Cradle 1.2

[Master_Darque]

Did you possibly launch the game using one of the other Modswapper options, or possibly not launch the game through Modswapper before loading your saved game? Even if you had launched the game through another Modswapper option or through the normal way without any problem, this does not assure that you will not have some kind of later game problems. Once you launch a saved game in another option, the file will become corrupted, and any future attempts to load that file with the correct option will not solve the problem.

I do not use modswapper. I followed the instructions about making a mod work under W2K that I found at this forum. I have had it work properly in the past...

Make sure that the freezeup is not due to the 'Goody Hut' slowdown that is docuemented in the readme (though based on your timeframe, this does not seem to be the case).

I do not believe that it is a goody hut problem. The game doesn't freeze, it just quits. I have observed the goody hut slowdown many times and it has not caused a problem.

[hexagonian]

I do not know if I can help you solve this problem, as my own setup is through the use of Modswapper (my computer is also using Win98 not Win2K).

Whoever posted the info regarding W2K will probably be of more help - you may have to post in that thread, or email the people involved in that discussion.

[hexagonian]

Peter,

Anything to report on the Diplo Code???

[Leonidas]

The Cradle Mod is brilliant. In addition, my hat is off to everyone who has worked on making CTP2 a better game.

There is one thing I would like to see fixed in CTP2:

I find that the only really tedious task that needs to be fixed in the game is having to move the darn diplomat around to open embassies. This can be a royal pain if you are playing with 20+ civs on a huge map.

You can't just assign a path for the diplomats because they will stop everytime they encounter a soldier, city, rabbits, fallen logs . . .

Soooo, is there a way to establish embassies without having to go through the drudgery of building a diplomat and dragging it all over the world in search of an office?

Could this be done in another way? For example, after you build a diplomat, you would then be allowed to open an embassy for xx amount of gold, or something like that.

Dragging a diplomat all over the world adds nothing to gameplay. Perhaps it could be used in another capacity. . .

Thanks, and keep up the great work

[Peter Triggs]

Dave,

I started writing an answer to the questions you asked after my last post, but never quite got around to finishing it. Here's what I was going to say:

Question - Does the entire civ surrender to you and you automatically get all of the remaining cities?

Second Question/Observation - I'm assuming that when you say Military Rank, it is the info reflected in the Power Graph.

Yes to both. I think the data from the MiltaryRank function is reflected more or less directly in the line graph on the Rankings =>Military page. (BTW, I always play with minimal barbs so they're military rank is inevitably 0. If you play with maximal barbs, do they ever show up in the military ranking?) The zero-sum graph probaby records some more absolute measure of military power (number of units x hit points x ... ?) that they use to compute the MilitaryRank.

Cradle, is structured so that gaining a military advantage on that graph is hard - but what I have found is that once a player can get to that point, he usually can roll over the opposition without the help of a surrender option.

One of the reasons why he can get to that point seems to be that once he starts getting more cities up, he can start out-producing individual AI civs. On the toughest levels, the AI does have ongoing bonuses (though they are not as drastic as those in civ3, based on what is reported - on the flipside, the AI in Cradle does start out with more advances/settlers/PW/Gold than in civ3.)

As many players have reported, the beginning/mid-game Cradle is good because it is such a struggle to get to the point where the human player does achieve these advantages, but once he is there, then the game becomes too easy.

My concern is that this adaptation to the code will give the human player an even larger advantage in the later game, because once the military ranking is achieved, then civs will basically roll over and surrender to the human (of course a player has to continue to pursue a warmongor mindset).

Having a civ surrender to you is a cool-sounding event - at the same time, it should be very a very rare occurance. If this coding is used in conjunction with the civ-unification code that Immortal Wombat is kicking around, then the occurances may even be less.

The last thing we need is something that makes the game too easy for the human. I guess the best use for a surrender trigger would be in the late game situation when the human player knows he's won and it's just a tedious mopping up operation. (The problem will be to identify this situation: in the original game it occured when you pressed the 'single player' button. ) Until then I don't think that in Cradle there's a real problem with it triggering too often; the AI civs have such a propensity to build units that it seemed to me that it's *very* difficult to get much of a military lead over anybody until well into the game. And when used in conjunction with Wombat's unification code, hopefully the 'day of reckoning' when the Human player has an absolutely overwhelming lead will be pushed back to the point where he'll be wanting to finish off the other civs and win the game. (Assuming that the game has developed in this direction so that he can do this.)

About the human outproducing AI civs: I don't know how general this is, but some of the AI civs seem to have gotten stuck in a mode where they just keep on producing units. I'm sure I've seen this before, it's probably a design fault in the original game. But it should be fixable by varying the strategies that the AI civ is using. We're not stuck with the given strategies in strategies.txt. We can write our own and use the SLIC ConsiderStrategicState function to load them. In the "best of all worlds ..." thread Locutus mentioned:

Making the AI deal with it can hopefully be done through SLIC again: if it needs more units, switch into a unit-building strategy; if it has enough, it goes into a city-development strategy

I tried doing this sort of thing last summer but didn't get very far with it as I recall. Still, I think it's something that really needs looking into. If the AI is getting stuck in a mode where it's producing unnecessary units, then it's no wonder that it gets easy for the Human to outperform it.

It does sound like he does not even have to tackle cities, but the forces roaming around the map. In theory couldn't the human player then cause a civ to surrender to him that is across the map from the human player? This would be a huge bonus for the human player from a position standpoint.

I suppose this is just possible but I just barely imagine the circumstances in which it would happen. The only thing I can think of is that the FrenzyAI code would have to have put the AI civ into "FAI_FRENZY STATE 4 (suicidal): Cpu uses any stack that is greater than 2 to attack! " so that it's sent almost all it's units across the map to attack you. I suspect that the only time this happens (if at all) is right at the end of the game when the human is about to win anyway.

It's also somewhat a concern in the early game, because if the trigger is allowing the human player to gain some enemy cities quickly via a full civ surrender, than the player can basically focus on military matters/conquest in the early game without creating his own cities peacefully - in essence a fail-safe strategy to beat Cradle. (this same principle caused me to severely limit free cities/settlers from goody huts)

This concept may work if you make the difference in the standings a higher number - instead of 25, make it 50-60 - because achieving a military advantage of +50-60 on the toughest levels in the early/mid game would be hard, if not impossible

(Locutus: ) You could add some limitations tot the surrender code: only after turn X, only if enemy has <3 cities left, only if nearest city is X tiles away, only if cities are on same continent as human city, etc...

Yup, nothing is set in stone; it's a question of finding the trigger conditions that make it most interesting to the player. I hadn't thought about the possibility of taking out other civs as soon as the game starts so one condition to add should probably be >X turns, but I don't know what a good value for X might be. Again, I doubt that this would be a big problem in Cradle because of the AI's head start and propensity to built units, but it doesn't hurt to be careful.

Were you having problems in the early game with rival civs making attacks on your internal cities and stacks?

I think so but I wasn't watching out for that.

How is your current standing in terms of science?

I'm in the lead, which is not surprising given that I have this huge economy to draw on. It's a bit difficult to answer this one because early in the game I made friends with and got research pacts with two of my closest neighbours. The research pact should have ended after 30 turns but due to a bug (since fixed) it didn't and has, as in the default set-up, continued throughout the game. Initially, this gave me a substantial science boost but as the game has progressed and my economy has grown so much their contribution to me has become less important while I'm probably boosting theirs incredibly.

The reports of AI/AI relationships are very good to hear. How have the Human/AI relationships been?

Too easy. I had put some LogRegardEvents in which had the effect of making the AI civs being too much affected by my proposals. I've taken them out.

(Dale: ) Any chance of being on the receiver's list of that one?
(Locutus: ) Can't wait until you release the code and I can test it myself...

As soon as I get it in a bit better shape I'll post it off to the three of you and anybody else who wants it.




To bring things up to date, all I can say is "It goes on".

I'm just finishing off the AI's responses to a Human's counter proposals (the AI made a proposal, the Human countered, how does the AI respond?). After that, the only possible thing (I think) left to do would be threats. I don't really want to do a lot with threats except put in a regard hit on a Human when he uses them.

But, I'm having a bit of trouble testing things and I think there may be a fair amount of game balancing to do once I get it all working.

1) I have no general problem testing individual responses because I can control the code. But the problem is testing the system over a longer term basis. The data for the length and participants in the no trespassing treaties, embassy agreements, ceasefires, and so on is stored in non-static arrays, which means that every time I load a saved game and reload SLIC, I lose the data. It won't be a problem in normal games unless players reload SLIC. If anyone knows a workaround for this, I'd appreciate it.

2) One thing I've noticed though, is that there's a lot more positive feedback in the diplomacy system than I expected. Every time someone agrees to something, the participants in the deal like each other more. Since there's more chances of making deals now, the general regard level can get too high. I'm trying to negate this by increasing the ShareContinentRegardCost in the various diplomatic states. There are other things that I want to try too.

3) I think the problem of AIcivs getting into a situation where they're building too many units is not due to Cradle but is undoubtedly a design fault in the original game. Maybe it's just more apparent now that they're not killing off each other's units so much. Anyway, it should be possible - like Locutus said - to define two new building strategies STRATEGY_BUILD_UNITS and STRATEGY_BUILD_BUILDINGS and then have AIcivs switch between them depending on, say, their military rank.

This is probably one of the reasons why the AI falls behind as the game progresses. Not only is there opportunity cost involved in building the units but also there are the upkeep costs involved in just keeping them going.


Leonidas,

Soooo, is there a way to establish embassies without having to go through the drudgery of building a diplomat and dragging it all over the world in search of an office?

This is one of the things that's coming with this project: I take it I can count on you to be a beta-tester. And don't worry about volunteering, it won't involve doing anything tomorrow afternoon.

[Immortal Wombat]

Sounds amazing Peter, please, send it to me when its ready also.

(The problem will be to identify this situation: in the original game it occured when you pressed the 'single player' button. )

[Shadow]

Howdy all,

2 bugs to report.

1. From the very beginning of a game (Diety Slayer) my borders are all screwy. Non-standard demensions, as if they're pushing up on another coutries borders, or only taking in the city influence. This happens with all of my cities and all AI cities too.
I've also found that not long into the game (not sure what the trigger is), about 75% of all other available space (not taken up by country borders) is dotted with red (barbarian) borders, all in non-standard dimensions, not linked in any logical fashion, and with no cities inside them.

(I tried to do a screen capture bit didn't work. If someone can give me the 30 second lesson on screen captures I'll post a pic of what I'm talking about.)

Anyway, this makes building roads impossible for all civs, and is really just an eyesore. I want to be able to see the borders rather than turn the whole lot off.

Any ideas on a fix?


2. In multi-player with Diety Slayer option, when another human player (non game host) takes an AI city, I get asked (as game host) if they want to keep the city or destroy it. So I have to ask them, they tell me and I click on the appropriate button. Just another thing that's a bit of a pain...

Again, any ideas?


That's all for now, otherwise a great mod!!!

Cheers,
Shadow.

[Shadow]

OK, here's an example of the mini-map showing the screwey borders.



Using CRADLE - Diety Slayer (not the 1.3 version, that doesn't seem to have the problem as yet), multi-player or single...

Hope it's of some help.

I can't figure it out...

Shadow

P.S. Darn pic showed the first time... now it's being temperamental...

For whatever reason the pic isn't showing anymore all of a sudden... so here's the URL - http://www.geocities.com/markyabsley/ctpbug1.jpg

[Martin Gühmann]

Originnally posted by Shadow
1. From the very beginning of a game (Diety Slayer) my borders are all screwy. Non-standard demensions, as if they're pushing up on another coutries borders, or only taking in the city influence. This happens with all of my cities and all AI cities too.
I've also found that not long into the game (not sure what the trigger is), about 75% of all other available space (not taken up by country borders) is dotted with red (barbarian) borders, all in non-standard dimensions, not linked in any logical fashion, and with no cities inside them.

And you are shure that you are not playing some kind of multi player game? Actual that is a bug that occured in GoodMod only in MP, I thought I fixed it and sended to Dave, but obviously it is not in the December update. Furtunatly I have the newest Cradle version on of the CRA_Goods.slc on my harddrive.

Originnally posted by Shadow
2. In multi-player with Diety Slayer option, when another human player (non game host) takes an AI city, I get asked (as game host) if they want to keep the city or destroy it. So I have to ask them, they tell me and I click on the appropriate button. Just another thing that's a bit of a pain...

That is the city kill option I thought I fixed that, too. And again a lock in the December update revealed that it doesn't conatin the newest version.

The correct version of that file can be found under AI Boost SLIC files on Hexagonian's home page. However I have this file on my harddrive, too. Therefore I put it into this *.zip file, too.

And by the way what about attaching you picture next time? You can see the picture if you right click on it if you are using Netscape 4.5. Other browsers shouldn't have any problems with the pictures.

-Martin

[hexagonian]

Martin,

I'm having the same problem with downloading your zipped file that I was having with Ben's files. I do not know what is causing it, but could you please either email me the zipped file or post it at your site and give me a link?

I want to be able to put all those files in the next update, which will wait until Peter is able to come out with a beta for the diplocode he is working on.

Of note will be some minor balancing issues in govern.txt and cost adjustments to the slaver-related units. Also included will be a 1,000 turn game (through Mid-Modern) that will incorporate a 'New World Order' type victory ending option.

Peter
Replies below

Originally posted by Peter Triggs
The last thing we need is something that makes the game too easy for the human. I guess the best use for a surrender trigger would be in the late game situation when the human player knows he's won and it's just a tedious mopping up operation. (The problem will be to identify this situation: in the original game it occured when you pressed the 'single player' button. ) Until then I don't think that in Cradle there's a real problem with it triggering too often; the AI civs have such a propensity to build units that it seemed to me that it's *very* difficult to get much of a military lead over anybody until well into the game. And when used in conjunction with Wombat's unification code, hopefully the 'day of reckoning' when the Human player has an absolutely overwhelming lead will be pushed back to the point where he'll be wanting to finish off the other civs and win the game. (Assuming that the game has developed in this direction so that he can do this.)

I would suggest that surrendering civs are less than 3 cities in size and that the turns should be at after 600 - at least to start with.

Originally posted by Peter Triggs
About the human outproducing AI civs: I don't know how general this is, but some of the AI civs seem to have gotten stuck in a mode where they just keep on producing units. I'm sure I've seen this before, it's probably a design fault in the original game. But it should be fixable by varying the strategies that the AI civ is using. We're not stuck with the given strategies in strategies.txt. We can write our own and use the SLIC ConsiderStrategicState function to load them.

I've heard comment to this effect about what the AI will build. What I tried to do in Cradle was increase the types of buildings in the different BuildingBuild.txt lists so the AI would be tricked into building a variety of buildings if it was in a particular mindset and would normally have nothing to build - (like combining Gold and Science buildings in one list).

The secret may be in the BuildListSequence.txt file, as that places the priority for what the AI will build. In Cradle, the garrison build command is set rather high, but the build list is always topped with the particular building that is highligted for the strategy. I do not know what the default files are, but the garrison command may be dropped down the list, as well as the unit command option. Take a look at those files and see what you think.

If the other option is to create a new strategy entry in strategy.txt, I will have to be walked though the process, since I haven't done anything along those lines in my Modwork.

Originally posted by Peter Triggs
I suppose this is just possible but I just barely imagine the circumstances in which it would happen. The only thing I can think of is that the FrenzyAI code would have to have put the AI civ into "FAI_FRENZY STATE 4 (suicidal): Cpu uses any stack that is greater than 2 to attack! " so that it's sent almost all it's units across the map to attack you. I suspect that the only time this happens (if at all) is right at the end of the game when the human is about to win anyway.

Something Frenzy does well is move stacks of units from civs that are far away onto human territory, so my concern was that the human player could conceiveably cause a civ to surrender without leaving his soil because he was able to win a series of battles with that civ.

Originally posted by Peter Triggs
I'm in the lead, which is not surprising given that I have this huge economy to draw on. It's a bit difficult to answer this one because early in the game I made friends with and got research pacts with two of my closest neighbours. The research pact should have ended after 30 turns but due to a bug (since fixed) it didn't and has, as in the default set-up, continued throughout the game. Initially, this gave me a substantial science boost but as the game has progressed and my economy has grown so much their contribution to me has become less important while I'm probably boosting theirs incredibly.

...One thing I've noticed though, is that there's a lot more positive feedback in the diplomacy system than I expected. Every time someone agrees to something, the participants in the deal like each other more. Since there's more chances of making deals now, the general regard level can get too high. I'm trying to negate this by increasing the ShareContinentRegardCost in the various diplomatic states. There are other things that I want to try too.

One thing that I want to avoid is the ability to tech-whore. Maybe a limit on how many techs can be traded in a timeframe. (if you make a successful trade, you cannot get any other techs for a given number of turns). Adjusting the regard settings sounds like it will help.

Its when the human player has been able to close the tech gap that he has an easy time of it too.

[Immortal Wombat]

Originally posted by Martin Gühmann
That is the city kill option I thought I fixed that, too. And again a lock in the December update revealed that it doesn't conatin the newest version.

The correct version of that file can be found under AI Boost SLIC files on Hexagonian's home page. However I have this file on my harddrive, too. Therefore I put it into this *.zip file, too.

Martin, did you mean to fix the
[code]
IsHumanPlayer(g.player) in the message? Its still going to message player 1 or 0.
I've set it to message city[0].owner, and uploaded the zip for Dave.

http://www.weaver1.btinternet.co.uk/CradleFixes.zip

And by the way what about attaching you picture next time? You can see the picture if you right click on it if you are using Netscape 4.5. Other browsers shouldn't have any problems with the pictures.

You can't link pics direct from GeoCities, its a pain, you have to make a page, and link to that

[hexagonian]

Originally posted by hexagonian
I want to be able to put all those files in the next update, which will wait until Peter is able to come out with a beta for the diplocode he is working on.

...and hopefully a working version of Ben's merge civs code - or is that going to hav to be adjusted to the diplocode rewrite?

I'd like to have both available in the playtesting phase if possible.

[Immortal Wombat]

Just waiting on a Counterglow K hunt, then I'll get back to coding

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Immortal Wombat
Martin, did you mean to fix the
[code]
IsHumanPlayer(g.player) in the message? Its still going to message player 1 or 0.
I've set it to message city[0].owner, and uploaded the zip for Dave.

http://www.weaver1.btinternet.co.uk/CradleFixes.zip

You are right Ben, and I thought I fixed it from v1.1 to 1.2. However if you like to have an option where you can move the city population to one of your existing cities than you can use a version of that file that can be found on my homepage or on Ben's homepage. To install the two files from the *.zip file just unzip it into your ..\ctp2_data\default\gamedata\ folder. If you want to update a already running game open the chat window by typing ' and enter /reloadslic but note that it will only help you concerning the city capture problem if you want to get rid of the border prolem you have to start a new game.

-Martin

[Shadow]

Cheers Martin,
Glad someone had an idea of what I was on about.
(Tried for ages to get that picture to come up too, but no luck.)

I also can't get the file to download properly. Could you please mail it to me...?


Lastly, on checking you website and downloading the FortsForAI file, it came out as an .slc file which I assume is to be put in one of the CTP II directories. I'm just wondering which one?

Shadow