The Medieval Pack II Beta: The Gathering (Part 2)

[Locutus]

I agree with Wes's setup of the Slaving issue, in the real Ancient Age prisoners of war became practically by definition slaves, so the model is quite realistic. Also, it may make the human a little better (when I have Slavers I try to stack them with every army that attacks, so for me the only difference will be that I don't have to build as much Slavers anymore) but it makes the AI a lot better, so it's well worth it. It's a pity though that it pretty much removes the whole Slaver-Abolitionist concept from the game as Slavers will become almost useless and I'm almost 100% certain that you can't build Abolitionists if you have slaves yourself. But it's a fact that a slaving AI will put up a better fight than a non-slaving AI so it's well worth the sacrifice.

Hmm, before posting my previous message I checked the strategy files but couldn't find any war strategies. After reading your post I checked again and they were indeed there. Do you suppose not sleeping more than 3 hours a night for almost a week has something to do with it?

I'll be looking forward to trying those new settings for warrior, barb pillaging and anarchy settings.

When I have time and no more important SLIC work on my hands I'll look into that SDI thing, I think it would make the Modern/Information/Genetic Age a lot more interesting. I agree with David that jadlakha's suggestions for the nuclear age are a bit too extreme, at least for the MedMod, but my solution should add some extra suspense.

I think the Incan's overall power wasn't just superior to mine, it was way superior to mine. The Scots also were superior in power, but never to a lesser degree. When I hadn't conquered their city yet they had a fair amount of troops on or near my territory but as soon as I started to attack those troops and took the city, they fled back to their remaining cities. I suspect the Scots were balancing between offensive and defensive play and me taking their city and killing some of their troops threw them off balance (in the wrong direction), as those events increased my overall power and decreased theirs.

I don't think I misunderstood the intent of Drug Rehab Act. You argue that, while keeping drugs illegal, you can reduce demand through rehab facilities and education to such a degree that the prices will collapse and you can in that way reduce crime enormously. But this is an obsolete view that just doesn't work in the real world (even though conservative governments like those of the US and France don't realize this yet). For one thing, the drug market has different rules than the regular market. This is for two reasons: 1) (hard)drugs are addictive, so once you're addicted price doesn't matter anymore (sellers can ask any price they want, regardless of demand) and 2) the supply side of the market is run by criminal organisations, who don't follow any rules and will do anything in their power to prevent demand or prices from decreasing (and they can do a lot more than governments because of their criminal nature). Also, what makes it all so attractive to young people in the first place is that drugs are illegal and that drug use will remain a controversial thing to do. So as long as drugs are illegal, demand (to at least try it out) will remain high. And if people are forced to go to a drugdealer for their needs, he'll try to introduce them to other, more addictive, drugs and he will sell his stuff for a low price at first and only gradually increase prices until you're addicted. Also, if you force people into rehab while they don't really want to, they're very likely to fall back into their old patterns again once released. So as long as drugs aren't distributed by government (controlled) organisations (and thus legal), trying to reduce demand through rehabilitation and eduction alone is like hitting you're head against a brick wall. Most, if not all, people who work with drug addict on a daily basis can confirm this.

Jani,
Don't worry about your English. By Timeline's definition I'd probably get a 5 or so myself, while according to the (few) people with whom I've discussed it, my English is usually quite understandable. My definition of good English is that it must be clear, understandible, unambiguous. I know plenty of Americans/Canadians/Australians/British/etc. who would get a 6 or lower from me in this respect (the 'Conversations with Richard (Azmel)' thread is a good example of this: even though Richard is American, no-one seemed to have truly understood his explanations until I, a Dutchman of all people, refrased them), whereas I would give you an 8, maybe even a 9. One can clearly notice that English isn't your first language, but I never have to reread your posts, something that doesn't always apply to posts of English-speaking people. My advice to improve your English: read a lot of English (comics, literature, newspapers, forum-messages , whatever you like/can get your hands on) and watch a lot of BBC (or any other English TV stations you can recieve in Finland), those two things helped me a lot.

English is actually an easy language to learn - very simple, straight-forward grammar and very available: tv, Internet, magazines, etc, it's almost impossible to not pick up at least some English - but very hard to really master. For some reason many people (English, Dutch, Finnish, Germans, French) seem to think that their own language is hard to learn, a very odd occurence. Maybe people (subconsciously) think that their own language is more complex, more sophisticated than other languages, thus making it superior?

Anyway, looking forward to the next update (Wes, I'll send you my update later tonight, maybe tomorrow morning).

[jadlakha]

I personally didnt like Red Alert 2

[David Murray]

jadlakha,

I suggest you buy yourself a copy of Red Alert 2 if you want nuclear warfare. I don't think nuclear warfare should be the end-all and be-all of later CTP2. Destroying 75% of a city's resources and population is more than powerful enough. It is terrifying! MedMod's AI alterations will hopefully ensure that the AI will use nuclear weapons when angered enough by another Civ.

[jadlakha]

Hydrogen bombs should be ICBM's with 40 movement points. And remove nanite defuser too.

[jadlakha]

Actually Lets face it, todays nukes would wipe out 99% of the population of a city and disinegrate all buildings. I think there should be great unhapiness cause by the use of thermonuclear devices in ones own civilization, Every civilization with nuclear devices not allied with the civ commiting the atrocity oughtta nuke the heck outta them, and all nukes caught up in a blast automatically end up destroying the cities of the civ that first striked. I also believe that all nonallied Civs go to war with the FIRST civ to use nuclear weapons. And make this like a frenzy situation. Therfore if you choose to use nuclear weapons, you better be able to wipe your opponents out in one turn. This would add an interesting suspense a replayabilit factor, especially to the modern age. In fact I believe SDI's should totally be removed from the game. SDI defenses are pretty unrealistic in our future, and CTP2 doesnt go far enough into the future to where it should contain SDI's itself. I also think all nukes contained by the nuked civilizations just end up detonating in opponents city that nukes first ignoring all movement points. Well I know Ive been wordy, and I am pretty sure all the changes I have asked for are totally unrealistic, but this would be interesting for me. Having Cold War situations in CTP2 would be nice and suspensful. Maybe adding 2 different types of nukes, Atom Bombs(very few movement points Like 5 and must be launched from bombers which wipe ou 75% of population and buildings) and Hydrogen Bombs which inhibit utter and savage destruction destroying ALL BUILDINGS and dropping population to 1. Well I doubt if this is possible but I'd love to see some1 try(this could be similar to the Nuclear Detente scenario packaged with the game).

[Dale]

David:
Your suggestion on nukes will be looked at by me on the weekend. I'll set it up to use the CaptureCity code if I can, but have it as 75% chance.

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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."

[David Murray]

A couple of last-minute suggestions from me:

I have noticed that nukes don't destroy any buildings or wonders in a city unless one hits said city with enough nukes to completely wipe it out. Is there any way to alter the code so that it would be possible for nukes to destroy, say, 75% of the city improvements as well as population? Perhaps also a small chance of destroying any wonders in the city would be realistic.

Also, I don't know if you've fixed it or not, but the last time I checked in MedMod cruise missiles only had a movement of four squares per turn.

[janilxx]

quote: Originally posted by WesW on 05-03-2001 04:02 AM Expect a BIG update soon.

I must say this again. Good work!!! All of you!

I have to reserve next week for Medpack testing

Will this be the final version number 1? I hope not because there is so many changes that need to be tested.

There will be new font and movie so I suppose I need to buy new CD-R for this. I was hoping that I will need new CD-R when the final version comes out.

[WesW]

I have noticed that the value of trade routes goes down as you explore the map and discover more goods of the same type. I have not noticed that they go down immediately upon reloading of a game. Someone may want to check this out and see for sure.

Well, as far as the mod goes, I think we may be about to the point where Joseph can print out the advances chart to hang on his wall.

Expect a BIG update soon. Last week I asked everyone to complete their tasks and get them in to me at this time, and almost everything has indeed come in.
Over the weekend Chris (Gedrin) thought up a new and simpler approach to making militias, and he and Wouter are, hopefully, putting the finishing touches on that code. I hope they have it finished in the next couple of days. Charles has not gotten the GL back to me, either, though I understand that he has a lot of other things going on.
That is about all that is not ready at this point, though.

Chris finished up the Elite units code over the weekend, Dale finished the diplomacy triggers listed above, as well as the new trigger which destroys half a city's buildings when it is captured.
Paul finished the mods 2 avis, the new intro movie and the creators vid which plays when you complete the Med Pack II wonder. I have never heard of a player-created mod having its own movies before, so I think they are one of the many ways in which this mod breaks new ground.
Martin sent me his citymod2, and I have integrated it into the modpack (which is why I try and say Medpack rather than Med mod). It gives a new city style for the Egyptians and a new age for the game, the Modern age. The original modern-age sprites now occupy the Info age.
I have combined the readmes for his mod with that for Harlan's graphics mod into a new "city and civs" readme.

I have also added some new things to the Main readme to reflect the latest changes to the mod, and I have re-arranged the triggers readme to reflect all the new triggers.

I have been refining the strategies.txt some more to try and improve AI behavior. I have also removed Carriers and Cargo Helicopters from the AI build lists, since they do not know how to use these units correctly. I rarely use them myself, so I do not think they will be missed.

The strength of militias is now 25% less than that of regular units, and they will no longer be around to suppress slaves and exert martial law. This will cause some adjustments to gameplay.

Finally, I will soon post a zip file of the Lucinda Calligraphy font that the readme titles and the creator's avi use. I did not realize that this was a non-standard font. Place this in the windows/fonts folder in order to see the files as they were meant to be seen.

[janilxx]

Thanks for comments about my english skills(more comments are needed and wanted). Umm maybe I will think my sentences better now before I will write them down.

I have read english in many schools many years but it still is hard to me I nowadays work in big company which official language is english(the company is still Finnish) and I know that this will help me to become better english speaker and writer. But here in my city(Pori) is no english speaking workmates so I can not actually speak english often(actually I do speak englih very rarely). But I do read and write english quite often so that will help me a little

I think my main failing is that I do write english same time as I think my sentences. Ok now I am reading my sentences through again and I will try to fix them I think that my english texts are written same way as we think here in Finland in finnish. So my words are little in wrong order.

I have sometimes heard that finnish is the hardest language to learn but that might not be true. But finnish is totally different to many other languages. For example letter "a" is said in many ways in english(car, baby, bat...) but it is allways said same way in finnish. It is allways said as in word "car" in english. Actually we say all letters only in one way in finnish("i" is allways said as in word "ai" in english). Thats enough about finnish )))

- Jani

[Dale]

They say English is the hardest language in the world to learn. I'd believe it!

Which witch
Whether weather
Ewe you

Just to name a couple! Thank god it's my born language.

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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."

[Timeline]

quote: Ummmmm now it is a chance to ask a real opinions about my language. Lets say the scale is from 1 to 10.

Alright, let's have some fun. Say if,
10 is someone who is clearly distinguished from the rest, wide vocabulary and uses words you never heard of before
7 - 9 is someone very educated and above average in intelligence
5 - 6 is someone with average intelligence and education, sounding like the normal English speaking person
2 - 4 is someone who is clearly not fluent in the English language, struggles to express ideas and is extremely difficult to understand
1, someone who is next to impossible to understand, someone who most likely cannot read or write, and is held back from growing because of an inability to communicate.

Okay now Janilxx, don’t be offended, but I would have to rate you at a 4. Remember now, you are on the upper scale of this grouping of “difficult to understand”, and you really don’t have that far to go before sounding like you are fluent and well versed in English. Please don’t feel discouraged, just keep on reading and writing and you will get to understand this terrible language before you know it!


Timeline

[janilxx]

quote: Originally posted by Dale on 05-02-2001 07:43 PM Just sent Wes some updates to scripts

Thanks Dale. These new things(and fixes) sounds very good!


But how could I get some time to play... I have a free advice to all of you. If you want to play a lot do not buy own detatched house.


And Wes(+others)... Is my language as bad as you mentioned above?!?! :-} I hope you still can understand most of the things I try to say

Ummmmm now it is a chance to ask a real opinions about my language. Lets say the scale is from 1 to 10. How good/bad I am talking(writing) english? Give me the points And give me the real points no too good or too bad ))))))))

Jani

[Dale]

Just sent Wes some updates to scripts, being Diplomacy, Withdraw and Capture City. Capture City is a new script which will destroy buildings in a captured city with a 50% chance. If anyone else wants to use these scripts in any mods, just let me know and I'll send it to you.

Run-down of what these mods do................
Diplomacy:
- New models for AI - AI and AI - human interaction.
- 3 states for AI - Human diplomatic states PLUS 3 new diplomatic states for AI - AI. (Means the AI can be a suckup, normal or war-monger to both AI's and Humans).
- Balanced priority scales for diplomatic proposals, acceptance and rejection. (Elliminates many "stupid" decisions of AI's)
- Forced AI - AI proposal considerations. (Never had them in the original settings).
- Map swapping, tech swapping, and a couple of other "handy" proposals scripted in to do it properly.
- Canceled Research Pacts due to internal unfixable bug.
- Embassies forced to be established under certain conditions.
- Embassies re-established after a war if embassy present before the war.

Withdraw:
- Checks if two nations have a Withdraw Treaty.
- If true it finds the closest home city of the offending nation and moves the offending unit to "near" that city. (By near, within 2 squares).
- If it can't find a valid site then the unit will be disbanded.

Capture City:
- On capture of a city by a nation, a random check against all buildings in a city will be run with a 50% chance of destruction.

This is all I can remember of all the changes to the mods I've done, but I'm sure there's probably a couple of others I've forgotten about.


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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."

[David Murray]

Dear anyone who is listening,

I have a slight problem whereby whenever I load up a new game of CTP2, the value of my trade routes drops dramatically. I was so upset by this that I just uninstalled CTP2 and went back to Civ2.

But...does anyone know why this happens? I have patch 1.1 and I was using MedMod at the time...but it doesn't seem to matter what I do, my trade routes depreciate in value whenever I load up a new game.
[This message has been edited by David Murray (edited May 02, 2001).]