PowerSLICs 1.6 - Changes to 1.5: Few cosmetic things + English Translation

[JimMac]

TP

Thank you for your offer to send out PowerSLIC yourself, I shall send you an E-mail shortly. (I suspect that apart from Dans summer job, his Apolyton time seems to be taken up with some "incident" over on the Off topic forum)

I wasn't sure if your wage increase was included in the PowerSLIC, now you have confirmed that it is not, I would be grateful if you would let me know what you feel are suitable changes to make in order to set better wage rates.

Thanks

JimMac

[TP]

JimMac,


I have just sent them out to you. You should have the PowerSLICs now in your mailbox.

On wages, I can recommend you to do change the wages level in the file "const.txt" at least to the point where I am currently playing. This is surely a conservative level still, so you may want to go even further (if you do so, give me some feedback in this thread please). You have to change the following lines in "const.txt":

UNIT_WAGES 1.125 # what does 1 notch mean (ORIGINAL VALUE 1.0)
BASE_WAGES 4.5 # gold per person when slider is zero (ORIGINAL VALUE) 4.0

As you know, I reduced also Rush-Buy costs (-30% wonders, -20% units, -10% improvements), If you want to do this as well, go first into the "const.txt" again and change the following lines:

UNIT_RUSH_MODIFIER 2.4 # (ORIGINAL VALUE 3)
IMPROVEMENT_RUSH_MODIFIER 0.9 # (ORIGINAL VALUE 1)
WONDER_RUSH_MODIFIER 3.5 # (ORIGINAL VALUE 5)

Finally you then have to also go into "govern.txt" and change those entries for each of the 13 governments as well. Be careful, this means to change the numbers as above a few times, but also a few times you have to recalculate the numbers as some governments have generally better rush-buy modificators. Just keep on changing the numbers by 30%, 20% and 10% on wonders, units and improvements.


TP

[Harlan]

If you suspect that Dan will take a while to get your file posted, I suggest you post it to Civ Nation in the meantime: civnation.com. They usually get my stuff up within 24 hours, sometimes much sooner than that.

[WesW]

TP,

The tga files go into the pictures folder, right?

[TP]

WesW,

Yes, installation instructions within the readme file (I think you should have it now, right?) include:

"Copy all TGA-Files into your \ctp_data\default\graphics\pictures folder."


Harlan,

Thanks for the tip. I will do that probably during the weekend if it is not availabel on Apolyton then.


TP

[WesW]

TP,

Somehow, I didn't see the readme file until after I had posted (and I looked for it, too). There were two cases where I couldn't find the original entries to outcomment: alertbox 99, and the trigger about the city queue being empty.

[TP]

WesW,


Are you 100% sure you run with patch 1.1 ? Patch 1.1 is a must to be able to run PowerSLICs 1.61.

If you have installed patch 1.1, go and search "AdvanceFromCapturingCity" in the search mask of your notepad for the first alertbox (or whatever you use to read script.slc".

For the second messagebox to outcomment, go and search for "CityQueueIsEmpty".


TP

[WesW]

TP,

I found them. The first was listed as messagebox 99. The second is listed as messagebox 37. You may need to list it that way in your instructions. I joted down the numbers of the replacement scripts, and outcommented the corresponding originals.

[TP]

All,

As PowerSLICs 1.65 (yes a small minor litte tiny update with only minor fixes) is not yet on Apolyton site (which is sad), I have asked Civnation to upload my MOD on their site. Hope they put it on soon. Below is my message to those guys.

See you when patch 1.2 is out,
TP

From: TP
To: CivNation.com


Dear Gary,
Dear Stan,


Please find attached a modification for Call To Power 1.1. Objective of this MOD is to tweak the interface of Call To Power a little bit in order to make it a bit more informative. Also I have included fixes and workarounds for the most annoying bugs still present within patch 1.1.

I have mostly beta-tested and published previous versions of this MOD at Apolyton page but want to make this MOD available to more people. As Apolyton seems to need quite some time to upload data, I am sending this to you as well.


Thomas P. aka TP

[TP]

JimMac,


Hope you read this. I have played now for quite some time with new wage settings and can can confirm that they make the game i) harder and ii) more choiceful as with even higher wages I recommend now to use you are very often forced to strategically decide between building high-costly improvements at all (or better spend the production on units or Public works), building gold improvements or building science improvements.

I recommend to use the following values in "const.txt":

UNIT_WAGES 1.25 # what does 1 notch mean ORIGINAL 1.0
BASE_WAGES 5.0 # gold per person when slider is zero ORIGINAL 4.0

Rushbuy costs are still at -30% for wonders, -20% for units and -10% for improvements. If you want to implemnt this as well, change the following lines in "const.txt":

UNIT_RUSH_MODIFIER 2.4 # (ORIGINAL VALUE 3)
IMPROVEMENT_RUSH_MODIFIER 0.9 # (ORIGINAL VALUE 1)
WONDER_RUSH_MODIFIER 3.5 # (ORIGINAL VALUE 5)

Finally you then have to also go into "govern.txt" and change those entries for each of the 13 governments as well. Be careful, this means to change the numbers as above a few times, but also a few times you have to recalculate the numbers as some governments have generally better rush-buy modificators. Just keep on changing the numbers by 30%, 20% and 10% on wonders, units and improvements.


TP


P.S. I do not recommend increasing wages even higher as then the benefit of being forced to strategic decisions would be not that important anymore because then you would most likely loose on science each time you play. I think that's a rather good combination now.

[JimMac]

TP,

Thank you for your continuing advice on this matter.

Following your post last week, I tried CTP with a basic wage of 4.5 and a unit of 1.25, but after playing for some time, I felt that there was little noticeable change. So 2 evenings ago I started again and set the basic wage to 5 (keeping the unit wages at 1.25) – as you have done -and I also found that this makes for a much more challenging game.

When you have to think carefully about whether or not you can afford a particular improvement, it adds another strategic element to the game. It is now a real setback when another Civ. coverts your city,can you afford to convert it back?

I had intended to let you know what I found with this wage setting, however I wasn’t sure whether the increased challenge I was having was so much due to the wage change or my not so good style of play;-
-I am not a Deity level player, (as I think you are). I play on Emperor level and usually reach first place on the power chart around turn 280 to 300.
-I think I selected too few goods. I usually play with goods selected 3 places to the right from the extreme left position, however since I felt there was too much gold even on the 4.5 settings I started this game with the goods selection on the second place from the extreme left position.
-Around turn 150 I struggled to make a profit each turn, and was making a small loss as many turns as I was making a small profit. (However this soon improved when I discovered the clock and Capitalization)

I don’t think that I have tested these settings sufficiently, however in addition to the improved challenge, I have noticed some changes;-

- Early in the game when research depends more on gold than science, the research happens much slower. This is good, as I have a chance to use all the units when previously some were obsolete before I had even made one.
- I am not sure about this, but the computers head start of 2000 gold may now be too much. As the A.I. civs are so far ahead at the start of the game I don’t seem to have any chance to build an early wonder.
- I will have to change the rush costs as you suggest, as they are not worth the present costs.
- Other action costs may be too expensive, for a long time in this game my gold veered between 6,000 and 7,000. Capturing slaves is expensive while it would take such a long while to get back the money spent on converting a city.(I havent had to do it yet)

With some small adjustments to the costs of certain actions, I completely agree with you that this should be the wage level for this game (with CDs mod). This game just gets better and better due to the time and effort of you mod experts.


JimMac
[This message has been edited by JimMac (edited August 08, 1999).]

[TP]

JimMac,


Oops this message got rather long. Hope you will find something useful for you here:

It sounds good that you have made the same attempt and have basically come to the same conclusion as myself. I fully agree with you that with those changes there is a totally new way to think of money: Before, it was the money bringing even more unnecessary science and the money for rush-buys. Now it is the money you desperately need to maximize science to a meaningful amount and the money to pay your passive (improvement building) and active (unconventional warfare) steps in your civilization. I am happy that you feel the same - this is surely a kind of validation :-)

Now to my personal way of playing so you can get a feeling how good or bad I am in CTP:

In Emporer, I win nearly all the times with CD's MOD and wage/rushby changes. Which would be good, however my style brings me to a big win in a very early stage of the game already, so it is not that fun anymore to proceed into Modern Age without any serious enemies. Therefore I am a Deity player, but currently (with CD's MOD and my wages/rushby changes) I am normally loosing against the AI beginning with the modern age. Which I like because that's a nice and realistic challenge as the AI is not too far away so it is realistic that I will someday in the near future win those Deity games again.

I tend to play with huge maps, middle slider goods and island-type continents. By this way I first can play very peaceful and internally focussed, whereas expansion and warfare is coming later. That's my personal style, I like to see my civilization growing before I am crushing others (or they are crushing me).

In terms of AI cheating, I have so far not reduced this. Part of me wants to change as less as possible to make it easier for me, as I do not want to risk making the game just that tiny little bit "too" easy. I am in constant fear of making CTP a boring thing (in the beginning before CD's MOD, I played more CIV II than CTP, although this does not mean I belong to the group of people thinking Activision is selling a piece of crap. It's vice versa: Activision has brought us a great nearly 100% customazible game and in their way of thinking, their game design was right). Hope you understand what I mean with not making it too easy. Therefore I am not considering at the moment to change the AI cheating (although I would love to change principal AI strategies, but that's too much programming for a small market researcher). I may come back to this after playing a couple of games, i.e. in a few weeks. Let's simply look what will happen.

What I am considering, though, is similar to one of your thoughts, i.e. reducing costs for specific actions. To be more precise, I definitely will change the following: Reduce costs for stealing technology from 2000 gold to 500 gold and giving nobles/diplomats that feature, too (but with lower success probablitities). Reason: Stealing technology may be extremely powerful whenever you are behind. Making this cheaper (for you and the AI) will help you in getting back to a level where you will not loose just because some cheating AI has invented the tank and produced too much of them. But as above, this will most likely be the only cost reduction as I had two objectives when installing CD's MOD and updating it on wages/rushbuy: 1. Get some gold out of the game and force myself to think more strategically than just building everything which is possible. 2. Make the game harder. Reducing too much costs would not deliver against second objective, therefore advance stealing will be the only thing I will impact (for now).

One tip on slaving for you: As with CD's MOD, my enemies are rather fast in getting city walls, I acknowlege this and do not go intentionally on a slaving shopping-trip in enemy cities (well if there is an opportunity, I may use that of course...). Instead, I group each of my scouting units (typically something like a Samurai and a Archer) together with a slaver and collect units of enemies which with I am already in war. And most important, I see barbarians as an important source of civilization growth in the early game. I do my best and send my unit stacks to go for barbarian hunting to get as much slaves as possible in my cities.


Cheers,
TP


P.S. Would you like to play PBEM with me as soon as Patch 1.2 is out in English AND German ? If the patch is out, I could send you my current MOD (CD's MOD 4.2 + changes above mentioned + PowerSLICs in version 2.0 + other minor fixes), we could align on it (or modifiy it in case you would like to change some things as well) and then could use that for a long good PBEM game (without any cheating as we both are gentlemen). Just think of it... In terms of our playing capabilites I do not think that the fact that I seem to play more on the Deity level would seriously hurt the fun. I am a Deity player against the AI, but I am a total novice against a human (my gf would never play against me). And as we sadly know from human history, humans can get very tough... So think of it.

[This message has been edited by TP (edited August 08, 1999).]

[TP]

All,


PowerSLICs 1.65 is now available at http://www.civnation.com

If you are interested, go and get it there.


TP

[TP]

1 good and 1 bad news for today:
================================


WesW,

I managed it ! I have found a way to implement messages on increasing city population. As this little add-on does not justify a full new version of my MOD, I have copied here the code you have to add in your files (for all others, this feature will be included in the next major upgrade of PowerSLICs):

1. Within "script.slc"
======================

trigger 'TP_T_City_Growth' when (IsHumanPlayer(g.player) && (city.population) && (city.owner == g.player)) {
if (city.population > 1) { Message(g.player, 'TP_M_CityGrowth');}
}

messagebox 'TP_M_CityGrowth' {
city_population = city.population;
Title(ID_TP_TITLE_CityGrowth);
Text(ID_TP_TEXT_CityGrowth);
EyePoint(city.1);
UseDirector();
}

2. Within "info_str.txt"
========================

TP_TITLE_CityGrowth "City Growth"
TP_TEXT_CityGrowth "We have now one more citizen in [city.name] and thus in total [city_population.value] people in that city. Treat him right and he will prosper. Treat him wrong and he will be soon gone."


Big Dave,

The bad news is that I do not see any way how to implement your request as simply there is no native SLIC code which controls orders in terms of diplomacy (only breaking is possible but not something like "stop trespass"). However if patch 1.2 will work correctly, then this should not be a big issue anymore as the AI is supposed to acknowlege trespassing agreements better.


TP

[WesW]

Thanks TP

That city growth message should come in very handy. I also d-loaded Paul's sprites mod today, so I've had a good day in the CTP world.

I spent all Sunday night working on my addon mod, and hopefully I'll have it done soon. I'm thinking about calling it the Medieval Mod, since that's where most of the changes are aimed at. The only bothersome thing I can't figure out is how to make a different version of the city walls terrain icon to differentiate it from the stockade. Any ideas on this would be appreciated.

Modding CTP seems much more complicated than fooling with civ II. Thanks again for finding the pop message.