Med Mod 4 problems/issues

[WesW]

Well, I have gotten my IExplorer and Outlook Express going again, so I am happy. It turned out that I just needed to download the 5.0 version of Explorer and get OE again as well. The support guy at Microsoft said that I would have to re-install Windows to get them working again. Well, back to the game....

From what I know of the scenarios being put together, you need to be pretty good with SLIC, which I am not. Therefore, I am not one of the guys putting together a scenario. I *do* plan on converting the Med mod 4 over to CtP2 when it comes out, so you tell me which you would rather me do?
I do think the CtP2 *boxed* scenarios are going to be very enjoyable, which would make them the first such scenarios to ever come with a civ game (except for maybe the Roman and WWII ones from the original civ2).

I have done everything on my to-do list except package the mod. I should get this done in the next couple of days. As expected, my semester break has been quite hectic. I haven't played CtP at all.

Tim, send in anymore pics that you run across. I will wait until the end to get them in.

Once I get the last changes made and the packaging done, I will start a game to try and check everything, and then I will be setting this bird free.

[MadWoodster]

Fair point Timothy.
I think we would all love to have our input on CTP2 but I wonder how much a beta tester can get change in a game that is so far down the line.

Whateer happened to Celestial Dawn who made some great discoveries when CTP first came out.

[DiscoveryOne]

Hey guys! I finally got an evening off, and what do I do? Lurking around Apolyton/CTP....

Working 75 hours/wk doesn't afford me much CTP time, but I may ditch the after-school job, and if so will load up the Mod Mod!

How's Morgoth and his eye? Is he going to try to one day do the sprites for the Mod Mod, even if only for a CTP2 mod?

I'm sorry I was unable to finish the GLs, but it looks as though they've been in more than capable hands.

Check you folks later!

P.S. I think that the secret Actigrammers are Harlan and Morgoth, meself, although Wes does belong in there....

[Pintello]

Hi Madwoodster,

I am not really much of a moder. All I figured out was how to add production, food, and gold resources to trade goods. It was left up to Wes and Nordicus to use that discovery in their mods.

I like beta testing though, and I think I would make a good beta tester for Activsion. Wonder if they will contact me? They haven't yet, but then their beta version isn't suppose to be out for another week or so. Oh well, a guy can always dream. Fantasy worlds are so much more predictable than the real one.

Timothy Pintello

[WesW]

Well, I have been working with the gls today. I integrated the 4.0 version into the 3.0, and didn't have a crash or anything.

I made gameplay gls for the new improvements and units, and corrected many of the gameplays for existing improvements whose effects have been changed.

I set the effect of both the Kremlin and Pentagon to a 45% reduction in unit support costs. This should work out to about 10% of total production, which puts it in line with other wonders.

I also made it so that capturing a city will always result in the destruction of one improvement. Bombarding a city has a 50% chance of destroying something.

Finally, I made a change in the aips to try and keep the AIs from making so many settlers when they have no where to send them.

Just about there...

[wheathin]

Wes,

One other production change I totally forgot about - the Incubation Center's 25% is not proportional to the other production enhancements.

More generally, does anyone build Universities in the mod? Publishing Houses have more per-citizen science, and Research Centers are more cost-effective. I've just stopped using them entirely - maybe a tweak is in order?

[WesW]

Wheathin, I looked over the improvement chart here, and the costs seem to be about right. I don't think the per citizen amount means nearly as much as the %, so given this they seem in line with one another.

Btw, I received Adam's historical gls today, and John sent in what he had done with the advances a couple of days ago. I managed to construct a few gls from them. I converted Tim's new pic of the Lighthouse as well.
I think that is everything. I am going to start a game right after posting this to try and check things out, then I will begin posting to my site. I will let you know when it is all up.

[WesW]

The Public Release version of the Med mod 4 is now posted at my Homepage! Please get it, look it over, and let me know if there are any problems with it! If nothing comes up in the next couple of days, I will tell Mark to post it here at Apolyton.

This is the last mod I plan on doing for CtP1. I think I have done about all that can be done with the game, with the help of many others here, of course. I haven't played any other computer game, or read a book for leisure since I started mod-making back in July of last year. I plan on doing some of those things in the next few months, as well as school starting back on Wednesday.

I have had a great time doing these things, have collaborated with some great people from all over the world, made some good friendships, and hopefully learned some skills that I can carry over into my professional life in the future.
I am sure that I will keep up with the forums, both in this section and the CtP2 general one. By the time CtP2 comes out, I will probably feel like getting back into mod-making, so don't think you have heard the last from me there!

[WesW]

I realized earlier today that I had not put the actual screenmod files into the mod. I have now posted a new text component which contains these files.
If the size of the text component of the mod you have is 2.1 megs, you need to get the new version, which is 2.74 megs.

[Locutus]

Wes,

I downloaded your Mod and gave it a try. It's looking really good, you (and the other guys of course) did a great job once again
I didn't really come very far in the game yet but I noticed the following problems already:

1) When downloading and unzipping your mod I encountered some CRC errors. This is probably just a one-time thing but if more people report problems in downloading/unzipping the mod you might want to check it out (luckily I already had the damaged files from the previous betas, so there's no real problem for me).

2) ModPicker doesn't like how you named the scenario folder ("Med Pack 4.0"), it won't start the game when I start it up with your mod selected. I solved this problem by renaming it to "MedPack40", which solved the problem (apperently ModPicker, or rather CtP itself, won't take spaces and/or dots as part of a foldername in civpaths.txt). Not really a big deal but it can be quite a pain to find out why the game refuses to start (took me almost 2 hours ), so I thought I'd mention it here (maybe you want to mention it in the readme or on your website as well).

3) Some of the GL-files seem to be missing. I get blank area's when I try to read historical info on the new City Improvements or either historical or gameplay info on the new Advances and the Constitutional Monarchy government.

Well, that's all so far. If I encounter anything else, I'll let you know, now I'm going back to my game, I've got some Greeks to kill (no offence, Markos )

Wouter

[WesW]

Wouter, I don't know what CRC problems are, so you need to spell them out for me.

There are some gl files which weren't made for the mod. John was working on the advances' historical gls when he got a second job and had to stop living. I didn't feel that the improvement hist gls were that important. I did make the gameplay gls for them, which do an adequate job of describing them.
I can make a gameplay gl for the Constitutional Monarchy if I upload another version of the mod.

This is the first report of a problem with modpicker, and I don't know why there would be one now if there has not been with all of the betas and so-forth which used a version of Med Pack *.0.

Gedrin has been putting together an slic function that gives civs a chance of acquiring an advance whenever another civ discovers one. It works like the Internet and Great Library, except that it only fires when the advance is discovered or traded, and the chances of a civ getting it improve with the number of civs who currently have the advance. This is designed to help weak civs keep up in the game, which is something I think we would all like to see.

[ajbera]

When I have some free time I can work on the gls for the advances, if anyone deems them sufficiently necessary.

[Paul]

Wouter, I think you just got a bad download. I didn't get any errors when I unzipped it.

About the Modpicker problems: you're right, I had the same problem. Apparently CTP doesn't like spaces in the paths in civpaths.txt. I had discovered this with Med Mod 3, but at the time I was busy and forgot to post about it.

I guess not many other people use Modpicker, because I don't remember anyone else posting about it either. At least there is an easy solution for the problem: just rename the Med Pack 4.0 folder to something with no spaces in it.

[Locutus]

Wes,

A CRC (cyclic redundancy check, but don't even try to remember that ) error means that a zipped file is in some way damaged and can't be unzipped anymore. As I already suspected and Paul confirmed it's due to a bad download this time and won't cause anyelse any problems.

As Paul said, ModPicker probably isn't used by too many people and until now no-one thought of posting about it. Up until now I usually unzipped your mod to my desktop and then manually moved them to the CtP folders (using the old 'Medieval' name) so I never noticed it before.

About the help files: oh ok, just making sure you hadn't forgotten about them. Now you mention it, I vaguely remember you posting this before...

I like what I hear about the new SLIC code, seems like a good addition to the game to me. If Gedrin needs any help with the code, or you need any other SLIC-code, I wouldn't mind helping out. You mentioned a while back you didn't want any new SLIC-code in this version of your mod so I never bothered to offer my services before.

Well, back to my game again...

Wouter

[WesW]

I can change the name of the scenario folder easily enough, the annoying thing is that it has to be done for all three components of the mod, so all three will have to be uploaded again.
Gedrin sent me the slic trigger today, but I will have to wait until tomorrow to see if it works. If it does, I will post a new version of the text component of the mod (the advances chart had a couple of errors in it as well). I will also post the graphics portions with the scenario folder changed from: 'Med Pack 4.0' to 'MedPack4'.

Adam, if you want to write up gameplay gls for the new advances, I will put them in. They are not 'needed' however, so you may want to spend your weekend on other things. The historical gls can certainly wait until the ctp2 version of the mod, when John will hopefully have time to get back to them.
You did a fine job with the unit gls, btw.