Cradle IV

[hexagonian]

Question, how would one go about modding the production cost of buildings. It's a grey territory, the problem is, more buildings can be built, so tech research is faster when I'm trying to constrain everything to 1/4 timeline, but... if I modify all the building productioncosts, shouldn't I do the same for units? I don't really want to, I want lots of armies draining productions of cities, so I actually want to keep unit costs the same, but was thinking of raising building production costs by say double...

At least double... and you will also have to raise prices of Wonders and Tile Improvements because all of these items drive the economics of the game which you are trying to limit. You also have to take into account that cities have expansion caps until they reach the next level of population buildings.

[thistleknot]

I'm thinking what I want to do is just set the diffdb file time_scale to a x3 scale, but then set all my research costs to a x4 scale... then everything (by happenchance) might match?

I might have to be more extreme with it.

Upon further note, I think a x3 scale is too many units, and too much time inbetween advances (albeit not too much time)... which means I might want to adjust diffdb to say x2 scale.

Update again:
The game is much faster.

Request:
Maybe a x1.5 slower tech mod? I'd prefer a x3 myself at this point, but even a x1.5 (or 2) would be nice. I just like to savor the game. I usually gen a large map (you can see my archipelago post)

Upon further note:
I don't think coefficient is enough to prevent science from advancing fast enough... I'm getting some advances that are 3-4 turns and I'm only 200 rounds in.

[MisterEd]

I sent a message to Martin, hopefully he is still around (BTW, did anyone have success downloading the Mod)

Just tried to download the Cradle IV mod, but all I get is a 1k corrupted file. The Cradle IV scenario file appears to download properly.

[thistleknot]

I'll take it down if Hexagonian requests it, but here's the files zipped up together. Scenario pack and Cradle IV

http://www.mediafire.com/?ko16gl3yrgdj8gx

[hexagonian]

Nope, keep it up. Is Media Fire a time-limited upload?

[thistleknot]

as far as I know, no.

[hexagonian]

Upon further note:
I don't think coefficient is enough to prevent science from advancing fast enough... I'm getting some advances that are 3-4 turns and I'm only 200 rounds in.

It could be offset because your city sizes are larger because they have had more turns to grow now. Larger cities mean more gold generated and more gold devoted to research, as well as you also have more time to build tile improvements to also create more growth...

[thistleknot]

so the co-efficient must be applied AFTER all the city stuff is calculated or something? There has to be a point where it's applied that is affecting things vs just having an increased tech research cost being higher... Because the tech research thing being higher was seriously causing lag (which was the desired output).

On further note:
Adjusting things like tech research is a pain... there are a lot of factors to consider beyond the advance costs and trying to scale it to the time periods/round events (AOM was way way way worse btw). I think what I HAVE to do to get it right is to play once through normal (or after, but before would help) create a reference point for what turn is at what advance, and then play with a mod, and then adjust diffdb accordingly until they line up right

[hexagonian]

It's not that you have to apply the coefficient after the city stuff is calculated, it's just that the city stuff is variable throughout the game so it affects the rate differently, based solely on size. If you keep your empire small, you will have a slower rate of research, but realize players will try to maximize their rate by expansion (increasing their total population)...so controlling it probably has to be done with incremental Advance cost increases.

That is why Agriculture only costs 200 Advance points and Iron Working costs 8000 Advance points.

I would adjust all the Advance costs to your setup, play the game and note where specific advance fall on specific turns, then adjust DiffDB. (The game is divided into nine periods in Advances)

[thistleknot]

I was thinking of using DBCSV to export to a csv the advance file.

then multiply each age by it's own number.

I'm thinking age 1 4.222; 2 4.444; 3 4.666, up to age 9, which the tech cost would be 5.98 (or 6, I'll probably just round).

I'm trying to think that I'm giving my civ's a 400% advantage on building/tile improvement timing, so maybe... I need to make my tech's scale up to a 400% increase in cost over initial value (i.e. 1600%)... but I think that's excessive, so I was going to scale from 400 to 1200%, but felt that still might be too excessive, I think scaling from x4 to x6 should work for now, then test it using the diffdb I have setup now, hopefully it will keep to scale of a x4 game.

Noting your mod has a bunch of age_two advances that cost 100000000... I think those might be for specific civ upgrades (like the hebrew slinger?)

Further note on this issue:
I was thinking it would be best to map out all the advances and draw out there dependencies, so I could use a better gradual sliding scale, but this might be overkill, but it could alleviate the hard jump inbetween ages, for example, Age Five I believe only has like 3-4 advances. By mapping the advances, I could have a smooth increasing progression of cost.

Update on this:
I could map the cost for each advance, PLUS the total cost it took to reach that advance (i.e. add all dependencies). Then I can compare advances by their total cost vs ages. HOPEFULLY they line up around the ages around the same spots., either way, I can identify category of advances (based on the total cost) that I want to multiply by a certain cost that I feel is reasonable for that point in the game.

Update on this # 2:
I did it (I think using DVCSV, then sorting my age, then doing some vlookups to add preqrequisite costs into their own columns, then add the totals. blah blah blah).
Turns out the total costs do line up around each other, there was some overlap, but nothing that stood out like a 1 in a 3 age, just a 2 in a 1, or a 2 in a 3... so I guess it's good enough than having to manhandle edit everything. If your interested in the file Hex, I can post it.

Update:
DBCSV Wasn't working right, but I got it going using ctped, took a lil bit longer, but thankfully I was able to sort, and exclude selections, so I could select each age (didn't know there was an age_ten I had to worry about).

Upon further note:
There still seems to be some lag issues inbetween turns. Possibly the goodie huts? I don't get it tho, I only set difficulty a little higher, and upp'ed the barbarians from ruins only to raiders.

I seem to recall you said there was a slic issue with goodie huts. I was reading through the slic kungfu guide, and it said there are timings you can place the events in (post, pre, plus a slew of others), I'm wondering if one of your slic files is using multiple locations, the guide recommended to just stick with post, pre, or begin_turn or something like that, if you know what file was causing the goodie issue, I could look at it and see if I can make a recommendation (if that is indeed the issue I'm having).

Update on lag issue:
Seems to be related to medium difficulty, as beginner or the 1st difficulty don't have this issue (changing bandit settings under medium difficulty had no effect).

[hexagonian]

Noting your mod has a bunch of age_two advances that cost 100000000... I think those might be for specific civ upgrades (like the hebrew slinger?)

These are trigger advances assigned to specific civs on turn 5 so they can have access to specific advances not available to other civs.

There still seems to be some lag issues inbetween turns. Possibly the goodie huts? I don't get it tho, I only set difficulty a little higher, and upp'ed the barbarians from ruins only to raiders.

The lag happens when a player or the AI gets a unit or advance out of the goodie hut. There is no known fix.

[MisterEd]

I'll take it down if Hexagonian requests it, but here's the files zipped up together. Scenario pack and Cradle IV
http://www.mediafire.com/?ko16gl3yrgdj8gx

Thanks, I got it now.

[MisterEd]

Nope, keep it up. Is Media Fire a time-limited upload?

Dang, I'm so addicted to the AE interface, I may not be able to deal with the orginal CTP2 interface. I tried all the Cradle IV versions and couldn't get any to work with t he AE version.

BTW, how would I turn off the religous victory in Cradle III Timelines? It seems that is always the first, and only way, to win.

[hexagonian]

Cradle IV has a play option with religion turned off, and it includes Timelines, but since you cannot get it to work for the Source Code, you can go into

CRASLC_culture.slc

Locate the lines that have

if (CULTURE[j + 64] >= 3000) {// if total culture is high enough.

and
if (CULTURE[j + 64] >= 3000) { // if total player culture is...

Change 3000 to something really high, like 100000

It will not turn off the option, but it will basically make it impossible to get it.

[MisterEd]

It will not turn off the option, but it will basically make it impossible to get it.

Thanks, not just for this, but for everything you have done to make CTP2 such a fun game to play.