wish that vet status was shown during battles as it would help pinpoint which unit was where.

I had to resort to making all naval units flankers, because thats the only way I could get them to combine their firepower onto a single ship (poor AI finally stacked 2 SoL and my one SoL took one of them down with me, forcing the change). It also seems (about 90% sure) that if 2 ranged units with different ranges, attack a single unit, they will line up in 2 lines, but if they have the same range, they line up next to each other. Can anyone else confirm this theory?

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

[WesW]

I think that much of the battle-line problem stems from the fact that there are not enough units in the game. The unit values increase gradually, but there are not enough units to fill out the unit types. Thus you have flanking units from one age and attacking units from another age. This is how you get flanking Tanks with higher ranged settings than Artillery, the last available ranged unit before you get Tanks.
In the Med mod, there will be enough units, with enough specialization in their stats, that you should not have this problem.

Also, I made all naval units with a ranged attack flanking units several weeks ago.

In another area, I think I have some up with a way to have special Barbarian units from huts, though I have not tested it yet.

Chris has informed me that I have screwed up his Chop sheet with my alterations, and he is working to correct the damage. I don't know when he will get the Chop back to me, but I have other things to occupy me anyway.

I have contacted Harlan about getting the last pics needed for the mod, and Paul about re-naming the unit pics to match the new sprite numbers.
Charles (Diodorus) is working on the historical gls for the units, though I don't know if they will be ready for the initial beta.
Locutus has been doing a lot of work on the slic triggers.
Tom is making some new units for the mod, though I don't know when they will be ready.
I read through Dale's diplomod readme, thread and mod files tonight, and I hope to integrate his work into the mod as soon as we make sure everything else is working alright.
I have not fully digested everything that Richard told me in his letters, though I did manage to get them posted in the AI section so we can act on and think about his comments.

I hoped to have the beta out by now, but as you can see, things are still coming together for it, and when it does come out it will be better than it would if it had come out earlier.

While you guys are waiting, you can check a couple of things for me by testing default games.

1)I have read that the scoring system does not correctly in the game. Try and find out exactly what doesn't work, and what the problem is. I think that the math settings in the diffdb are probably off, and if so we can correct this fairly easily.

2)Does the conquest distress recovery rate work correctly in the game? I didn't work correctly in Ctp1.
The decay rate is 0.2. I don't know if this is supposed to be 0.2 happiness points or a 20% decay rate each turn.

On the slic front, I would like a trigger to keep units from bombarding submarines unless they can also attack submarines.

[Dale]

Wes:
From all reports diplomacy is now stable and balanced. There's been no problems reported with the diplomacy script/txt files (except for bug reports coming in from old versions still which are now all resolved). The only problem found in the last release (V3.2) was the logic error I found in the withdraw script which is packaged with the diplomacy mod. I put a bandaid fix on the error to stop the desktop crash, while I gained the info for "teleporting" units out of your territory the best way. Thanks to heardie and locutus for the help here. This will go into withdraw this weekend.

That brings it up-to-date on that front.

------------------
Rommell to a sub-commander outside Tobruk: "Those Australians are in there somewhere. But where? Let's advance and wait till they shoot, then shoot back."

[WesW]

UPDATE ALERT: I have finished the readmes for the beta, and posted them at my site. They contain the finished Advances chart, the Med chart spreadsheet which lists the vital stats for most items in the game (units, wonders, etc.), the Triggers readme which explains all the slic code, and several other files covering other aspects of the mod.
Players need to familiarize themselves with these files so that they can understand, and hopefully appreciate, the changes made to the game.
This folder is normally part of the texts portion of the mod, but I have posted it separately now so that you can dive right into the beta once it is ready for testing.
Feel free to post comments and/or questions about what you read.

Ok, Dale, I am taking your word on the Diplomod. I have integrated it into the Med Pack. I kept my changes to regard penalties for the default setting, which you had not altered, but everything else is yours.
I put your slc code together with Mr. Ogre's PW mod in a file scenario2.slc. The scenario.slc will contain all of Locutus' work, while the scenario2 will contain all code from other people.

Paul sent me the re-numbered pics today, and I finished up that chore, so the unit pics all match the new sprite setup. Once I get the last couple of pics from Harlan, all the pics will be in, and it will be a matter of linking them with the texts generated by the Chop spreadsheet.

I went through Richard's letters again in the AI section, and ended up generating another list of questions which I have sent off to him. I think there are some errors in the Orders.txt, which I had never paid attention to before, which may be causing the AI to malfunction in a couple of small areas. There were several other things I asked about as well, so hopefully he will get back with me in the next few days.

I also adjusted the strategies.txt to make the primary goals easier to see, plus I fine-tuned some of these goals to make them standardized for the different personality types.
I adjusted a couple of the building settings since I have gone back to a more traditional upkeep cost for buildings.

Note to Omni: The sprite labeled 101 in the sprite nos. thread should be 102.

Once I get the Chop sheet back from Chris, I can finish plugging in all the values and generate the mod texts. That is about all that still needs to be done, though it will take a lot of work to do this.
Once the texts are generated, I will develop the new naming system and place the mod in the default section of the game to see if that works. Then I will do some quick play-testing to check for bugs before posting the beta.

[Bluevoss]

Wes,

A quick question - I've been out of the whole CTP2 thing for a couple of weeks. Been touring Tunisia and looking at Carthage and Roman ruins and really getting my blood up for some of those good CTP2 early historic chashes (big Civ2 problem is that you never really fight early in history).

So what is the status of the mods? Are they ready for download at this point?

Also, has any work been done to the citys so that unhappyness is a factor of size? In looking over the Roman ruins of El Jem and Dougga, you really get an appriciation of how much effort the Romans put into keeping their cities happy. Good heavens - the size of some of the temples and colloseums is enough to make anyone realize how important this is.

BTW, does your mod give coracles an attack value? I've set mine to 10, and like it - it helps simulate early trireme actions.



------------------
Bluevoss-

[hexagonian]

Wes

Have you run into a problem with how many city improvements you can add in your Mod. The last two improvements on my lists in my mod are showing up in the Build queue, Great Library and so forth, but when they are completed in the game, they do not show up in the city inventory lists. Everything else shows up though...
[This message has been edited by hexagonian (edited February 14, 2001).]

[WesW]

Blue, you need to read the Readmes that I posted. You will find the answers to all those types of questions in them.

Hex, I have not had any reports of problems with buildings. To get the buildings to show up correctly in the GL, you have to put them in alphabetical order in the buildings text, so the last two are the same in my mod as they are in the standard game.

Chris still hasn't gotten the chop sheet back to me, so I have been working on other things related to the mod. I have been feeling really lousy the last few days, so I have not missed squinting at the spreadsheet very much.
I have been developing some new ideas with Charles and Harlan which would improve the mod and the game as a whole, but I need someone to make the slic for me.
Locutus is happy to help, but he is tied down with school and other things already requested, so I really need someone, or someones, to step up and lend a hand.

I am going to make a thread in the Creation system listing all the triggers I would like to have.
Most of these triggers would benefit the game as a whole, and could be used with any mod, so it's not like you would be abandoning your own projects.

[TacticalGrace]

couple of things that are still puzzling me:
1) the readmes don't match up with what is in the text files. Is there an update on the way?

2) where have all the graneries gone? I have the option to build a granery at the beginning of the game but once I've built one I don't get a chance to build any more for the rest of the game and there are none in the inventory.



------------------
Do not be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed...

[Bluevoss]

Wes,

Downloaded all the components (Text, Pictures, Sprite1 & 2) and unzipped them into the scenario folder. Start the game and pict that scenario, then try the Alpha version (non domestic). The next thing I know, the game is dumping to desktop with dialogs reading "Virtual democracy not found in advance table".

Did I get a corruption in my download? If so, what do I need to do to fix this.

Thanks,



------------------
Bluevoss-

[skorpion59]

Hey Wes, I hope you are saving a copy of this thread to your hard drive since it is getting rather long.