Making Cradle 3+ fully compatible with the Apolyton Edition

[Kull]

Improved Submarine Sprite:

Although most of the standard CtP2 sprites have an Idle Animation, the Submarine does not, which means that it won't display the trail of bubbles you are supposed to see whenever it moves across the sea. The sprite has Move (55 images), Attack (50), and Death (10) but not Idle, so it had to be disassembled and rebuilt. It does not have shadows, but - perhaps surprisingly - neither do ANY of the underwater units in CtP2. Since it has to be disassembled, there's a number of additional improvements we can make to the sprite:
- Idle: This will use five copies of the SE facing image, and will add the torpedo bubbles from the N facing image. These will be positioned so it looks like they are slowly rising up from the Sail hatch. The result is akin to the puff of smoke from the Steamship funnels, except as a very subtle underwater effect (see attached).
- Death: There are 10 images showing the unit breaking up into pieces, so we'll merge in a sequence from the "water explosion" sprite (GX03.spr) which is similar to the effect used in the Nuclear Sub death animation.
- Attack: Originally this was just a short burst of bubbles from the nose, so I looked for an existing sprite which has visible torpedoes. In all cases the torpedoes were too large, so the longer stream of bubbles from the Nuclear Sub animation was used instead. It's not a dramatic effect, but you can actually see it now that the "Explodes" attribute has been removed from the submarine unit.

- File changed: GU031.spr

[Kull]

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

71) War Elephant issue: In AE & Cradle the unit is categorized as "UNIT_CATEGORY_FLANKER", but while AE gives it the "IsFlanker" attribute, Cradle 3+ does not (which was the basis for Cradle 5) although Cradle 4 does. Testing has shown that the AI rarely builds War Elephants, so perhaps this will change that behaviour. It's worth noting that historically, War Elephants attacked the enemy front line directly, and were usually successful in breaking it up. Realistically, this unit should be re-classified as "UNIT_CATEGORY_ATTACK". However, that would be a major change, and I'm not willing to do that until it can be tested in a long running campaign. So for now, we're just going to restore the IsFlanker attribute.
- File changed: Units.txt

72) Janissary Victory Enslavement: As described in Post# 379, the percent chance of creating a slave was reduced from 20% to 2%, but gameplay experience proves that's far too low. Bumped it up to 5%.
- File changed: Units.txt

73) Democracy Age Classification: This Advance was listed as Age 4 (Renaissance) but it really should be Age 5 (Industrial), especially given the "look" of the Conscript unit which becomes available at this time. The Advance image is also easy to change, simple by altering the uniticon.txt reference from UPAP029L.TGA to CM2_Upap029l.tga (already included in the Apolyton Edition graphics folder).
- Files changed: Advance.txt & uniticon.txt

74) Revised "Cavalry Tactics" Advance: Although categorized as "Renaissance", Cavalry Tactics is an L16 Advance which is researched at the same time or after most of those in the Industrial Era. Accordingly, it was shifted from Age 4 to 5 and a new Advance graphic was created which uses the "Industrial Age" background.
- Files changed: Advance.txt & UPAP017L.tga

75) Sand Dune Goods: There are only supposed to be two (Gold and Copper) but terrain.txt adds two more (Camels and Glass). The problem (as discussed much earlier), is the plan was to have a high percentage of copper (70%) while gold took the remaining 30%. In fact there's not a lot of either, and that's probably because the inclusion of Glass and Camels raised the "chance" total to 150%, which is obviously impossible. Fixed.
- Files changed: terrain.txt & Great_Library.txt

76) Assassinate Ruler Messaging: Back in Post# 93, several problems were highlighted with the "Assassinate Ruler" special attack. I didn't realize at the time, but the incorrect messaging ALSO applies to attacks made against the human player! If the AI attacks - even when it fails - you will always get the "Your leaders were killed" message. Accordingly, new messages have been created (one Ancient and the other Modern) which simply inform the player that an attack has been launched against you.
- Files changed: info_str.txt

77) Genghis Khan Unit Stats: Although categorized as a "Ranged Attack" unit, this Wonder Unit's Attack stat (50) is much larger than his ZB Range (40), so Genghis always fights in the front line of battle. Altering his stats to A-45, ZBR-50 changes the dynamic and places him on the back line where he belongs.
- File changed: Units.txt

78) Conscript Shadow files (see attached): Without shadows, the unit doesn't blend with the others of its era. After examining several other units with shadows, the best match is to borrow those used by the Paratrooper (GU53.spr). A lot of editing would have been needed to use all the Paratrooper shadow files, so only the Move (55) and Idle (4) animations were altered.
- File changed: GU209.spr

79) Conscript Attack Sound: Conscript was using "SOUND_ATTACK_MARINES, which is an automated weapon. Changed to "SOUND_ATTACK_INFANTRYMAN" which features individual rifle shots, matching the type of weapon used by this unit.
- File changed: Units.txt

80) Craft Guild Production: As described in Post# 409, City Improvement-related production values have already been significantly reduced in v5.1, but dropping the Craft Guild from 10% to 5% will ensure the total Production Increase over the course of the game now matches that in AE-2011. The build cost will also drop (to 2500 from 3000) as will the per-turn maintenance (from 10G to 8G). Historically, Craft Guilds did not contribute to the volume of production, but rather tended to improve product quality.
- File changed: buildings.txt