Where are my save files? and more questions

[WackenOpenAir]

First of all, i have installed CTP on windows 7 and then installed the 1.2 patch so that it will run.
Now in the game i can delete save files, but not folders. I dont want a long list of save files, so i would like to know where i can find these files and folders so i can delete them myself. I seem very unable to find them though, even a uninstall and reinstall does not help to get rid of them.

And then, i installed the apolyton pack and everything. It suggest starting games in multiplayer TCIP so the save function works properly. For the first time i check out this multiplayer option and wow, i can turn of imbalanced wonders ! I like that ! However, unfortunately i cannot seem to launch a game.. The launch button is grey. Since the apolytonpack readme suggests using multiplayer i assume there must be a way though.... Can anyone enlighten me ?

[JohnGalt137]

The apolyton pack as far as I know doesn't fix this. The path to your savegames on my box is:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Activision\Civilization-Call To Power\ctp_program\ctp\save\games

For multiplayer:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Activision\Civilization-Call To Power\ctp_program\ctp\save\mp

Most on the ladder don't use the apolyton pack. The 1.21 hack is necessary though.

[WackenOpenAir]

yes, i found that folder, but strangely enough the save folders are all empty... They must be somewhere else.

And you dont know if i can start a multiplayer game with just 1 player ?

[JohnGalt137]

That's real odd, none of mine are empty...Have you seen this before?

[WackenOpenAir]

Before i installed the crack and apo pack I have been searching for my save files. I dont remember if i found exactly these folders, but i do remember that i spend at least half an hour browsing all my folders and using the windows search functions for files altered the last day both in the normal folder structure and in the registry and i found nothing. Of course my windows is setup to show hidden files.

I really like the pack btw. The difficulty of capturing cities in early game anoyed me. The capatpults are the right answer. I also think i like how it balances science a bit. Research costs dont seem to ramp up so rediculous and the academies and universities are more important by themselves instead of just as an enhancement to the scientists. The new granary might be a tad bit overpowered, but it enables me to use mines instead of irrigations, or differently stated, it stops the game from being all about food food food. The thing that really seem to be missing though is the nerfing of the london exchange, internet and the other 10tech per age thingy. But i havent played the pack that far yet so maybe they actually did something about that too but not stated it in the library. Also have to see if they did something to balance slaves (i forbid myself to use them since they are so grossly imbalanced)

[WackenOpenAir]

Hmm, only works if you select the scenario map and then the difficulty level is screwed.. Uninstalled the pack after all. Too bad, just like the orriginal game, great opportunity, but just ****ed up on too many points.

[JohnGalt137]

So did this solve the issue?

[WackenOpenAir]

Somehow yes all my save files are gone ! I uninstalled, and then deleted the folders that were still remaining and now everything is clean again.
I now just play the unmodded original though and have to live with the imbalances and trying out different variants to make it challenging. The diffuculties with capturing towns early on arent so bad anyway once you learn to lure the AI out of there, bypass the front cities, probe attack with 1 warrior and build roads to hit the rear ones (also happening to be the big ones) before they can prepare.
Next challenge: Deity conuest 8AI before turn 100

[JohnGalt137]

A couple ways to make it harder are:
- to play on small maps with a large number of Deity level AI.
- to play the 1 city challenge. (You only get to build 1 city the whole game).
- up the number of computer opponents to 32. (You edit one of the text files to do it. How to do this is explained in the FAQ.)

Also I'm trying to get people to talk about a balance patch (which wouldn't cause these fun new issues you seem to be experiencing). If you're interested in giving your viewpoint go ahead and weigh in. So far we've got 4 or 5 of us using the small balance changes I'm currently testing out.

[WackenOpenAir]

yes, i have tried OCC, OCC AW, OCC pacifist. The variation that i found to make the game challenging and stay challenging troughout most of the game was to forbid myself to build both slavers and workers and only allow myself to conquer 1 town per opposing AI.

With the OCC versions while using slavers, the game is still completely broken. OCC without slavers proved just a bit too tough though. Most of all because the slaves use half resources and do not increase the city size for food per growth matters. Within no time your cities are size 30. So the first change i would suggest is to solve at least one of these issues and make either the slave count as a citizen for food and growth calculations or having them use full resources. To make slaves balanced however i think both would be needed. Another idea would however be to make slavers have say a 25% chance of succes. (espescially when getting slaves trough battle)

The next problem i had was with the OCC AW variant. You cant disband cities bigger than size 4. I solved this by starving them until i could disband them. But not being able to disband bigger cities is just a stupid rule that has no good purpose (except maybe in PvP) so i'd say scrap that rule.

When you change the game, i would espescially try to aim to make it challenging troughout the game. Making the start challenging isn't too hard. Thats what the difficulty levels do with giving the AI an extra settler. I don't know how much the AI pays for everything, but maybe you could like in Civ3 add a Sid level where the AI has a bigger advantage during the later game. Also of course some wonders need to be nerfed.

-London exchange max 50% reduction, maybe even less.
-The thing that gives an average of 10 advances per age at random. As it is, together with the internet, it allows you to stop researching and rely on those 2 wonders alone. Half the chance that it produces a research each turn ( i think it is 10% now)
-plus 200% science per scientists, too much, make it 150% or so. Still enough for OCC to be feasible. at 100% OCC might become really hard.

Make Cities in early game slightly easier to capture and in late game a whole bunch tougher. I like both the units that i found in the pack. A fast moving ranged unit and a catapult are both nice to include. Dont make them cheap though. Late game bombardment may come at a little bit of a higher price i think.

Then there is the issue of the special units that can hurt you while you are not at war. You can tell them to stop trespassing or you can kick them out, but it is just extremely anoying and they keep coming back in greater and greater numbers. Because of this i end up just fighting everyone. I dont really know how to solve this though. It would be nice if you could have them be evicted automatically when you spot them or something, (only when in peace, because of course nothing is more satisfying than turning your enemies abolitionists into slaves when at war) but i dont know if such things are without the possibilities of modding.

I would also like it if the governments would be more balanced. As it is now, in the OCC versions, i just stay in the starting gov and may change to facism later for the production. When i am not limited to towns, i will use theocracy and then maybe facisms. The disadvantage from the sliders is just so big that they outweigh the advantages provided by the new government. I dont really like the sliders as they are anyway. The effect of changing the slider is so great (1 happy per pop) that you cant really move them anyway. You must keep it in balance or use that position where they provide a +2 happyness sometimes. Those are the only 2 options. I would suggest providing an extra +2 happy for each step you make the sliders more favorable and reducing the unhappy effect of " negative" settings to 1/2 or 1/3th a happyness per pop. That way the sliders would actually become a more interesting part ofthe game where you can build cathedrals to allow yourself to move them a notch. As for the governments, i dont have enough experience to give good suggestions. I mostly just tried each of the governments once or twice, was shocked at the dramatic effects on my production/science and wrote them off.

Then there is science. This is also not as i think it was intended. But again, take my comments with a grain of salt here because i have little experience with playing the game without imposing limits on myself and mostly just played OCC. It always went like this though:
-Phase 1, science comes from gold at 50% science rating. With OCC, science is a rather unsufficient and i rely on philostone to trade myself up to par.
-Phase 2, I have build academies and publishing houses. Most of my gold is going to upkeep and the science as described in phase 1 became insignificent. The science % slider is now a useless part of the game.
-phase 3, my cities start to grow > size 10. I mass scientists and those now provide 80% of my science. The academies etc are just there to multiply my scientists output.

To balance this, the gold balance should be changed. Cities should produce more gold and/or lose less to upkeep. Maybe like in civ3 have roads add 5gold, maybe reduce upkeep for all buildings. This will increase the basic science production and make it scale better troughout the game. As a byproduct, this will also reduce the effect of the london exchange.
Then, to offset this extra science, reduce the output from scientists. (6 like in the pack seems good to me)

As said though, my experience is very limited and espescially focussed on variants like OCC. My skills and understanding come from being a civ3 veteran, not from experience in CTP. I have yet to build more than 1 bank per game and rarely build marketplaces. These i only use to close the gap in my budget between building academies etc that cost upkeep and the london exchange to end this burden. Of course for a different kind of player, the science situation might be very different.

Unfortunately i wont be much helping you with playtesting. I am playing CTP only because i am traveling and wanted something to play other than the vastly addicting MMORPGs i play nowadays and i couldnt find my civ3 disks when i left home. Civ3 however is imo a vastly superior game to this, but even that game is mostly a part of the part for me. I will be traveling only a few more weeks before i go home and get back to the games that i prefer with a good desktop, big screen, reliable internet and 15 hours per day to play