The Ages Of Man II (Yin's Update)

[stankarp]

Did you download or get a AOM disc?

I just played to 450 AD without a crash.

[stankarp]

Stan

Imho, AOM II is already the best empire building game currently available.

I received this email from Jeremy in Sth Africa a little while ago.

He also had a technical problem. He played to past 1800AD with a game where he altered the map to be 4 X 4 bigger than my gigantic setup. i.e. the area of the map is 16 times greater than my setup and he managed to get the game to go to almost the end.

I therefore cannot understand why thomonymous cannot get past turn 20. Especially when I personally have finished to the end at least 10 full epic campaigns as well as 100+ starts to past turn 300 (testing code).

[Arkay]

Outposts

Thanks for making AOM. I much enjoy the stacked combat when it is part of such a nice game. I had a question about outposts and watch towers:

I noted that when I placed an outpost using public works instead of a nomad that I did not get a tech advance. (This was as documented in the great library) I am also curious if I do not get the happiness and gold/pw bonus if I place an outpost this way?? I tried placing two PW outposts on nothing and checked my gold each turn, but I did not note an increase. The read me had said that an outpost gave gold each turn regardless of placement. So...

Do I need to use a nomad to get outpost bonuses?
Does an outpost on nothing special still give gold each turn?
Also, the same two questions for watchtowers (as made by migrants)

Thanks again!

[thomonymous]

Originally posted by stankarp
Did you download or get a AOM disc?

I just played to 450 AD without a crash.

Downloaded the full install (I never played the original AOM).

[stankarp]

thomonymous:

Sorry but your download must have corrupted. I just shipped a copy of a special effect sprite to someone because it corrupted during his download. It is a big download and they sometimes do not work perfectly.

Do I need to use a nomad to get outpost bonuses?

Only to get an advance. An outpost generates its other benefits regardless of how it is built.

Does an outpost on nothing special still give gold each turn?

It gives +10 gold per turn as well as functioning as a normal tile improvement if in a city radius.

Also, the same two questions for watchtowers (as made by migrants)

Migrants can be used to build a Border Fort, it is the only way such a tile improvement can be built. They collect 2 gold per turn. Watchtowers can only be built using PW. Like outposts, once built, they function as normal.

Be aware that the gold and pw figures in your empire display are before crime is deducted, so you do not actually get that much added to your pools. Outpost gold and pw is crime free and added after your normal city produced allocation is added.

[HuangShang]

Watchtowers != Border Forts right?

[stankarp]

Watchtowers and Border forts are the same in effect. They extend borders and lift fog of war.

Watch towers are built with normal PW. BF are built by disbanding a migrant and having 300 gold and 300 pw available, although it only costs 100 gold and 100-250 PW.

[Arkay]

It gives +10 gold per turn as well as functioning as a normal tile improvement if in a city radius.

Hmm! 7.5 outposts is as good as a pyramid! A bargain at only 15000 PW. It might be time to get into the real estate business. Please meet my sales associates, the Horsemen and their secerataries, the mounted Archers.

That is assuming of course that I get out of the dark ages in one piece.

That, and I might need to be more... assertive in getting trade goods. Land=wealth! It actually kinda reminds me of when I first got into supply crawlers in SMAC.

[thomonymous]

Originally posted by stankarp
Sorry but your download must have corrupted.

I just tried a new download using GetRight. The MD5 checksum for both my original and second download are identical (a7bd6841b702ab5ca648e3352c7e8644) being identical should indicate the chance of corruption *during download* is so small as to be effectively zero.

But, FWIW, can you post the expected checksum?

[stankarp]

Hmm! 7.5 outposts is as good as a pyramid! A bargain at only 15000 PW. It might be time to get into the real estate business. Please meet my sales associates, the Horsemen and their secerataries, the mounted Archers.

You need much more gold in AOM than any other ctp2/ctp2 mod. There are more unit upgrades and they now cost MORE. In addition you can use gold to keep your frenzy level down and may need it to pay allies.

But, FWIW, can you post the expected checksum?

Sorry I can't help you there, my internet conection is not good enough to download my own game.

What system are you using? Although this should not be a problem as AOM was designed and runing on win 98 before switching to XP.

[stankarp]

AOMIII Movie Trailer now available.

http://www.theagesofman.net/

[Protra3211]

Stan I think the drailer was well done! Enjoyed it.
I know by now this is old hat and you have tried but a link given to Activision that has this trailer along with other info might change some ones mind.
I know by now that it best to let it go. It just too bad that many will miss out on the best civilization game ever made.

[thomonymous]

Originally posted by stankarp
What system are you using? Although this should not be a problem as AOM was designed and runing on win 98 before switching to XP.

W2K SP4, under VMWare 4.0. This environment runs the original game OK. Apparently the problem running AOMII in the same environment was with the VMWare 4 virtual sound card & driver... after deleting the device, AOMII runs OK (silently, of course).

And I must agree, it is an impressive and worthy effort. I am inclined, on first exposure, to quibble with the Dark Ages though - it seems awfully harsh and arbitrary - and is it not sensitive to the overall Difficulty setting?

And, FYI, a nit, I found that after once clicking the Number of Players option, which I think was 10 as installed?, it cannot be set through the options dialog to any value greater than 8.

[Ekmek]

Originally posted by thomonymous

And, FYI, a nit, I found that after once clicking the Number of Players option, which I think was 10 as installed?, it cannot be set through the options dialog to any value greater than 8.

I think thats a problem with the original game, in the playtest you can set it to 31

[stankarp]

to quibble with the Dark Ages though

You are not the first. However, bear in mind AOM is designed to be less abstract and more historical than the civ genre. Every Empire had their Dark Age at some time, this one is modeled on the Roman experience. The Chinese had to survive the Mongols and the Aztecs and Incans did not survive the Spanish Dark Age.

It is there to test as well your empire managing skills. If you want to be able to say maybe I could have done it, then you should face the real challenges of history.

The original game had a maximum of 8 players selectable. There is an explanation in the AOM II readme (towards the end) how to set this to higher and the download/disc comes with it set to a higher number. Once you click again on the number in the set up it reverts back to a maximum of 8 again.