Ages of Man! v0.2 - Open alpha test

[Dale]

You've heard me talk about it, now here it is. The Ages of Man!

This is the first 'playable' version I've had. Please download this and have a play, and let me know how it goes. I'm very interested in the following:

- The feel of the flow of the Techs and units
- The performance of the AI in war

Installation:

- CTP2
- v1.1 or v1.11 patch
- Modswapper
- SAP2
- Cradle v1.3 or higher
- Apolyton Tile File

The reason you need SAP2 and Cradle v1.3 is because I have not included the sprites or pictures in this download to keep the size low. Most people have these MODs by now, so it shouldn't be a hassle.

Readme:

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// //
// Ages of Man! //
// //
// Version: v0.2 Alpha //
// Date: 23 November 2002 //
// Author: Dale Kent //
// File: AOM Readme.txt //
// //
// A MOD by Dale for Activision's Call to Power 2! //
// //
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

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IMPORTANT:
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Please take the time to read this document fully and the accompaning "Ages of Man Charts.xls". These should answer most questions you have about this MOD, and help in getting you playing.

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Disclaimer:
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THIS MATERIAL IS NOT MADE OR SUPPORTED BY ACTIVISION.
Feel free to use/adapt/alter and distribute this modpack, on the conditions that credit is given to the author of the original game materials and if possible, this readme file is included; and that any use of this mod is completely non-commercial.

The author takes no responsibility for any damaged software, damaged hardware, lost data, exploding modems, unexpected melting, or any other damage or loss of property potentially or actually caused by this download.
Tough Luck.

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Introduction:
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In the beginning, there was nothing. Then with an almighty BANG! the universe came into existence. For billions of years, matter span through the ever-increasing universe, forming all the components of the Cosmos. Out on the outer-ring of an unnoticed Galaxy, an ordinary Star attracked a mass of matter into an orbit around it. The matter compressed into a form and cooled, the surface hardening. Then from this chaos certain chemicals reacted, and life exploded onto the surface of this unnoticed Planet. Life took hold and became complex, creating the elements, water, air, plants. And then one day life walked the surface of the Planet. Thus Man came to the Earth. This is their story. Ten ages are yours to conquor. Can you survive the Ages to the Diamond Age? This is your story..............

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Welcome:
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Welcome to the Ages of Man! This is a MOD written specifically for Call to Power 2. This MOD is a continuation of my dream for the ultimate Civilisation experience. I hope you enjoy my adaption. Please read this document fully as it contains important information about changed concepts in the game. Some things have been taken out of CTP2, some things have been changed, and some things have been added. Please provide any feedback to the Ages of Man forum thread at Apolyton.

I've been MODding CTP2 for 2 years now. I've met a lot of great people at the CTP2 forums at Apolyton. Through the development of my MODs, and especially the Apolyton Pack and World at War I've had help, suggestions and feedback from players. Even now, I still get emails thanking me for taking the time to write the MODs and make CTP2 the greatest. To those people, this is your MOD.

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Installation:
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At this point, due to only being an Alpha version, this download is very cut-down to save on space. I have not included sprites or pictures. To play Ages of Man v0.2 Alpha you need:

- Call to Power 2
- Activision's official 1.1 or 1.11 patch
- Modswapper
- Super Apolyton Pack v2.0
- Cradle v1.3 or higher
- Ages of Man v0.2 Alpha

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Concepts:
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So what concepts will you need to know about before embarking on a game of Ages of Man?


The Ages:
---------

This MOD uses the timeline 8000BC - 2200AD. It is broken down into 5 seperate Epoches:

- Epoche 1 8000BC - 3000BC: 20 year turns
- Epoche 2 3000BC - 0AD: 10 year turns
- Epoche 3 0AD - 1500AD: 5 year turns
- Epoche 4 1500AD - 1800AD: 1 year turns
- Epoche 5 1800AD - 2200AD: 1 year turns

Further to this breakdown, you are taken on a journey through the Ages of Man:

- Stone Age
- Copper Age
- Bronze Age
- Age of Philosophy
- Medieval Age
- Age of Renaiscance
- Age of Discovery
- Age of Imperialism
- Modern Age
- Diamond Age

At version 0.2 Alpha, you can only go through to the beginning of the Age of Discovery.

Colonisation:
-------------

Throughout Human history, governments and leaders have not had the control over settlement that we are led to believe in Civ-style games. Colonisation is a new concept I wrote to simulate the natural population spread. Things of note:

- You will no longer be able to build settlers
- Colonisation occurs naturally when city's populations increase
- Colonists will look around the home city between radius 5-7 and choose a settlement location that is the best in the area
- Government influence can force colonists to look towards inland or coastal settlement
- Colonisation will stop once your Government's city limits have been met

To exercise your Government Influence in your capital build "Government Policies" from the buildings menu. Once built you are presented with the Government policies window. Make your selections from here. You can select:

- Stop colonists
- Encourage fast coastal colonisation (approximately every 3rd pop point)
- Encourage medium coastal colonisation (approximately every 6th pop point)
- Encourage slow coastal colonisation (approximately every 9th pop point)
- Encourage fast inland colonisation (approximately every 3rd pop point)
- Encourage medium inland colonisation (approximately every 6th pop point)
- Encourage slow inland colonisation (approximately every 9th pop point)

City Expansion:
---------------

Thanks to Pedrunn, BlueO and Immortal Wombat, we now have City Expansion in CTP2. Ages of Man uses this script so suburbs form. For any information, queries or bug reports, please use the City Expansion thread in the Apolyton forums.

Unit upgrades:
--------------

Thanks to Peter Trigg's unit updater script, I have implemented unit upgrades. These occur at various times throughout the game. You will be notified when a unit upgrade is available, and the cost is the difference between building the old and the new unit.

Dark Ages: (Not completed)
----------

The Dark Ages encompass the Medieval and Renaiscance ages. These were a time of turmoil for the Human Race. Ages of Man will simulate this era in various ways. At v0.2 Alpha, only the governments are implemented. Please be fair to the AI. Until this concept is complete, once you discover Feudalism change your government to Dark Ages. I know no-one in their right mind would, but this is one of the elements of the Dark Ages which will be forced on you eventually.

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Final Comments:
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Thankyou for taking the time to play Ages of Man for Call to Power 2. A lot of my time has gone into creating this MOD, and I really appreciate feedback, even if it simple says "I played it". You can catch me at:

- the Apolyton CTP2 forums
- thesdale@dodo.com.au

Thankyou
Dale Kent

[HuangShang]

Re: Ages of Man! v0.2 - Open alpha test

tight... but ill wait for 1.0

whats the diff between inland and coastal settlements
do u mean we cant control them?

Originally posted by Dale
Unit upgrades:
--------------

Thanks to Peter Trigg's unit updater script, I have implemented unit upgrades. These occur at various times throughout the game. You will be notified when a unit upgrade is available, and the cost is the difference between building the old and the new unit.

tight is there multiple upgade times?

Originally posted by Dale

Dark Ages: (Not completed)
----------

The Dark Ages encompass the Medieval and Renaiscance ages. These were a time of turmoil for the Human Race. Ages of Man will simulate this era in various ways. At v0.2 Alpha, only the governments are implemented. Please be fair to the AI. Until this concept is complete, once you discover Feudalism change your government to Dark Ages. I know no-one in their right mind would, but this is one of the elements of the Dark Ages which will be forced on you eventually.

yo

[hexagonian]

Dale,
I should be able to get to this next week (after Wednesday, as I will have a five-day weekend)

I'm close to getting WOTR wrapped up...

[mapfi]

I'm starting right away.

edit: and had my first crash already, gu169.spr is missing, i do have cradle and sap, so where should it come from?.

[J Bytheway]

I had the same problem, but fixed it by inserting appropriate filler graphics and sprite. The problem is with SPRITE_SHARMAN for the Shaman unit - gu169.spr.

To anyone who can't wait: If you want it to work just copy any of the other sprites and give it the correct name, and copy any of the unit graphics Upup????.tga, renumbering them appropriately.

[J Bytheway]

UPDG059.tga is also missing, but I don't know what that's for. I got the error while opening the diplomacy new proposal screen.

[Dale]

Sorry guys. Heres the missing files:

- Place gu169.spr in the sprites folder
- Plave all the rest in the pictures folder



Huang:

The difference between coastal and inland settlement is that if you're doing coastal there's a bonus for coastal tiles. Makes more coastal cities basically.

Yes there's multiple upgrades. Some units go through 3 upgrades.

[Dale]

Bug List v0.2:

Here's the bug list for v0.2 (will be updated as more come in)

- Missing Shaman sprite/pics. Fixed, see above
- AI doesn't reset colonisation settings to active if it reaches city limit and then gets a better gov. Fixed. Will be available in next update
- AI fortifies lots of units around cities but not actually in them. Fixed. I put the wrong strategies.txt in. Sorry I'll have that in the next update too.
- AI sometimes doesn't settle in the initial turns. Fixed. In next update.
- Govt specific units unbalanced, too powerful. Fixed. Price increased by 50%.

More added as they are found.

[Dale]

Quick note:

- Bug list updated.
- Anyone else found any bugs?
- v0.21 to fix above bugs I should have here in a few hours.

[Dale]

AOM v0.21 update......

This is the update file to fix all the above listed bugs:

- Correct AOM_strategies.txt
- Correct AOM_goals.txt
- Modified AOM_units.txt to fix up some of the units
1. Increased Govt units price by 50%
2. Increased pikemen HP by 50%
- Modified AOM_slics.slc to fix some colonisation bugs
- Graphics files from previous update.
- Updated Ages of Man Charts.xls

This update will upgrade from v0.2 to v0.21. I hope there's enough interest in this Mod, because I'd hate to be doing this for 3 or 4 people.

[ToonGoon]

Dale

I'm very excited about your mod and I have been following your progress from the time it was announced. Unfortunately, I don't have the time right now to devote to a truly helpful alpha test for you. If I take up the testing I want to be able to give you some truly valuable info.

In the future I hope to be able to offer more help to your efforts.

Most importantly, I think this alpha should be an official announcement on the front page. DAOM (Dale's AOM) appears to be the next generation in mods and coudl really benefit everyone and the mod with a little more exposure.

TG

[Dale]

ToonGoon:

Thanks for the support. As for a news item, I'll wait till I get a few more of the scripts running correctly before I send Markos a news-item request. If I were to put the Dark Ages script I've got at the moment out, you'd all be dead within 15 turns of entering the Dark Ages. That's no good, is it?

[child of Thor]

I'm playing through the Latest Craddle at the momment to get as far as i can and pick up any oddities for Hex. Soon as that is done im gonna get straight into this!i'll download it in a few hours and maybe have a sneaky look - nothing more.......i promise......damn only being able to concentrate on one game at a time

Edit: ok just had a quick go(year 6800bc) and first impressions:

1. zip! It moves along at a fair pace, new discoveries come in no time compared to 'normal' CTP2 - and at first seems strange only because i'm used to waiting 15 turns(150years?) to discover stoneworking. After the initial shock i think this is actually better than having not much happen for alot of the early game.

2. I laughed when i built the tribal council wonder and had the WIA movie! I guess this will change in the final release

3. I wasn't quite sure what my choices really meant when it asks for those initial government policy setting things via the message tabs - but i didn't read any readme's, just got stuck in(so my fault).

4. It feels very different from a normal CTP2 game, the not having settlers, the pace of discoveries and the types of discoveries.........so congratulations on that.
I had to force myself to stop as it intriuged me nicely

It flows quite nicely and makes sense from what ive seen of the tech tree in game so far.
more please and i hope more people have a look at this and post some feedback.

Oh yeah you seem to have fixed the 1min hang when getting a unit from a ruin? Did i miss some breakthrough elsewhere in the forum?

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by child of Thor
Oh yeah you seem to have fixed the 1min hang when getting a unit from a ruin? Did i miss some breakthrough elsewhere in the forum?

This is not a CTP2 bug and it is only in Cradle and in MedPack2 AFAIK. AFAIK it is caused by a script, so if you don't use this script you don't have the problem. Of course the other way to deal with it is to disable units and techs from ruins.

-Martin

[J Bytheway]

UPDG078.tga is also missing, and there are some squares which I cannot build farms on for some reason (they are supplied with water). Have you any idea what might be causing that?