Medieval Pack II: A Call to Arms

[Apollon]

Bah! Finns

Anyway, if anyone would like screenshots of potential bugs, or how the civs are proceeding, I can mail you some. Found two minor flaws. 1st: withdrawal of AI units. The problem as I see it with how withdrawal works now is that it doesn't always withdraw the AI stack inside my territory. It withdraws one unit from the stack each turn. 2nd, seems to be just a minor script error. When an abolitionist free a slave in your city, the msg telling you about it is written like this:
"A foreign {unitrecord[0].name} has liberated some of our slaves in the city of Hamburg".

That's all I have for now I guess

The Russians are getting their butt kicked, got 5 stacks engaging them in battle now. I also managed to take Moscow from Stalin himself and, oh man, have they tried to take it back
Slaughtered 24 units so far from 2 stacks that were sent to take it back. Gonna keep invading, but give their cities to the Civ sharing my place science-wise, the canadians.

1644 AD: Currently researching steam engine.

[Pintello]

Hi Everybody,

Well for the most part everyone looks like they are satisfied with the game. That means that Wes did a really good job with it. I guess a few poeple will never be satisfied but that is to be expected. If everybody was the same it would be a real drag.

WesW,

You asked for an official explanation about how to get MM2 to work on W2K, so here it is. I took notes while I installed the latest update last night so I know all the steps are there. Here goes. (Note Mod Swapper does not work with W2K, thus this solution.)

1)Unzip all the MM2 zip files to a unique folder. I use d:\CTP2_Senarios.
2) Copy all the files to their respective folders in the Activision folder. They are saved under the proper folder names when they are unzipped. I just put them under a different higher folder name.
3) Copy all of the following files out of the Activision folders and save them in a seperate directory. \\Activision\ctp2_data\English\Great_Library.txt, \\Activision\ctp2_data\Default\Newsprite.txt, \\Activision\ctp2_data\Default\Wondermovie.txt, \\Activision\ctp2_data\Default\Victorymovie.txt,
\\Activision\ctp2_data\Default\gamefile.txt.
4) Once you have saved all the above files into a seperate directory, perhaps called original, delete them from the game folders.
5) Rename the following files as described; \\Activision\ctp2_data\English\MM2_Great_Library.t xt to \\Activision\ctp2_data\English\Great_Library.txt, \\Activision\ctp2_data\Default\MM2_Newsprite.txt to \\Activision\ctp2_data\Default\Newsprite.txt, \\Activision\ctp2_data\Default\MM2_Wondermovie.txt to \\Activision\ctp2_data\Default\Wondermovie.txt, \\Activision\ctp2_data\Default\MM2_Victorymovie.tx t to \\Activision\ctp2_data\Default\Victorymovie.txt,
\\Activision\ctp2_data\Default\MM2_gamefile.txt to \\Activision\ctp2_data\Default\Gamefile.txt
6) Copy \\Activision\ctp2_data\English\Great_Library.txt to \\Activision\ctp2_data\Default\Great_Library.txt
7) Open up \\Activision\ctp2_data\Default\Gamefile.txt in Notepad or some other text editor and make the following changes; change MM2_Wondermovie.txt to Wondermovie.txt, change MM2_Victorymovie.txt to Victorymovie.txt, change MM2_Great_Library.txt to Great_Library.txt, change MM2_Newsprite.txt to Newsprite.txt.

If you follow all these steps things should work fine. Once this is done, if for some inconcievable reason you want to go back to the original game, just copy the saved original files back into their original directories and everything should be back to the same old unchallenging CTP2 many of us have grown to loath and despise.

Timothy Pintello

[Apollon]

Wes: I've encountered similar of the settler problems you've been talking about. The problem is not that the AI doesn't build settlers, it is that it doesn't bloody build cities with them

In the current game, the 2 problem civ's are the Spanish and the Polish. The polish ended up in the middle of antarctica in the beginning, which wasn't very good. The spanish got a BIG arable piece of land. Still, it build it's cities 3-5 squares away from eachother. Then, when it reached 10, it stopped. Now, they are a democracy, and still, they only have those same cities left. The polish have 4 cities, they have had that since 2000 BC. They constantly send settlers to me, both civs, even thought they got plenty of space to build on. The Spanish are managing rather ok, almost all their cities are 18+. The polish however, got 2 cities 13+, one 8 and one 5. So they kinda suck bigtime.
The Byzantine on the other hand, expands like a madman. The canadians have halted and builds about 1 city each 3rd century or so. The Russians have started to build cities again, since I ruined 70% of their cities.

Game progression and observations concerning techs:
Currently 1823AD and I seem to follow the chart somewhat, I am however, getting behind, well, all players in the game are. Had I not been allied to a scientific AI, I would have been a bit behind the rest. I research what he doesn't research, then we trade and do it all over again. I'm also having rather severe cash problems, half the cities are at -xx and there are a few with +120 who supplies the entire civilization

I finally started to build that London Exchange, would take about 90 turns. When I had 8 turns left... I got a warning saying the Canadians were almost finished

Oh well, gonna take a brake now. Cya.

[WesW]

Re: Odd???

Originally posted by janilxx
I got finally time to install and test MedPack.

First I unzipped the last beta. Then the first final version and finally I unzipped the last version. Every files was unzipped as they should be.

I changed to the original game from modswapper(save & exit) and then I was not sure do I have to unzip files after I have changed to the original game so I unzipped all files again to be sure everything is ok.

Then I used modswapper and selected medpack 2. I selected "shortcut to start menu" too. Save & Exit. MedPack did not come to start menu?!?!? Why not? I did this again and again. It does not come to start menu. I tried to add original game to start menu and that worked fine. Then I tried to add medpack to desktop and right after I selected desktop checkbox modwapper gave me an error(file not found(53)).

So I decided to start medpack game right from modswapper. Game started. Good. New game. I Changed ruler name to that same that it has always been. Launch. What. Back to the desctop with errortext. ****!

I tried it again but I forgot to change my ruler name. What, the game started ok?!?!? I quited and changed my rulername again. Crash to desktop. And new game without changing rulername. Works fine.

So I started the game with original rulername. I suppose I have to get all files and do "clean" install of MedPack but I will play my current game before doing that.

Does anyone have any ideas why the modwapper or the game did what they did?

PS. The game's start seems to be very good with impossible and 8 nations in regular map. But I am still waiting to see AI's good defence/offensive stacks.

PPS. I asked many times orange AI to withdraw. He accepted and continued to wander in my lands. Finally after about 15-20 turns his unit disappeared with horn sound and icons(and I did not ask him to withdraw in that turn). I would like to know how that withdraw code is coded? Why did he vanish like that(it is ok to me)?

Here is the text from the Triggers readme, which I have expanded so that it makes a bigger impression when you cover all this:

- Withdraw units: If a civ still has units in your territory ten turns after agreeing to withdraw, they will be disbanded, the flags icon will appear, and the units will be re-created next to their nearest city.

I don't believe we ever tested with re-naming the ruler, so this might be problem.
I would suggest you not use the create-shortcut features of the modswapper program, since if you select the Medpack when it is already loaded, it overwrites the original game's files, and you have to manually insert the "originals" again. I made this mistake a few days ago myself using the safer method, and had to dl the files from my own site and install them.
It does not matter if you install the mod files before or after selecting the original game.

As per Pilfer's comments, I encourage people to make their own variations of the mod. I will even post them at my site provided they are properly tested and documented. We just have some disagreements on those three topics you mentioned.
The settings you list are fairly easy to change once you become familiar with the text files. They could just invlove changing some numbers and a couple of flags in the case of moving over deep water. Whether to restrict the Cog to the coastline or not was something I changed back and forth a couple of times before deciding to keep it coastal. If you prefer specialty maps then you will want to change features like this. I hope you see that I have to set things for regular maps if it is to be a complete mod and not simply a variation on the regular game.

When you go from the June 6th to the June 10th update, you do have to use modswapper, since I changed some stuff in the GL. You also need to reload slic if you continue a game.

Thanks for the Win2k instructions, Tim. They will be included in the next update.

I may take away the slaving ability of Pikemen, since it doesn't really fit my image of that unit.
Strange, though, that you had not discovered the gunpowder units long before 1800.

When I get back I may write a post offering my views on why the game wasn't shipped properly balanced, since the AI behavior you all are enjoying now was entirely possible to obtain with the original game. All Dale Kent and I have done is adjust the settings. Though Dale also wrote up some new settings for the Diplomod, they were things already enabled in the exe., and which the designers could have done themselves.

[janilxx]

Re: Re: Odd???

Originally posted by WesW
I don't believe we ever tested with re-naming the ruler, so this might be problem.

So does this mean that all of you are always playing with given original ruler name? Like Wech Walesa for polish etc.

[Apollon]

Yup

[janilxx]

Own rulername did work in the last(or was it one before last) beta version. So some new fixes has disabled own rulername

[Grumbold]

Med Mod actually encouraged me to put CtP2 back on the drive after many months absence. First no-brainer: The mod didn't work. Why? Because I forgot to load the CtP patch first. Doh! You might want to put a one liner in the readme just to remind idiots like me

Playing on 'average' there are some civs that refuse to expand or will only seem to do so if they can settle on land inside your (not their) expansion border. One or two seem able to expand without this problem, although they may only be going over 10 cities by conquest rather than natural expansion.

I've been able to keep slightly ahead of the tech tree dates researching everything myself and have built all the wonders barring the very earliest where every civ was stiffly competing to get them. They are surprisingly high on the tech tree given their diminuitive sizes so they must be trading techs amongst themselves quite often. Even on this easy setting the AI are notably better at combat tactics although I have found it possible to outflank their defences by threatening one or two cities then attacking elsewhere.

[Pintello]

Hi Janilxx,

I actually use me own ruler name. I like playing the Byzantine and I always change me ruler to Belisarius. Even with the latest update I have never had problems in the original name department.

Timothy Pintello

[MarkG]

hey wes!

i'm happy to say i've had the ai send armies and even fleets against me today

deity is still a bit easy on a normal map with 8 civs though. perhaps less civs will do the trick



suggestion: how about bringing back the "conquer a city and get an enemy's advance" feature?

[ENGINEER]

I do miss the "get an advance with conquering city". Sometimes too powerful, but maybe a 50% chance instead would be nice, if it's even possible.

[Radical_Manuvr]

In all the games I've played the AIs will eventually expand to fill up all available space if you let them. Well beyond ten cities though I never actually counted them. I have seen them build urban planners but no sea engineers probably because I haven't taken a game that far.

The game does seem to slow down around the Ind Age or Modern Age. I had one game where I had nothing to do but build caravans that I didn't need. This is before you get infrastructure or capitalization. I think I got to over 200. My suggestion for the advances is: starting with the renaissance age, make all the advances that don't give you anything (lead to other advances only) cost 50% less. Maybe reduce the others by 10% to 15%. I think 50% for all is too much though I've never taken a game past the Info Age. It didn't appear that I was going to finish the tech tree in that one and I was putting max effort into science.

I think changing the pikemen to non-slavers is a good idea.

I also thought it sucked that there weren't any ocean going vessels for a long time but if you go by the dates I think it works out right. I say leave the ships as is. Just don't play on island maps or adjust the settings individually if you don't like it

I found a problem with the elites. Two civs got the Gunpowder elites in the same game. I saved the game if anyone wants a look. I've only seen it this one time.

I've been thinking that maybe there should be a limit on the number of elites a civ can get. Maybe 2. I've had several games where one civ gets 3 and it just seems unfair. Wahh wahh wahh.

Other unit concerns. The Elite Longbowman doesn't seem to give any advantage over the siege engine. I got those once and since they cost the same to support I'd rather have siege engines since they bombard and have 30 vs 25 for the longbowman. I don't see any reason to build those elites.

The bandit horsemen should be obsolete with feudalism instead of cavalry tactics. I've only had them twice but they seem to get obsolete too quickly. I only had time to build 9 once when I hit a hut and got the advance to obsolete them.

[janilxx]

Build manager or what is that. I mean the screen where you can select what to build. Some helptexts about units, buildings and wonders are still wrong in that window. Check for example coracle.

That helptext is the easiest and fastest to read so in my opinion it would be very good to have all important information in that window. I mean all special abilities, number informations that are not shown in unit list. Etc.

I hope that I have the correct version

[Apollon]

I have encountered a problem with sea bombard now...
It doesn't work! at all.
I was annoyed at first that I couldn't bombard other ships with Ship of the lion or ironclads. I thought, oh well, prolly something they changed. Destroyers, no bombard there either... hmm..
When I got to battle ships I definately thought something was wrong that ships, if any, should be able to bombarb other ships, this was not the case.

So I turend cheatmode on, added every unit that I knew could bombarb before the mod, i.e, dreadnaught, plasma destroyer etc.
None could bombard,... all I got was still a crossed over circle each time I tried... I do hope this is not intentional... is it?

[WesW]

Good posts here guys.

Mark, I have been playing around with the conquest advances setting, and I do not think that it works. It was set to 0.5, and for the last update I changed it to 25.0, thinking that maybe there was a mix-up with the decimal system they used.
Has anyone gotten an advance when they conquered a city?
I do not think that this function works.

Radiacal made some good points about the Elite units. Once I got to looking at them with his points in mind, I ended up making several changes.
I have lowered the cost of the Bandit Horseman, and both the cost and upkeep of the War Elephant. I went in to give the Elephants the flanking ability and saw that they already had it! I also changed their obsolete advances to Flintlock and Feudalism, respectively.
I gave the Longbowman increased defensive stats ala the Bowman, so they are a more complete field unit, and raised their ranged attack to higher than that of the Siege Engine's, since as you pointed out they cannot bombard. I think that they are now one of the game's potentially dominating units.

I have also given the slaving ability to Chariots and taken it from Pikemen, since the AIs seem to build only Chariots and never Light Cavalry.

Jani, I understand what you mean now. The stats you refer to are the GL's summary section, which I thought was not even used in the game. I corrected this section for many of the units anyway, just in case it was used somewhere, but as you have shown it was not corrected for everything. I will try to go in sometime and correct this for everything else.

Apollon, re-read the naval section of the Main readme.

In my current game, I just changed from Republic to Democracy, and saw everything go down for me. I realized that I had not taken some things into account when I was setting up the government stats, and found that it was the wages, rations and workday changes that occurred when you entered the modern-age governments.
I have now changed the settings for Democracy and some of the other govs. I will play the game some more to try and get the advances and gov stats to work right, then I will post the next update, probably some time this weekend.