Selecting opponents?

[Kuratko]

Hi everyone! After playing CivIII for some time and being disappointed by the shallowness of the game I started to test CtP2. And I must say this is what I missed. I used to play CtP1 but current mods of CtP2 move the game to a whole new level. Thanks to all the modders for their excellent work.

I have one, maybe silly question. Is there a way how to select opponents in a single-player game?

Kuratko

[hexagonian]

Unfortunately, the only way to do so is via the editor/cheat mode. The problem is that you will see their starting locations. Activate the editor before launching the new game.

You could squint when choosing them...

[child of Thor]

Or you could try this, start CTP2 as a multiplayer game, go through all the relevant screens, 'create'(host) the game, select some AI opponents(max 8 i think) and just launch. This way you can choose which civs to play against and it's also possible to change alot of stuff within the game, like starting gold, settlers etc.
I usually play my single player games this way.

[Kuratko]

Originally posted by child of Thor
Or you could try this, start CTP2 as a multiplayer game, go through all the relevant screens, 'create'(host) the game, select some AI opponents(max 8 i think) and just launch...

Thanks child of Thor, that works well for me, had just to figure out that dynamic join must be selected.

[Dinner]

Yes, by creating a multiplayer game you can select which civs you play against, how many settlers everyone gets, whither a player gets handy-capped or not, the exact make up & composition of the map, exclusions, starting cash, and many other things.

Plus you get to play against other human players and you can always save the game and play it single player if you want to do that.

[Immortal Wombat]

You could squint when choosing them...

Or minimise the mini-map

[Locutus]

If you don't want to go through all that MP hassle and just want to choose your opponents (and not all that other MP-specific stuff), you could do what I always do: start a 1-player Hotseat game. (See Q22 of the FAQ to see how to activate Hotseat).

[child of Thor]

Locutus,
and that is easier than just playing a single player, multiplayer game?
really if you read the manual on MP and try it once or twice, it's just as quick as starting a singleplayer game.
I'm surprised that not more people have played CTP2 this way - i always love to setup the opponents i play against, either in a historical sense or maybe just the nations i feel deserve a bit of 'order' handed out at the time.

[Locutus]

You only have to edit a text file once, after that starting a Hotseat game takes exactly the same amount of time as starting a regular game (except for the extra time it takes to pick your opponents of course). Yes, setting up an MP game doesn't have to take much time either but I've done both, and in my experience setting up PBEM is still a bit faster and easier (because of the fewer options involved)...

But yes, I play most of my games that way, it's just plain silly to have Native Americans, Zulus and Japanese all in the same game. I usually pick either civs from the same historical region/timeframe or the very best of all civs (Romans, Chinese, Egyptians, etc), without minor nations such as the Nicaraguans, the Irish or the Hebrew...

Come to think of it, I think I'll add this method of starting a game to the FAQ, maybe that way more people will get to know about it...

[child of Thor]

Originally posted by Locutus
You only have to edit a text file once....

....shudder... edit text files yuk!

I often use the Irish in my games (it's one of the small things i don't like about my favourite mods - that these guys are out), to setup a sort of pre-christian northern european game, vikings,scots,irish,welsh - all the bit players in a power struggle. I'd love to have the Angels, Saxons,Danes,Franks etc included(the English are a later evolution of these people's)

Still i agree it would be good to put these options in the FAQ, useful for the new guys who just see the single player game all the time(and the same old opponents)

[Locutus]

You can very easily adapt <MOD>_civ.str to include the Irish and other Northern European civs again (and civilization.txt as well, if you start adding new civs rather than just replacing old ones)... I'm about 70-80% done with my complete revamp of this particular file, which I will of course make publicly available once I approach the 100% (No, the Irish aren't in )

[Locutus]

By the way, I just tried to start a 1-player game through the MP setup but couldn't launch it: nothing happened when I pressed the launch button (I tried both LAN and Internet). What did I do wrong?

[Kuratko]

I guess you must select Rules - Dynamic Join: On.

[Locutus]

D'oh! Good one, Kuratko, I'll try that later today, when I come back from shopping...

[child of Thor]

Originally posted by Kuratko
I guess you must select Rules - Dynamic Join: On.

This is puzzleing. If i am playing MP LAN with other human players, then i always select this function - it basically helps when you get a resynch error on someones turn which kicks them out the game.The AI then takes over the human players civ and with this function on atleast the human player can rejoin the game and carry on on the next turn(That player sits in the 'lobby' screen for a turn).
As you can see, if Dynamic join is off then it pretty much makes MP LAN impossible for a decent game(resynchs can happen fairly often).

This is the weird bit, unless maybe the setting for dynamic rejoin stays the same once it has been selected the first time, I never check this when playing a singleplayer MP game. I'm sort of 50% certain that i've played games this way without the dynamic rejoin set to on(i can't see why it would need to be?). I'll check asap on that, but i noticed Kuratko's comment on the other thread to this effect.
It's been a few weeks since i last played CTP2 this way(i'm failing in the SAP tourney quite nicely at the momment!), so it's all a bit grey + hazy.