First experience

[OptimusPrime]

Hello there

I just wanted to share something about the game and hope that I get some reaction on It, so here goes.

I bought the game about a week ago because I lend CTP to someone and thought this could be a good alternative until Civ3 comes along. My first disappointment was they dropped the space city thing. When I played Civ2 for the first time I hoped that If you made It to Alpha Centaury, the game would continue on a new planet but It turned out I had to wait for a new game with the same name which I didn't like that much. Anyway I kind of liked the idea of the space cities in CTP. Okay so I started playing CTP2 and I'm a diplomatic peace-loving player and started a not so difficult game on medium settings with only 2 other empires, the Americans and the Scottish. Both of them are non-war type so holding peace wasn't that difficult. After some time (somewhere BC) the Americans and Scottish declared war. I thought, let them do the fighting with each other so I could concentrate on building cities and making the people happy. To my surprise they kept waging war for thousands of years until the end of the game in 2300AD and neither of them was doing anything sensible. Especially the Americans had enormous armies and all they did was walk around a bit and nag each other by pillaging now and then and occasionally capture a city. I practically build all the wonders including the Globe Satellite so I could see everything what they did, and what they did, didn't made any sense at all. Also at one time I created a proposal to the Americans to make a trade pact for 10.000 gold (I had a lot of money) and they countered It with a trade pact for 600 gold!!! That’s just plain stupid. I just installed the medieval 2 mod, hoping It’s making a difference. Don’t get me wrong, I like the game in general, but It could have been a lot better in my opinion. For instance in this particular game I only saw the Scottish build just 1 diplomat! And It took 2 steps and never saw her again. Another thing I don’t understand is why the manual doesn’t tell you how to build the Gaia controller. I had build a lot of controllers in several cities and launched about a dozen of satellites. Some obelisks around some cities but I never got some sort of advice or help on how many and where to put them. I mean humanity does not begin working on a project this big which costs a lot of money, not knowing how to make It work do they? In the Civ games you knew what basic parts you had to build to complete a spaceship and I understood that in Civ1 even If I didn’t had the manual (which I didn’t). So there, a long story but that’s what I have to say about CTP2 for now. Maybe you could share your experience with me, I would love the see that. Thnx for the time (and space). Bye 4 now.

Jeroen Honingh

[ENGINEER]

As you and others have discovered, CTP 2 out of box sucks. It does have lots of potential. Try the Med Mod II and tells us how you like that. I had the AI actually attack me, what a concept.. Try the hardest level and hopeful get a challenge. Dale's Dipomod it in the Med Mod and corrects all the mistakes you mentioned. Good Luck. I'm trying Hex's Cradle Mod right now and everything is going good also.

[Martin Gühmann]

Unfortunatly they left other features out, because of the lack of time for example the diplomatic photos I never saw a civ game without this feature. But the fact that they didn't finished other features like PBEM and Hotseat caused that the game isn't be interesting for multiplayer and the bugs in normal multiplayer...

Don’t get me wrong, I like the game in general, but It could have been a lot better in my opinion.

I agree the game could have been a lot better, but Activision didn't give the design team the freedom that the developer needed. There was not enough time and mony behind it. So you can see the result an unfished game released before Chrismas and Activision gotn't the mony that they hoped to earn from the game.

You should try the MedPack2 unfortunatly I wasn't able to diascover all advantages til 2200 AD I wasn't only so far in science, because of using spies. But there was only one AI so far.

You should also try the DiploMod V3.6 that is allready a part of MedPack2 as stand alone or in combination with FixMod.

So have fun, Martin.

[Adagio]

Don’t get me wrong, I like the game in general, but It could have been a lot better in my opinion.

You're right, the game could have been a lot better, not only because of their bugs and the AI I never really understud why it worked the way it works. But the worst things in my oppinion is these facts:

You always know which enemies you have:
AI 1 = Orange and Americans
AI 2 = Green and Scottish
AI 3...

They completely forgot to make some random things in this area, it is annoying to have to edit the files everytime you want to start a new game with new colors and new enemies

While in the map they had too much random, to have some ice mountains in the middle of the dessert doesn't make any sence at all, and the poles was grassland and enything else than icy

[Locutus]

Hoi Jeroen,

Glad to see you're playing the game, always good to have more Cheeseheads around here

I think the Gaia Controller thing is explained in the readme rather than the manual. I know, not very sensible but at least it's explained somewhere...

ADG,
The non-random civs thing can easily be solved by either playing on a higher difficulty level (I think Hard or higher but could be Medium too) or, if that fails, setting NonRandomCivs to No in userprofile.txt ([...]\ctp_program\ctp\ folder)

(If I'd get a dollar everytime that question was asked... I'd be at least $10 richer now And if I'd get a dollar everytime someone said that I'd be even richer )

Terrains in CtP are a little unnatural at times but a polar mountain next to a desert tile seems very unlikely to me. I experimented a lot with the terrain settings and soon found out that polar terrain only exists in the top and bottom 10% or so of the map (with the standard game settings of course, it can be easily changed) while deserts only occur in an area of 10-20% or so around the equator, so it should be impossible to have both of those terrains next to each other. Desert next to swamp is quite common though, unfortunately.

[Adagio]

Thx, I though I had looked in all txt files for that one, about the maps, I can't remember if I have excatly seen the polar next to dessert, but I know I have seen this case:

polar area next to one grassland, this one grassland was right next to a dessert area. That is one case I have seen too many times, and for me it seems pretty unrealistic!

To bad I couldn't find one line in that txt file called:

NonRandomColors

I just hate playing the same color all the time, but at least it can be changed in a txt file all those colors

[Adagio]

Damn, it doesn't work on beginner level, when I choose beginner it just turns from No to Yes

What the hell was they thinking...can't wait til the release of Civ III

[OptimusPrime]

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I think the Gaia Controller thing is explained in the readme rather than the manual. I know, not very sensible but at least it's explained somewhere...
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Well Locutus, I looked in all the readme's I could find, but nothing about the Gaia controller what wasn't in the manual in the first place.

But for what I've been reading on another thread, I understand you should build enough obelisks around your cities so that you cover around 60% of the world tiles and about 10 satellites. And I think every city should have a controller. But still I think It's a flaw in the documentation. For instance, what is the radius of an obelisk anyway? The same as a fortification? I did saw something mentioned in the online manual about a menu item on the Gaia controller which I haven't noticed before. Did not had the time to check that but I guess It 'll show how far everybody is with building It or something like that. Does anyone know more about this?

[Martin Gühmann]

Damn, it doesn't work on beginner level, when I choose beginner it just turns from No to Yes

You said it already the AI has a odd behaviour you shouldn't have any problems on impossible in a standart unmodded game. Try MedPack2, Craddle or OCC if you want a challange really.

I have sometimes a similar problem with the userprofile.txt (bombing me back from 11 to 9 players). To avoid this problem I protected this file against overwriting.

-Martin

[Adagio]

Originally posted by Martin Gühmann


You said it already the AI has a odd behaviour you shouldn't have any problems on impossible in a standart unmodded game. Try MedPack2, Craddle or OCC if you want a challange really.

I have sometimes a similar problem with the userprofile.txt (bombing me back from 11 to 9 players). To avoid this problem I protected this file against overwriting.

-Martin

Well, I like to play peacefully games, isn't the AI going to be warliking when it's another difficult level?

From 11 to 9 players, as far as I remember, you can only choose up to 8 civilizations, or is it different in modpacks? Haven't tried one of those yet

[Locutus]

OptimusPrime,
Do you have the patch installed? I looked it up, it's definitely in the readme of patch 1.1. It's not much, but it's there.

ADG,
Polar terrain and desert only 1 tile apart still seems highly unlikely but if it's indeed possible, I agree that it's not very realistic. Then again, it should be extremely rare so it shouldn't be too much of a problem (locally, there's some really wacky terrain combos on Earth as well).

I may not have been clear enough. You *must* play at Hard/Medium or higher (and only if that doesn't work change the setting in the text file). On the lowest difficulty levels you will ALWAYS play with the same civs (and without ruins). I know, it s*cks, but since the game isn't all that much harder on Hard level then it is on Beginner (in the default game anyway), it shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Edit: you slipped your post right in front of mine. The AI is just as dumb and passive on Impossible as it is on Beginner. Also, you can actually have up to 32 players, just change NumOfPlayers in userprofile.txt.

Martin,
I like the idea of write-protecting userprofile.txt, hadn't thought of that yet myself. I'm gonna do that myself as well...

[Adagio]

I figured that out a little later, didn't get it that way in the first place, guess I have to play Hard level then, I didn't know that should make some difference on who to play against, I have checked the txt file about the diferent civs with different leaders, though too much difference can't it make?

About the terrain, then it has to be a problem on all of my computers, since everytime (almost everytime) I play I notice the strange terrain, dessert in the polar area is the most common

[Martin Gühmann]

About the terrain ADG maybe this could help you open the userprofile.txt, there you will find these lines:

MapPlugin0=dll\\map\\geometric.dll
MapPlugin1=dll\\map\\crater.dll
MapPlugin2=dll\\map\\plasma2.dll
MapPlugin3=dll\\map\\plasma2.dll

I changed one of the MapPlugins, here are my lines:

MapPlugin0=dll\\map\\geometric.dll
MapPlugin1=dll\\map\\crater.dll
MapPlugin2=dll\\map\\plasma2.dll
MapPlugin3=dll\\map\\fault.dll

I promissed me from that a better map, I found this piece of information somewhere in the CTP1 or CTP2 fora here.

-Martin

[Locutus]

Yes, I think it was skorpion59 who first came up with that back in the days of CtP1 (not sure though, that was a very, very long time ago). I don't even know what that fault.dll thing does, but skorpion59 knows more about CtP maps than anyone else around here, so if he says it'll make the maps better, I'll take his word for it.

ADG, you posted very soon after my last post so you may not have noticed that I edited my message. I'll post the paragraph I added again, just in case:

"Edit: you slipped your post right in front of mine. The AI is just as dumb and passive on Impossible as it is on Beginner. Also, you can actually have up to 32 players, just change NumOfPlayers in userprofile.txt."

[Adagio]

Martin, I'll test that idea next time I start a new map, hope it works, but it sounds promising

Locutus, you're right, I didn't notice it, I guess I missed that line in the userprofile.txt as I looked through, let's take a look again, and change it to something else...Hmmm...32 players in mapsize small

but thx for the help here, I think this makes it more fun to play