Announcement

**hexagonian** · June 19, 2000, 08:56

Just make sure that there is a note in the installation readme concerning the userprofile.txt. I forgot that your mod incorporates the Apolyton Pack.

In the past, I had the Apolyton Pack always installed as part of my setup, but now I have two setups on my system - one for my PBEMs and the MedMod.

**Pintello** · June 19, 2000, 11:33

Hi Wes,

I am playing on a map of the size 90x180, however, this map size seems to have messed up the rivers settings. What do you change to get more rivers into the game. When I used your Beta on a regular size large map, there river distribution was fine, however, when I changed the large map to size 90x180 something happened to the rivers and they are nolonger evenly distibuted. Could you give me some help on this?

Regards,
Timothy Pintello

**Savant** · June 19, 2000, 14:59

quote:

Originally posted by WesW on 06-19-2000 01:08 AM
Don and I have made a disturbing discovery the last couple of days: The const.txt, which contains settings for all kinds of things in the game, is not completely read when placed in the scenario section. I have therefore been forced to move it to the original section, where it will overwrite the original file. I have placed a copy of the original const. file with the original aidata files in the readme folder.

Golly! I just installed it all ala Skorpion's wonderful instruction set and by god! it works! So now I'll move that cpnst.txt file. NICE WORK Wes! This was my first problem-free installation from scratch of modpack since I started playing mods last summer. You rule Wes !

While I am at it, what are your thoughts about placing a modified userprofile.txt in the original structure, with the debug already set to "yes"? This would mean that those of you who play with more than 8 civs would have to manually change it again, but it would eliminate the problems everyone has with the SLIC messages.
I have been thinking about this for some time, and, as we have seen, even veteran players sometimes forget to change the debug when installing or re-installing the game.

Yes, do that. I agree. I didn't forget bc I remember it from all the other installations I made over the many months, but even Marko has forgotten (as in an earlier post). Just need to advise newbies about the change.

Everyone with an opinion post here quick. I plan to have the next, and hopefully last, beta posted in a few days, with customized aips for the large maps, and the last few standard game changes included as well. Hopefully, this beta will be out for a few days, so that we can get in a game with it, and I can be integrating Don's maps into the pack. Then it will be off to Mark for the public release.

**skorpion59** · June 19, 2000, 15:51

Pintello,

You probably already know this but I thought I would pass along some info in case you didn't. (I have been working on correct map generation on larger maps for a week now and much of the knowledge here came from Mr Ogre.)

The only options pertaining to rivers is in the const.txt file. The following options can be changed:

quote:

PERCENT_RIVER 25 # percent of land with a river on it
RIVER_LENGTH 15 # average river length
RIVER_CELL_WIDTH 10 # Size of cells to be searched for river starts
RIVER_CELL_HEIGHT 10 # (highest point in each cell)

Unfortunately, this doesn't really do you much good if you don't change the settings in the map.txt file. Let's say you change the Gigantic option in const.txt to 140x280 but make no other changes. The map generation process will create a map based on the setting in the const.txt and map.txt files. Since all this pertains to a 70x140 map, that is what is produced. Then garbage is added to fill out the rest of the map. This garbage consists of random water/sea combinations. (To see this easily, make a 140x280 map this way then do a show map in the cheat mode and look at the map in the lower left. About half the map will have this very obvious water/land combo.) To get around this, you need to change the settings in the map.txt file. It has 11 settings for each map size with the 6th setting saying 'default'. These settings pertain to the island/continent slider settings(0-10) in the map options. So, if you always create maps with the slider set at full continent(10), you need to modify the parameters in the 11th(last) setting section for the map size you are using. Be sure and change the initial gigantic map size from 70x140 to 140x280(or whatever you are creating) in the map.txt file as well. Forgetting about game specific things, added movement points, city size limits, etc, this is how you create a larger map. The map creation process and actual settings are an entirely different subject and one which I haven't totally mastered yet. But here is a brief try.

The map generation process uses 4 DLLs to generate the map. They are found in userprofile.txt and look like the following:

quote:

MapPlugin0=dll\\map\\geometric.dll
MapPlugin1=dll\\map\\crater.dll
MapPlugin2=dll\\map\\plasma2.dll
MapPlugin3=dll\\map\\fault.dll
*Note* Your last will say plasma2.ddl, I prefer using fault.dll.

The first plugin creates a height map. The "geometric" DLL used by default basically just sprinkles rectangles around the map, trying to do so in such a way that they clump together to form continents. After it is done, it can actually run the same code as fault.dll, but see below.
The second pass acts as a filter on the output of the first pass. The crater.dll that's used places random circular impressions in the height map.
Once the height map is done, the game sets the water at a level that will give the correct percentage of land, and turns the rest into land, hills, and mountains.
The next two plugins control temperature and humidity (actually terrain type via Meridian and Hlevel, see below). They generate height maps the same way as the first 2 plugins. Note: Rivers, Hills and Mountains are a separate entity from Land. Land is made up of Grassland, Plains, Swamps, Forests and Tundra.

The map.txt setting you deal with are as follows:

quote:

MAP_NUM_CONTINENTS 15
MAP_MIN_WIDTH 4
MAP_MIN_HEIGHT 4
MAP_MAX_WIDTH 30
MAP_MAX_HEIGHT 60
MAP_BUMP_SIZE 12
MAP_MIN_SUBCONTINENTS 2
MAP_MAX_SUBCONTINENTS 4
MAP_SUBCONTINENT_SIZE 0.6
MAP_SUBCONTINENT_HEIGHT 0.5
MAP_BORDER_SIZE 15
MAP_FAULT_LINES 0
MAP_FAULT_LENGTH 1.0
MAP_NS_BORDER_SIZE 5

The "geometric" dll plops down random rectangles. The numbers here affect how random they are. The number of continents is supposed to be the number of "top level" rectangles it generates. The width and height parameters affect the size. "Subcontinents" are smaller rectangles that get placed randomly around the
continents. The height inside each rectangle varies a little bit (I think
the BUMP_SIZE parameter says how much), and each rectangle adds to wherever it is placed. So the places you get mountains are the spots where several
rectangles combined to make a high point. Changing the "Fault Line" produces a fuzzier or less thready continent.

Now, changing the const.txt settings (in particular, MERIDIAN and HLEVEL) allow you to influence, increase or decrease, specific types of terrain(grassland, plains, forest, swamp).

So, the map.txt basically produces the map layout while the const.txt settings(all settings from the start of the file down through the river portion) produce the type of terrain which is applied to it.

While the whole process is a bit more intertwined than this, there is your Brief Overview of everything you DIDN'T want to know about map creation in 5000 words or less.

Don
[This message has been edited by skorpion59 (edited June 19, 2000).]

**skorpion59** · June 19, 2000, 16:17

Wes,

I have to agree with Paul on the userprofile.txt issue. I change most all the settings and I don't want to lose those changes when installing a ModPack.

If you want to do something, add a message, a la TP's, that comes up on the first round of the game that says, 'Did you change the Debug Option to Yes'.

[This message has been edited by skorpion59 (edited June 19, 2000).]

**Paul** · June 19, 2000, 16:26

That message on the first turn sounds like a good idea. I have also made some changes to userprofile.txt that I would like to keep.

**Pintello** · June 19, 2000, 16:28

Hi Don,

Thanks for the information. I will have to look at it carefully to get everything right, but still thanks for the response. I will try again based on this information.

Timothy Pintello

**WesW** · June 20, 2000, 13:10

Don, your description of the "fault" setting on the maps intrigued me. Could you give some examples of what happens when you play around with this setting?
I will not put in a userprofile.txt in the mod. I need someone to put together a "Troubleshooting Guide" in stick in the readme folder. I think this would be a good way to handle the problems that people have. I have too much to do right now to put it together. Don's step-by-step installation in his thread would need to be included, as well as examples of the debug errors, and how to fix them. Anything else anyone can think of would help as well.

John, did you check about the "two wonders" bug that you might have found?
I haven't checked the "green me" changes either. I guess I will do it in the next few days.

I spent about three hrs last night working on the mod, and just about everything is ready to go from my end of things.

I was changing some of the terrain settings for the "Large" version of the mod (see the Huge maps thread), and finally figured out that the "env freight" line in the terrian text sets the value the game puts on terrain when deciding on the shortest route for caravans. The value for roads and ocean types were the same, which explains why the game chooses to leave roads and cross sea tiles on your internal trade routes. Well, I changed the value for ocean types from 33 to 50, which should mean that the routes will keep to roads now, and this will keep your internal trade routes safe from Pirates whenever possible. Another annoying bug removed.

I made what aidata changes I thought needed to be made for the Large version of the mod, and figured out a couple more that should help all versions of the game a little.

For the Large version, I made travel on Grasslands and Plains quicker when using rivers, roads and railroads, and made new versions of the appropriate gls texts to show the changes I have made (I also configured the terrainicon.txt to show them).

Finally, I updated many of the readmes to show the latest changes to the modpack, and re-structured the way you go from one version of the mod to another. Now, you simply unzip the version you want to change to into the Call-to-Power folder, like you do when initially installing the modpack. These zips are included in the Readme folder.

I will take a little time to check everything, and then I will post this last beta in a couple of days.

**Pintello** · June 20, 2000, 15:23

Hi Don and Wes,

I spent some time last night playing with the map settings as Don described in this post yesterday and I have some very positive results to report.

By adjusting the different continent settings higher, I was able to get a very well distributed map set to size 90x180. It worked like a charm.

I also upped the river settings to 95, 25, 12, and 12 respectively in the Const.txt file. The results were very nicely distributed rivers with every decent size land mass having atleast a couple of rivers. This also resulted in some fairly long rivers as well, which I thought was more realistic. After all, the Nile, Mississippi, Missouri, Volga, and several others cross most of various contients. However, most of the rivers created are fairly short, no more that 4 or 5 squares long if that.

More rivers seems to affect the AI in a positive manner as well. I thought I was doing very well, until I took a look at the power graph and the total ranking popups started coming up. Unlike previous game with poorer starting points than this one, I have never been more than 4 on Science, and I only recently was able to come out ahead on number of cities. By using a lot of barbarian slave labor, I have managed to make my capital the largest city in the world, but only by one and the rest of my cities are 5 or smaller, even those with Barbarian Slave Labor of their own.

All in all, I would have to say that these map changes have been for the better as far as the game and AI goes. I also changed the last map dll in the userprofile.txt file from plasma2.dll to fault.dll as Don advised.

On other fronts in the Beta 5 game things are going well too. The AIs seem to have their cities well in hand and are placing them wisely for the most part. The new Garrison setup also seems to be working well.

Wes, you will like to hear that the AI Navies appear to be more effectively used. In my games the AIs tend to use navy stacks now. One configuration they seem to like is to stack a Trieme with a Fire Trieme, thus combining a ranged unit with an unranged unit. Pretty smart in my book.

A further example of smart use of Naval units happened in my last game. At one point I had a stack of 4 Carvels that I was using to disrupt the shipping of the Native American whom I was at war with, so the AI responded by sending a stack of 3 Carvels and a Longship to counter it, along with an independent Carval. The independent Carval bombarded my stack and then the 4 stack assaulted my stack. Pretty smart tactics for an AI. Unfortunately for them, I had 4 Carvels and they only had 3 and a Longship, additionally, atleast one of my Carvels, and possibley 2, I don't remember, was a veteran. I lost 2 Carvels for all 4 of the AI's ships, but both were badly damaged. When I then bombarded the lone Carvel of the AI I lost my most damaged one to the counter bombard. End result, I lost 3 Carvels to the AI's 4 Carvels and a Longship. A great victory that could have gone the other way if the AI had stacked all 5 ships or if I did not have all Carvels and a veteran or 2. Still, it shows a remarkable increase in Naval tactics for the AI.

Another stunt the AI pulled that I had not seen before was used earlier in the game. They had a stack of 1 Trieme and 1 Fire Trieme that had 3 Horse Archers on it. They landed those horse archers right next to one of my frontier cities that only had the Garrison Troops and a Phalanx in it. They took that city right from me! It took me several turns to build up the troops and move them to the taken city before I could get it back. In that time the AI had placed a second unit in the city and started developing around it. Fortunately 2 Horse Archers don't fair well against 4 Catapults and 5 Samurai.

Well that is all for now.

Timothy Pintello

**DiscoveryOne** · June 21, 2000, 00:08

Wes

Yeah, I'm playing a game at the most basic level, so's I can be sure to get all of the Wonders to test this. (The Harappans still got one, though!)

It happened again, but only once. I built Colossus, and the city building Silk Road stopped doing so. They retained the production, though, so I just continued. Never happened again, although I have had 3 cities doing nothing but Wonder-building whenever possible.

When you do your readme, please make sure that you assume that the downloader knows nothing! I remember when I discovered Apolyton and tried to load a mod, I did it after just loading the game. Some mod-maker (who shall remain nameless) copped an attitude, telling me that it was my fault that I couldn't find userprofile.txt, and that perhaps I should learn Windows first! No one told me that there is no userprofile.txt until you actually play the game! (BTW, it is no one that is on the Med Mod, nor would I think that anyone here would do such a thing!)

Well, enough kvetching, and back to CTP!

**WesW** · June 21, 2000, 13:20

The 6.0 beta of the Medieval Pack is now up!
This version contains the "Large" version of the modpack, and all of the other changes listed in this thread. I am posting this so everyone interested can get it and check to see if it installs properly, if the explanations of how to use the various versions of the modpack make sense, and to report any bugs that come up. I do not plan on making any more changes to the game between now and the public release.
I will be putting together a Trouble-shooting guide in the next few days, setting up the maps and so-forth that Don has ready, and going over the readmes one last time. These are the only changes planned between what is now posted and the public release.

Thanks for the feedback, John. I may mention the wonders occurance in the Trouble shooting guide, but it doesn't seem to be a serious problem. (Not that I have any idea what to do about it if it were.)
The map settings Tim and Don have been discussing will be something to play with during the Medpack 4 development.

**mbm** · June 21, 2000, 18:37

What is the recomendations for using the "large" version? (eg. min number of civs and min map size). I play with 8 civs on the default gigantic size map (How do I use bigger maps and more civs?)

I haven't used the beta 6 yet but it looks like my question is answered in the next post

[This message has been edited by mbm (edited June 21, 2000).]
[This message has been edited by mbm (edited June 22, 2000).]

**Ganja** · June 22, 2000, 09:21

Just downloaded beta 6.0, when I go to start a new game then select scenario I click on med pack 3.0, the next screen I get 3 choices of games to play - standard, flat and large. These are all version 3.0 is this right ??

**WesW** · June 23, 2000, 01:35

Right, Ganja. You and mbm both need to take advantage of the readmes that come with the modpack. This goes for everyone else as well how hasn't done so yet. They don't take all *that* long, and are well worth the time spent on them.
Remember, the Medpack isn't like a civ2 scenario that you try once or twice and then forget about. Hopefully this is what you will be playing with from now on, so look at the readmes like you would the instruction manual for the original game.
Here is the path to them, for those of you unfamiliar with scenarios: C:\Program Files\Activision\Civilization-Call To Power\scenarios\Medieval\Med 3 readmes

I said that I would not make any more changes to the mod, but you know me.
I am playing my current game on a "huge" map, with 8 civs, and it is a blast! All the civs are filling out their unit lists, settling every patch of dirt (or ice) on the map, and they are starting to slug it out amongst themselves as well.
I have been at war with two or three civs since the early Renaissance age, and it has been a constant struggle for control of the seas, even with me stacking ships. The AIs often stack them as well, and they build so many, it is faster than I can knock them down sometimes.
With the AIs filling out their unit lists, if you start destroying their navy, for example, then ships will be the only units they build, since they don't need any more land units.
The AIs seem to be more willing to launch amphibious invasions far from home as well. I was invaded twice by an AI who was separated from me by an ocean at least a dozen squares wide. I don't know if any more invasions were sunk before they made it to my shores; probably.
I am no 2 in science right now, am fixing to get Machine Gunners, and even the last place civ has Musketeers-it's that even of a game. I tried to make everyone about equal as far as the map was concerned at the start of the game, and the AIs have really responded.

I can really tell a difference now that the game is using all of the alterations present in the const.txt. I feel so stupid about this. I noticed back last *year* that a change I had made to the number of diplomacy requests you could make in a turn was not implemented in the game. I just put it down to an irregularity, and pretty much forgot about it. If I had checked out the file then, we could have been having better games for about 8 months now. Oh, well.

From my current game, I can see that adjusting the timeline for the Large version was a mistake, so I have put the regular one back in, with the reduction to the starting advances still in place.
I noticed that I had not raised the defensive value for regular Hills from 50 to 75 percent as it should have been, so I corrected that. I also made Railroad a second preq for Chemistry.

Let me know what's going on with *your* games!

**Martock** · June 23, 2000, 13:06

well it seems that since i downloaded the med 6 update, the cruise missile bug i was encountering has disappeared. which is a good thing because i was largely ignoring them and switching to the more expensive bomber units to handle my pest problems. the one thing i've noticed though is that the computer is less likely to do any sort of negotiations. for example, in my current game, 4 of the 7 empires love me (1 is my ally), these "friendlies" WON'T exchange maps, stop pirating(rarely anyway), or stop trespassing(they will NEVER agree to this). now while i'm not really concerend with the maps at this point(i just got done building global sate...) it does bother me that the friendly nations won't agree to get off my lands. it's resulted in me getting into a few wars or cheating and using the "kill" function on their units. i tend to use the kill function a bit late in the game anyway to deal with the old phalnax troops or triemes.

aside from me occassionally whacking the museum pieces off the planet's face, i'm still perplexed at the computer's refusal to negotiate. mind you, i'm playing deity level, huge map, 8 empires. i'm first in all but # of cities and amount of land held. i've got no problem deploying nukes in the game and regularly use them to whack large stacked fleets(i was never one to build up a large navy). with regards to the power graph, i am well above all the other opponents though my ally (scots) is closing the gap. any ideas on why the computer AI won't take to the stop trespassing requests?

Announcement

Medieval Pack beta 5.0+

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