Medieval Mod 2

[WesW]

The watchtower changes sound interesting. I'm not so sure about the others. You may want to revive an old thread about similar ideas, or start a new one to get more opinions.
Nordicus has done a lot of work on his own, apparently, regarding new Wonders and improvements. I have been thinking about adding and re-arranging some of the Wonders for a future mod, the "Modern mod", that I will begin work on once the Med. mod is out.

Maybe Nord will start a new thread listing his ideas regarding this soon. He likes to go in several directions at once, though, so you never know what he will be doing next.

[Savant]

Good God Wes! Think your mod will be ready by xmas?



------------------

'Blood will run'

[wheathin]

sorry about hi-jacking your thread, Wes . Your medieval mod sounds cool. When I finish with Finals, I'll have to check it out.

wheathin

(new thread starting for the watch towers in CTP-CREATION)
[This message has been edited by wheathin (edited December 11, 1999).]

[Morgoth]

WesW

[Morgoth]

WesW
Spy sprite was sent to you today. Let me know if you had any problems receiving it.

Markos - I've also sent it to you for posting on the modifications when you get a chance.

[WesW]

I guess I have everything done as far as getting the mod set to release. It's packaged up, and the install instructions have been written. I am pasting the install instructions into the second post in this thread. Please read over them, and list anything that seems confusing to you.

I have spent 20hrs easy writing and re-writing the readmes for my mods, so *please* let me know if they aren't clear about anything, before I go public with this mod.

[WesW]

The Medieval Mod 2 has been sent in!

I have had to revert the names of the gl files back to their original names, so please go over the installation instructions, which have been re-done.

[MarkG]

download now!
http://apolyton.net/cgi-bin/ctp/files/download.pl?id=73

[John LeMaitre]

WesW --

I had a couple of questions about the new Medieval Mod.
1) It doesn't require the first MM to work, does it? I know it sounds dumb, but you know....

2) I don't have the Apolyton Pack, although I have all of the elements from it that I placed in separately. Since there seems to be a difference between the two (specifically, using the scenario files), will your mod still work?

3) What files do I have to be cautious of it wiping over?

Thanks, and I'll give the Read Me a better look-see once I get home (I'm at work right now).

[WesW]

1)All you theoretically *have* to have is CD's mod, though I haven't tested that.

2)The installation will create a scenario folder called "Medieval", which it puts all the files that can be read in scenario files.
The install readme details the Pack requirements and so-forth that are needed before this is done.
If you have all the Pack elements put in the original folders, which is what I think you are alluding to, then you can go into the "Medieval" scenario and manually transfer the files there to the original directories.

3) The Pre-Installation section details which files you should be cautious about before you install the mod.
Myself, I have a zipped copy of the Apolyton Pack stored in a folder where I keep zipped copies of all the mods and so-forth I use. Same thing for the original aidata folder. If you have done this, you shouldn't have to worry about over-writing any files.

[WesW]

Timothy Pintello, one of our AAips play-testers, wrote me this today regarding his first experience using the Med mod. Following that is my reply to him.

-----Original Message-----
From: Timothy Pintello Date: Thursday, December 16, 1999 9:21 AM
Subject: Medieval Mod 2

>Wes, I downloaded your Medieval Mod 2 yesterday and I have a real problem with it. The AI is kicking my butt and it is very difficult to play against! In fact, if I keep using this mod, I will probably have to drop down to King level!! This is just unacceptable!!! :-) Just teasing you Wes. All the things I said are true, but they are really niceimprovements.
>I really like this Mod. I was skeptical of your Terrain Mod, but now that I have used it, it is really a very good improvement.
>
>I think it is a combination of all the work in the AIP and FLI files that you and Nordicus did in conjunction with the Terrain changes that make this mod so much more difficult than even just the Awesome AIPs. I like it.
>
>Tom Davies did an incredible job with the sprites too. I only played for about an hour to get a feel for the game, so all I got to see was the Javelin Calvary unit, but I really liked it. If I were Activision, I would be seeing about giving Tom Davies a job as an artist for CTP2. After looking at things carefully, I think the Javelin Calvary Unit is better than even the units that came with CTP out of the box. It has both an attack and a death animation and it moves very smoothly. It also does not have the kind of outline that the Horse Archer and Catapult Sprites do. When it is used in the game, it looks like it could have come with the game except that it has more animations than the default sprites do. The default sprites either have a death or an attack animation, but not both. I also like the way that he has the Unit throw it's Javelin when it attacks. That is a lot better than even the archer units that come with the game. With those units you don't see the arrows flying through the air like you do the javelin. It makes for a very nice touch. I also like the concept of the Javelin Calvary unit. It fits well with the game.
>
>Wes, your tech tree is also a big improvement. I like the way Pikemen come sooner and the fact that you can't get Ships of the Line without first having canons. The Catapults are also much better units now, and the AI seems to use them better than it did. I forgot about your catapult changes so when a barbarian catapult showed up next to my city, I went after it with a slaver and a phalanx. Lost both, bummer huh. I then had to follow this up with sending out the last phalax and the only warrior in the city to take it out before it started bombarding me. When the whole battle was over, I ended up with only one badly damaged Phalax and no slave. Oh well.
I sent a Javelin Calvary Unit into a size 2 Barbarian city thinking that I could pick-up a badly needed city, but the Barbarians had a phalax and a catapult sitting in it. (Did I mention I really like the Javelin Calvary Unit?) Everyone knows that Barbarians don't defend their cities, well they do now and in a most effective manner. What the ranged attack of the Catapult couldn't finish off of my Calvary Unit, the defense of the Phalanx did. I was really bummed about that because I really liked that Calvary Unit. Have I mentioned that I really like the ... just giving you guys a hard time. :-)
>
>The bottom line is that this is a really good mod that some how enables the AI to really maximize its playing capabilities. When I quit the game, I was at the very bottom of the graph and the nearest AI competitor was Very Strong compared to me. This was not because of a bad starting location either. I started out on a river and was able to build 4 cities, including my capitol, so that at least one square was on an un-shared river square in every city. Additionally, only one of those cities had any overlap with another city and that overlap only consisted of 2 squares. I did this because I was trying to get a coastal city which I didn't have at that point.
>
>Well enough rambling for now. I will play a few more test games with this mod, but I suspect that it will become my default mod. I will also have to change my playing style again! Thanks a lot Wes! Every time I come up with a style that works for me, you go and change all the ground rules and make the AI smarter! What is it you have against me? :-) Sorry, couldn't resist ribbing you again.
>
>Keep up the good work Wes.
>
>Regards,
>
>Timothy Pintello

Thanks for the praise, Tim. It is my sincere hope that you are viewing the defeat.avi soon.
Regarding, Tom Davies' units, I agree that his work is the best of anyone I have seen in any mod, and on a par with any that came with the game. Actually, the Spy's avi looks a little better than the Jav. Cav.'s, so you
want to check out the GL soon.

I am also glad you noticed how the Aip & Terrain mod changes compliment each other. I wasn't sure if that would be apparent to anyone except me.

Wes

[Morgoth]

Tim, Wes - Thanks for the complements on the sprites. I'm hoping Markos will post the spy up on the modifications and see if anyone ever gives me a rating over 6.4!

I noticed the ratings on some of my earlier units (including the Jav Cav went down recently - no pleasing some people!).

Katy Sodeau (my other half) did most of the work on the Jav. Cav. so most of the compliments are really due to her.

Intend to play the new mod over the next few weeks so will be able to give it a good try out (and hopefully not always loose - to the AI or Katy).

Wes, was the WW2 you were going to do an extension of this mod?

[Pintello]

Hi Morgoth,

I was really impressed with your, or perhaps Katy's Sprites. Would you consider redoing the other sprites in CDs Mod so that they are of the same quality as the Spy and Javelin Calvary Units. I realize this is to some extent redoing work that has already been done, but sprites of the quality you put out would really be a big bonus to the Apolyton Pak. I would be more than willing to do the text file editing like I helped Paul do the first time around if you would be willing to produce the sprites.

The new "new units" in CDs Mod are as follows: Horse Archer, Catapult, Noble, Missile Cruiser, Cruise Missile, Helicopter, and Spy Satellite. Also an animated Galleon for Wes's Med Mod 2 would be nice.

Cheers,
Timothy Pintello

[Paul]

I haven't had time to actually play the medieval mod yet, but I did look at the tga pictures of the new units and they look great, better than the ones for CD's mod. Anyway, if you want new sprites for CD's mod there's no textfile editing necessary; you could just use the ones we made as long as the new sprites and pictures have the same names as the ones we used.

[Morgoth]

Pintello, Paul
Don't really want to go back and re-do soemone else's sprites as such but was thinking of doing some more anyway.

I need to redo the destroyer at some stage because the one supplied by Activision keeps crashing my game when playing a 2 player LAN game. I want to redo some of my older sprites (spearman, slinger and Huscarl) to improve some of the animations (particularly the walking animation) and I have made AVI's for an Egyptian spearman, a medieval COG and Katy has done some work on a Cartaginian style Noble cavalry.

I was thinking of doing a 30 years war/English civil war Pikeman and musket man and then moving onto some of the more modern figures e.g. a modern infantryman other than the machinegunner (WesW, let me know what you are planning on infantry types for your WW2 infantry types). Problem is I tend to start and then get distracted but I should have a few days over the christmas break to get some things done.