Cradle 2.0????

[hexagonian]

I actually do not expect any outside interest in an update for Cradle, but I am actually enjoying the revisions I am adding to my own setup.

I know, I could play AOM to get a more in-depth game. After all, AOM was built off of Cradle, and it adds a great many game features that are well-thought out.

But AOM's main problem (...for me, maybe not for everyone else) was a focus on bloat. The game simply did not allow for a mid-sized empire to win. You had to expand your empire in number of cities to reach a points victory, as well as a powergraph victory. Want to do a Gaia Controller? You are looking at 1,000+ turns to reach that.

With the new features, the game also suffered from added micromanagement, especially during the Dark Ages. And because of the damage that the Dark Ages could inflict, you were funneled into a select few overall strategies, in order to survive it all.

I gravitated towards civ4 because I felt it was the best meld of all the civ games...both civ/SMAC and the CTP series. And best of all, civ4 created a vast variety of macro strategies that could be followed by both large and smaller civs to win the game. I was playing it since it came out, and had uninstalled CTP2 several years ago. Two months ago, I decided to revisit CTP2, and started to kick around some ideas that I thought I could fold into Cradle. I went with Cradle instead of AOM because it was my Mod, and rather than get rid of AOM features I did not like, I would adapt some of the features that I did like from other games into Cradle (or at least try to adapt them...)


MISC
- My first goal was to implement a feature that would allow a mid-sized empire to win the game, while giving the player the ability to play that option with 'Bigger is BetterTM' (I've had victory with about 23-28 cities on gigantic maps while the Romans had 40+ cities) In fact, the game could be won with 15 cities. (The victory option actually simulates a cultural/colonial victory approach, and used the Solaris Project as the template)

- The primary focus is again on Ancient/Medieval. The game ends in 1400. (about 600 turns)

- Naval units now have at least 5 movement points. It allows for a much more enjoyable naval game. I know, the AI naval's ability is really bad...so I do not simply overwhelm the AI with naval strength, but at least now, the naval game is quicker.

- I activated all of the early game Wonders that I had deactivated. Originally, Cradle was started as European/Middle East in flavor, so all of the far East and MesoAmerican wonders were shut down, and were never reactivated when Cradle expanded.

- I'm currently starting to implement more substantial Religious elements in the game - to better reflect the realities of the Ancient world. Nothing tested yet in this area, but a lot of gruntwork setting up the files. Hopefully it will work as I envision.

UNITS
- Scout, an early/cheap unit whose only purpose is to explore. It does have stealth, so they can work as sentries later in the game.

- Raider, another stealth unit which simulates mobile horsemen who, although not powerful, have the ability to bombard to give the impression of hit/run tactics.

- A New set of Wonder units - most wonders now offer these as an added benefit.

- 8 Great House units - these are standalone Wonders that create powerful units that go outside the norm of regular military units with special abilities, and when you create them, you will also get an added normal military unit. (thanks to civ4 FfH)

- Great House Leaders create plunder to boost production and/or new recruits, bepending on the time in the game.

- Battle upgrades to Elite/Hero/Great General was added. (a nice civ4/AOM feature)


GRAPHICS
- I added a new set of graphic tile improvements, and cleaned up the graphics for the Visible Wonders.

- Implemented the color coding I had developed for the AOM units.

- I created wonder movies for all of my added wonders from Cradle 1.3.

Does this replace civ4?
No, but what it does is rekindle the enjoyment I got from modding CTP2 - and I think that is what I enjoyed the most about the game. I could easily adapt it to my own vision of what I enjoyed in a game. I play for fun, not for high score.

Actually the last two games I played are the first two CTP1/CTP2 games I ever finished to the end. Mission accomplished!!!!

Both games have their strong points, and there is enjoyment to be gained from both.

Cradle 2 download: http://ctp2files.apolyton.net/mods/Cradle2.rar

[Maquiladora]

Sounds great Hex.

I've been playing Civ Rev on the DS for the past couple of weeks and it's been a breath of fresh air. I've completed over 15 games, and the majority of them went well into the modern era. There is something very addictive about finishing games quickly that makes me want to keep coming back to start a new one.

The AI will try for different types of victory (cultural, economic, space race, conquest), which always makes for an exciting finish as well, as you can never be sure who is going for what, and you need to decide who to stop first.

That is something that has always been missing from CtP2, the AI actually winning, rather than there just as an obstacle for the human.

A victory similar to the economic victory in CivRev would be very easy to implement and the AI would have a very real chance of completing it. Once the player or AI has 20,000 gold (or some amount) they can build a "World Bank" wonder. Or a cultural victory, once a civ owns (built/captured) so many wonders they can build the UN (or some other name) wonder to win a cultural victory.

[Protra3211]

Looks good Hex!Been away playing games like Hearts of Iron Doomsday and Supreme Ruler 2020.
Never played the Cradle mod but have downloaded the older version.Looking over the files now.Can see how much this mod was a big help to the development of Ages of Man.Have played the Apolyton mod .But I have found that AI was too aggressive.Would declare war no matter how much you bribed the AI,s.Is Cradle like that?Also will you have a tech tree that will allow players to go over the 600 turns onto the modern age?
Some great points Maquiladora!Love to see options like that in the playtest!

[hexagonian]

Originally posted by Maquiladora
I've been playing Civ Rev on the DS for the past couple of weeks and it's been a breath of fresh air. I've completed over 15 games, and the majority of them went well into the modern era. There is something very addictive about finishing games quickly that makes me want to keep coming back to start a new one.

I don't have a DS, I'm strictly a PC gamer. I am looking forward to the release of the new civ4/Colonization hybrid though.

Quick games were one of the big selling points for me in civ4. The civ4 games seemed to go much quicker than CTP2 games. Probably because I usually did not focus on dominion or continual conquest, but went for the other victory options instead. Those options usually allowed for smaller empires.

Plus, the overall scale of civ4 in it's design seemed to cut back on the number of cities overall.

Originally posted by Maquiladora
The AI will try for different types of victory (cultural, economic, space race, conquest), which always makes for an exciting finish as well, as you can never be sure who is going for what, and you need to decide who to stop first.

That is something that has always been missing from CtP2, the AI actually winning, rather than there just as an obstacle for the human.

This was another sell point for civ4 for me, and I have yet to see a comparable equivalent in CTP2. You cannot lose a CTP2/AOM/Cradle game unless you run out of time and have not surpassed the AI on the graph. Granted, you can lose cities in the early going to force a restart, but once you get established, you cannot lose - it's only a question of when you win.

Stan did have a timed science victory feature in AOM, but civ4 offered a multitude of end game options for the player, and more importantly, those options the AI could win, even if you were on track for another victory option. Better diversity, IMO, and it created more value for replay.

My setup does not change the AI's ability to actually win the game, but at least it gives a player another option that is not tied mainly into expansionism through conquest.

Originally posted by Maquiladora
A victory similar to the economic victory in CivRev would be very easy to implement and the AI would have a very real chance of completing it. Once the player or AI has 20,000 gold (or some amount) they can build a "World Bank" wonder. Or a cultural victory, once a civ owns (built/captured) so many wonders they can build the UN (or some other name) wonder to win a cultural victory.

The setup I have simulates a cultural-type victory because it makes the player spend a lot of production on a set of buildings (the Arch and Monument) that offer no economic or military benefit whatsoever. You also have to build a series of expensive tile improvements (Colonies) that exert a radius on the map. I call this radius a cultural sphere of influence. The player has to strategically place some of his cities to get a maximum sphere of influence and to prevent overlap, (and Colonies have to be built within your national borders) and when the Monuments are done, they will expand that radius even further.

The building requirements are steep because you also have to have a set of prerequisite buildings in that city to meet the requirement of those final two types of buildings. Plus you have a very expensive Wonder to build as a further requirement (...called Pax Romana).

I used the Solaris Project as the design template, but I also added the secondary support buildings as the requirements to build both the Arches and Monuments - to make the player diversify his production from simply churning out units throughout the game as the norm.

All you need are 15 cities to make it work. Obviously, the more cities you have, the more you can expand because you have more cities you can devote to military production to continue expansion through conquest. The important thing is that you are NOT required to do that, nor does staying smaller penalize you by forcing you to play longer to create the Empire victory. It becomes a choice based on what style you want to play...not a style that is foisted on you because of the design of the game.

Originally posted by Protra3211
Never played the Cradle mod but have downloaded the older version.Looking over the files now.Can see how much this mod was a big help to the development of Ages of Man.Have played the Apolyton mod .But I have found that AI was too aggressive.Would declare war no matter how much you bribed the AI,s.Is Cradle like that?Also will you have a tech tree that will allow players to go over the 600 turns onto the modern age?

Diplomacy has always been a weakness of CTP2, in comparison to civ4. I really enjoyed peaceful tech/resource trading, and the semblance of coordinated AI/Human attacks in civ4. Plus the open/closed borders made things a lot less annoying.

I can simply add a additional option in Cradle for a longer game with an alt in two files. But I am devoting most of the new features in the Ancient/Medieval age because I would probably never play more than 600 turns.

The mod itself is pushing 400 MB though, and given the small community here, and the size of the Mod, I do not know if Apolyton would host it. And I have at least a month before I would release it anyhow.

But if there is interest, perhaps something could be arranged...one way or another.

[hexagonian]

Sample of the cleaned-up and altered graphics

[Maquiladora]

The wonders look very nice I guess the darker farms are in-construction?

[hexagonian]

Originally posted by Maquiladora
The wonders look very nice I guess the darker farms are in-construction?

Pastures...

[Protra3211]

Im looking forward to playing the updated Cradle mod.Will be first time so should be a real challenge as I will have to learn the new features and figure out what the AI can do.Hope to see some of the old times come around and give it a try as well.
Hexagonian have you tried the playtest yet?Its much better than 1.11 ever was.AI to AI diplomacy does happen now.Not complex diplomatic deals between them but changes in stances.Hot wars -cease fires -cold war things like that.The AI will go to war for about 35 to 50 turns and then cease fire treaties will be signed.
It seems the AI expands by means of war but in times of peace builds (better management of cities by AI) up production power so when the AI does go back on a war stance its able to push out many units.No longer burns its self out with fighting on too many fronts.Seems to know its limit.
Some nice work has been over the last 2 years.
Again will be watching for developments of Cradle.Like to see how much Diplomod has been improved and AI war tactics as well.Will warm up with a playtest game as its been over 4 months since I have played a game Will post again when your finished with the mod.

[HuangShang]

Oh wow I seriously need to come here more often. Now if I can just find my game.

[hexagonian]

So far, everything is firing properly.

I now have 6 religions in the game.
- Polytheism
- Judaism
- Buddhism
- Confucianism
- Christianity
- Islam

All work as Feats, so if you are able to research a religion first, you will get a long-term happiness bonus. Each religion also has a wonder tied to it, based on the writings of that religion. The wonders themselves are not as expensive as regular wonders, but they will each add a +5% knowledge bonus, as well as grant you a Prophet.

Religions will be tough to get in the game for the player on the higher levels, but the Religion Wonders are definitely doable for the player.

I also added a wonder called the Cyrus Cylinder that grants diplomatic embassies to every civ in the game, even during war. So if you get it, no need for diplomats to travel to far-off civs (...cutting down on micromanagement), unless you still want to throw diplomatic parties.

The main isse may be a balance issue. There is a lot of additions which if ganged together, can make you powerful. In my latest game, I am currently running away on the powergraph.

However, this may be tied into the type of map I played. 50/50 land/sea, which does limit AI expansion a bit, even on gigantic. Plus the land offered me a uniques setup, which allowed me to defend everything at two chokepoints. Needless to say, I really did not have to concentrate on unit production (a big benefit in CTP2 if you are able to do so), but go strictly defensive with a minimum of units and then concentrate solely on buildings and wonders in the bulk of my cities. I also have a swath of no-mans land giving me additional room to expand peacefully.

It was a good way to test stuff though.

I may also increase the mapsize in the gigantic setting. I'm trying to play with oceans (landgames are the toughest to win), and increasing the mapsize will give more overall land for the AI to expand into.

Ultimately, my goal was not to make Cradle as humanly tough as possible, but to make it a more fun and atmospheric experience. The only way to make Cradle tougher is to pump it full of AI cheats and bonuses - and that is something I do not care to do.

I would probably post a file to download through TransferBig Files, but I am going to be out of town for the next week and I want to be available in case I inadvertantly miss something in the download. So I will wait, and rethink some of the issues during this week. Hopefully have something next week.

Meantime, if anyone is interested, PM me an email address in the next week, so I can provide a link to download when it is available.

I will point this out too. If you have other Mods that you like to play, I'd create a separate install for this Mod - mainly because there will be some file overwrites (specifically the tileset, a new splashscreen, as well as the unit tgas which are now colorcoded)

[Maquiladora]

Originally posted by hexagonian

Ultimately, my goal was not to make Cradle as humanly tough as possible, but to make it a more fun and atmospheric experience. The only way to make Cradle tougher is to pump it full of AI cheats and bonuses - and that is something I do not care to do.

This sounds interesting Hex, I'll give it a go.

[hexagonian]

EDITED: New link provided below with a file that is not corrupt.

Here it is...

Cradle II Fixed corrupted file

http://ctp2files.apolyton.net/mods/Cradle2.rar

Edit: Stripped down the file size to 40 MB and link is now valid.

Patch

http://apolyton.net/dir/index.php?sid=361877992&id=1136&t=reviews&toprate=5.0000&tophits=6570&cat=30

Modswapper

http://apolyton.net/dir/index.php?sid=551587098&id=1197&t=reviews&toprate=5.0000&tophits=6570&cat=29

IMPORTANT NOTE: Cradle files will overwrite existing files. If you do not want to overwrite existing CTP2 files, you will need to do a separate install for Cradle.

1. Install CTP2.
2. Download and install the offical patch (from Apolyton).
3. Download and install Modswapper, also available from Apolyton. Create shortcut to desktop and if playing Cradle, always launch the game from Modswappper instead of the CD.
4. Unzip and overlay the folders in Cradle into the CTP2 folders of the same name. Overwrite ALL existing files, if prompted.
5. Play and give feedback on balance.

Any missing files or problems, contact me. I believe I do have it all in the zipfile.

MISC
- There are a host of subtle game changes from the last version of Cradle. Most of them do not affect the overall gameplay, but are there to create a more balanced game.
- Removed Zone of Control for all units. You no longer can simply block enemy stacks from vital targets, you will have to eliminate those stacks.
- Implemented a feature that would allow a mid-sized empire to win the game, while giving the player the choice to play that victory option with 'Bigger is BetterTM'. The game actually can be won with 15 cities. (The victory option actually simulates a cultural/colonial victory approach, and used the Solaris Project/Gaia Controller as the template) See Great Library for building specs.
- The primary focus is again on Ancient/Medieval. The game ends in 1400AD. (about 600 turns). There is also an option to play the full scope of history (2500AD), but be warned� Modern elements of the game have not been polished to the same degree as the earlier elements.
- Naval units now have at least 5 movement points. It allows for a much more enjoyable and quicker naval game.
- Activated all of the early game Wonders that I had deactivated in earlier versions of Cradle. Originally, Cradle was started with a European/Middle East focus, so all of the far East and MesoAmerican wonders were shut down, and were never reactivated when Cradle expanded to include these Far East and MesoAmerican civs.
- Religion is expanded. Be the first to discover a particular Religion and you get an extended happiness boost. There are also Religious Text Wonders that give you a small knowledge boost, due to the fact that religious texts generally were collections of wisdom and that Religions also created an infrastructure of educated priests.

UNITS
- Scout, an early/cheap unit whose only purpose is to explore. It does have stealth, so they can work as invisible sentries later in the game.
- Raider, another stealth unit which simulates mobile horsemen who, although not powerful, have the ability to bombard to give the impression of hit/run tactics.
- Battle upgrades to Elite unit/Hero/Great General added, limited to infantry-class units.
- A new set of Wonder units - most wonders now offer these as an added benefit.
- 8 Great House units - these are standalone Wonders that create powerful units that go outside the norm of regular military units with special abilities like bombard, demand tribute, convert cities, create atrocities of war, create plague conditions in besieged cities, create plunder or recruits, and enslave. When you create them, you will also get 1-2 normal military units. Great House Leaders also create plunder to boost production and/or new recruits, depending on the time in the game.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Make sure that when you are creating these units, your city has room for them when the House Wonder is created, or they will not be created. Refer to Great Library for more details.


GRAPHICS
- New set of graphic tile improvements, as well as crisper Visible Wonder graphics.
- Implemented the color coding system for all game units that I had developed for AOM.
a. Red - militia
b. Tan - infantry
c. Brown - ranged
d. Green - flanker
e. Grey - special
f. Purple/Dark Blue � Wonder units (redstripe is slave capturing in battle, stars designate (2 stars) Great Leader or (3 stars) Great House)
- New Wonder movies for all of my added wonders from Cradle 1.3. The movies are a picture of the wonder, to keep the filesize down for the download. I do have a set of actual videos created for my personal setup of Cradle though.

[Maquiladora]

Thanks a lot for the link Hex, I'll give it a go as soon as the download is finished

[Protra3211]

Very nice indeed.Thank you for all your hard work..I will be downloading the files soon .I was wondering is Diplomod still the main file thats used to help the AI,s to use diplomacy?Have you made any changes in regard?I recall the early version of it made the AI very aggressive towards the humand player which would lead to sudden wars declared on you in mods like Apolyton2.
But of course I know that the higher the level you go the more aggressive AI personalities are given to play against you.

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by hexagonian
The mod itself is pushing 400 MB though, and given the small community here, and the size of the Mod, I do not know if Apolyton would host it. And I have at least a month before I would release it anyhow.

Well, I could simply upload it to Apolyton, but for that you should reduce the file size. There is no need to include all the sprites and pictures that came with the original game. That are all the files from November 1st 2000. That should also include pic565.zfs and pic555.pic. Although those are dated October 31st 2000.

Unfortunately, I have another problem with the *.zip file, although I can use WinZip or WinRar to inspect the file list, I cannot extract all files, somehow my download is corrupted.

And of course a rar archive would reduce the file size further than a zip archive.

-Martin