Medieval Pack 3.0

[Pintello]

Hi Wes,

I look forward to testing your new FLI enhancements. They sound like they may be very interesting indeed. You may finally force me to give up and move down to king level with that one.

Timothy Pintello

[WesW]

I made several miscellaneous changes tonight.
1)I finally figured out how to end the movies for the new wonders. I ended up *creating* a movie called NULL, which referenced a null avi. Anyway, the movie screen pops up for a second, then disappears.
2)I found the ps script for the internet message, which TP had changed for the PowerSLICs, but I could not find the actual message anywhere. If anyone knows where to look, let me know. Otherwise, you will continue to get your Great Library advances off the *ancient internet*.
3)I added a new age, the Medieval Age (long overdue if you ask me ). I also changed the advances that moved you into most of the other ages, to accomodate the new chart.
4)I undid some of Harlan's civ changes. I re-inserted the Native Americans, Canadians and Aussies, and removed the Hungarians, Sioux, and Iroquois.
5)I added the Lighthouse and Plato's Academy wonders, and changed the effect of Galileo's Telescope to an increase in science of 15%, which is also what Plato gives. I increased the cost of the Telescope 50%, which seemed about right. I also changed the effect of Solomon's Temple from +10% science to +10% production, which fits in with history and Solomon's building program.
6)Last night I changed the movement cost of Tropical Grassland from 1 to 1.5. Does this seem more realistic?
7)Locutus sent me the new SLIC code for an addiitonal militia trigger. This one places militias in cities that have lost theirs for some reason, and removes militias in cases where the city was removed but the militia remained. He is working on a trigger that will give cities additional militias based upon size. We are using multiples of eight, up to 4 militias, for the time being. Any thoughts in this?

I still have to incorporate all these new things into the aips, and re-do the readmes. By the time I get this done, the remaining graphics from Morgoth, and the last trigger from Locutus should be in, so what may be the final beta should be up in the next week or so.

I believe that this batch of changes contains all of the ones I have in mind for the mod, except perhaps for some fli adjustments. If there are any other changes anyone wants to see, or any that I have forgotten to implement, now is the time to let it be known.

[Morgoth]

WesW
Will see what Ican get done on the graphics front this weekend otherwise I have a week's vacation straight after easter so will complete then.

Did you try out the Militia TGA I sent or did you get another version from anyone else?

[Paul]

For the advances from Internet/Great Library you can use this trigger:

alertbox '116InternetDiscovery' {
if (HasAdvance(g.player, ID_ADVANCE_COMPUTER)) {Text(ID_INTERNET_DISCOVERY);}
else {Text(ID_GREAT_LIBRARY_DISCOVERY);}
Button(ID_BUTTON_CLOSE) {
Kill();
}
Button(ID_BUTTON_LIBRARY) {
Kill();
LibraryAdvance(discovery.type);
}
UseDirector();
}

(Replace the original in ps_scr.slc and add a text for GREAT_LIBRARY_DISCOVERY)

If you have discovered Computers it will give the Internet message; otherwise it will give the Great Library message.

Edit: is this better Wes?
[This message has been edited by Paul (edited April 15, 2000).]

[WesW]

Thanks Paul. I found the Internet message, and created a similar one for the Great Library. If you don't mind, Paul, could you delete the code from the post? It is messing up the thread, at least in 800x600 resolution.
Locutus sent in the last trigger today, the one which allots additional militias based upon city size. (Is that guy a machine, or what? )
Morgoth, get your stuff done when you get time. I still have plenty to do, and I am going to do some play-testing before posting this verison (see below). Btw, did Katy ever finish the Mongol?

Anyone keeping up with how many changes are in this mod? I lost count at about, oh, 500 or so.

I hesitate to mention this, for fear of scaring people off, but when I tried to load a saved game after making last night's changes, I received the infamous "invalid page fault" crash. I went back to 4000BC, and it would go one turn, then crash. The more recent saves wouldn't even go one turn.
I started a couple of new games, and they worked fine. I played one of them to 1075AD.
The only signifcant changes I made in the batch that night were adding the two new Wonders, and changing the effects of the other two. This might be important info if these crashes start occurring again.

[Paul]

Are the saves that crashed games that were started before the changes? I know that CTP saves some information with the game; loading a game that was started with different game files might have caused the crash. Does CTP also crash when you load a game that was started with all those new files?

quote: Originally posted by WesW on 04-14-2000 10:33 PM Locutus sent in the last trigger today, the one which allots additional militias based upon city size. (Is that guy a machine, or what? )

Well, I'd say half-machine, half-captain-of-the-Enterprise.

[Locutus]

I'm downloading the latest version of your mod now and will try it out with all the SLIC code installed. We'll see how that goes.

quote: Originally posted by WesW on 04-14-2000 10:33 PM Locutus sent in the last trigger today, the one which allots additional militias based upon city size. (Is that guy a machine, or what? )

Actually, I'm a human-machine hybrid

Locutus

Update: damn, Paul just beat me to it
------------------
Resistance is futile
[This message has been edited by Locutus (edited April 15, 2000).]

[MadWoodster]

If anyone playing this game ever finds it boring do what I did by accident:
I was leading in most areas using a slightly modified version of WesW's 2.1 beta relase when I had a fair amount of money I increased my wages to 6, however a few turns later I ran out of money, didn't notice it and 3/4 of my civilization revolted, now I'm bottom in most things but still have a slight lead in science. Making a come back slowly but surely. p.s. any way of having a SLIC checker for this thing silimar to the hunger one, as I doubt I'm the only one who has done this by accident. But it is a good challenge to see if I can come back.

[Locutus]

Well, the new SLIC-code works fine on the latest beta so that's one worry less for me. I can now devote my attention to flatmap-support again (unless something else needs my attention of course).

I must say though, with my large cities having several garrison/militia units defending them I don't feel a real need for defending it with other units (apart from frontline and other key-cities of course). Maybe the AI-files should be adapted to make sure the AI doesn't over-defends it's cities now? All these units mean support-costs will rise considerably and keep the AI from building offensive armies and wonders & improvements and such.

MadWoodster,

If you mean you want some code that warns you when your treasury gets below a certain amount, sure that's possible. (Doesn't that exist already?) But if you want something that warns you when you end your turn if you will have to lower your wages the next turn, that probably not possible.

Locutus

[WesW]

Thanks, Paul. (No more scrolling)
I started a third new game, and have had no problems. I guess the previous game *did* crash because of some incompatibility with the changes, so I am not worried about it anymore.

Anyone know where the text is that adds costs to advances based upon how many previous advances you have discovered? I need to find this and lower it.

I added all the new stuff to the aips, and tailored them to the respective personality types somewhat.
Clerics will go for Theocracy, as usual. I also have them going for the sea advances, the better to spread their religion. They will go for defensive infantry, and the Hagia Sophia.
Slavers will go for sea advances and defensive infantry as well, and the Emancipation Proc.
Warriors will go for offensive infantry and mounted units, and the Cohort and Sphinx-type Wonders.
Scientists will go for Theology, with its Academy and defensive infantry, then go for other defensive inf. and the University. They will go for Plato's Academy and Galileo's Telescope.

I got the non-HTML readmes finished tonight (they didn't take nearly as long as I had feared). I also made some changes to which advances increase and decrease pollution, based upon info in the "bugs" thread here. This change should get rid of the Gaia Theory bug that eliminates pollution when the advance is discovered.

I forgot- Yes, Morgoth, I used your militia pic, and it works great. The white background makes it very easy to spot.

I don't know if the multiple militias will cause problems late in the game, or not. None of my games have had cities big enough to get more than 3, so I guess we just have to play-test.
[This message has been edited by WesW (edited April 17, 2000).]

[MadWoodster]

Locutus,
Is it possible to get the population, ie sum up each of the player's cities' population then multiply this by the current wage value and check if this is less than the player's money and if so warn them.

WesW,
Quick thing what happens if your city has got 9 units in it when another milita is added to it due to a size growth, do you not get the milita for that go or do you lose one of your 9 units or does the game crash???

[Locutus]

MadWoodster,

Nope, sorry. You can't check wages with SLIC. But I think it should be possible (To Activision: *hint* *hint* ). I carefully studied all my SLIC-documentation and I couldn't see any way to calculate how much gold will be needed the next turn. So I'm afraid it's just not possible (unless Don has something interesting to say about this, he's supposed to have some SLIC-info no-one else has, but I wouldn't count on it).

About the nine-units thing. I don't think I have actually tested that (not sure though, I've got a memory like a sieve ), but I'm sure I did have similar situations and there I just didn't get extra units (in this case, militias). So none of your normal units will be killed and the game won't crash or anything, but I'll check to be sure.

Locutus

[Paul]

You would not only need the wages paid but also the maintenance costs for the city improvements.

[WesW]

Several things to address here...
I was apparently over-optimistic about my city founding changes. The grid the AI lays its cities out in *does* seem to be more efficient, but they still make a lot of bonehead decisions. It does seem to be an improvement, though, so I guess you take what you can get.

I made some changes to the aips, pertaining to which Wonders the respective types go after. I tried to set it so that at least one type will emphasize each of them. I set the Clerics to go after Stonehenge and the Aqueduct, to offset Theocracy's food liability.

I changed the effect of rivers so that they always add 5 food, and never any production. This should benefit cities which get stuck in rugged terrain, where the food means much more then the production would. Thanks to Tim for pointing this out, as well as the Cleric changes.

I reduced the amount of science cost added for each advance discovered from 25 to 15. I haven't tested this yet, but some adjustment is necessary with all the advances added. The advances progression was really lagging by the end of the Ancient age, before recovering during the Renaissance. This should smooth things out.

[WesW]

I have decided to post the text files for the Medieval Pack 3.0. They should work fine with the old graphics. I will post the new graphics files when Morgoth sends in the updated sprites, and I figure out some tga glitches for the new pics.
I also posted the, hopefully, final version of the advances chart. (Though it's also included in the text download.) I have not updated the HTML versions of the readmes.

Btw, do you think I should divide the graphics package in two? It took almost 30 min. to upload the texts, and the graphics pack is more than twice that big.