Announcement

**Pedrunn** · April 25, 2003, 11:05

As I am new to this forum I like to greet all the CTP-addicts hanging around in this virtual place for so many years . I would like to join this crazy community and I am really glad that Apolyton.net ist back on the net - specially because I need the valuable information and resources for some MODding. The whole thing began with just 'tuning' some values in the SuperApolytonPack 2.0 for my purposes/taste. Meanwhile I decided to call it a separate MOD and began to work on it as such

Welcome. And I bet we all have similar stories. At least for me looks like you just told my story

Sorry i didnt read all but once i have some time be sure i will do it and post some comments

**Zaphod Beeblebrox** · April 26, 2003, 05:18

about the governments:
i like the idea of the soviet union (their hymn has such a great melody

) but does your script also cover the perestoijka event? and don't forget in real history there have been some communist countries who didn't even join the warsaw pact, like china, albania or yugoslavia. china and the soviet union even were at war.
about the "western" union/alliance:
there never has been a union of democratic governments (though you can argue that the eu will once be such a thing if they ever get managed to really unite) but the nato. and natomembers may have had capitalism in common, not democracy. turkey, greece, spain and portugal all had their periods of dictatorship and/or police/military state or however you will call that. turkey and greece haven't been at war officially but there have been quite a few naval incidents in the last decades which were almost warlike. and in the moment we can just watch, how nato grows bigger on the maps, but becomes more or less meaningless, since the biggest nation of that organization doesn't care for it.
what i'd like to see are combined forces of members from whatever alliance they are from, or at least garrisons/airbases etc in the territory of an ally, like the many us (and also uk, french and belgium) bases that were created in west germany during the cold war.

about nukes:
all civ games (haven't tried civ3) make very annoying simplifications here. you have to distinguish between the actual "THE BOMB" and the means to deliver that. the only nuclearbombs used in warfare so far looked very different than in the games. they were just larger than a normal bomb and dropped by an oldfashioned airplane. since a "hiroshima" button on bombers wouldn't be very handy for playing, i would suggest in gameterms, that these nuclear bombs should have a range of 2: 1 for leaving the cargo bay, 1 for detonating (after your bomber left, if your smart

). if you know that this single bomber is more of a threat than than any of those armadas normally used in wwII and have radar or something like this, it should be fairly easy to get them down with your fighters. that of course would mean giving some units an airautodefenserange of 2 or even greater.
after that come more advanced methods to get the bomb where you want it. either by shotrange medium range missiles (i guess last one is what ctp2 uses) though at their times those were much too big to fire them from a plane, they were (or still are) stationed on the ground or later in subs, cruise missiles or icbms (intercontinental ballistic missile, if anybody around here didn't know, which i doubt). those of course have a range of all over the map. nevertheless it would be possible to equip all of those rockets with non nuclear warheads. other types of wmd or just plain conventional warheads, like for instance those scuds the iraqis fired at israel in the gulfwar II.

**itsamic** · April 26, 2003, 05:19

Hm, everyone seems to go the same way.....
Unfortunately the parameters for placing the starting point seems to have no effect. At the moment if I generate a new map I go to the cheat menu, make the map visible and check if every civ has enough room for development. If not I generate a new one. The problem is to "forgot" the placement if the map is OK and I want to play....

The merge of civs makes sense on a large map (I play 200x400 with 21 civs) from the historical view (compare some maps of europe from 500BC to 1500AD) and is also a good possibility to create a more powerful AI. I'm not sure if there should only be one merge or if such things should happens more often on different triggers (with monarchy you may create a united kingdom.... or later a realy working euro.. oops continental union...)
Unfortunately the tread seems to be death, but maybe the higher beings who know how to write slic will have a look on it again :-)

**Pedrunn** · April 26, 2003, 12:51

1) Looks more like a fix for greater maps. But unfortunetly we dont have much power over continent sizes and stuff. Though this is one of the thingi am current working. Once I accomplish this tool for maps we can place then really well. For futher info see the this thread

2) Current i am part of a try to make the best AI ever done, But isnt easy. I hope we modders can achieve that

I hate max city thresholding I do believe we modders can make a better way to prevent ICS.

3) I like you ideas on avaliability of modern military units but i am not unconfortable with the current system. Actually i even think it may be to complex for the AI. The whole point should be to make the AI use it properly.

The founding of the USSR is not something i want to see. I dont want to relive history but to rewrite it. Dont like this kind of setting effects. I rather use the system the AI Super Powers uses. Makes much more sense them the this happened because the same thing happened in our history! A better syatem for the USSR is a slic to merge the smallests civilizations with a bigger civilization if they have same government.

I am no programmer, I just can understand a code when reading it but have to look up every piece of syntax when trying to write some lines on myself .

Welcome to the hateful world of slic. If you dont know what are you doing syntax will kill you. Leave all slic-based features to the end otherwise you will end up loosing motivation for other parts.

Visi-wonders is just great. Dont know how any big company never thought about it. It is a must

tried! to use the CityExpansion_MOD, but got the impression that it slows things down a lot

What do you mean by that? The AI turns takes longer or it actually slow the evolving of the civs down?
As the creator of this mod i have to know what people think about it to improve it.

More units are always welcome.

increase s is something that should have be done by all mods. And someone says that the AI works better with it. As i see every move should be at leat double if not tripled.

Never played WW2 scenario so I cant actually comment bunkers and barbed wires.

Aiu building forts is stupid since they dont know how to use it

As for capital i think we can create a TI with the name 'Capital' under the city rather than create a structure. Makes more sense. And the visual effect is probably better.

The managing directors of the research-dept. of the CTP-section of Apolyton.net have certainly already recognized that all this leads to the suggestion of certain extensions to the TileFile. I will indeed come in with such a suggestion when i figured out which tiles I !really! want for my MOD.

That would be me

just send the pics and we can see what we can do

IW can do this for you too.

I took a piece of code from it and made it a preserveforts.slc.

Good!

If you want i can have a look in the script to give you some hints on slic creation

**BureauBert** · April 26, 2003, 19:24

Thank you for your interest in my initial posting on this forum. The text ist really long and so I will try to stay rather brief this time:

// Pedrunn: Sorry i didnt read all but once i have some time ...

Obviously there exists a common attraction by this "merging of civs"-concept with - as I look at it - minor differences in the "historical" approach.
I think the primary attraction results from the function in gameplay this feature could have - in any case it should create a serious counterpart to the HUMAN in the later stages of the game by merging one or the other of the weakest AI-states into one of the less weak AI-states. And as far as I can see we share the idea that the merged nations should have in common their government-system and they shouldn't be at war with each other (I think they won't alltogether have to be at war with the HUMAN as a prerequisite for the merger, only the first AI would have to). As I intend to make government-systems somewhat more important, lasting for a longer period of gameplay and also more visible for my bit of modding I would also like to associate the creation of such a superpower with some historical and symbolic 'impact'. If an event of such historical importance occurs I would just like having a wonder/monument built at the capital of the new superpower (which makes their capital a more attractive target for any kind of operations) - and as for communist countries the "USSR"-look and feel seems to fit. As I already suggested in my first posting the basic concept, once working

could be adapted for other government-systems or the "triggers" for the merger could be changed for any MOD. I do not want to "replay" real history either, but the whole "inventory" of CTP2 consitsts of real-history-items such as governments. I think every MOd has to find some compromise - but I agree with Pedrunn that the logic and possibilities of gameplay should not be drowned by an overwhelming epic. So the "look and feel" that surrounds the "merging of nations event" should be as open for diverse modding as possible. For some people if might be sufficient to learn that the Zulus have created a superpower by inhaling the scots, for others it might be more fun to learn that England has founded a union of socialist republics with Germany and to find a piece of socialist realism placed beneath London later in the game. To be varied for other governments. @ itsamic: A "united kingdom" makes some sense as there is a government "monarchy" in the game. A "european union" does not make sense unless you add a government type "european government type" to the game (actually this is also @ Zaphod: In any case we need an event or some condition given by the game for giving 'our' event a name and sense - as the game doesen't know the difference between democracy, less democracy and NATO we dont't know such a difference either while playing the game

unless we declare NATO a new government, which would be somewhat 'realistic'

but IMO out of the concept of CTP2).
Footnote: I often tried military alliances with AIs, resulting in immediate demands from their part to attack one of THEIR enemies but not supporting ME in any way. I also expected their map would be revealed to me each turn. I remember vaguely having read something like this somwhere - great library, manual? I don't remember and it doesn't matter as it doesn't happen anyway. I also expected being able at least to build fortresses, airbases etc. on their territory, but all I could do was building railroads.
But at the given state of development the USSR is IMO not the main problem

- as far as I can see the main question is, IF the merger-script can be brought to an operational form at all, in regard of the checking of 'govttypes' (this variable is used in the respective script, but I don'n know if this variable is available at all/in any SLIC-context - hence the 'special unit'-thread mentioned above). Anyway here is a link to my 'placeholder'-variant of the merger-script, if you, maître Pedrunn, or ImmortalWombat, the creator of the 'merger-script/v1' were in in the mood to look at it with a friendly eye some time:

USSR-or-whatever-merger-script-draft-variation

As for the "PreserveForts"-Script: You find it

here

I haven't tested it yet in full gameplay but at least ctp2.exe loaded without error-messages and I could start a game without any problems. I don't expect any as I just grabbed the appropriate lines of code from Pedrunn's CityExpansion and modified them only slightly.

@ Pedrunn:
>> use the CityExpansion_MOD, but got the impression that it
>> slows things down a lot
>> What do you mean by that? The AI turns takes longer or it
>> actually slow the evolving of the civs down?

I meant the performance of the program: AI's turns took longer but specially I had major problems with saving games (crashing to the desktop on autosave, but also on 'quick save' and 'save game as' - the odd savegame-bug from the unpatched ctp2-version seemed to reoccur somehow) - BUT as I mentioned in my first post this might have been also a question of (200 x 400) map-size IN COMBINATION with CityExpansion AND VisibleWonders - I guess this was just too much for poor old ctp2. So I decided to take away some of the map-size and the feature that seemed to need most additional resources (and considering that CityEypansion does a much better visual effect on REALLY gigantic maps). So I am not quite sure, if or to what degree CityExpansion is to blame for the problems I experienced

. But if you had some clue on what else could have been the problem, I should be vitally interested

. BTW I as far as I could get in the games I could not observe any - unusual

- problems in the evolution of civs.

About units: Well I will try to avoid excesses

in the adding of units - they should at least have SOME function in the gameplay. Yesterday I had my first trial in the preparing of some stolen graphics

for MakeSpr.exe and although I used to be used to graphical everyday-routine-work in the old days

I have to admit the preparation of the needed amount of tiff's for creating a sprite is A LOT of work which will help in the avoiding of excesses. However,

here

is a list of Civ3-Units I am considering for eventual conversion. Just as a technical test I began with the Spetsnaz-Unit. I am also considering some 'civil' units for using them as explorers in some early stages of my modded game and I am having an eye on making some barbarian/terrorits units with combined special/stealth and batteling abilities.

About tile improvements: I only thought of tile-improvements for my purposes, not of tile-structures (if this ist what you meant, Pedrunn) - ti's are what I provide in my version of the tile-file, which can be downloaded for provisory, friendly examiniationhere - the graphics can be viewed here . BTW, Pedrunn, by saying

>> Ai building forts is stupid since they dont know how to use it

did you mean what I meant: the dont't know how to use them for military purposes or did you mean: they don't know how to use them at all. As far as I observed them they do know how to use them for expandig their borders and building roads - so the script seeems to work perfectly, they just never use them as fortifications.

@ Zaphod / nukes:
>> icbms (intercontinental ballistic missile, if anybody around here
>> didn't know, which i doubt). those of course have a range of
>> all over the map. nevertheless it would be possible to equip
>> all of those rockets with non nuclear warheads

Thanks for the treatment on this topic - all I had in mind so far was making 'icbms' out of the short-range nukes already in the game. My intention was just to make ab bit more out of the 'given' game-material since nukes already have the feature of targetting them for an eventually desired counterstrike but I always had to put them into sleeping submarines for positioning them nearby their respective targets. Now I will be able to put them - as icbms - into missile silos, 'programming' them with the targets of my 'cold enemy's' cities and on we go (just in case)

. But this is a long-term stretegic work in the game (find locations for strategic missile-bases, build the silos, provide some troops to take care of the silos, build the nukes ...). For the occasional first strike I will still use bombers (and take them out of the target zone if possible

). Maybe I could add a second, short-range missile for that purpose, I am not sure if this really needs an extra-unit, but I will think about it.

At the moment I am thinking of the tech-tree and its relationships with the government, personality, strategy and goal-settings. As I haven't installed a professional project-management-system on my pc I am messing around with a lot of sheets of paper. Therefore I have nothing to report on this topic but would lively appreciate any hint - specially if somebody could tell me which of the parameters in the mentioned textfiles won't defintely do nothing (leftovers or dead ends in the dev.dept. of Activision), this would help greatly.

And I will still try to keep my postings brief - and I won't do this every day :smile: . So goodnight for tonight.

**BureauBert** · April 26, 2003, 21:41

Sorry, but I forgot to answer on two topics (just to fulfill the demanded amount of text for tonight

:

@ Zaphod:
First I want to state clearly that the "merging of civs-script" is NOT 'mine' at all - it has been developped by ImmortalWombat and discussed in another thread (i gave the link in my first posting). The devolopment has been stagnating mainly on the issue of figuring out, who is in which government. THE SOLUTION (at least one solution) has been found and so I am hopeful this great idea can be followed up to success sometimes. I just thought that IF this would be possible I would like to integrate it into my vaguely sketched plans. I would really like to be a help in SLICing, but as Pedrunn will notice reading my obscur draft to a MOD of ImmortalWombat's MOD I am not familiar with 'heavy weight programming' at all (in fact I always hated any coding and luckily had a partner who loved it so that I could care for the 'concept and design' issues

).
As for perestroika, Warszaw pact etc.: as already mentioned above - BUT the way this script is designed the strongest communist/democratic/monarchist/technocrat nation would inhale the second strongest, eventually the third strongest. So it would depend on how many communist nations there are but it would basically be possible that 'non-soviet' communist nations remain on the map (and may even be at war with each other).
BUT finally I think this whole complex should be discussed further in the original 'merger of civs'-thread. Is has not been my intention to replace this thread, I just wanted to mention the possibility of making use of this development for my humble mod.

@ Pedrunn:
Thank you for the hint concerning maps - unfortunately the main hint is hidden behind a dead link (For further info see here...) ... if you could please repeat this link.
I have read the "recruitment"-thread for the "best Ai ever"-Project and I think this is REAL modding that gives people like me the possibilities of playing around with the features

Unfortunately I won't be of any use for severe programming tasks but I will certainly follow the developments with great interest.
About this city-threshold-thing: I basically understand your attitude, am looking forward to better solutions but did not understand the term 'ICS' (just suppose it has something to do with settling)

Units - complexity: I think additional units are basically not too complex for the AI, just their making use of diverse units is limited by the limited number of unit-categories resp. build-lists and they can only be 'pushed' to build and use diverse units by spreading the availibility of those units over the timeline - if you take care of letting them build let's say a couple of attack helicopters before they can build interceptors (better the other way round), they will build those helicopters and use them - but they will use them in the same way as interceptors (but they DO make use of their infinite movement range and use them for wide exploration as far as I could see). Similar with the "MechInf"-units from WorldAtWar: If I put them in the buildlist for ranged units, they will build them until they can build tanks - and they will use them. At the beginning I thought there was some evaluation of the currently available units FROM the build list (by some ratio of strength, cost, building time in the particular city - something like that), finally I think they just build the units in exactly the same order they are listed in the buildlists (although careful spreading again: in this case the units over the buildlists and the buildlists over the strategies and so on could help - or not??

) and they would never build two items from one buildlist simultaneously. I tend even to presume that their making use of the units (stacking them to armys) depends only on the categrory the units belong to - if I defined a MechInf-unit as 'infantry' they use it like a machine gunner, if I defined it as 'flanker' they use it like a tank. Well anyway I will try to take care of this 'spreading over the timeline' and just see what the AI does. Together with the 'making the AI a strategic genious by SLICing them'-dept. some fun with the AI should be possible

.
As you are the managing director of this department: There are two items that can be separated from all the rest that remains to be developped and I could offer to deliver them to the community:
* first an update to Lev's Helicopter sprite with the files needed for CTP2 since the sprite-pack for download here contains the files for CTP1.
* second the "preserveforts.slc" in a version that contains just the tile improvements to be preserved at the actual state of the TileFile.
* the third one depends on if and eventually how often you would accept changes to the TileFile as it should serve as a standard it wouldn't make sense to update it continuously - but I think beyond that the bunker & barbed wire feature would be ready for separate delivery too.
Well this was just to say that I would be glad to being able to give something back to the modding community after having downloaded almost each and every file from this site

.

**Pedrunn** · April 26, 2003, 23:51

It is hard to keep up with you berg. You write a lot. But i will try to answer

I understand what you say but why dont you enumerate the conditions for a merge. It makes easier to comment. Like merging after build URSS wonder, them every AI civs with communist gov is merge, or just those that are too weak, etc...
I could even try to make some changes in the IW code or try some other algrythm but we do need to look in the same direction.

[quote]
Footnote: I often tried military alliances with AIs, resulting in immediate demands from their part to attack one of THEIR enemies but not supporting ME in any way. [/quote
Control AI movements is very hard. believe me.

I also expected their map would be revealed to me each turn.

Some easy addition.

I also expected being able at least to build fortresses, airbases etc. on their territory, but all I could do was building railroads.

we could think in some work around for this.

PreserveForts.slc

There is a missing '}' at the end of the CreateImprovement Handler. This will cause a syntax error since every open bracket '{' has to have a '}' in some part of the code. the file you attached has a .txt extension. you need to make it .slc. You should get the EditPlus software and read the Locutus/IW documentation on slic. You get that in the mod resources thread at the top of the forum.

I have experienced some game save problems but due to the change in the files and not beacuse of in-game purpouse. I dont see why would the CityExpansion code wold increase the AI time too much since the only trigger is pop changes in cities and this isnt very common. I believe the big map and the number of cities are the biggest causer of the delay.

I have to admit the preparation of the needed amount of tiff's for creating a sprite is A LOT of work which will help in the avoiding of excesses.

The more units you do the happier the community will be but i gotta say the sprite creation is somethig ver discouraging. And i am sure you will give some thought on game balancing when adding these units

About tile improvements: I only thought of tile-improvements for my purposes, not of tile-structures (if this ist what you meant, Pedrunn) - ti's are what I provide in my version of the tile-file, which can be downloaded for provisory, friendly examiniation

I am sayin that i may upload a new version of the Apolyton Tile File to add this TIs. They look good BTW.

'ICS' = Infinit City Spread. This is the problem of every civ game. The more city you have the stronger you are. Max City Threshold is a attempt to prevent the city spread.

As you are the managing director of this department:

I am incharge of keeping the Apolyton Tile File updated in case of a request to do so. The guy who is really incharge of the CTP2 forums is Locutus.

At the moment I am thinking of the tech-tree and its relationships with the government, personality, strategy and goal-settings.

Always leave AI to the end when planning to be a modder. It is one of the hardest things to do.

**Martin Gühmann** · April 27, 2003, 13:48

Originally posted by BureauBert
* first an update to Lev's Helicopter sprite with the files needed for CTP2 since the sprite-pack for download here contains the files for CTP1.

No need to update it all CTP1 sprites are compartible with CTP2, actual all user created sprites are in the CTP1 format. We use the same program and therefore the source images are also the same.

For detecting a players government I prefer this code:

Code:

int_f MG_GetPlayerGovernment(int_t thePlayer){
	int_t i;
	int_t MGPlayer;
	MGPlayer = thePlayer;
	for(i = 0; i < MGNumOfGovsInThisMod; i = i+1){
		government[0] = i;
		if(PlayerWorkdayExp(MGPlayer) == GovernmentDB(government[0]).WorkdayExpectation
		&& PlayerWagesExp  (MGPlayer) == GovernmentDB(government[0]).WagesExpectation
		&& PlayerRationsExp(MGPlayer) == GovernmentDB(government[0]).RationsExpectation){
			return i;
		}
	}
	return -1;
}

The advantage of this code in comparision to Dale's is that you don't need to add new units to the game, here you only have to make shure that the combination of the values for each government of WorkdayExpectation, WagesExpectation and RationsExpectation are unique. Well in the default game you have three pairs of governments with the same values for these fields change them and you can identify them all. For every of these three fields five values are possible, that makes 5^3 and we can identify 125 governments in theory. As the code is a function you have to add it before the code were you want to use it the first time.

Well for player[0].govttype I must say that this only returns a String and noone got the StringCompare function to work so far.

-Martin

**Immortal Wombat** · April 27, 2003, 14:43

Hi BureauBert

It looks like I better get a working version of the MergeCiv code going then

Peter Triggs and I have discussed it further since that was released, and I did intend to go back to it and see how its all going.

hmm.

**Pedrunn** · April 27, 2003, 16:49

Did you tested it, Martin?

Since i see a lot of function i have never seen like PlayerWorkdayExp(MGPlayer), PlayerWagesExp (MGPlayer) and PlayerRationsExp(MGPlayer)

and i did not knew we could read text flags like you did in GovernmentDB(government[0]).WorkdayExpectation GovernmentDB(government[0]).WagesExpectation
GovernmentDB(government[0]).RationsExpectation

Can we do for UniDB, TerrainDB, PersonalityBD, StrategyDB, etc...?

**BureauBert** · April 27, 2003, 17:40

Hi ImmortalWombat and Martin!

Thank you all for your interest - I don't want to hurry anyone

- neither by the diversity of topics in my postings nor by recurring to the ideas for scripts their authors may have hoped being already forgotten

.

@Pedrunn:

Thank you for looking at
>> PreserveForts.slc: There is a missing '}' at the end
>> of the CreateImprovement Handler
- and sorry

for that fault, which is only in the version I put onto my webspace (because I took it from the 'drafts'-folder

) - the bracket missing here IS already in the actual code which seems to run w/o problems - and I replaced the extension with 'txt' just because I usually do this for code that should only be read and not executed by any means, specially if I put it somewhere into the world wide web.

The 'easy addition' for revealing an ally's map would be very interesting! I think one could hardly expect more cooperation from the part of an AI!

>> i gotta say the sprite creation is somethig ver discouraging
>> Always leave AI to the end when planning to be a modder

Ha! If I left both tasks to the end there wouldn't stay much to begin with ... but after a weekend with sprites, strategies, tech-charts etc. I know well what you kindly try to tell me! I will have to come to some systematical approach soon!

>> I am sayin that i may upload a new version of the
>> Apolyton Tile File to add this TIs.

Fine, BTW I also remember more/less vaguely some conventions have been mentioned concerning the numbers not just of tile-improvements but also of new sprites - if there exists a thread or any document in this regard I would like to stick with those conventions in any additions I make to whatever I will make.

@ Martin:

Helicopter-sprite: Correctly, the *.spr itself is perfectly compatible with CTP2, just the additional files as Units.txt-entry and *.tga's (although I know you CAN use the CTP1-sized files) are still laid out for CTP1, and it would be much easier for anyone who wants to use one of the sprites offered in the database, if those files were already 'ready to use' and fitting CTP2 without any additional work (this is the case for most of the sprites I have seen in the database - and if I had CTP2-like additional files for them I would offer them too, presuming that the more/less original autors of these sprites agree, IF they are still around ...).

Thank you also for the govttype-identification-code - this is the first time I understand that player[0].govttype returns a string. I am always glad having understood at least something

.

@ Pedrunn & ImmortalWombat:

Well this mentioning of the USSR-variant to the MergingOfCivs caused some confusion - it's just because I posted immediately after having read the original thread and this was my first thougt: Ha! Lets' create the USSR, that's fun. I will try to avoid such unreflected suggestions in future. But as it already happened, I want to give you the enumerated version of this obscur idea:

1. Find a civ for merging them into - two possibilities:
a) Look for the strongest AI after HUMAN, check if communist, if yes - bingo, it is their leader-nation: CANDIDATE[1] (less chance for the event happening since the strongest AI after HUMAN has to be communist).
b) Look for the strongest communist nation that is !HUMAN and make it their leader-nation CANDIDATE[1] (increased chance of founding the USSR!).

2. If a CANDIDATE[1] has been found, also let the script build for him a WONDER_USSR (only available to the AI), just for having a nice socialist realism-like VisibleWonder (monument) beneath his capital.

3. Find one (or two) further candidates for being merged into CANDIDATE[1]: Look for strongest nation after CANDIDATE[1], check if
a) communist
b) not at war with CANDIDATE[1]
- if ok, it's CANDIDATE[2] for being merged
Eventually repeat this check (continue 'ShallWeMerge') to find a second candidate (strongest communist nation after CANDIDATE[2] && not at war with CANDIDATE[1] && not at war with CANDIDATE[2]. How often this should be repeated depends on the desireable impact to the gameplay - as Zaphod has already claimed in this thread there is no POLITICAL need to merge all communist countries into the USSR

. BTW checking if CANDIDATE's [2] and [3] are not at war with [1] is also a kind of 'political' consideration - they could also be merged if at war with [1] for the sake of gameplay, in this case defeated by unfriendly takeover/annexion, which would be some fun either, although it would have to be explained somehow to the unprepared HUMAN player, ha!

4. Merge CANDIDATE[2] into CANDIDATE[1] and eventually CANDIDATE[3] into CANDIDATE[1] as already elaborated in the MergeCivsScript.

IF something like this would be possible at all it certainly COULD be varied for any government (with an according pathetic VisibleWonder beneath the respective capital). Ha!

Memo to self: Keep trying brief postings!
Thank you and good night to all.

**BureauBert** · April 27, 2003, 18:01

Huups, just one appendix to the merger-enumeration:
It just came to my mind, that it would be possibly better for gameplay to merge the weakest civ of the same 'govttype' into the strongest one, then eventually the second weakest one into the strongest one - which means replacing the following:

3. Find one (or two) further candidates for being merged into CANDIDATE[1]: Look for WEAKEST nation after CANDIDATE[1], check if
a) communist
b) not at war with CANDIDATE[1]
...

**Pedrunn** · April 27, 2003, 22:46

--- PreserveFort.slc

Still check the mod resources to get the EditPlus software. It is a great tool for slicers

--- Sprites and AI
The difficult of the modding AI isnt messing up with the files but the balance.
The difilculty with sprites is just that it is very boring, time-consuming and tricky.

--- USSR
Nothing you said is impossible and not very hard.
I just didnt like the way you did it. I suggest the following changes.
- If the Wonder USSR is just for the AI why have it? isnt better just to choose the best communist country?
- Why just for communism? Should happen to every type of government.
- I rather assimilate the worst civs with the strongest rather than the two strongest. Since this way you get rid of small and senseless cilvilizations.
- Have a distance between the two civs factor.

And The give map to civs with military pact (if you remove the '//' alliance also give maps

Note: Not tested and may contain syntax errors

Code:

////////////////////////////////
// Map to Allies Code ALPHA 
// by Pedrunn
////////////////////////////////

HandleEvent(BeginTurn) 'GiveMapToAllies' post {
int_t p;
	for(p = 1; p < 30; p = p + 1){
		if(IsPlayerAlive(p)
		&& player[0] != p
		){
			if(HasAgreement(player[0], p, 36) // 36 = Military Pact
//			|| HasAgreement(player[0], p, 38) // 38 = Alliance
			) {
				Event:GiveMap(player[0], p);			
			}
		}	
	}
}

**Immortal Wombat** · April 28, 2003, 05:40

Originally posted by Pedrunn
Since i see a lot of function i have never seen like PlayerWorkdayExp(MGPlayer), PlayerWagesExp (MGPlayer) and PlayerRationsExp(MGPlayer)

No idea if they work, but they show up in the EditPlus syntax, which is as near to a bible as we have, since it came directly from the ctp2 source as Martin's flaglists did.

and i did not knew we could read text flags like you did in GovernmentDB(government[0]).WorkdayExpectation GovernmentDB(government[0]).WagesExpectation
GovernmentDB(government[0]).RationsExpectation

Can we do for UniDB, TerrainDB, PersonalityBD, StrategyDB, etc...?

In the Cradle 3.5 thoughts thread which I bumped yesterday, Peter had posted some code which used GovernmentDB(government[0].type).CitiesThreshold or whatever the flag is. But Martin discovered that for the government DB, the .type is unnecessary. For other DBs, the .type is necessary to return the value.

Announcement

From SAP 2.0 to ? Just another MOD in Progress

From SAP 2.0 to ? Just another MOD in Progress

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