Preliminary release of Mars scenario (Take 2)

[J Bytheway]

A very improtant part of the game is options.Take Regular CTP of example. If player1 uses Theo and player2 uses Monarchy the result is player1 winnner! My point they both could be used if they were a little more balanced.( Theo...more war discontent?weaker units? less gold bonus? or Monarchy with better gold or even much cheaper(lower production for faster building) knights? Do you want to give players options or just have one government route?

I see what you mean, and I would like feudalism to be a plausible choice. At present it's main advantages are:

Martial law
Better military / faster changes between alert statuses
Lower empire size unhappiness
Lower too-many-cities coefficient

These, however, don't come into play much at the very start of the game. It's supposed to be a government for middling-sized civs at war, but I think I'll probably have to increase its production coefficient for it to be useful. Then you can switch in and build a lot of units, and bring your forces to readiness quickly but you pay the price of a lower science/gold rate. How does that sound?

Yeah I am not saying change this yet but I want you to think about this- You put in more city improvements but you have lowered trade values and no markets(banks coast more to up keep, and you have to build them sooner and in more cities to make gold), so I really do not want to hurt my science or start losing gold so I do not even bother building very many buildings.

Hmm.. I see what you mean. I didn't want to have markets because then there would be too many gold improvements, but perhaps I could include them and then make them obsolete later (when supermarkets are available, for instance).

Ok lets say 3 civ in this world(this is just what I see at the start) 1 in moslty jungle 2 mostly forest 3 mostly plains/ mountains.

Ok you said the simple solution would be to mine the plains/w mine (F=5 P=15 G=5) now compare that to jungle(F=10 P=20 G=5).

When you put it like that it does look silly. Jungle shouldn't be better than mined plains... I think jungle production must go down to 15, certainly, and maybe 10. How about plains 5/10/0, forest 10/10/0 and jungle 10/10/5 - would that be better? And the plains person can mine & farm to help.

I think a good way to balance things out would be to make it easier to travel across plains(Yeah I know it is, but is it really!?). I mean most units(most important-Settler) can still only walk one step on plains as jungle or forest . If only Civ3 could travel faster without spending too much production they could travel to some better land (say jungle).

Well, that would mean either
a) making plains movement 0.5 but I think that's too drastic (imagine what other units would be like...),
b) making roads cheaper - which is certainly possible or
c) giving settlers 2 movement - that's a big break with tradition, but it might work...

hehe I was not real sure about that yet.

I can always change it back

Once again do we really want to limit players option?

See above

perhaps a bit strong Not Tested Yet.

Well, I copied that straight out of the MedMod unchanged, but it might well be that it's different in this situation. I personally don't think it'll be too drastic because you don't really want to waste your population wandering around the map all the time, and small cities grow faster than large ones but we'll see what happens.

Ok but maybe you should wait a little.

Probably a good idea, actually. We can just imagine I've made the changes. I think the whole terrain thing is the most urgent since that drastically affects everything else.

I'd like to try to get an internet game of this working. Interested?

Yes VERY much.

Well, name your time - I'm free 24/7.

[drAgON1]

Well I am free tomorrow around 1800 -6 gmt

[J Bytheway]

So that would be 0100 BST? Could you just post saying what time it is at the time you post so that I can tell how our clocks differ - I have big problems working these things out .

[J Bytheway]

OK, I think I now see why you wanted my to post the terrain values. It does help to see tham all together.

Current values on the left, proposed on the right.
The ones with a * have changed.

	Current				Proposed		
Terrain	Food	Prod	Gold		Food	Prod	Gold
Jungle	10	20	5	*	10	10	5
Forest	10	20	0	*	10	10	0
Plains	5	10	0		5	10	0
Grass	10	5	0		10	5	0
Swamp	5	5	0		5	5	0
Fines	0	5	0	*	0	5	5
Moutain	0	20	5		0	20	5
Fines M	0	20	5		0	20	5
Arctc M	0	20	0		0	20	0
Hills	5	10	5		5	10	5
Fines H	0	10	5		0	10	5
Arctc H	0	10	5	*	0	10	0
Tundra	0	5	0		0	5	0
Glacier	0	0	0		0	0	0

Comments? Would you like to test with the old or the new?

[J Bytheway]

Update v1.10

Sorry for chain-posting, but I decided to upload the latest version (including the terrain changes above). Available at my home page at:

http://www.geocities.com/jbtwuk/civctp.htm

as before. If you're updating from version 1.02 (the last version) then you'll need to download the text and pic zips, but the others have not changed. You can also (optionally) download the tile zip which includes my first attempt at some Mars-like terrain (essentially I just made the desert terrains more Mars-coloured, nothing exciting - in the end I was unable to use IW's Mars terrain due to the big change from CTP to CTP2 in the tile files).

Changes in this version:

Edited some of the text messages which were innaccurate.
Changed the wonder messageicon to be a picture of Mars, rather than Earth.
Changed the riot messageicon to be a yellow riot hand.
Removed SETTLE_LAND flag from rover.
Reduced defense of rover 4->1 and of ranger 4->2.
Increased cost of rover 250->300
Evened out some of the terrain values.
Changed some terrain appearance. Fines are now Mars-coloured.

[drAgON1]

Ok umm..my idea about terain is giving each something that can be done to make them strong. Mountains are very strong prod ,grassland high growth, jungle/forest are good all around but cant really improve with tarraform easy. I think just a few things should be adjusted. I say leave production vaules the same but take away the gold vaule for jungle,increase goods back to 10 or add markets or more trade routes to each city(I see you made government with more cities anyway) and decrease the production time of caravvans(I like this idea).As far as grassland and plains go, decrease the work points for roads and farms a small bit, Increase roads for jungle/forest(can you do that?)back to 200 and last I would increase farm food value by 5 on each(and add 5 more production to grassland/plains from a mine).
Fix: I think one thing wrong with ctp is the abilty to kick units out of groups.I mean how is one soilder going to run around a settler's armed gaurds without a fight! Can you fix that?

[drAgON1]

My time now is 9:40 PM

[J Bytheway]

Originally posted by drAgON1
I think just a few things should be adjusted. I say leave production vaules the same but take away the gold vaule for jungle,

I want jungle to be different from forest though, and preferably better than forest.If we're going to add markets then I could decrease the gold income to 3 (or 2?).

increase goods back to 10 or add markets or more trade routes to each city

I think of those I'd prefer to add markets. Get them with trade, they're obsolete with plastics.

decrease the production time of caravvans(I like this idea).

Yes - since trade goods are worth less caravans should be cheaper. That makes sense. Changed caravans 750->500, freights 300->250.

As far as grassland and plains go, decrease the work points for roads and farms a small bit, Increase roads for jungle/forest(can you do that?)back to 200

Probably a good idea. But I'll have to think a bit before I change it since it will probably mean changing the cost of railroads, advanced farms, etc. as well so that things balance.

and last I would increase farm food value by 5 on each(and add 5 more production to grassland/plains from a mine).

That's pretty drastic.. I think I'll hold out for playtesting before I change that, especially if they're going to be cheaper to build too. Though I admit it is a long way to advanced mines, so it might be warranted. Perhaps an increase by 2 or 3 - you don't have to have everything in multiples of 5. I don't think these mines should be as good as those on hills.

Fix: I think one thing wrong with ctp is the abilty to kick units out of groups.I mean how is one soilder going to run around a settler's armed gaurds without a fight! Can you fix that?

No, unfortunately, that's here to stay . Did you know that it's even possible to expel units that are inside enemy cities ! (So I'm told, I've never actually done it). I think the only solution to this is just to agree not to do it.

I think it would probably help to play on more diverse and drier maps - that way there is less jungle, and what there is would be spread around. I intended jungle to be fairly rare, and spread about. I could change the values in the terrain generator to make it less common, but I don't really understand that yet.

Thanks for the time check. 1800 should have been 0000 then. I thik you were getting confused about the times on Apolyton - they say they're GMT but they're not - they're BST (=GMT - 1, or maybe +1). I stayed up until 0120 but then I got too tired . The next evening you're free post here or e-mail me at jjb48@cam.ac.uk and I'll respond if I'm still awake.

Now I've got a lot of great library entries to update...

[drAgON1]

J:
I want jungle to be different from forest though, and preferably better than forest.If we're going to add markets then I could decrease the gold income to 3 (or 2?)

Yeah I see that you want jungle better..however the gold is very powerful to give away.Lets compare your jungle to a hill. Jungle f=10 P=20 G=5, Hill F=5 P=10 G=5.
Can you see how much they limit hills in the other 2? Gold is very powerfull in ctp.Proposal: I say try jungle F=10 P=20 G=0(not over 2 if you insist) and forest F=5 P=20 G=0.The whole point I am trying to tell you is :if jungle gives as much gold as goods then you take away a very important part of ctp. A main reason nations go to war is over resoures(goods in ctp) to get more GOLD. Of course trade is still important in you scenario but that will be much later in the game. I am just trying to balance out the start of most games. If one civ starts in the middle of jungle and the other does not then jungle civ will have a huge advantage. Ctp makes you work to earn your gold, and I like that I mean I agree that trade should be adjusted down some. But if you look at hills or mountains you have to give up alot of food for that gold.

J:
I think of those I'd prefer to add markets. Get them with trade, they're obsolete with plastics.

Good Idea: I think that if your trying to limit the tech rate by limiting gold you should increase the science points not limiting gold.

J:
Probably a good idea. But I'll have to think a bit before I change it since it will probably mean changing the cost of railroads, advanced farms, etc. as well so that things balance

Not really a big deal now...All I think is the work points on the jungle should be 200. I would not decrease or increase the roads(45) or the farms(150) on plains.

J:
That's pretty drastic.. I think I'll hold out for playtesting before I change that, especially if they're going to be cheaper to build too. Though I admit it is a long way to advanced mines, so it might be warranted. Perhaps an increase by 2 or 3 - you don't have to have everything in multiples of 5. I don't think these mines should be as good as those on hills.

Yip your right about the that! Plains should not be good as hills/w mines. I did not really think. However, to make REGULAR farms usefull they should be increased to add 10 food.Trust me

J:
I think it would probably help to play on more diverse and drier maps - that way there is less jungle, and what there is would be spread around. I intended jungle to be fairly rare, and spread about. I could change the values in the terrain generator to make it less common, but I don't really understand that yet.

Naaa....Dont go changing that. Lets just work with the jungle vaules.

Ok its alomst 7am isnt that -6 gmt???? ,anyway I can play teast online now if your around

[J Bytheway]

Originally posted by drAgON1
The whole point I am trying to tell you is :if jungle gives as much gold as goods then you take away a very important part of ctp. A main reason nations go to war is over resoures(goods in ctp) to get more GOLD. Of course trade is still important in you scenario but that will be much later in the game. I am just trying to balance out the start of most games. If one civ starts in the middle of jungle and the other does not then jungle civ will have a huge advantage. Ctp makes you work to earn your gold, and I like that

OK, I'm getting the picture now, I think. Jungle shall have no gold! I'll try forest 5/20/0 and jungle 10/20/0 as you suggested in the game. I'm still a little worried that this will give too much production, but I'll trust your instincts.

All I think is the work points on the jungle should be 200.

200 on forest as well? What about the time taken to build - I think that should be 3 turns, not 2 now that I compare it with other terrains. If I were to increase time to 3 turns do you think 200 would be too much?

However, to make REGULAR farms usefull they should be increased to add 10 food.Trust me

OK, I'll change this - but do you think I should increase the benefit from advanced & hydroponic farms too by 5 each? You'll be able to get pretty big cities, especially if you use cattle too - but that's not a bad thing.

[drAgON1]

Hello,
With the roads on forest/jungle, I think they should be set to 200 but lets just wait untill futher play testing(What where you talking about 2 to 3 turns?). I think we need to add five food to just the regular farms for now. This will help balance out a civ stuck with plains/grassland.
Anyway I will be free to test in about 7 and 1/2 hours from now and again in 26 hours.

[J Bytheway]

Originally posted by drAgON1
With the roads on forest/jungle, I think they should be set to 200 but lets just wait untill futher play testing

OK, I won't change it yet.

(What where you talking about 2 to 3 turns?)

I was considering increasing the time it takes to build roads on jungle from 2 to 3 turns. At present you can build road in 2 turns on everything but mountains (which takes 4) and I was thinking it might be a good idea to make roads take longer to build in forest/jungle. Just an idea.

I think we need to add five food to just the regular farms for now. This will help balance out a civ stuck with plains/grassland.

Will do. But what happens to the poor forest players? They have production, but little food so they can't grow fast enough for the settlers. I guess they just build silos and cut rations, since they can afford to lower the workday.

[drAgON1]

Yeah that sounds good with the road time to 3 on jungle/forest . Perhaps the way to balance out the forest folks is to A) Leave the roads cheap enough to build easy so they can walk to better land or B) Have the tarraforming option so they change the woods to grassland/plains kinda early and perhaps make that a little cheaper.

Anyhow I think the next step is to change that jungle and forest then playtest,playtest, and more playtest.

[J Bytheway]

Originally posted by drAgON1
Anyhow I think the next step is to change that jungle and forest then playtest,playtest, and more playtest.

Made those changes, I'm now adding a market improvement (I'd forgotten how complicated it was to add an improvement, but I think I'm doing it right...).

[J Bytheway]

Update v1.11

New version with the changes we discussed, and some other bugfixes for little things I found in testing. As usual, go to:

http://www.geocities.com/jbtwuk/civctp.htm

If updating from v1.10 you need download only the text zip. This update contains some changes to the GL, and you will only see these if - after you unzip - you copy the most recently modified files (those changed in the last week or so) from ...\scenarios\Mars\english\gamedata\gl\ to ...\ctp_data\english\gamedata\gl\

Changes in this version:

Caravan cost 750->500, freight 300->250.
Added Market improvement.
On grassland/plains/fines:
- Farms bonus food 5->10.
Jungles to F10/P20/G0.
Forests to F5/P20/G0.
Fixed bug related to Green Revolution pic.
Changed Martian Curriculum pic.
Corrected the time at which the obscelesence of city walls message appears.

Now it's time for some more testing