MOD Discussion: Ages of Man!

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

Originally posted by Dale
The worst bug I found was it didn't check for other player's cities, and would try to put one of mine on top of an AI's.

is that a bug or a feature? migrants taking over the control is one of those ideas some rightwing politicians are always warning us of
and,btw no i'm really not rw.

Originally posted by Dale
But the next version is a whole lot better.

thought so, i guess thats why its called an alphaversion. just wanted to let you know of these occurances to help. sorry if it did sound like an offense. i really appreccieate your great work

[Dale]

No offense taken. That's why we post our scripts, to see if others can find bugs we don't. When I'm testing a script, I'll usually only play about 20 turns, cheating all the way trying to cause all possible occurances. Unfortunately, being human we can tend to not think of some.

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

hm, in my new game the barbarians seem to become the strongest "nation" around since their cities also use the new settling system and i guess the have no city limit to their government?

fortunately i got the great wall and hope to soon go hunting barbs with large stacks including slavers

and of course that city of mine in the middle of a huge mountain range will be fine to defend :wink:

btw i noticed a real fine function, after the bantus agreed to withdraw their troops immeadiately disappeared from my land (is that the same withdraw script as in mm2?) unfortunately i can't see a way i might use that funtion for my own units, which makes the ai rather angry since i needed3 turns to get out of their territory

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

hihi, those slaves sometimes become autoconverted to setttlers/newcities

but seeing how those cities are placed i would really need a food improvement on mountains.

will try my first steps into modding by including somewhat like cradles latifundia for mountains.

if i just include it into the terrainimprovements will the ai be able to use it or does that require more work?

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

just made another interesting observation, though i guess it has nothing to do with this mod:
great wall forbids barbarian units to attack you, but not to bombard you with catapults, maybe thats humanitarian bombardment or something like that?

on the other hand i can't remember seeing barbarian catapults in the vanilla game... or me building the great wall

[child of Thor]

I played until around 2000bc yesterday.
I was a bit taken a back when my first city spawned itself, thought it was a damn AI for a sec!
I like it! Maybe they need to spawn a little further apart, or even possibly a more random distance? - my empire began to look very symetrical by the time i'd stopped playing. How tactical is it in its decision to place a city? If you could add a random variable to city distance placement it might take more advantage of trade goods on the map?
A few times it missed the opportunity to get a trade good by a tile or two's distance, maybe because of the set placement(i'm just guessing on that as it just seemed very symetrical with city placement?). But in general i like this new system - i can imagine the civ3 fans having a heart attack over it though! What no settlers to move around at all!?

How about a combination of both the old and the new? you can still build the settler unit - for those tactical city placements that the player decides. And you also get the new city spread, but maybe at a reduced rate - to represent the gradual spread of a population?

When viewing diplomatic proposals the screen would sometimes get a bit confused(and the AI diplomacy). for example when asking for a cease-fire , the extra pop-up window comes up so you can set for how long(short/medium/long), sometimes once you had clicked off this window the main diplo window would reset the offer for a cease fire, so you had to start again and eventualy it would work!This kind of thing happened a few times, only when the new pop-ups were on though?

Overall this is really promising - i had the AI organise counter strikes after i had taken one of their cities. After a few turns they sent an army(5) after the city i had just taken, which was just to draw my attention as a loose(they weren't in one stack)collection of 9 units went straight to attack my Capitol! O.k they didn't attack in one stack either(so i survived) but the intent was there.

I only met two AI's and was at war with both of them fairly early(no change there then) - the slight confusion with the new diplomacy options was the only thing i really noticed might be a problem.

I like this population and city spread thing - it really speeds up those early 'waiting for something' blues that plauges CTP2 early on. I think once this has been balanced out a bit more and with the addition of upgradable units and all the other bits, AoM is going to be very fun to play.
Nice one Dale

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

Originally posted by child of Thor
my empire began to look very symetrical by the time i'd stopped playing.

yep. additionally it would be necessary to teach those settlers it is wiser sourrounding mountain ranges which will give great production benefits once the sourrounding cities expand rather than placing lots of cities with small distances right in it

Originally posted by child of Thor
i can imagine the civ3 fans having a heart attack over it though! What no settlers to move around at all!?

Originally posted by child of Thor
How about a combination of both the old and the new? you can still build the settler unit - for those tactical city placements that the player decides.

no, don't think so. i really love the new way already now and will be addicted to it, when it improves.
only question remains how to handle expansion over the oceans to new continents.
maybe that might be triggered by unrests between anglicans and protestants?

Originally posted by child of Thor
And you also get the new city spread, but maybe at a reduced rate - to represent the gradual spread of a population?

well, maybe the question of will we go abroad and form a city of our own or just stay at the place i was born might be connected to the situation in the hometown (overcrowding, pollution, happiness, distress between different ethnical or religious .... hmm, maybe that would be hard to teach the game)
this might even lead to the other way round, citizens of some dull towns in the outbacks deciding to move to that booming capital with theatres, great jobs in advertising companies, and the big discos?

Originally posted by child of Thor
When viewing diplomatic proposals the screen would sometimes get a bit confused(and the AI diplomacy). for example when asking for a cease-fire , the extra pop-up window comes up so you can set for how long(short/medium/long), sometimes once you had clicked off this window the main diplo window would reset the offer for a cease fire, so you had to start again and eventualy it would work!This kind of thing happened a few times, only when the new pop-ups were on though?

yep. there a lots of problems like that, but i guess thats babyillness

Originally posted by child of Thor
I only met two AI's and was at war with both of them fairly early(no change there then) - the slight confusion with the new diplomacy options was the only thing i really noticed might be a problem.

well, the tech tree would really need some tinkering, but afaik dale wanted a new tech tree and unit system anyway. but i got a really hard time in that above mentioned game with 28 barbarian cities at my borders after someone invented cavalry tactics in 720 B.C.

btw. in my new game i have met 5 ais so far, two of them peaceful diplomats and after a few rounds of friendly map trading and peace and withdraw treaties the asked my for military pacts, hope i can count on them when the mexicans start their invasion hwich might happen rather soon :-(

[Dale]

Maybe they need to spawn a little further apart, or even possibly a more random distance? - my empire began to look very symetrical by the time i'd stopped playing. How tactical is it in its decision to place a city? If you could add a random variable to city distance placement it might take more advantage of trade goods on the map?
A few times it missed the opportunity to get a trade good by a tile or two's distance, maybe because of the set placement(i'm just guessing on that as it just seemed very symetrical with city placement?). But in general i like this new system - i can imagine the civ3 fans having a heart attack over it though! What no settlers to move around at all!?

The colonists have evolved quite a bit since their humble early beginnings in that last upload. The colonists look for a square within radius 5, 6 & 7 now, as opposed to only radius 5 before. The trade goods have been beefed up so there's more weight on them. But just remember, if there's a trade good inland in an ordinary spot, the colonists are still going to choose that coastal/grassland/defended square. There is an element of randomness in it now too. If the AI finds a number of squares of the same weighting, then it will pick a random one. Of course, all this depends heavily on your colonisation policy. If you choose coastal policies over inland, you are going to end up with a massive amount of coastal cities. If you change it to inland, you'll get your mountain cities.

How about a combination of both the old and the new? you can still build the settler unit - for those tactical city placements that the player decides. And you also get the new city spread, but maybe at a reduced rate - to represent the gradual spread of a population?

no, don't think so. i really love the new way already now and will be addicted to it, when it improves.
only question remains how to handle expansion over the oceans to new continents.
maybe that might be triggered by unrests between anglicans and protestants?

There will be a mix of the two, but the mix will come in a long time down the years. There is no settler building till Epoche 4. This is the start of the Age Of Discovery.

When viewing diplomatic proposals the screen would sometimes get a bit confused(and the AI diplomacy). for example when asking for a cease-fire , the extra pop-up window comes up so you can set for how long(short/medium/long), sometimes once you had clicked off this window the main diplo window would reset the offer for a cease fire, so you had to start again and eventualy it would work!This kind of thing happened a few times, only when the new pop-ups were on though?

Unfortunately, cuz I use Peter's NewDiplomod there is still a big or two in the script. I'll look at it after all the rest of the good stuff is in.

Overall this is really promising - i had the AI organise counter strikes after i had taken one of their cities. After a few turns they sent an army(5) after the city i had just taken, which was just to draw my attention as a loose(they weren't in one stack)collection of 9 units went straight to attack my Capitol! O.k they didn't attack in one stack either(so i survived) but the intent was there.

Ummm....... you do realise you're playing against a vanilla CTP2 AI? I haven't started on the AI yet.

well, the tech tree would really need some tinkering, but afaik dale wanted a new tech tree and unit system anyway. but i got a really hard time in that above mentioned game with 28 barbarian cities at my borders after someone invented cavalry tactics in 720 B.C.

I like the fact that the Barbs can get a leg up in this MOD. Mongol hordes anyone?

I like this population and city spread thing - it really speeds up those early 'waiting for something' blues that plauges CTP2 early on. I think once this has been balanced out a bit more and with the addition of upgradable units and all the other bits, AoM is going to be very fun to play.

One of my main goals was to get the player involved from turn 1, like in WAW.

Thanks. I hope it will be fun to play.

[Dale]

BTW, has anyone played on a Gigantic map yet? How's the terrain layout?

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

i'm playing on a gigantic map. hence those clumpy moutain ranges

[child of Thor]

I'll choose gigantic next time.As for the AI, it seems quite agro for vanilla CTP2,maybe it's quietly been evolving over the years! Your answers make me look forward to this mod eagerly-glad you decided to come back

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

well in terms of diplomacy the ai is much better than the vanilla game, but i never noticed the different lnghts of treaties in vanilla so far
about warfaring as far as a i have seen so far (not having any real war yet) it just behaves as it should, vanilla style

[Dale]

AOM Update!

Here's an update of how I'm progressing:

- Tech tree finalised to 0AD: Christianity
- Epoche 1 & 2 units running around the map
- All previous stuff refined

To be done next:
- Unit stat refinement
- Buildings
- Wonders
- Tile Imps

I've attached the Tech Tree and design doc which are both pretty much finalised and static. Though suggestions welcome.

[Adriano]

Age Of Dale....!!

I've just red about the new project and... I'M HAVING AN ORGASM!!.....


Could you add an Helycopter attack unit?

Why do you want to eliminate the Diamond era?
...

[Dale]

*bump*

..... and also essentially to provide an update. I've currently got all techs in up to Christianity, and 95% of the units in that era. Most of the buildings and wonders are also in. At the moment, I'm just finishing up the entering of the pieces, fixing a couple of sprite/pic problems, and trying to work out the best science costs for techs. Once that's complete, I'll upload an alpha to play with up until Christianity. Should give a very good idea how the game's going to play.

BTW, sorry it's taking so long, but I've been splitting my PC time between AOM and Medieval: Total War the last few weeks.