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

[WesW]

I left a message for the tech guy at Gamestats to get back with me Friday. I will be gone tomorrow.

Glad to hear that science seems to flow smoothly into the second half of the game. Once I get this last update posted, I will be finishing up loose ends before going public. I think we have done about all we can with the AI without some heavy experimentation that will have to go on during the second release beta. The units, advances, and all the new stuff is finalized as far as I am concerned. All the slic triggers seem to be working, too, and I think people are going to appreciate them more and more as they gain experience with the mod.
It is just a shame that there is not a good way to multiplay this game (or is there?). The Elite units and the conquest changes would add so much realism and suspense to a game against humans. Did anyone ever come up with a way of disabling the counter-proposal diplomacy element in order to re-implement the multi-play features?

I added the * to the elite units, and it shows up when you are choosing advances and in the units list. Thanks for spelling it out for me, Batty, since it is hard to keep everything straight even when you work with the files every day.

I also added notices of when buildings go obsolete, so you can better decide if it is worth building them.
The GL also contains notices in the Karnak and Stonehenge wonders that you will need to build Granaries and Shrines when these wonders lose their effects.

I feel quite happy with the new terraforming and farming settings, now that I have had a day to think about them.
The Bowman sounds better too, once I sat down to write out the gameplay file explaining its use. Actually, why not paste it here for you to read:
[UNIT_BOWMAN_GAMEPLAY]
The Bowman is the successor to the ATABASE_UNITS,UNIT_ARCHER>Archer. Armed with an iron sword to complement his composite bow, the Bowman can attack from a distance or hold his own in direct conflict with stronger enemy units if he is supported by fortifications like City Walls. This makes the Bowman good for rounding out your attack forces and ideal for city garrisons.

I also made the Composite Bow a preq for Iron Working, replacing the redundant Bronze working (which was also a preq for Iron Working's other preq, Infantry Tactics).
I also edited the Archer's pic to give him a sheathed sword on his left hip. This may be hard to pick out, but that is what it is.

[janilxx]

Originally posted by Radical_Manuvr
My biggest complaint is the settlers trying to go through my territory and once even settlling in my territory which squeezed my city influence once it grew. I had a treaty and no trespass agreement so I don't know how they settled there. I know the game (at least the regular game or maybe I'm thinking of Alien Crossfire) would not let me settle in another civ's territory under those circumstances (though I didn't try to test it). There's no way to get rid of them other than enslave or kill, so every turn or every other turn I was having to boot 'em back. That got very old.

Try to give your map to them. It worked on me once. I suppose AI saw from my map that there is no free territories behind my lands and he guided his settler to go other direction. Btw I would like that settlers cannot settle inside nation's borders if they have some kind of treaty(what is good treaties???)

I do not suggest 2 settlers in the beginning of the game. That would help human players too much. I thinkt that 1 settler is ok.

[janilxx]

IT would be very nice to have
MedPack II version 1
and
MedPack II version 2 beta
items in modswapper when first public is out. I would then have change to play with first public and test second beta at the same time

[Harlan]

Wes,
I'm glad to see that you've moved some terraforming items further into the future, and added the Bowman. How long does the Bowman remain a viable unit- I'm hoping until gun based units totally take over (1500 or so - there were many more crossbowmen than muskets in the armies of Columbus, Cortez and the like).

It looks like I won't be able to play the game any time soon though, as I'll be travelling for a while again. But when I get back I'm sure the mod will be great by then. I'd still like to see what happens if one gives the AI a production advantage (allowing them to complete something in only, say 80% of the time). I still think that's a great way to improve the game, and allowing the AI civs to have more units, buildings and such would only make the game better, since no one is complaining that its too hard. The top difficulty level should be damn hard, nearly impossible, whereas people like me always are forced to play the top level to get any challenge.

[janilxx]

Originally posted by Harlan
I'd still like to see what happens if one gives the AI a production advantage (allowing them to complete something in only, say 80% of the time).

Yes maybe this should be tested. I think that the game is too "easy" now

[janilxx]

Am I talking alone here?

I am quite sure that asking AI to withdraw does not affect settlers!!! Those little devils comes always back to my territories. And then I have to declare war and only because of settlers. Stupid.

If nobles can do something else than establish embassies and have parties this is futile comment. I had a war agains AI but he tried once establish embassy with noble. He did not success

Attack city and retreat. You still have possibility to bombard city in same turn. stupid.

Could the sleep/sentinel command be changed so that unit would wake up after for example 10 turns? I hate when I but some "futile" units(that time futile, maybe not later) sleep and after 100 turns I suddenly see those units againd and I recognize that I have forgotten those units and they are really bad and futile units now.

[Martin Gühmann]

CanBeExpelled

Originally posted by janilxx

I am quite sure that asking AI to withdraw does not affect settlers!!! Those little devils comes always back to my territories. And then I have to declare war and only because of settlers. Stupid.

Settlers can be expelled use the expell order. You can take look into the unit.txt and you will find that the settler unit has this flag:

CanBeExpelled

I suggest to give that flag also to some small land units so can get rid of them without declaring war or asking the AI to withdraw.

-Martin

[janilxx]

Re: CanBeExpelled

Originally posted by Martin Gühmann

Settlers can be expelled use the expell order. You can take look into the unit.txt and you will find that the settler unit has this flag:

Yeah and lets wait few turns. Oh hi again settler. Would you like to taste my shoe again.

.
..
...
Time passes
....

Oh hi, I was waiting you already. Would you little settler like some coffee when you wait me to kick you?

.....
......

Oh you were fast this time. --Kick--

.................
..................
...................
You want me to kick you 126th time? Ok.

.......................
........................
Hi again. Yes we can kick in the 20th century too.



I really enjoy kicking those bastards or do I?

[Rhuarc]

I agree with you janillxx. I gets really annoying haveing to constantly take units all over your empire just to kick out the stupid settlers. Why shouldn't they be withdrawn along with allt he rest of the units when you request another civ withdraw? Is there anything that can be done about this? Or are we the only two who see this as being a flaw?

[Pintello]

Hi Janilxx and Rhuarc,

It occures to me that if the Settlers are such a nuciance, simply go into the units.txt file and add the line "can be sued" or whatever the correct syntax is for that. Check the Spy unit to be sure. Once you do this, if you have a spy, lawyer, agent, or any other unit with the ability to sue in the Med Mod 2, you can then simply sue the settler and thus destroy him without actually having to go to war with the defending civilization.

This may even be something WesW may want to included in the general MedMod 2 setup.

Regards,

Timothy Pintello

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Originally posted by Harlan
Wes,

It looks like I won't be able to play the game any time soon though, as I'll be travelling for a while again. But when I get back I'm sure the mod will be great by then. I'd still like to see what happens if one gives the AI a production advantage (allowing them to complete something in only, say 80% of the time). I still think that's a great way to improve the game, and allowing the AI civs to have more units, buildings and such would only make the game better, since no one is complaining that its too hard. The top difficulty level should be damn hard, nearly impossible, whereas people like me always are forced to play the top level to get any challenge.

i completley agree with Harlan, and the levels should be organised in that way that the easiest level is perhaps the same as now, for the total novices, and that it gets harder in incremental steps so you can actually feel different difficulty level. (as opposed to now)

Of course finishin with impossible (as the title says), meaning that a win on impossible level should be considered an achievement for anyone.

[lev]

Nice movie!

I just watched the medpack2.avi, and I'm impressed!

Partially, I must admit, 'cuz I got to see my name in the graphics credits. Okay, so I'm vain...

Looking forward to playing the mod. I've basically been away from CtP2 for many months, waiting for Med2 to be finished. Thanks for all the effort!

[Radical_Manuvr]

It appears the disappearing granaries are supposed to happen after all. The problem is with the GL. In the GL Stonehenge says it boosts science in the host city but the printout/readme file says it gives granaries.

I think there is a mistake on the Elite Hoplites. The support cost is 1 but the chart shows they should cost 5.

Wes, thanks for adding the * to the elites.

I've run into the lockup problem on my last two games. I guess it's me cause nobody else has said anything. Can barbarians get elite units if they investigate huts? Just a guess but if they can't it's a problem. I've seen them get huts occasionally.

[Pintello]

Hi Wes,

I don't know if it is intentional or not, but the most recent file in the new text files you downloaded dates to 5/13/01. These files do not contain the most resent updates you mentioned in your earlier post.

Timothy Pintello

[WesW]

I was not able to get in touch with the guys at GameStats today, and Wouter doesn't seem to be at his computer tonight, so I will probably see if I can get Hex or Wouter to post the newest update at their site sometime soon.

I have also sent the Bowman pic to Hex to see of he can do the shadowing for it.

I am pretty happy with the map settings I have now. I think I have managed to get rid of most of the swamp terrain, and apparantly a lot of the jungle, though that was not my intention. The terrain is more varied, and has more hills and mountains, though the mountains are in much smaller chains than before. This should mean that there will be much less terrain that is unsuitable for cities. The varied terrain should enable the AIs to grow better, since they often do not farm or mine correctly when faced with large clumps of identical terrain.

Barbs do not investigate huts. When they are generated, they may be Elite units, because those units have high attack strengths, which is how the units are ranked when picking from the available units as defined in risks.txt.

As to AI bonuses, they are given variable bonuses depending upon their rank as compared to the human.
From my observations, the AIs can usually have both guns and butter, the problem is that they do not expand and grow their cities properly at times, and they do not use their military strength aggressively enough. I think that we are making progress in both these areas, enough so that I feel good about releasing it to the public now. This is an area that we will continue to try and improve as long as we play the game.
Remember that I will continue to periodically release text updates even after the initial public release.

Odd, I have not had the problems with settlers wanting to invade my territory. I found my cities at about the same distance as I did in Ctp1, however, so maybe some of you are leaving so much open territory among your cities that the AIs are tempted to try and squeeze inside them. Remember that you do not fill up the second city radius until size 21, so I rarely have games where my cities get big enough to use the third radius, much less the fourth. I have always thought that you were wasting valuable terrain when you spread your cities far apart.

It is not possible to set units to wake up after a set number of turns. I would suggest getting in the habit of scanning your units tab for the types of units you have active, and disbanding old ones every couple hundred turns.

Paul, can you make a version of Modswapper to have more than one mod available to choose from?

I have changed the diffdb so that everyone will get a second settler in almost every game. There is no flag to separate the chances of the human from those of the AIs. The second settler really helps the AIs, and those you of who want a greater challenge can disband your second settler and start out with one.

Thanks for the Hoplite info. This was a bug.