Cradle 1.2

[player1]

WRONG,
CTP2 AI select targets depending of FORCE MATCHING of his units and DEFENDER units.
So, he KNOWS your defense.

In my expirience, it happend to me that computer attacks my weaker inner city instead of a border one (since he know that it is ligher defended).

[hexagonian]

Well, here's the quote that I read...

Originally posted by CyberGnu
Umm, I think Soren said the complete opposite. He confirmed that the computer knows where your units are at all times, but it is intended.

He also claimed the the AI in CTP2 doesn't know where your units are, with the result of an overly passive AI, incapable of waging offesnive warfare.

I wish there was a middle ground... I'm OK with the computer knowing where every unit is, say, four tiles from his border. It's when they launch a amphibious attack out of nowhere on the one undefended city in your heartland it pisses me off.

So it is probably true that the CTP2 AI can determine the makeup of your forces when it is next to them, but it does not know where those forces are located - the point being that stealth units are truly stealth units in CTP2 - and the CTP2 AI still operates under the fog of war while the civ3 AI does not - which would still be a very powerful cheat.

I stand by my comments.

[player1]

First S. J. didn't program CTP2.

Second, "maybe" AI just knows defense in cities (I AM COMPLETLY POSITIVE ABOUT THIS),
but not of units wandering around in fog of war.

In any other way AI would not even move units out of cities.


I say this because I actully KNOW how CTP2 AI works.

Look that old thread with some AI guy from Activison (Amzel or something)

[player1]

The only problem with force matching is that it doesn't take into accout FP.
So if you increase Force Match values., units will attacky to rarely (especial those with high FP), but if you lower it to much then those low FP units will go to beserk.
Main reason of bad tactical AI is actually BORROWED AI from CTP1, where units didn't have FP.
So they taked it, but didn't took FP in consideration.
That's also a reson, why AI is active in ancient age, but pretty passive in rennesance & modern age.


Maybe if you could make a new force matching values for every age?

...

Nah, to much SLICing & playtesting.

[player1]

Then there is also a so called Loctus-Alexander bug.

Where AI stacked units try to go through other city with units but fail,
because they all are to large for city (more then 12).
Still, AI keeps trying indefinetly (instead of going aroud), so his units get stucked near cities, chokepoints & other fortified stacks.
This is usually happening when AI built enough roads & railroads.

This is BUG, which nobody (yet) know how to FIX.
It greatly decreases AI performance.

[hexagonian]

I'm guessing that Soren had a close look at the files of a competitor though...

Below is a small update to the buildings.txt file. Not critical by any stretch of the imagination - merely another fine-tune.

This file boosts the benefits of all gold-producing buildings and gives a slight reduction to maintenance costs for all buildings in the game.

[player1]

Originally posted by hexagonian
I'm guessing that Soren had a close look at the files of a competitor though...

Probably not much closer then we had.

Any other way would mean that he has a source code, wich would be a law violation.

Still, many thing can be learned from text files.

Like I learned.

[Changmai Beagle]

Thanks very much for the Cradle mod. I am using (and appreciating) it. The goody hut problem is causing me some grief. Is this something that anyone is working on? Or perhaps it's just not fixable..........

With some people coming back to CTP2, it'd be nice if someone came up with a workaround so everyone could get the full enjoyment of this mod.

[hexagonian]

Originally posted by Changmai Beagle
Thanks very much for the Cradle mod. I am using (and appreciating) it. The goody hut problem is causing me some grief. Is this something that anyone is working on? Or perhaps it's just not fixable..........

With some people coming back to CTP2, it'd be nice if someone came up with a workaround so everyone could get the full enjoyment of this mod.

If you are referring to the long wait times when you find a military unit in a hut, I do not think that issue can be resolved. Locutus worked on the SLIC coding that causes that problem (it is part of the militia code) and was not able to do anything about it after a lot of attempts.

The easiest way is to remove the chance of getting a military unit from a goody hut, but I like getting those units, so I put up with the wait. And the AI will empty out the huts over time, so by the time you hit turn 100 or so, it does not happen all that much.

If you want to change this, go into risks.txt and change the chances to get a unit to 0.00 on all the file entries.

Still, it's not as bad as the civ3 late game wait periods...

[ENGINEER]

I agree about the late game waits in Civ 3, it takes forever sometimes

[hexagonian]

Here's a couple of small updates.

The first is player1's revision to Diplomod. This has not been tested though.It is available at
The Land of Hexagonia
located under the SLIC options section.

Please make a backup of the existing CRA_diplomod.slc file in case you want to switch back.

The second file is an update to the Units.txt file that will enable pillaging/piracy for all ancient sea units. Attached below, and also available as part of the updates at my site (though the file below is only the Units.txt file)...

[Changmai Beagle]

I can't seem to get slaves with Chariots (even with both chariot and slave techs). I'm playing Cradle with the AI enhancement package.

[hexagonian]

In earlier editions of Cradle, most of the Ancient units had the enslave ability - with the end result that every battle created a slave. It did reflect historical realism, but also led to some balance issues.

The military enslave ability has been limited to the Slavemaster, the Ancient Leaders, and 2 of the gov. specific units (Pezheteroi and Praetorians). This was done because creating slaves was becoming too easy. And it allows a player a little more freedom in choosing not to slave, which will make the game even tougher.

However, if you want to give that ability to any unit, go into units.txt and add the line

VictoryEnslavement

to the unit entry. Its' an easy fix.

[Boney]

Cradle is a great Mod, enjoying immensely. One prob, game crashes when I try to save, invalid page. But the autosave works, is there anything that can be done?

[hexagonian]

Hmmmm, haven't run into that problem yet - and I do not know how it can be fixed. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Finally, my thread has been topped!!! (What did I do to deserve this...Thanks to whoever is administering this Forum)

Now if I could get Cradle posted onsite, that would make my day.