1st Apolyton CtP2 Tournament: 23 April - 23 May 2002

[Solver]

Another couple of words. I haven't been playing CtP for months, and restarted it two weeks ago. Then I took some time to actually learn the game, for it's different from Civ and needs a different approach. From all of this, my opinion is that, if we play MedMod for the tourney, we'd need the difficulty level at, say, Hard - so that most people would be able to win. Yes, Deity Cradle won't be possible for everyone, and that's not the best thing, but I think that even for tourney games there should be a challenging AI.

Original unmodded AI cheats much about city growth, it has large cities. While I've found that the MedMod AI actually won't expand too much - it prefrs getting fewer cities, but having them developed better.

[Locutus]

DeanToth,
Great to hear you're playing Yeah, the text problems have to do with loading someone else's game. I'll make a note of that on the website soon.

Oerdin,
The name of this feature may be a little confusing (I would have prefered 'Game of the 'Month' but Markos choose 'Tournament' for Civ3 - and GotM more or less obliges you to have exactly 1 game a month, no more, no less...), but if it wasn't clear: this is a *single* player tournament. We all download the game and play it for ourselves, on our own. Then we (you) submit the savegame here in this thread and a ranking will be made based on that savegame. The ones who win their game the earliest or with the most points win the tournament...

A multi-player tournament would be cool to have sometime as well, but we first need to get this feature going, I'll see how much interest there would be in a 'real' Apolyton MP tournament after that...

Solver,
Yes, MedMod King level would do as well when it comes to difficulty level. However, I not only want the game to be fairly easy, I also want the amount of work involved for new players to be as low as possible. Installing Cradle or MedMod can quite a hassle, it would only deter new players from participating in this Tournament. I first want to build up some sort of an audience and only then move on to the mods. Playing with mods is quite a change from playing with the original game, so it would be a very overwhelming experience for new players (some handle this with easy, others with more difficulty), something that we should guide them through step-by-step IMHO...

Don't worry though, next month we'll probably play a MedMod game (maybe Apolyton Pack)...

[Solver]

Good points Locutus . Though I must say installing MedMod is very easy - good job.

[Maquiladora]

Heh, its about time. Hmm that is that a coastline...

ps i noticed a little error on the CTP2 tournaments page, it says the date for the first game is ''1st Apolyton CtP2 Tournament: 23 April - 16 May 2002''.

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Locutus
Yeah, the text problems have to do with loading someone else's game.

One question did you set up the game on a non English version? If yes than you have the reason for the need of /reloadslic. The wired messages are cuased by a string alteration. That's the case if you use a save game that is saved on a different language version of CTP2.

-Martin

[Locutus]

Maquiladora,
Call me an idiot but I don't see what's wrong with that, could you elaborate?

Martin,
I dunno, is American a non-English language? And I seem to remember from other threads that centrifuge has an English version too.

Centrifuge, out of curiosity, are you from the US/Canada or from some other part of the world? IIRC the US version of the game is slightly different from the international version, that might explain the need for /reloadslic... (but IIRC the (main) differences are in the installer utility, not in the game itself)

[centrifuge]

Originally posted by Locutus
Centrifuge, out of curiosity, are you from the US/Canada or from some other part of the world? IIRC the US version of the game is slightly different from the international version, that might explain the need for /reloadslic...

I'm from the U.S. Boise, ID to be more specific. (No potato jokes please )

[DeanToth]

I for one applaud the decision to use the un-modded game for the first game-o-da-month. I and my ex-roommate are both CTPII nuts, but we've never played with any mods at all.

It scares me ever so slightly when I see mention of the "hassle" of installing mods....

That said, I am really looking forward to trying the mods since I am tired of having so much fun in the hard-scrabble early part of the game where I always feel like I'm about to lose and then suddenly, there seems a magic moment when i get my first 12-stack of catapults when I am invincible for the rest of the game.

I got modswapper and am about to d/l apolyton mod and some others to try out.

I understand apolyton-mod makes the game "the way it should've been out of the box" and am looking forward to trying it. (even though most players here mention that it is aging and that the other mods like cradle and med are preferable).

[DeanToth]

so if there is a typo in the date for the tourny... then exactly what is the cut-off date? I need to know when to submit my save file

On that note, when I submit it, should i only submit my autosave file? or the whole "ferdi" folder zipped? And I name the zip "deantoth.zip" right? and is this the thread where I attach it?


Also, when I first copied the save file, i didn't know what folder it should go in, so i made on called "tourn" and started the game fine.

But after a turn went by, i looked in my games save folder and a new folder called FERDI was there automatically. So now i save in that folder.

In the future it may be a good idea for the tournament zip's save file to already be in it's properly named folder to avoid confusion.

Or am I just missing something?

[Dinner]

Originally posted by DeanToth
Hi oerdin (where does this name come from anyway?) - - -

Anyway, I notice you are in San Diego too. It's 1.30am, are you up too? I am in the middle of my tourny game right now...

I'm in the registry, my email/msn messenger/yahoo messenger IDs are there... feel free to wire me. I'll be up for a while.

Anyway, back to my game. I'll check my email/messengers if you want to contact. Later.

A long time ago when I used to play AD&D my favorite PC's name was Oerdin Farr. Although I gave up playing RPG in the early nineties I still use this name as my handle because I'm sure no one else will be using it.
I'll send you an e-mail Dean and we'll see if we can't get a game togeather.

[TheArsenal]

I think for the first tournament game, these parameters on the unmodded game are fine. When I clear some time, I'll download it Monday and start playing next week. It will be interesting to see how I fair against the Big Guns. I would say moving forward (at least for the next game), we should play the ApolytonPack mod, as its so close to the original game it doesn't lend an advantage to those who play the (other) mods over the original game and have learned their idiosyncrasies.

[DeanToth]

BIG guns? I take it you mean the other experienced multiplayer/modders on this forum... if that is the case, then I am a "small gun" like you.

though I've had CTPII since it came out, i've only played unmodded single player games (but I've played it to the ground)

Though I too noticed the AI shortcomings. I am greatly looking forward to tryin the mods and multiplay

[Immortal Wombat]

The Big Modding Guns on the whole seem to play quite little of the actual game, just mod it. Its the multiplayers such as Oerdin who'll probably do best.

[TheArsenal]

Originally posted by Immortal Wombat
The Big Modding Guns on the whole seem to play quite little of the actual game, just mod it. Its the multiplayers such as Oerdin who'll probably do best.

Perhaps. But we're playing against the AI. And anyone who looks at the game, and in their minds can conceptualize the internal mechanics to the degree I have witnessed here, ought to be Big Guns whether they play or not. Every day I read something here that is not intuitive unless you look at the files (which I don't) that has to at least marginally increase modder's playing ability. And besides, the bigger I build up you guys, and the muli-players for that matter, the more satisfaction I will take if I do well.

[Immortal Wombat]

True. *goes to find the Ai files*