Looking for something different in a Civ style Game?

[stankarp]

CoT, does that mean Maq should be on the honour roll as well?

I will put him there anyway for being "a real gent ".
:-)

[child of Thor]

sounds good - i budgeted for his £5, but he choose to pass it to you guys

[Locutus]

Originally posted by hexagonian
Here is the main splashscreen...

Is that a recent addition? I don't think I've seen that yet (then again, I haven't played as much as I would've liked to).

[hexagonian]

Originally posted by Locutus
Is that a recent addition? I don't think I've seen that yet

Yes, I did it yesterday. The visual unit designations are also revised from earlier versions. (note the fade bar on the left side replaces the box)

[HuangShang]

wow so close to release i love it

the wonders on the map...so many trees...esp the hollywood sign, should be on plains colored hill or sand dune...not that it matters...is the icon everywhere else still the search lights infront of a theater or did it change to the hollywood sign?

[stankarp]

Announcement from the Ages Of Man.

The winners of the AOM Disc give away have been finalised.

The details can be found at:

http://www.interwebgames.com.au/aomforum/viewtopic.php?t=23

Congratulations to the winners.

There is still time to vote for your favourite Ancient or Medieval hero if you have not already done so, either here or at the AOM forum.

Stan Karpinski.

[Immortal Wombat]

Originally posted by HuangShang
the wonders on the map...so many trees...esp the hollywood sign, should be on plains colored hill or sand dune...not that it matters...is the icon everywhere else still the search lights infront of a theater or did it change to the hollywood sign?

The trees I suspect are to disguise the base of the buildings, which in the graphics I made originally had horrendously poor borders, and sat awkwardly on the map. Putting trees over it means that it can sit over any underlying terrain with a more natural look.

[Protra3211]

Is the diplomacy based on diplomod ? Or did you rework this too? . I think the best diplomacy was in Cradle because the AI would never give away more than it needed to. Also the code changes has AI to AI diplomacy working so at least AI wars are over between 10 to 20 turns .

[stankarp]

Diplomacy is based on Cradle, but with the tweaks to frenzy, ai fight ai as much as they fight the human when the agression level rises, mainly because there are those stacks moving around.

The main change to diplomacy is that gold spent bribing the ai, reduces that AI's frenzy level towards the human (but only a small amount). To counter the frenzy effect of capturing one city requires a bribe of 1400 gold per ai, say 14,000 if you have 10 AI.

So it is very hard to counter agression with just gold.

[Protra3211]

Thanks Stankarp

Diplomod 3.5 was always the best which is in Cradle. I understand that you want to keep AOM true to history. Early civilization had many ruthless nations so diplomacy was not always the first option. But what about AOM in the mordern age. Cold war build up is something many nations have to deal with . Weapons are more powerful and can destory at greater distances. So diplomacy becomes more of a first option . In some mods as you grow more powerful AI,s tend to back off a bit so dilomacy plays a bigger role. I hope AOM will allow the more diplomatic players at some point to ues their game skills.

[stankarp]

My experience in the mid to late game is that most AI will become more co-operative as your power increases. However, 1 - 2 AI usually develop into very large empires and they tend to be less co-operative.

[primemover]

I had in mind to do something like this a while back and got started. This "expansion pack" is enough to get me playing the game again. Just in time for summer break too

Some questions thought:

Like I wanted, it seems that religion plays a role in the tech tree.

Someone suggested a long time ago that religious ideology of a country should affect diplomacy as well as the tech tree and I would suggest even wonders (since not every religion published the gutenberg bible or built the temple of solomon or one of the american indian temples that was a wonder... it stands to reason that some wonders should be religion specific... but that a wonder for each religion should be possible that have various effects on the society).

I wanted to implement something like this since it is historically accurate and would liven up the game even more.

Countries with the same religious ideology would be more inclined to get along (at least until organized religion splits them like it did with Christians and Muslims). But at the same time, they would compete for their ideologies/religions wonder(s).

My original idea was that when the technology that allows the discovery of religious ideology (or somesuch discovery) is found, that the country picks a basic theology (such as pantheism, polytheism, or monotheism). Later when organized religion is discovered, they can pick a more specific religion such as judaism or muslim (extensions of monotheism); hinduism (pantheism), or greek mythology (polytheism).

1. Anyway, I was curious how much the religion idea affects AOM (diplomacy, tech tree, units, and wonders) and if you have considered any of this..?

2. I realize that things can only happen as time allows... which reminds me of another question. How can we donate? I would much rather download from apolyton than order a disk (unless I can't figure out the strategy for myself haha). But that doesn't mean I wouldn't want to "donate" money to the cause.

3. How big is your gigantic map? Myself, I do not like playing on any map smaller than 280 by 140. This tends to crash slower machines but nowadays it is not too bad.

4. I think I remember you mentioning this project a year or so ago. Didn't you have a version of the game that automatically built new settlements for you? Was that the early version of AOM? I liked the idea but I was not to keen on how the AI picked the new settlement. Is this still part of AOM? (if it was your MOD to begin with?)

Anyway, I greatly admire your sticking with this project seeing as I lost sight of mine a while ago. I got a tech tree done and that was about it.

Primemover

[stankarp]

Religion has one main affect in AOM, the middle ages governments divide up into 5 religious style governments, access to these are pre determined by the civ you choose, eg, Turks will end up as caliphate then sultanate government in the middle ages.

Each religious type government has access to an exclusive wonder, eg, only type 3 (Islamic) can build Mecca. The human gets one chance to change, at a penalty of -5 happiness for 5 turns when he researches Dark Ages. Otherwise, some wonders help increase the chance of Religious Fervour(a bonus) or reduce the chance of Biblical Pestillence (a disaster).

These governments have special units to match their origin, eg Islamic means you can build Janissary, Mameluke and Saphia (Turk Royal Guard Cavalry). Monarchy can build the Longbow, Dynastic empire has access to Forbidden city and Samurai. Theocracy, Holy Roman Empire with Teutonic knights and Knight Templar, Pagans (type 5) can build Chichen Itza, along with eagle warrior and eagle acrcher. Means you have to think about what side you choose.

Donate, no worries, as long as you have a credit card, go to :

http://www.theagesofman.net/Concept.html

and click on the donate button. People who donate and don't get the actual disc can download the startegy guide.

I am trying to clear expenses (cash outgoings) incurred since December, which are outlined already in this thread.

A lot of time has been spent tweaking AOM maps to produce interesting terrain, the gigantic map is 200 by 100, this was arrived at after exhaustive testing to produce enough terrain to get going, but eventually a bit of crowding for good land.

Dale produced a mod some years ago called Ages of Man, but I believe it was unfinished (according to him). AOM has four distinct ages, with special features, hence the name.

[Protra3211]

Well im looking foward to playing AOM. I think for many this will be as close to CtP3 as we will get.
A hard copy of a mod is best on disc along with info on the game.... For 5 dollars its a easy sell thank you again Stankarp! I Will Do As You Command

[primemover]

religion expansion

Thats pretty cool. Since you have done the work (and more) that I was planning to do with the exception in the religion area... are we permitted to customize your mod? or even submit those customizations as a part of your mod or would that be too un AOM like?

(I would really be interested in adding these religious based features to your mod since the ground work is already there).

As far as the map... 200 x 100 is a good start. Maybe I will try that size... but I may tweak it back to my 280x140.

EDIT: It is really just an embellishment of your idea since I see now that you do have religious based wonders and HAVE done some of the things I had in mind.