Med Mod 4 problems/issues

[Locutus]

Wes,

As far as I'm concerned I don't think there's a need for you to upload everything again just to change the foldername, we can do that ourselves (unless you're updating anyway). You might want to add a line to the readme in which you mention the Modpicker problem.

[WesW]

Too late, Wouter.
I have uploaded all three components, with Gedrin's new 'dissemination' trigger integrated into the pack. Tim sent in a couple of new pics for the Colossus and Plato's Academy, so I had to do the pics anyway. You may have noticed that I moved the videos from the pics to the sprites component. This was because the pics component had grown a lot with all the new units and advances, while the sprites had stayed about the same. This makes the components about the same size again.

Btw, Hexagonian sent in a 'Collector's Edition' of the Advances Chart, which I posted by the intro link. You need Adobe Acrobat to use it.

As far as SLIC, I didn't want to add triggers for individual wonders and so-forth, mainly because I didn't know if they would slow the game down significantly.
I am always open to new info about things people have made or are working on, though. I certainly didn't mean that I wouldn't consider adding any new slic stuff.

[Locutus]

I'll check out the new version after I finished my current game. I already had a look at the new Advances Chart: very cool. Too bad my printer messes it up. Oh well, I can edit pdf files myself as well so I might make my own version if I have the time.

As far as SLIC goes, I don't have anything in the making that's gonna work within reasonable time. I've got plenty of stuff but I'm stuck on all of it and I don't really feel like putting too much time in it with CtPII coming up and such. But should you (or anyone else) have idea's that can be realized fairly quickly I'd be happy to help out.

[gemini]

Hey Locutus how are you?

Well I did post this back about a month ago in one of the med mod threads I think.
I think it's kind of a cool idea, some sort of plague trigger with a percent chance of decreasing certain populations until a certain advance is discovered, and you could also have a population bonus trigger where cities could have a percent chance of recieving another pop point.

I guess it's only a matter of deciding how much population to increase and decrease and what kind of percent chance and with which advance does it disable.

Here's an idea, okay, 4% chance of increasing or decreasing by one pop each turn. Also maybe a 1% chance that the city might increase or decrease by 3 each turn.

Here's how the code might look.

trigger 'popuup' when (g.player){
x = 0;
while(player.cities > x){
setcitybyindex(1,g.player,x);
ronin = random(99);
if(ronin < 3){
randos = random(99);
if(randos < 1){
addpops(city.1,3);
}
else{addpops(city.1,1);}
}
if(ronin > 95){
randos = random(99);
if(randos < 1){
addpops(city.1,-3);
}
else{addpops(city.1,-1);}
}
x = x + 1;
}
}

// this is to disable the above trigger if 
//the player has the certain advance.

trigger 'dismeallthetime' when (g.player && discovery.type == 231){

disabletrigger ('popuup');
}

Okay i saw two problems with this. First, once one player discovers the advance that disables the plague/increase trigger all the rest of the players will benefit but I don't think it's a big concern.

Another problem with the code is that if a city is destroyed due to a population decrease the game might crash unless you
there is some way to find out if the city has been destroyed(I can't think of one right now)and then set the value of x accordingly. Anyway this was all written in a rush but I think the fundamentals will work. And I think it would be sooooooo cool.

quote: As far as SLIC, I didn't want to add triggers for individual wonders and so-forth, mainly because I didn't know if they would slow the game down significantly. I am always open to new info about things people have made or are working on, though. I certainly didn't mean that I wouldn't consider adding any new slic stuff.

I don't think it would slow the game down that much, not even a noticable difference, for my scenario I have added alot of triggers with no noticable difference, only when something huge and significant happens, like when france falls when paris is captured and the cities change hand from French to German control was there a slow down on that player's turn but other than that it seems pretty fast.

Anyway I hope you decide to add this.

Also there was an interesting idea posted in the creation forum the other day. A national guard improvement or wonder. If it was attached to a wonder then I thought maybe the player that builds it could get some sort of addition pw to build defence improvements or a free unit in each city(but I think the garrison units pretty much already solve that problem). Anyway just an idea.

Thanks....




------------------
Gemini

[gemini]

Actually guys, I was just thinking about it and the trigger wouldn't have to disable once the first civ has discovered the obseleting advance.

if(hasadvance(g.player,id_thisone) == 0){

nest the rest of the code in

}

That should fix that problem.

------------------
Gemini

[TheBirdMan]

Hey Gemini.

That one with Paris and the fall of France is cool.

Could this be extended to something like this:

For every 10-15 cities, one "provinse capital" are allowed (you have to choose one city). This city should have some nice benefits, maybe reduce capitol distance and crime - something like that.

But if this city falls, all cities in a range of say 6-10 tiles this city also falls and join the enemy alternative makes a new civ?

------------------
Woodstock was here!

[gemini]

Thank you Thebirdman.

Yes actually I believe what you are asking can be done through the use of regions, I can't really think of anyway else to implement this. So for example if one of your key cities(your largest for example) is captured in a certain region, the rest of the cities in that region, belonging to that civ who lost that city would fall to the player who has captured the key city. It would be interesting but might be alot of work. Of course there would have to be a script written for a specific sized map or adjusted for different sizes of maps I would think.

Btw, I will be posting a new thread soon, I'm putting the finishing touches on my ww2 scenario and after that I will post most of the events that will take place in the scenario(there is alot), and ask for any other ideas at that time, or comments, and during that time I will be doing playtesting so there will still be lots of time to add new events.

Part of that "if paris falls the rest of france falls" is also a percent chance of each of the french colonies in North Africa can either stay under Vichy Control or become free french states. And there is also a percent chance that the Germans may capture french naval assests for thier own use. And tied into that is percent chances that other nations(including spain) may join the Axis at that or around(or before) france falls.

So maybe some of those same fundamentals can be used as a med mod event.

------------------
Gemini
[This message has been edited by gemini (edited August 29, 2000).]
[This message has been edited by gemini (edited August 29, 2000).]

[Locutus]

Hi Gemini,

I'm fine, thanks Long time no see, man.

I like your suggestions but there is so much stuff like this that can be done with SLIC you could make a seperate mod for it. In fact, that's exactly what Don and myself (and a couple of other guys) tried to do a few months back but it never quite worked out the way we wanted.
What you're suggestion brings some pretty radical changes to the game and I'm not sure if Wes would like that in this late stadium.

Anyway, I don't think disbanding a city will cause any problems as far as crashing the game goes. However you do have to keep in mind that the cityindices change if cities are destroyed. I'm in a bit of a hurry so I didn't study your code to closely but it seems that you're not taking this into account.

Well, I think I'll have more comments later but I have to run now, CU later.

PS looking forward to any information on your WWII scenario.

[gemini]

Hey Locutus, Actually I was refering to the game crashing since the indices would change. Well I don't know if it would crash but it wouldn't work right. I guess a work around is to find out the city size before making an adjustment to the pop and if it would kill the city then adjust the value of the index.

Yes pretty radical ideas and to late to put in the mod but hey, that's why they call me Mr.Radical!!! Lol.

Seeya,

------------------
Gemini

[Locutus]

Mr. Radical,

Oh, come on! I had expected better from you Those indices are pretty easy to get around. Once a city is disbanded, all subsequent cities have their index lowered with one, so you just don't have to add one to x to get the next city. One way of implementing this would be using a temp-variable to keep track of city-size as I did in the example below. (I didn't actually test any of this but it works with units, so why not with cities?)

trigger 'popuup' when (g.player){
	x = 0;
	siz = 1;	// init as 1, if nothing changes or city grows, 
			// any siz > 1 suffices
	while(player.cities > x){
		setcitybyindex(1,g.player,x);
		ronin = random(99);
		if(ronin < 3){
			randos = random(99);
			if(randos < 1){
				addpops(city.1,3);
			}else{
				addpops(city.1,1);
			}
		}
		if(ronin > 95){
			randos = random(99);
			siz = city.1.size;	// change to city.size
			if(randos < 1){
				addpops(city.1,-3);
				siz = siz - 3;	// update
			}else{
				addpops(city.1,-1);
				siz = siz - 1;	// update
			}
		}
		if (siz > 0) { // only increase x if size still > 0
			x = x + 1;
		}
	}
}
// this is to disable the above trigger if 
//the player has the certain advance.

trigger 'dismeallthetime' when (g.player && discovery.type == 231){
	disabletrigger ('popuup');
}

As far as the other ideas go, I have been thinking about creating a fortress improvement that would add an extra garrison unit to the city for my ancient scenario (which I'm putting on hold until CtPII comes along BTW), that might be an idea. But giving more PW, I don't know, that could be used for farms etc. as well. But if Wes wants to add SLIC-code for individual Wonders/Improvements I could probably come up with about a dozen better idea's.
I like the idea of provincial capitols and having surrounding cities revolt with them if they themselves revolt (this way you can also simulate the independence movements effects (eg. USA declaring independance on Brittain), if one city revolts, others follow. But it might proof difficult to generalize such a thing to normal random games. How did you do this for your scenario anyway? I mean, city improvements and wonders are lost in the process right? But it sure would be very cool if it would work.

CU later,

Wouter

[NightHawk]

I am a little bit stuck with the Med Mod 4. I installed it, and tried to use it, but the screen was thoroughly messed up. No tile graphics showed up at all, and the Settler movement graphics wouldn't clear. Basically, it is completely unplayable.

When I tried to install and use the Celestial Dawn mod, I got the same thing.

Is this specific to these mods, or have I done something wrong?

NightHawk

[gemini]

Nighthawk, does it also give you the same problems in the normal(no mod) game?

Locutus, Hey good ideas and good job with the code to.

Anyway, Yes you are correct about it destroying the city improvements and wonders, I did try a work around by spawning units by each city and using the addorder(I think that's what it was called) to make the units move automatically into that city but it only partially worked, if I remember from testing the code it would addorder successfully for the human player but when dealing with the nonhuman players it would not work. So if the ai captured paris the units would get created but they would not move into the french cities. So the only other way was to destroy them.

Two big disadvantages.
1. Wonders and Improvements destroyed.
2. Original City names lost.

Well concerning the improvements and wonders being lost, it wasn't a major concern for my scenario since the game is not structured around wonders or improvements. Infact I don't have any plans to add any at this time. I know, radical idea right? Well not really, the game is really designed around an unconvetional idea to a civ game and revolves around resources on the map(heavy and light industrial zone graphics), like it was in the real war with nations fighting for control of the industries, tech is very important to the game with *alot* of options and *alot* to research, and also events. The events are almost the wonders of the game. For example the Atlantic Wall event. Where once triggered little cement pillboxes will pop up all along the french northern coast and there will be a defense bonus, also of course, the maginot line is in the game. Oh and of course all the units included will keep the player and ai very busy.

Concerning city names being lost, for my scenario with the press of a button all the original city names will pop up again. So that problem is solved.

Sorry for the thread jacking Wes. I'll shut up now.

------------------
Gemini
[This message has been edited by gemini (edited August 29, 2000).]
[This message has been edited by gemini (edited August 29, 2000).]
[This message has been edited by gemini (edited August 29, 2000).]

[WesW]

Nighthawk, if regular games run ok, I am not sure what to tell you. Did you try re-booting the computer, and trying the mod again? If you have a system crash or 'illegal operation' message, this can cause the game to malfunction in a manner similar to what you described. Re-booting should solve this.
Then open the Troubleshooting Guide (in the text component zip), and follow the steps Don outlined at the bottom of it.

All these slic triggers sound very interesting, guys. I am going to out out the med mod 4 as is, though, unless people report errors with it. (I hope someone out there is playing it, because I haven't had the time, and am not going to have the time.)
I have been having a real bad spell with my head the last week, and am already falling behind in school. I have a Labor Day trip this weekend, and by then surely to hell that Fed Ex package will have arrived which will keep me busy for the next month or two.
From what I understand, the Activision people are set on getting CtP2 out for the Christmas season, and I can't wait to see what we can put together with the more powerful, easier to use slic2 and the stuff we have all already made for CtP1.

Can you imagine playing the Med mod 4 against an AI that knows how to wage war effectively? Plus a lot of new Wonders, improvements, etc.
How about a WWII scenario with all the possible events Gemini outlined above, and an AI that can adapt to the changing situations?
I know I'm excited!

[Locutus]

Gemini,

Yeah, I experimented with changing city-owner a while back myself. The AddOrder thing really sucks, it only works for humans (made it necessary to eliminate the space-city garrison from the MedMod, I couldn't get units to launch into space - now with the MakeLocation function it might work after all but I'm not gonna bother since space-cities are pretty rare anyway).

I really like your unconventional (too say the least ) view of the game's focus. It's much more historically accurate, individual cities are still way too important in Civ. I can't wait to have a look at your scenario The 'science-policy' and focus on events sound interesting as well. If the AI can handle all this, it sounds like this is gonna be the best scenario I've ever played.
But this does mean that the 'changing owner'-thing would never work for a regular CtP game. Oh well, we'll see what CtPII has to offer.

Wes,

Don't worry, I'm playing I'm almost done with my current game so I'm soon gonna download your latest build and try that (but I don't suppose there will be too much diffences).
One thing I noticed already is that using a cruise missile attack occationally causes the game to crash, but I haven't figured out when exactly 'occasionally' is, it seems pretty random and I can't find any kind of explanation for it. I know there was a thread about this a while back, I think I'll dig that up and see if it offers any usefull insight. The only solution I know of for now is the same as the one for the AI, don't use it.

I also noticed that the further in the game you get, the less the AI seems to bother to upgrade its units. I'm currently fighting the Turks (coincidentally I'm playing with the Greek myself so the historic accuracy is high ) and we're both in the early Genetic Age and a lot of his cities are defended by stacks of 7 or 8 (which is of course very nice) but at least 2 (most of the time even more) of those units are bombards or arquebusiers or musketeers or whatever. The rest of the defenses seem to consist largely of (Machine-Gunner) garrisons backed up by Howitzers and the occational Armor. So the defenses of most cities really only consist of 5 usefull units. I'm not sure if anything can be done about this, but I thought I'd mention it anyway (BTW I'm playing on Emperor level with 5 Civs and on a map with 90% Water).
[This message has been edited by Locutus (edited August 30, 2000).]

[hexagonian]

My two cents...

I started anothe game with MedMod4 - I was holding off on a new game until it came out.
Emperor (8 civs) - no building mines in forests either for me.

I just hit the Medival age. I exchanged an advance for Republic from another civ and got a couple of spies out. The two cities that I spied on were fully garrisonned with 9 units each (very cool) and my closest rival has a couple of spies lurking about too.

Happiness is a major issue - it seems that I have to build something constantly, and even in the cities that have built every happiness improvement available, its still an issue due to pop. size.

I'm holding off to hit the surf, to allow the AI its day in the sun in the water. I want to play this game to the end