Making Cradle 3+ fully compatible with the Apolyton Edition

[Kull]

Change current Legion sprite (to CtP1 Legion sprite):

After spending some time comparing the current Cradle Legion with the CtP1 Legion sprite, I decided to use the latter in Cradle 5.1. Among the reasons for doing this:
1) The sprite art is a good representation of an Early Republic Legion in both armor and weaponry, and the colors (red & bronze) match as well. Conversely, the current unit uses the Alexander scenario's Darius sprite, which features silver armor and a blue shield.
2) The attack animation is the historically correct stabbing motion of a Roman "gladius-type" sword, while Darius has a "swinging sword" animation.
3) The sprite has 4 animations, including "Idle", so it already has full on-map motion.
4) Although the walking motion looks a bit weird when you study it up close in the Editor, in-game it looks fine.

After making the change, I spotted a glitch with the Idle animation in which the unit shrinks in size from 58 pixels tall to 48 whenever the animation runs. Not only does that appear strange, but it leaves the unit looking smaller than others on the map (see red circle) - even though all the other animation images are the correct size. In addition, the unit did not have a Death animation, but instead had the CtP1 "Victory" animation which never appears in CtP2. Since it's a superior sprite in most other respects, I bit the bullet and disassembled it (4 animations using 216 images) and fixed the Idle animation. At the same time, the Darius sprite was also taken apart and its Death animation was borrowed and edited to match the new Legion's colors. The end result is a much improved sprite, and a nice addition to Cradle 5.1

[Kull]

New "Caesar" sprite:

Restoring the CtP1 Legion meant the Darius sprite was now unused. Accordingly, we'll assign it to the Caesar unit (granted by the eponymous Great House Wonder), since it does have the rectangular shield of a Roman Legionary. Previously Caesar shared the Alexander sprite (from the Alexander Scenario) with the Alexander Wonder unit, but now each will have a unique sprite.

[Kull]

Advance Background Issues:

Every Advance in CtP2 is represented by a graphic, most of which include a background symbolic of the 10 "Ages", ranging from Ancient to Future. There are 186 Advances in Cradle 5, and the backgrounds for 74 of them were incorrect, sometimes being off by as many as two Ages! As an example, the attachment shows the Computer Advance with the original "Industrial Era" background on the left (Age 5), and the correct "Information Age" background (Age 7) on the right. Apparently this was a longstanding issue that affected even the base game, and the Apolyton Super Pack sought to correct this by fixing many of them. In addition, other mods such as AOM and MedMod did likewise, and Cradle 5.1 has now incorporated 45 of their graphics, reducing the "background problem" from 40% to 18%. There was a similar issue involving backgrounds for 19 of the "Improvements" (buildings), and those have been fixed as well.

[Kull]

Various Fixes and Changes for unit Sounds & Voices:

- Knight units had a weak sword slashing sound. Replaced that with a new clashing-swords sound from Pixabay - much nicer!
- This new sound is utilized by the four "Knight-type" sprites (Knight, Teutonic Knight, Charlemagne, and Cortes).
- Cortes formerly had the "Cavalry" attack sound - which is a pistol shot. Ugh. Fixed.
- Two units which had the "Knight" attack also had to change: Hero (now switched to the "Swordsman") & Horseman (uses a bow so now gets the "Mounted Archer" attack).
- The Javelin Cavalry unit was also using the "Mounted Archer" attack, which doesn't make sense since he hurls a Javelin. Found an appropriate replacement sound on Pixabay (Javelin toss and hit).
- The Cataphract was ALSO using the "Mounted Archer" attack, but he wields a lance. Switched to the cavalry melee sound from CtP1.
- The Raider is a mounted bowman and does use the "Mounted Archer" attack. However, Attila, Genghis & Khalid have similar sprites, but do not! Switched all three from the "Samurai" attack to "Mounted Archer".
- Sun Tzu had a rather generic attack sound, but now features the CtP1 Samurai "sword-swishing" sound.
- Man-at-Arms had the same voice as Spearman, Pikeman, and Halberdier. Switched to the enthusiastic CtP1 Fascist "Select2".
- Saladin & Khalid now have the foreign-accent "Select" voices of the CtP2 Sea Engineer (similar to those used by the Janissary).
- The Slinger was using the same voice as the Spearman, a unit it is concurrent with in the game - switched to the currently unused CtP2 Hoplite voice.
- Marius (a Japanese accent) and Sun Tzu (a US accent similar to Caesar) have now swapped voices.
- The General unit's "Acknowledge" sound referenced the non-existent "gusv02.wav" instead of gusv02-02.wav - Fixed.
- Added a new Attack sound for the Composite Archer (the Ctp1 Archer sound) so it's different from the Ctp2 Archer.
- The Red Guard was using exactly the same voice files as the Fascist. Changed it to the unused (and non-naval) CtP2 Destroyer "Select2" voice.

[Kull]

Revised "Pikeman" sprite:

As described in Post# 176, the Pikeman sprite has the same orange tunic as the Halberdier, so I decided to alter that using the "Hue shift". Tried several alternatives, and a slight shift from Orange to a yellowish-orange is the most natural looking (and requires the least amount of additional editing). You can see the result in the attachment: New sprite on the left, old one in the center, Halberdier on the right.

- Files new and changed: GU217.spr (the new "yellowish-orange" sprite, GU222.spr (new name for the original modified sprite) & 2D art files (UPUP217L/A/B.tga & UPUPE217L/A/B.tga)

[Kull]

Dromon & Galley stats:

When the Quinquireme upgrades to the Dromon, for the first time Naval Vessels have the ability to perform bombardment attacks against other ships. The Dromon's attack-over-distance mechanism is a tube which projects Greek Fire onto the opponent. However, when the Dromon upgrades to the Galley, all bombardment ability was lost, even though Galleys are equipped with bombards, a primitive type of cannon. In each case, the range and accuracy are not great, so what's needed is to cut the ZBRangeAttack value down to half of the Attack value (so the Dromon drops from 25 to 15 since Attack=30). At the same time, we'll give the Galley a bombardment capability using the same ratio (thus the ZBRangeAttack value goes from 0 to 18). This ensures a steady progression in which Naval Attack vessels gain - and retain - the bombardment ability.

In addition, we'll remove the "IsFlanker" attribute from the Dromon, since it should be treated as a front-line Attack/Defend unit and is the only "flanker" in the sequence of Quinquireme>Dromon>Galley>Ship-of-the-Line. That caused real in-game issues, such as weird battle formations where the weak Longship sat in the front row while Dromons lobbed volleys in from the rear. Can confirm that is no longer the case.

- Files changed: Units.txt & Great_Library.txt

[Kull]

Various Changes and Fixes for v5.1 (con):

51) Civ-specific "Dark Age" message: Eight of the civs experience a "Dark Age" which throws production and happiness maluses at the player. That's fine, but the message text used 90's "forum speak", which is increasingly perplexing as the years pass. Changed it to something more generic.
- File changed: feat_str.txt

52) Message Font Colors: Added Font colors to the words in several messages; "Dark Age", "Golden Age", "New Ages", and "Swap File". Also changed the Scenario Start message to include mention of the "Empire Victory" option.
- Files changed: feat_str.txt, scen_str.txt & info_str.txt

53) Colossus Wonder Expiration: This wonder is buildable with L7 Iron Working and becomes obsolete with L11 Monarchy. While it's true that it didn't last long in the fully upright position, the fallen Colossus remained a tourist attraction until it was melted down after the initial Arab conquest in 663 AD. Accordingly, I'm going to extend the expiration to L12 Caliphate
- Files changed: Wonder.txt & Great_Library.txt

54) New "Hullmaking" & "Civic Engineering" Advance pics: The centerpiece of the previous "Hullmaking" pic was a "Longship" unit, which is misleading since it doesn't become available until the later "Compass" Advance. Replaced that with a "Quinquereme" (which is buildable with Hullmaking). The old Civic Engineering pic had some stone lions, but now it has the CtP1 Colosseum as the centerpiece - a better fit since that Wonder becomes available with this Advance.
- Files changed: UPAP053L.tga & UPAP228L.tga

55) New "Tribunal Empire" Advance pic: The background master is from the Ancient Era (Pharaonic Egypt), but the time frame of the Advance is really the late Classic Era. Altered accordingly.
- File changed: UPAP221L.tga

56) New "Caliphate" Government pic: The old one was clearly inferior to all the other Gov images (a raggedy yellow crescent with no shadow or any 3D features). Replaced it with a 3D-style star and crescent image along with a drop-shadow.
- File changed: UPVP013L.tga

57) Praetorian Unit Movement: One of the incentives for building the Swordsman-Pezhetaeroi-Praetorians line of "special" units is because they are part of a sequence in which the units improve with each upgrade. While that is true for the Attack & Defense stats, the shift from Pezhetaeroi to Praetorians results in a downgrade in Move points, from 2 to 1. That has now changed, especially since a move point bonus vs the equally available Legion unit is one of the main reasons to build Praetorians in the first place.
- File changed: Units.txt

58) Christianity pre-req: After discovering L7 Ethics, the player can research either L7 Confucianism or L8 Christianity. However, the latter did not appear until 500 years after Confucius. Accordingly, the pre-req for Christianity will shift from Ethics to L8 Tribunal Empire (see attached). This is more appropriate anyway, since Christianity first appeared during the early Roman Empire, plus Ethics is a pre-req for Tribunal Empire so it's still one of the required Advances.
- Files changed: Advance.txt, Great_Library.txt, & Tech Tree

59) Conquest Feat Message: A feat message appears whenever the player conquers another civ, but it doesn't tell you what the benefit is. In fact, the player's units gain one Hit Point for the next 25 turns, so the message has been modified to include this information.
- File changed: feat_str.txt

60) Teutonic Knight Issue: As described back in Post# 34, Janissaries and Teutonic Knights are designed to upgrade to one another so that AI & player armies do not contain inconsistent religious-type units (the human player might, but the AI will always do the proper upgrades). The problem is that Teutonic Knights require the "Horses" good, and without that the upgrades won't be possible. Previously there was a similar situation involving the Raider unit, and that was solved by removing the Horses requirement. The same thing will be done here.
- Files changed: Units.txt, Great_Library.txt, & Tech Tree

[Kull]

Various Changes and Fixes for v5.1 (con):

61) Chivalry Age Classification: This Advance was listed as Age 2 but it's definitely Age 3. Fixed.
- File changed: Advance.txt

62) Assassinate Civilian: Units that can be assassinated all have the "CanBeSued" attribute, which is supposed to apply to all the civilian units. However, several were omitted, and will now have the attribute added: Diplomat, Ambassador, Empathic Diplomat, Nomad, Settler, Urban Planner & Sea Engineer.
- File changed: Units.txt

63) Expel Plunder Units: As noted elsewhere, the AI does not understand the correct use for Plunder Units, so it uses them as explorers. That's not a huge problem, except that it gets annoying when they travel into your territory and block roads and such. Accordingly, all of them will get both the "CanBeExpelled" and "CanBeSued" attributes.
- File changed: Units.txt

64) "Computer Age" name change: The game uses the terms "Computer Age" and "Information Age" interchangeably, but the latter is how most of us understand the period. I'll retain the code words (CONCEPT_COMPUTER_AGE) but all the text will now refer to the Information Age.
- Files changed: gl_str.txt & Great_Library.txt

65) Franchise Graphic: The GL entry for "Franchise" uses the stack of Gold Bars, normally associated with "Capitalism". Instead it will be reverted to the "Al's Diner" graphic which matches the icons. The graphic already exists in the base game ZFS file, so the only change is to delete the "gold bar" image in the Cradle 5 graphics folder (this particular version isn't used by anything else).
- File changed: Deleted the alternate upss019l.tga file

66) Enslave Settler Graphic: The same picture is used in the GL Concept section for Slave Raid and Enslave Settler, so I created a different one for the latter, using the CtP1 enslavement graphic (see attached).
- Files changed: uniticon.txt & UPCP090L.tga

67) Victory Enslavement Attribute for Unit Cards: Earlier versions of Cradle had different types of Unit Card markings to indicate which units had the Victory Enslavement attribute; A red column on the left for Wonder Units and a "ball & chain" for regular units. This will change in Cradle 5.1, as all units with this ability will feature the "ball & chain" emblem on the left side of the unit card. This affects the unit cards for the Great King, Gilgamesh, Alexander, Sargon, Hannibal, Caesar, Hammurabi, Khufu, Marius, Nebuchadnezzar, Pacal, Ramesses, Praetorians and Janissaries.
- Files changed: Multiple unit cards

68) Unit Cards with red columns: As noted above, the red column formerly indicated which Wonder units had enslavement power, but now it will just highlight the 8 "Great House" units. Accordingly, Charlemagne will gain the "red band" while Sun Tzu, Pacal & Marius will lose it.
- Files changed: LcharlemagneL/A/B.tga, LsuntzuL/A/B.tga, LpacalL/A/B.tga & LmariusL/A/B.tga

69) Ranged Unit Card Backgrounds: All the mechanical land units with the "Bombard" capability have a bright red background on their unit cards while the Ranged units use a dark red. The only exceptions were the Mounted Archer and the Raider, but now both have been changed to the dark red background.
- Files changed: upup005L/A/B.tga & upup086L/A/B.tga

70) Great Dynasty Numbering Issue: "House of Saladin" was the 7th Great Dynasty while House of Genghis was the 8th - except Genghis is associated with the Monarchy Advance which occurs BEFORE Saladin's Caliphate Advance. Swapped the numbering.
- File changed: Great_Library.txt

[Kull]

Wonder Unit Upgrades (Before):

Here's an example of what will happen when you finish researching the "Age of Reason" Advance. The circled units will upgrade automatically at the beginning of the next turn. Left to Right, you see a Hero, Genghis Khan, Ramesses, David, Sun Tzu, Charlemagne and a Great General.

[Kull]

Wonder Unit Upgrades (After):

On the next turn, the "First Wonder Unit Upgrade" message appears and the units have all been upgraded with no action required on your part. Left to Right, you now see three Brigadiers, Genghis (as previously discussed, he does not upgrade with this Advance), a Patriarch, and two Field Marshalls.

[Kull]

Revised Oceanic Goods Graphics:

The "Goods" graphics for Tuna, Salmon, and Lobster in the AE-2025 release are much nicer than the CtP2 originals. Adding them to Cradle 5.1 was a rather extensive exercise which required new 2D art for all three since AE-2025 just had a black background (similar to CtP1) instead of the grey CtP2 symbol which is standard for all Goods and Concept backgrounds in CtP2 (attached). Also had to create new thumbnails for the Editor (those in AE-2025 are hopelessly smeared) and new "button icon" replacements for the Fishery and Trawler TIMPs (which used the old Tuna and Salmon images).

- Files changed: MGGP037L.tga, MGGP038L.tga, MGGP051L.tga, MGGI037.tga, MGGI038.tga, MGGI051.tga, Gg037.spr, Gg038.spr, Gg051.spr, upti_fishery.tga & upti_trawler.tga

[Kull]

Crocodile Good:

Partly because the Alligator Good is so rare (it only has a 25% chance of appearing in Swamp terrain), I decided to create a "Crocodile" Good which would replace the "Crab" on Beach terrain. The Alligator sprite is GG001.spr, and fortunately it is one of the original CtP2 sprites that has movement, so there are 40 images (half are shadows) when it is disassembled. I took image #5 in which the beast has his head raised and mouth open (the in-game appearances shows the reptile lying straight and flat) and flipped it to face left instead of right. Next the image was desaturated (all grey and black) so it looks like a salt water crocodile and (more importantly) it's a different color compared to the green alligator (blue circle). The sprite (GG082.spr) was rebuilt using the single image, the same as the others added to Cradle 5 (such as the Deer and the Polar Bear). A new sound file was taken from a Crocodile video on YouTube, edited with Audacity, and named ti_croc.wav. Also created new 2D art along with all the necessary text file entries to place it in-game.

Interestingly, the game does NOT recognize a sprite number change to Goods.txt during an ongoing campaign. In this case I changed the sprite number from 6 to 82, but my current campaign continued to display the Crab instead of the new Crocodile sprite (although the text file changes show up as intended). However, everything works fine when starting a new campaign. Digging a little deeper, it turns out that if you build or destroy a TIMP (such as a "Net") on the Crab sprite, it changes to the Crocodile. This is not an issue for the release version of Cradle 5.1 (all campaigns will be new), but it's an interesting finding for modders.

- Files new or changed: Goods.txt, uniticon.txt, sounds.txt, gl.txt, Great_Library.txt, ti_croc.wav, MGGP082L.tga, MGGI082.tga & GG082.spr

[Kull]

Swap File System Redux:

As discussed in great detail back in Post# 146, Cradle 5 uses a file swapping system in order to transform the graphics and messaging associated with many of the Special Attacks, so they can work equally well in the Ancient and Modern eras. The one major change since the concept was first presented is that now it takes place on the turn following the discovery of Democracy instead of Age of Reason. The main reason for extending the Ancient Era a bit longer was to prevent all the major changes from taking effect with the discovery of a single Advance. Now the player will have time to digest the Wonder Unit changes (examples previewed in post 445 above) before dealing with the switch to Modern Era special attacks.

On the turn following the discovery of the Democracy Advance, the player will receive the message reproduced at the top of the attachment. As one example of the changes to come, the left image in the attachment shows that the Ancient Era Assassin has three special attacks: Sabotage & Assassinate Civilian (icons circled in Blue) and Assassinate Ruler (down-facing dagger circled in red). Immediately after running the Modern.exe swap file and reloading the game (image on the right), the Assassin has only a single remaining special attack - the ability to Bomb Cabinet (now with "skull & briefcase" icon).

The reason for this change is that Sabotage has become File Injunctions and Assassinate Civilian is now Injoin, and they have new icons and messaging to match. These are now the original CtP2 legal attacks, and thus the province of Lawyer-type units. Similar things will happen to the Religious units, where Soothsay becomes Advertise and Sell Indulgences turns into both Faith Heal and Raise Money. When you compare the left and right images, you'll see that all the icons have changed (those on the icon bar as well those hovering over the target) as well as the descriptive text (from "Assassinate Ruler" to "Bomb Cabinet" - see bottom of each image).

As I noted in the linked post, the whole point in all this is to improve game immersion, and prevent ridiculous things like Lawyers burning buildings or Soothsaying Advertising Blimps. It's also worth noting that my test campaign has now reached this point in the game, and the new Swap File system works perfectly - and will thus be part of the v5.1 deliverable.

[Kull]

Monitor Naval Unit:

This new unit (using the Tom Davies' sprite which represents the Civil War Monitor-class - see attached) will be the preliminary iron warship which ultimately upgrades to Submarine. That allows the Ship-of-the-Line to upgrade first to the CtP2 Ironclad instead of directly to the Destroyer, which is historically the correct upgrade path. Otherwise the Ship-of-the-Line is still sailing the high seas even after the discovery of Internal Combustion, alongside Submarines and Troopships. Not only is that an anachronism, but the upgrade to Destroyer is a huge jump in technology - similar to the earlier issue of going from Galleon to Troopship, which is why the Steamship sprite was created.

Historically, "Monitor" as a class of ship was slow but heavily gunned, and was designed with a shallow draft which gave it easy access to coastal waters but left it unstable in high seas. Accordingly it will be an interesting new type of Naval vessel, which is restricted in Cradle to beaches and shallow ocean. It will have poor Defense and high Attack, so it's designed to attack enemy ships in coastal waters and can bombard Land Units (but not other naval vessels). Movement will be quite low (6) so it mimics the historical vessels of this type. Monitors first appeared in the Civil War and had a role in WW1 and even WW2, so it overlaps with the time frame in which the first submarines became available. An additional benefit is to maintain the existence of a "ship-which-upgrades-to-submarines" now that the Ironclad has been added to the upgrade path of the Ship-of-the-Line.

The sprite has three animations, Move (20 images), Attack (40), and Death (8) but not Idle, so it will have to be disassembled and rebuilt. There isn't a good set of images for the Idle, so we'll use a single image from "Move" that has no motion or smoke. Total number of images was 136, now 138 with Idle. Since AOM uses this sprite, the 2D art already exists and we'll use the AOM numbering system (165)

- Files new and changed: Units.txt, UnitBuildLists.txt, uniticon.txt, newsprite.txt, gl_str.txt, Great_Library.txt, Existing Sound Files, sounds.txt, Tech Tree, GU165.spr and 2D art files (UPUP165L.tga, UPUP165A.tga & UPUP165B.tga)

- Note to Modders: Normally it's impossible to add a new unit to an ongoing campaign, since you can't create a new entry in gl_str.txt without messing up all the text messaging. However, there are several unused units still present in gl_str.txt and units.txt so I repurposed the "unit_scout" entries in both files. The latter then directs you to new "Monitor" entries in uniticon.txt (which sends you to the new Monitor entry in the Great Library) and newsprite.txt. And UnitBuildLists.txt uses a new unit_scout entry to direct the AI to build Monitors. In the final version of v5.1, only three files will have to be "restored" in order to correctly account for the Monitor: Units.txt, UnitBuildLists.txt, and gl_str.txt (although new campaigns would still work fine, even if this were not done).

[Kull]

"Explodes" Attribute Bug:

According to the DB Reference Guide, units with the "Explodes" attribute will "die by exploding", but that is NOT what the attribute does. Instead, on every round of combat, units with the Explodes attribute will disappear almost completely beneath a large cloud of smoke. That might actually be a nice feature for certain units such as the Troopship (which can only receive fire in combat), but it's a HORRIBLE feature for underwater naval units such as the various submarine types, especially since their Attack animations use torpedoes, not deck guns. There's a similar issue with Air Units, all of which disappear in clouds of smoke during battle as if they were musketry regiments at the Battle of Waterloo (see attached).

I ran a test in which the attribute was removed from the submarine, and now there's no smoke and you can actually see the torpedo animation (which admittedly is pretty anemic). As further evidence, when units with this attribute die in battle, the Death animation does not generate the cloud, and you only see the graphics included with the death animation. Worth noting that many units "fly apart in pieces" when killed, and most of those do NOT have "smoke" or an explosion at the center of the animation. So perhaps the original intent was to make this a default part of the Death Animation, except it wasn't coded properly. Interestingly, the same problem occurs in every version of CtP2 (even the Apolyton editions), so it's not a bug that crept in after the original release.

The worst part is the "explosion" graphic cannot be edited or changed because it's not one of the "effect" sprites, nor is it referenced in the speceffectid.txt file. Which means the whole thing is embedded somewhere in the executable. Ugh. Too bad, really, because it would have been interesting to change the effect so it was less intrusive and use it as an "under bombardment" effect, particularly for naval vessels. 37 Units had this attribute, and it will be removed from all except the two missile units, the Steamship & Troopship (don't have "canAttack" attributes so the graphic shows them "under fire"), and (at least for now) three of the modern era surface warships (Battleship, Carrier, and Destroyer).

- File changed: Units.txt