Medieval Pack II: A Call to Arms

[StarGazer]

DELETED (NT)

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[Adagio]

Error

I have just downloaded and installed the mod, but I can't start the mod, when I try to start the modswap.exe and start the mod it loads a little, then it stops, returns to windows showing tons of msg boxes

They all say:

Slic Error
"Filename + dir" 89:No Function named GetPersonalityType

The file name and the GetPersonalityType changes for every msg box

The last box is the "CTP2 has perfomed an illegal oporation and closes"

[Immortal Wombat]

ADG, I'm not absolutely sure, but this might have ben one of the SLIC functions added in the Patch v1.1. If you haven't installed that, then you might want to now...

[Locutus]

ADG,
IW is right. You must install the patch.

A little update on my work: due to my personal situation I haven't been able to do anything SLIC-wise until today. However, I made a good start with with the Piracy code today. In fact, it's almost done, except for the trickiest part: getting units in the pirateships. I haven't been able to get that working but I still have a couple of things to try out. I'll let y'all know when I get it to work.

[WesW]

That sounds good, Wouter. I am still waiting on Dale to get me the diplomod fix and the photograph files. I altered the wonders yesterday to get rid of the building bug.
Stonehenge no longer goes obsolete.
The Great Wall has its original property of reducing unit upkeep by 25% as well as portecting against barbarians.
The Lyceum, Drug Rebab Act and Chichen Itza have the same effect as the buildings they used to give, and they still go obsolete with the same advances.
I do not think that the game will be changed much by these alterations, and they eliminate the bug, so I feel pretty good about them.

For those of you who have played the mod through to the end, are you still falling behind the timeline even with the new government settings and reduced advance costs?
I feel pretty confident that the timeline holds until 1900, so if you are falling behind proir to that it is because of not trading enough tech or not building enough commerce or science improvements.

If you are still falling behind after the Industrial age, I will reduce the cost of advances further.
Advances should come about every 3 to 4 turns in the modern, information and genetic ages. I have allotted the last 80 turns of the game, the diamond age, to finishing up the game and discovering the future advances.

Btw, Joseph Hildreth became the second person to send in a donation last week. Joseph, I could have sworn I had your email address, but I don't so I will say thank you here in the thread. The picture you sent of yourself was nice, too. I also liked the team pics and collectors items on the wall behind you. It would appear we have some other things in common besides strategy games.

[StarGazer]

End Game

Am now in 2215 A.D. Had to extend the time limit from 2200 to 2300 A.D. Am playing at Medium Level, 5 civs., Huge map, 2nd-to-weakest Barbarians. I now have 47 cities under a Virtual Democracy, at "North Pole, South Pole, East, West, and Center in an attempt to space things out correctly so as to be able to position the obelisks to cover the required 60% of the map. Have had Science set at maximum throughout the entire game. Now have about 60% of my advanced cities turning out Infrastructure so that I can mine, mine, mine both land and sea as well as improve the terrain everywhere -- for a grand last push. Have just started working for the Gaia Controller Advance; will take me 8 turns to get it. I still have 10 Advances left to get (seven of them military), but at least with the Gaia Controller Advance in hand, I can begin the final "count down."

Gaining the Science Victory is really going to be touch and go. I feel like I've been pushing and pushing and pushing throughout this entire game. I really started slowing down after entering the Modern Age (1904 A.D. in this game). Just look at all those Advances (from the Modern Age on) on the MM2 Advances Chart. WOW! Thank the gods I haven't had to fight any battles!

What is more, since I didn't build any Nuclear Plants (because I didn't want any meltdowns), when Robotic Plants became available, I found that I had no factories or oil refineries (they had disappeared from the City Inventories) and was relying solely on the mines that I had built, so production went into a real slump for about 20 to 30 years until I got the robotic plants built. I'm beginning to appreciate the "staggering effect" of your City Improvements, WES. Dunno whether Nuclear Plants should be included in that kind of effect, though, since there is such controversy about building them. Would prefer them as an OPTION. Maybe give the gamer the option of either building Nuclear Plants or keeping Factories going, with their 30% increase in production.

I also didn't realize that I needed Incubation Centers (and Body Exchange) in order to get the Arcologies City Improvement, so I had gone directly for the Fusion Power Advance (since the MM2 Advances Chart implies that Fusion is needed for Arcologies). So that misunderstanding (not knowing the difference between Arcologies as an ADVANCE and Arcologies as a CITY IMPROVEMENT) stagnated the growth of my ten 40+ pop. cities for about 20 years while I began zooming hell-bent for the Human Cloning Advance.

Even with Science set at maximum for each type of government (Tyranny, Monarchy, Absolute Monarchy, Democracy, and Virtual Democracy), it takes pretty long to get an Advance (three turns for the easiest; eight turns for the hardest). Since entering the Modern Age (1904 A.D.) I have had two Science specialists set in every city except the newest ones (which gives me a bonus of about 100 Science per city). Any more would interfere too much with the efficiency of the city, I think. I have had a money deficit throughout almost all of the game, according to the Empire Manager anyway. Nevertheless, if the deficit reads no higher than "minus 1000 or so," I'm OK and operate at a profit. I don't understand that, but funds do come in, from about 500 to 2000 GP per turn. Production has been constant at 20% throughout the game. For the most part, I left the sliders set at what the MM2 design recommends for each type of government.

Well, this first CTP game has been a learning experience -- and a lot of fun!

I doubt that I would ever be able to win the Science Victory, however, at a level higher than Medium or with an End Game time limit as early as 2200 A.D.

Nevertheless, the next game I will try at the next higher level and will switch to City Republic as soon as possible (in order to get its 75% Science effect) instead of staying with Monarchy and Absolute Monarchy.

Hope this info helps somewhat, WES.

[Der PH]

Bombarding

Hi everybody!

Some days ago I downloaded MM2 and last weekend I tried it out.
Before my complaints, I have to say: That's really great stuff! Until now I reached the industrial aera and enjoyed the game very much.

Now my little complaints:

1st) Why did you take the ability to bombard other sea units from warships like the ship of the line and the ironclad? In the original game I liked the situations when hostile warships met, bombarded each other and both withdrew damaged but alive. In MM2 one of the opponents will inevitably be destroyed (unless the attacker retreats, which the computer never does).

2nd) Why did you include the ability to counterbombard? I think, when a superior army arrives at a hostile city or fortification, the defenders should at least have the possibility to fire their guns without getting them destroyed at the first shot. I liked the long sieges in the original game, when the opponents fired at each other every turn and the defender of a city had a chance to reduce a superior attacking army.

So, that's it. It's only my opinion and I don't know if anybody agrees, but I wanted to give you some feedback, which you can possibly take into account for future versions of the mod. All in all MM2 is really great, especially the elite units (I got the zulus). Keep up the good work!

[Arathur]

guXXX.spr not found in asset tree error

I'm still getting the following error "guXXX.spr not found in asset tree" (XXX being a random number). It occurs after I've been in a Medmod II game for about 5 minutes or so. If I try to move a unit, or build a city the error occurs and the game crashes. I've been trying to play Medmod II for the last month and a half, and no luck. I've tried reinstalling, changing directories, re-downloading Medmod II files...............somebody please help me out....... thanx.

[Mister Pleasant]

Compliments and Suggestions

First off - this is great stuff. I've had the Japanese and Mongols walking around my territory with big stacks, taking cities and forcing me to take them back. The Russians have been absorbing everything on the northern continent. Jesus, this thing is a challenge now. I'm almost afraid to add the strategies.txt from the cradle mod.

Second - I'm still having problems with both getting advances in the information age as well as paying upkeep fees. I've gone in and reduced several upkeep fees (most notoriously, the nano-assembly plant and the robotic plant). I'm also trimming down the advance costs on my copy.

Third - I recommend setting the factory and the oil refinery to both expire at nano-assembly. I've had summer jobs at both factories (assembling computers) and robotic plants (monitoring the robots that mass produce PCBs). Trust me, the factory won't go out of style until nano-assembly. Plus, with the factory and refineries still good when you achieve robotics, the robotic plant is quicker to build.

Thanks to all those who put MM2 together.

[JamesJKirk]

I'm at about 1951 in my current (and first) MM2 game. I'm at Very Hard, on a Gigantic Map and with 16 civs, I'm in a Republic, and my science is maxxed at 85%

I ran into the problem of the techs coming too fast early on (I had musketeers somewhere between 900 and 1200 I believe) But by the 1800s-1850s the tree had corrected itself. For most of the duration of the game, I've been well ahead in techThe problem with the modern age is just that there's a glut of advances in the modern age. Cutting down the cost would help, as would eliminating some redundant ones, Mass Media and Radio, as well as Jet Propulsion and Supersonic Flight come to mind. In my game I got Mobile Warfare in 1949, and have still not discovered Electrification.

In regards to the Rifleman sprite, and something I noticed myself. I think you should just use the CTP2 Infantryman sprite for the rifleman and get rid of the Grenadier, since it comes almost immediately after the Musketeer and just adds 5 attack and defence and another movement point. It makes building Musketeers useless unless you're in a big hurry.

Also I think maybe the hydroponic farms come a little too earlier, I can have to technology to make them now, but I don't since my cities are all growing fast enough, and I think I might have been able to research the tech for those before I could get hospitals, and all my major cities were just about maxxed out in pop at that point.

I think you should definitely try to emulated what's been done for the AI in the Cradle mod (but w/o Frenzy). The AI just keeps their stacks around their cities, even when at war with a neighboring civ, even if they lost a city to a neighboring civ. I've only lost one city the whole game, and that was just because I left it weakly defended to help out an assault. I recaptured it almost immediately. Although I did have some revolutions in recently conquered cities, which I enjoyed (but I'm sure it helped that I was in a republic with about 35 cities and few happiness improvements.) Also, didn't I hear something about the "break agreements" negotiation working? or was I hallucinating? hmm. Anyway, it's annoying bringing in someone you've a military pact with to fight against someone, then ending the war, and having to quit the military pact or alliance because they demand you go back to war, even though they never sent troops anywhere near the enemy! sorry for the rant.

Anyway, Wes and everyone, the Med Mod is great, it has made CTP2 worth playing, and I definitely look forward to seeing where it goes from here!

[Cube]

Originally posted by Jules
As far as I know, none of the happiness improvements ever become obsolete (from reviewing "buildings.txt"). If the GL says some do then either that's wrong or "buildings.txt" is wrong (Wes?).

There is something wrong with the buildings.txt file, I checked it and saw that the Arena and the theater dont go obsolete. So, I changed that and made them go obsolete with telegraph and electrification, since I think the arena should be replaced by the stadium.

wes, I think you should use harlan's improvement pictures for the improvements since they are much better than the originals most of the time.

[Mister Pleasant]

I've got a question. I built tv stations all over my empire and every city I built them in went suddenly to zero science output. Checking a hunch, I sold them all, and immediately my science went up tp around three hunderd in each of those cities. Here's the question: is building upkeep subtracted directly out of the commerce each city generates before science and gold is calculated? If so, the high upkeep costs on industrial age buildings and beyond might explain the lag on advancement.

[WesW]

Cube, I changed the happiness improvements to stay active the entire game because you will need all of them to combat population pollution unhappiness when your cities get large in the latter stages of the game.

You also reminded me to contact Harlan again about getting me his buiding pics.

James, see Mister Pleasant's post immediately before your own as far as the aggressiveness of the AIs. I think that you either had non-militaristic neighbors, or else you kept your cities so well defended that the AIs could never get a strong enough stack to take one of them, and probably both were present to keep them from attacking. I hope that Dale's personality-switching code will spice up the peaceful games like yours which can be boring at times.
Also, you might want to use the Large civs version for your settings. It has lower science coefficients so that you do not get ahead of the timeline with your larger empires.
Look at the Medcharts for the Musketeer and Grenadier, and you will notice the Grenadiers cost twice as much to maintain as Mouseketeers (Annette was cheap I hear).

As far as the Cradle changes, I would like for everyone to keep using my files until we get Dale's personality-changing code introduced. I think that it will make the game spicey enough for most anyone.

Arathur, you most likely have a problem with your system. Try re-booting and running some diagnostics. Also check out Tim's readme if you are using win2k.

PH, 1) was made so that Submarines could be more of a factor in the game. I covered that in the readmes, though I guess I did not spell it out in so many words.
2) If you think about it, the side which initiates the bombardment does get in the first shot. The other side just gets to respond automatically.

I have re-named the Arcologies advance Mega-construction, to avoid confusion in the future.

I am going to go in and reduce the cost of the post-Industrial age advances by about 33% to 50%, and see if this does not solve the timeline problem once and for all.

[Starfighter08]

Originally posted by WesW
I am going to go in and reduce the cost of the post-Industrial age advances by about 33% to 50%, and see if this does not solve the timeline problem once and for all.

I tried the same but only 25% for era 6 and 7, 33% for era 8 and it did only delay the problem a bit. I think 33 to 50% should do the job.

[Cube]

I noticed In my current game(hard, large map, 3rd hardest barbarians, 5 other civs) that the idealogically agressive academic personality only builds cities on their current continent and don't expand to other continents. They have 6, 8, and 8 cities, while i have 17 and my other 2 civs have 18 and 16 cities. I opened the cheat window and saw that they didn't have any ships in their military, and they weren't building any either. I was thinking that this might be a bug in strategies.txt or buildingbuildlist.txt. I also have one of the science civs that isn't building farms, they just build mines and nets, and they have mines in non hill terrains like grassland or plains which would be better for farms. Speaking of hills, Wes why did you change the remove advance for hills to nano machines, what is the point of that. Couldn't you just add the happiness from theater and arena to their obsoleting improvements.