Med Mod 4 problems/issues

[WesW]

I'll just say that the Tank now represents a mid-to-late 21st century version of the unit. I don't see the basic structure of tanks changing radically from now until then, and this placement makes for the best gameplay, imo.

I am in the Industrial age in my game, and everything is going well. I have experimented with eliminating the over-crowding effect of the Aqueduct, and I like the change. Now, you need all of the happiness improvements, sometimes as soon as you get them. There are not enough happiness improvements if you have a large war discontent.
I think I will add back one point of the over-crowding effect for the public release, to give people a little room, but the Aqueduct has always seemed a little too good of a value to me, and this makes things better, imo.

The other big news is I think I have finally succeeded in getting the AIs to attack more often. Previously, I had made small adjustments to the 'attack_troops' setting. This time, I added a zero to the value, and I think I am seeing definite changes.
Before, the AIs would usually choose to bombard rather than attack when it came to naval combat. Now I have noticed them attacking much more often, it seems. I have not had enough land combat to make a conclusion, but I am hopeful based upon what I have seen.

I am keeping track of the timeline and gold amounts generated. Reducing the government gold coefficients have certainly not messed anything up, so I consider this minor change a success. I will probably increase the cost of the late-Renaissance age advances, and I will keep track to see how the later advances play out.

[hexagonian]

Good idea to make the adjustment on the Aquaduct. Less happiness bonus, and you retain growth (faster rate to more unhappiness). heheheheh!

[WesW]

Thanks, Hex.
I made a few other changes last night. I reduced the effect of the Grand Canal (Stonehenge) from 25 to 20 percent extra food. This puts it in line with the Aqueduct improvement and Pasteur Institute wonder.
I also made the Temple and Courthouse more expensive. I raised the maintenance cost of those two and a few other improvements. Nothing major with those others.
It seems I am going to have to go in and raise the costs of the majority of the games advances. I am also going to see how the current unit settings work out. Once I do that, I think I may be ready to put this one out for public release. I start back to school for the fall semester in two weeks, and I certainly want to have this finished by then.
Btw, I am still looking for someone to write up historical gls for the new units. If no one steps forward, I may try them myself this weekend or there-abouts.

[Milkman]

Hey WesW how detailed would u like them? And are there any u have already received not in the current version on your website? Cant say they will be fantastic reading but maybe u could use some of them or parts of them.

[WesW]

Thanks for the offer, Milkman. I received a letter today from ajbera offering to do them. He said he loves doing research, so this should be right up his alley.
It's too bad John wasn't able to finish up his work on the advances.
Btw, if you have looked at the pic of the Opera House, you may notice it is in a city we are all going to be getting more familiar with over the next month or two.

[WesW]

I just wanted to tell everyone that I just installed ICQ. I guess I need to update my profile....
(Now I can reply to mod crashes in 'real time'. How thrilling.)

I altered the advances' costs tonight. Probably not enough, but it will make some difference. The ones most affected were the 19th and 20th century stuff. I increased the cost of all the later advances by 10,000.
I was going to wait until I got to those advances in my current game before making the changes, but I am having a crash problem, so I went ahead and did them anyway while I wait on some help.

My to-do list:
Incorporate the screenmod into the pack.
Go over the readmes to see if they make half-way sense.
Update fli zips and Large version of the game.
That's all I can come up with right now.
When I put the 4.0 version out for public release, I am going to have to put it in a new scenario folder, like I did for the 3.0 version. This may mess up any maps you have saved under current verisons. Just letting you know ahead of time....

[wheathin]

Hi Wes - I noticed a few things in the MedMod 3.0 (I realize its old hat, but I downloaded it only a few months ago) that may have escaped notice in the upgrade, regarding production improvements:

The readme lists the increase in pollution for Robot plant as 60%; in the txt file its coded as 30%. (I think thelower value is the better choice, mirroring the Nuke plant, which is also 30/30, but unmentioned in the readme.)

Fusion Plants have not had their effects scaled in line with the other improvements - they still add 50% production. I was thinking 60% would be better - the 'motherload' of production in the late game.

I like the shift to the 30% intervals, but it means that other improvements need changing. Now, the Pharmacy and Sec Monitor 25% bonus seems HUGE (as do some of the Wonders) - maybe those should be reduced to 15%? The sum of all these changes (including Robots, Nukes, Forges, Fusion, Pharm, SecMon) means that total unWondered production increases are limited to 300%.

Also, the reduction in polluting means that presently there is only a total of 300% increases in pollution from factories and airports, but 600% in pollution cleaning ability (i.e. you will never need Ecotransit). Tweaks to the other imps are needed:

I was thinking starting with removing the fusion plant's pollution reduction. If it gives a 60% production bonus - the game's largest! - maybe it doesn't need the other effect.

Recycling plants now clean up all pollution of Forges, Factories, and Refineries combined! Clearly, too powerful - reduce to 160%

Same for Ecotransit - 160%. That leaves 80% for the Sec monitor, for a total of 400% reduction, eliminating all pollution for a player (300% increase plus the 'base' 100%).
[This message has been edited by wheathin (edited August 13, 2000).]

[coldsteel]

If I hit f8 to go to the wonder library, go to neural interface under "advances", then click on the hyperlink to "The Borg" the game crashes on my computer.

cold

[coldsteel]

I have an ally who gives me an advance every time I demand it, very many times. If I recall in apolyton pack and previous versions allies would give you one advance on demand and that was it for the whole game. medieval 4.0 might be more challenging if that were retained.

cold

[WesW]

Thanks, Wheathin
I guess I have been so obsessed with preventing disasters that I never thought about making the pollution reducers equal the pollution producers. I have made the following changes, in addition to all the ones made in the 4.0 version:
Nuclear and Fusion plants no longer reduce pollution. I could never figure out the premise behind this anyway, which goes back to civ2 at least.
The Security Monitor had already had its reducing effect removed.
The Mass Transit and Eco-transit improvements reducing effects are now 150%. Combined with the Recycling Plant's 100% reduction effect, the total of producers and reducers should equal one another.
The pollution units removing effect of the Recycling and Solar Plants should give you a chance to save the world if an un-cooperative nation or nations are threatening to cause disasters with their pollution.
I have adjusted the costs and maintenance of the various improvements to suit these changes, imo.

Cold, I will try and see about that crash later. I have not had much success getting the AIs to give me advances, unless they are far ahead of me on the chart.

[MadWoodster]

I think the idea was that as you no longer used a coal power plant you should have some decrease in pollution caused as nuclear ones don't pollute (well not unless a fission one melts down at least)

[WesW]

Adam, I didn't get your email address last week (still learning the Netscape stuff). I need to know when you will have the historical gls ready. I think I am going to go ahead and get this mod released by the weekend.
I couldn't get my last game going again, so I was not able to see how the post-Industrial ages played out, but I feel pretty good about things. I have school and some other things coming up soon, so I don't have any choice but to get it out and let it go.

[Kevin Montgomery]

Praise the Lord and pass the ammo At least I now have this to look forward to after this already pitiful excuse for a week Thanks alot Wes.

[Pintello]

Hi Wes,

You have school coming up and "some other things" huh. Are you by chance one of Activision's 3rd Party Scenario Creators for CTP2 they mentioned? Or are you not allowed to talk about that? Lt. John did say that we would recognize some of the names.

If I were looking for 3rd Party Scenarios Creators, I would ask you, Tom Davis, Harlan, and Nordicus. I would ask you because of how much you have gotten out of the AI. I would ask Tom Davis because he makes the best 3rd Party Sprites out there. Some of Tom's Sprites are every bit as good as the stuff Activsion comes up with. I would ask Harlan because he seems to have a very good handle on what a WW2 Scenario should look like. Finally, I would ask Nordicus because of his experience in improving Diplomacy. But, if I had to pick only 2, Lt. John said a couple, I would pick you and Tom Davis.

Timothy Pintello

[This message has been edited by Pintello (edited August 16, 2000).]
[This message has been edited by Pintello (edited August 16, 2000).]

[MadWoodster]

Mind you Timothy I seem to recall you aren't that bad at moding yourself, while WesW has done alot of the work for the Medieval Pack there are other sout there like yourself who did a lot towards it.