Waaaaaaa...Back to the Cradle

[hexagonian]

Yes, after giving civ3 C3C some playing time and after I had gotten a new computer, I decided to give some of the Cradle files a tweak and give it a runthu...

It's great to be back - stacked combat is the best. C3C does offer the means to group move units, but its a poor substitute

I gotta say, C3C is a very good game, but as usual, it sinks after the Medieval Age - the lack of greater levels of tile improvements is a definite minus. Infinite rails suck, as does corruption...

The two areas where C3C is clearly better is in diplomacy and in strategic goods - but that is all.

Playing as a scientific/agricultural civ elimiminates much of the need to tech whore, as well as making a beeline to Great Library (and Knights Templar for military expansion)...but I find I'm playing the same game over and over.

There is so much that CTP2 does better, in terms of player decisionmaking, and it is in the area of military manuvers and deployment that it clearly outshines C3C. I have to constantly maintain an outer perimeter of scouts. I have to balance military construction with city improvement, as well as PW management while in a hot war. I don't know how many times I have to shift forces toward potential threats, and split forces against those threats. It's like a dance.

I love reduced healing ability in my cities. Suddenly, troop deployment is critical because I do not get to resurrect them in one turn at a city - and forts are so expensive to build...

Sure, CTP2 has it's flaws, but I cannot play it on cruise control like I can C3C.

I'm playing with the house rule to keep every city I conquer. It makes for slow expansion because of the cap, and if I encroach into enemy territory, the captured city has to be fully garrisoned because that city will get hit and hit hard. Right now the Hittites have three full 12-stacks next to one of the cities that I recently took, so it's 'bunker down' until help arrives. The city has already been hit twice and barely hung on even with a full garrison.

I had the same thing happen on the opposite side of my empire against the Turks. I lost the city and managed to take it back though.

I'm using the base 1.30 files as well as the textfile alts that I made through 1.35. So there are several SLICs that I'm not using (City Xpansion, Better AI, Visible Wonders, Pirate, Partisan) The game has not crashed up through turn 450. And on my new computer, turns run quicky.

The revised base files are at my site and are labeled 1.3 (I haven't been able to activate the website edit program to alter my site) The 1.35 files are also still up, but I feel that the current 1.3 files offer the most stable version of Cradle.

[Maquiladora]

Whats this an advertisement?

I dont know about C3C but good to see that youve returned Hex will there be more updates then?

[child of Thor]

welcome home Hex

I must admit i've just kept to my old files for Cradle as well - the same with most mods too, once i had a game i was happy with i just didn't bother to update......

Cradle is still probably the Mod i play most, WOTR never ran smooth for me, SAP was ok but too much like the standard game(only better), Med Mod i liked but the ancient age was over too quick for me, and i try to play with Martins Good Mod for whatever version i'm trying - but i'm lost on where the latest update is at

Still i figure with all the Source Code gains being made, and with the current Mods i do have, i've got pleanty of great CTP2 to play with.

Anyway good to see you here again

[Dale]

Did you mean Cradle, or just mis-spell Candle?

[hexagonian]

Candle, Cradle, it's all the same to me

BTW, to all in the CTP2 forums - Candle'Bre is most definitely NOT DEAD thanks to Dale

...a ton of progress over the last month!!!!

[stankarp]

Welcome back Hex.

I knew you could not resist giving it another go after we discussed how bad CIV 3 was to play, specially that excuse for stack movement and that 3,000 year old combat system it uses.

[Solver]

The lack of proper stack combat isn't even the biggest flaw of Civ 3, apparently workers are. The tedium of moving them all around in the Industrial age becomes too much. Though I still believe that the game is near-perfect in the early ages.

But you're right, most stuff is handled better in CtP2. Now, when we make the balance adjustments using the source code, it will be even greater .

[hexagonian]

Originally posted by Solver
Though I still believe that the game is near-perfect in the early ages.

I would echo that I do like playing the civ3 Ancient/Medieval ages a lot - and the AI is more formidable and focused when it comes to actually using its military, especially when it is in an alliance.

The bottom line (for me at least) is that civ3 devolves into tedious chores rather than fun gameplay. And elements such as corruption and pollution do not help matters at all...

I still hope that civ4 will get it right!!!

[Maquiladora]

I would say the fact that the whole planet is colonized before 0AD is one problem with the early game in civ3.

[Solver]

Pollution in civ 3 is ridicilous as by the time it starts to appear, you have got a hundred workers that can instantly clear it - it's a non-factor, while in CtP, you really try to avoid it.

Yeah, the AI is definitely quite competent and can put its army to a good use, and will help you in alliances. Also, it's pretty good that the AI can even use the modern tools, like Bombers, well enough, but by that time you're pretty much annoyed by the tedium and other things there are.

[hexagonian]

My current Cradle 1.30b game...Turn 543...Mid-Medieval Age

Me (Greeks) - 34 cities (my cap is 35)
Japan - 34 cities
Hatti - 18 cities
Inca - 19 cities
Turkey - 5 cities
Nubia - 21 cities
Persia - 27 cities
3-4 splinter civs - 1-3 cities each

...and currently on a war rampage
Rome - 41 cities

Rome is far from me, and most of the other civs are a buffer against them. Still, they are chewing up territory - many cities that were under other civ's control suddenly have the ominous Rome-colored border.

I have been in a long running fight with the Inca, Hatti and have an on-again/off-again war with the Nubians. I have ammended the rule that I cannot raze any cities to the rule that I have the option to raze cities pop. 3 and under, but I cannot disband them for the settler. And I cannot starve/bombard a city until it reaches size 3 either.

What this means is that the field game is the best that I have ever played in any civ-style game. Expansion has to be carefully thought out, because of the cap and because it is too easy to get spread too thin. The AI is relentless in sending large stacks at me - even on far-flung cities in my empire. Horse units are invaluable and I have a whole perimeter of them.

I'm a firm believer in house rules, if they help make the game interesting. And this one is a good one for the way CTP2 plays.

Some things of note - I had to vacate a smallish city that was under attack by multiple Incan stacks because I couldn't afford to lose the army garrisoned inside. It was being constantly bombarded, and since heal rates were so slow, I was afraid that the army would be wiped out - and it was the only army in the vicinity. (The Ai had shown in the past that it will bombard for several turns and then assault - if given the chance)

I have since put a fort in the area and plan to retake once I have sufficient forces to hold it. The Incans have built several other cities in the vicinity that are close to one another (and since I cannt disband those cities, they are not as economically valuable to me. So the choice is either take them and they work against my cap, or leave them be.)

The same thing is happening in the Nubian/Hatti theatre. A bunch of closely knit cities that are constantly changing hands between the three of us.

Nukes should help clear this up - but that is a long way away...

I had greatly reduced the PW/Gold bonus from what it was in 1.31-1.35 in the current 1.30b setup (at my site) and had boosted the AI priorities for attack and colonization. The end result is that all of the civs are running close in tech (The civs are in either Tribunal Empire/Theocracy/Monarchy/Calipate governments, which are approximately in the same tech range)

I have managed to make every upgrade cost - the last one Legions -> Pikeman cost 63,000 though. Not much rushbuying for me

[hexagonian]

The Greek/Nubian/Hatti Triangle

[Maquiladora]

Nice screenshot Hex, those Egyptian city sprites look too damn good, making me want to play Cradle right now

Edit: I submitted it as a screenshot to the directory

[hexagonian]

Well, I have passed turn 620 in my current game. I have been able to get to 1st place too.

Some things to note though...

In the Hatti/Nubian/Greek triangle, I had managed to expand a little more (taking el-Kurru, Kurgus, Tambus, and Skakda, the cities on the above screenshot) but am now having to deal with multiple Hatti stacks that showed up without warning (about 40 Hatti units currently in the area) I own a tech advantage on them and have been able to hold my own, but I have had to scramble troops from other areas to meet the threat. Thankfully, the Nubians have been lying low.

I have started to push west against the Romans - I took 3 cities with little losses, but a single exploratory strike against a 4th city revealed it to have a full garrison of strong units. The Romans just took a somewhat isolated (but rich) city that was maintaining a defensive posture but also had my general Caeser. I do have forces in the area to counterstrike. Too bad that I will most likely have to rebuild everything when I retake it.

In another isolated area I have seen a huge buildup of Incans. They have been in a long-running war with the Yamato. (Cities have frequently switched hands) I do not want to lose the one city I have in the area, since it is my my most productive one, and was my planned staging point for future military action. I had tried to expand in this area earlier, but lost badly.

[Kull]

Me too

Yep, I'm back to Cradle as well! Currently running a slightly modded version of 3.5, and have made it to 385 AD with no crashes and only a few buggy events. I would have ditched Civ3 even sooner, but spent some time helping Thamis with his Ancient Med Mod. That was fun up to a point, but it too eventually devolves into a major exercise in micromanagement.

My one complaint with CTP2 (and Civ3 is not much different) is that all civs use the same units, improvements, and strategies. The only real difference between two civs involves the technology lead (or lag). It would be nice if there were two or three completely unique military Tech Trees in CTP2.....for example, infantry-based (Rome), naval raider (Sea People/Viking), and nomadic/horse-based (Scythian/Huns).

I was thinking about using the "flavors" ferature in Civ3 to create truly unique civ types, but the specter of end game micromanagement could be not be avoided.

A few comments about my game to date:

1) Naval: Enemy naval units never attack mine unless they begin their turn adjacent to me. The only exception is that enemy ships will sometimes leave a city and travel 2 squares to hit me....but never more than that.

2) Cavalry: Same deal with multi-move enemy units. I can safely leave a diplomat 2 squares away from enemy cavalry (whether stacked or alone) and they won't EVER make the easy 2-move kill.

3) No-Grow Cities: Some cities with excessive slave populations just stop growing - and never restart. Population is added every turn as usual, but on the turn when it should gain a population point the city just flips back to "zero" (for example 15,999 would gain 2 and next turn the value would read 15,001).

4) Slave Revolts: The one solution is to remove the garrison and let the city revolt, and then reconquer it - now all the slaves are citizens! Lose a lot of improvements, though. One oddity. Two cities within 4 tiles of each other revolted in this fashion on the same turn. One was garrisoned with 12 Praetorians while the other had no units whatsoever (discovered this when reconquering on the next turn)

5) Research Hiatus: For no apparent reason, my civ stopped researching in 330 AD, and never resumed (when you looked at "turns until next discovery", there was a dashed line instead of a number). At first I assumed it had something to do with the Dark Ages advance (there's an idea, eh? Imagine halting all research for 10-15 turns when getting this advance!), but by 380AD it hadn't resumed and further testing revealed it to be an anomaly (I replayed the 330AD turn and research continued normally).