Medieval Pack II: A Call to Arms

[WesW]

Rhuarc, I do not know why you would be getting sprite errors, but since you are getting multiple ones something must be wrong with your setup. Either that or the program you used to unzip the files. The particular sprites you listed have not been touched in months, so something on your system has gone bad, I assume.

Go ahead and overwrite the tgas. Those are the new Rifleman militia pics with the black background.

Stargazer, run modswapper again and be sure you select the Medpack and press the Save & Exit button. Then start Ctp2 as you normally do. You should see the Medpack castle in place of the opening movie. If you do not, then something is wrong with your file setup.

Martin, it sounds like you missed an update back in the beta testing. Get the pictures component currently up, unzip it, then upzip the current text update. This should get you straightened out.

Btw, thanks go out to Jason (Engineer) as the first person I have received a donation from.

[dande]

Is this s feature or a bug?

I just received a feat of wonder for getting to gunpowder first. I was rewarded with the special units (I forget what theyare but they look like a guy with a rifle and a cannon type thing ). This was cool, but then something unexpected happened! Every single one of my cities got these two units free (militia style with a black background) but neither of them appeared in the build menu. Is this what was supposed to happen when you are rewarded with these special units?

[Rhuarc]

I think, (someone correct me if I am wrong) Those units are militia to replace the spearman from the ancient age. I think that is why they have the black backgrounds. Once again, I am not completely sure about this, so someone correct me if I am wrong.

Wes,
I reinstalled windows, then reinstalled everything and it seems to work fine now, so it must have been something that was actually corrupted inside of my windows system kernel. Thanks for your help though!

[StarGazer]

I discovered that Modswapper has a Program Group listed on the Windows Start menu and that I'm supposed to click on that instead of on the Call to Power II menu program.

You might consider stating that point -- for newbies like me -- in your Installation and Introduction Readme file, Wes.

StarGazer

[Dale]

Development news!

Update almost ready to send off:

I've got the AI's randomly changing their diplomacy settings. It's really cool now. I've got AI's getting happy with you, then suddenly they start losing that happiness and eventually getting angry with you. It's not a quick blast thing, but takes quite a number of turns to notice the affect. I've had AI's bounce around for 500 turns between slightly happy icon (I'm able to trade techs) to the slightly annoyed icon (they make demands on me) then back to the slightly happy icon (able to trade techs again). I had one AI that I met within 20 turns spend 400 turns in AI_SUCKUP mode and then swap suddenly to AI_WARMONGER mode and declare war on me suddenly and take a few cities off me. I'd grown complacent and only had a thin defense on that front, but still it forced me to spread my attack stacks out on two major fronts. Quite a push there, made me actually sue for peace with the other civ to beat back those 12 stacks! Then another test game I had a war for 200 turns then suddenly the AI_SUCKUP sued for peace and ever since we've been trading techs and living in a military treaty.

As for the random event I mentioned above, it was too much. I've dumped the idea. The AI can't handle it when it happens to them since they'd lose 500 (half) regard for every other civ in quick order, or gain 500 whichever method was being simulated. So I'm not going to send that particular thing to Wes.

I've fixed a bug pointed out by Peter. Now the AI does actually get happy with another AI (as Jani wished if I remember correctly ) as I advertised ages ago. Thanks to Peter for that pickup.

As for the error that was causing us to use "DebugSlic=No" I think I've almost solved that problem too. I know what causes the error, and I think I've got an idea on how to fix the problem.

Stay tuned for more development news soon.

[ENGINEER]

It's so much fun to be playing a good game again.

Dande,

Both are elite units from the gunpower advance that you have a chance at getting. Both are milta units. Just think of all the extra defense.

Wes,

Your welcome and thanks again.

Dale,

Is there still no way for the AI civs to form alliances and treaties?

[Immortal Wombat]

Sounds very cool Dale. AI fixes = AI fixes + 1

[janilxx]

New features(for example Dale's "change diplomatic stance" and AI "loves" other AI) sounds ...umm what word would I use... very GOOD! I recognized that I have even less time to play game nowadays so I am still playing my first non beta version game(year 700AD going on). And I will play this game to the end(I have not played any MedPack games to the end).

I have said this millions of times but I hate those settlers that keeps trying to come to my lands!!! I would not say this if I would not have a suggestion...

So could there be some kind of counter for every settler unit like TIMES_TO_TRY_TO_GO_THIS_WAY?

Example:
AI's settler comes to my land and I will go after him and kick him out from my land. I will set my units so that settler can not come to my lands again. Hi tries and I kick him out(this is the first time I do this exactly in same way as in future) so lets set TIMES_TO_TRY_TO_GO_THIS_WAY = 1. AI's settler tries to come again and I will kick him out exactly the same way as before(so it will bw TIMES_TO_TRY_TO_GO_THIS_WAY = 2). And the third time...

When TIMES_TO_TRY_TO_GO_THIS_WAY = 3 computer will calculate new movement path and new destination where he tries to go for that settler.

Could this be possible? If not I have another suggestion

When TIMES_TO_TRY_TO_GO_THIS_WAY = 3 computer will select random AI city(not the one where settler was put when I kicked him) and settler will be transported to that random city(not realistic option but that would maybe prevent that settler to come again to same place(???)).

[StarGazer]

Re: Development news!

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Dale
I've got the AI's randomly changing their diplomacy settings.

[DELETED]

As for the random event I mentioned above, it was too much. I've dumped the idea. The AI can't handle it when it happens to them since they'd lose 500 (half) regard for every other civ in quick order, or gain 500 whichever method was being simulated. So I'm not going to send that particular thing to Wes.
[END QUOTE]

Thank you for scrapping the "random change" idea, Dale! It does not make sense realistically for a civilization to change its attitude toward another civilization "randomly," i.e., for no reason at all. I enjoy as realistic a game as possible within the necessary limitations, of course, of enjoyable game play.

If a civilization changes its diplomatic stance towards me, I want to know the reasons. In the "real" world, a particular civilization's diplomats usually have a pretty clear understanding of what makes the leaders of other civilizations happy or unhappy. And the personality of the leader of each civilization is usually known as well. I'm certainly not against a change in diplomatic stance as the years pass, but I want a game in which the reasons (why such a change has occurred) can be learned or deduced.

When I play civ games, I usually try to maintain the peace and to form a diplomatic alliance with all the civs, if possible. In order to accomplish that, I need information, lots of it, about the diplomatic stances of other civs and why they change. If a "laughing" icon suddenly changed to an "angry" icon (or vice versa) in the Diplomacy Manager, I would want to know why. For that to happen "at random" with no forewarning and for no logical reason would spoil the game play for me.

Just some of my ideas. Thank you, by the way, for creating this diplomod!

[StarGazer]

Military Readiness

Wes -- In MM2, does it take three turns to stand DOWN a readiness level also? In the original CTP II game, standing down took effect immediately.

It stands to reason that gearing up for war would take longer than decreasing a civ's readiness.

[Dale]

Development News!

Three points!

1 - Over time the AI now has the possibility of slowely changing its diplomatic stance towards someone. I hope I've got a good balance on the affect of these changes, but let me know if it's not balanced.

2 - Bug fixed that was keeping the AI stuck in AI_WARMONGER mode. AI now uses all three of it's AI to AI stances, thus meaning an AI can now get happy with another AI. Any comments....... Jani?

3 - I "think" I've fixed the bug that was forcing us to use the "DebugSlic = No" setting. I played 400 turns last night with "DebugSlic = Yes" and had not one error message. Damn I'm good!!!!

Sending these changes to Wes for the next update.

[Peter Triggs]

It's a good thing you've got this debugslic thing sorted. The practice of setting debugslic=no is something I've always had vague doubts about but in the past couple of days I've come to the conclusion that it's a bad idea. True enough, in CTP2 it just says that setting debugslic=yes "gives better error messages" whereas in Civ:CTP it said that it was "needed for debugging", but I think the latter is still true. The "better error messages" are those messages about errors that do not induce fatal crashes: in their presence my program would still run, but not properly. It just doesn't execute lines where there is, say, a type mismatch, and doesn't tell me about it. Once my code is completely debugged, it probably speeds things up a bit to set debugslic=no; but I'm not even sure that's terribly noticable.

[WesW]

UPDATE ALERT !

New text update posted. It contains Dale's new diplomacy changes, plus a couple other things. I made the Ramayana and Temple of Karnak good for the entire game (they no longer go obsolete). I have updated the readmes and GL to reflect the new settings.

Standing down still only takes one turn.

Jani, Dale or Wouter would be more qualified than me to comment on your proposal, but I don't think it would be possible to code what you want. I have never had this problem anyway. It's strange that you keep reporting it. Perhaps you are spacing your cities too far apart.
I put the note about Modswapper in the Intro file, too.

As usual, you will need to use modswapper to update the GL. You will also need to reload slic if you continue a previous game. Don't forget that you may need to open the cheat menu a second time if the first opening turns off pollution in the game.

[janilxx]

Re: Development News!

Originally posted by Dale
2 - Bug fixed that was keeping the AI stuck in AI_WARMONGER mode. AI now uses all three of it's AI to AI stances, thus meaning an AI can now get happy with another AI. Any comments....... Jani?

I love this, I love this, I love this!
I do not have time to test that yet but if my current game does not end in 10 days I will download new version and install that(my summer vacation starts then!!!).

Damn I'm good!!!!

Yes you are (being good in some areas is really nice, I know that because I am good in my job too )



I played few turns yesterday. My spy incited revolution in AI's city. All 12 units in that city died because of incite revolution. It was too easy to take that city after that. Is it supposed to be so that all units in revoluting city are killed? It makes it too easy to get that city. Maybe it would be better that barbarians would have some(maybe even 8-10) units left in city.

After I took that barbarian city I took two AI's cities. He lost quite many units but what makes me wonder is that I still have not seen any AI to try to capture his city back. I want to see that!!!

[janilxx]

Re: UPDATE ALERT !

Originally posted by WesW
(about AI settlers in my lands)
Jani, Dale or Wouter would be more qualified than me to comment on your proposal, but I don't think it would be possible to code what you want. I have never had this problem anyway. It's strange that you keep reporting it. Perhaps you are spacing your cities too far apart.

I started to build cities not as far as I used to but in my current game I have one city near AI's borders and there is some open places to build cities(in my lands) near that city. And AI's settler is lurking those areas(actually my concentration slackened for a while because of barbarian unit and AI got new city in my lands. Maybe he will not build another settler anymore(I hope).

But this AI settler thing might be a problem to some players who have for example one city near AI's borders and other cities are farther.