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

[Kull]

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

81) Government Sequence Issue: It is possible to research L19 Corporate Republic before L16 Communism, which is clearly a problem. Even worse, there are no requirements to EVER research Communism or Fascism, since the rest of the Tech Tree can be completed without them (whereas, for example, you need Corporate Republic to research "Computer" and "Global Economics", which embeds it into the main research tree). Most of the Advances at this point already have two pre-reqs, so I had to look for redundancies, and the best option is L17 Explosives, which requires L16 Physics. Explosives is the immediate pre-req for "Mass Production" which already includes "Physics" earlier in its chain. Accordingly, if Fascism replaces Physics as an Explosives pre-req, that makes it a de facto requirement for Mass Production and the many Advances which follow. Thus we establish the correct order of governments AND embed Fascism/Communism into the overall Tech Tree. This may sound a bit complicated, but it only requires changing one pre-req on a single Advance, and is the least obtrusive way to fix the "orphan and unlinked govs" problem.
- Files changed: Advance.txt, advancelists.txt, Great_Library.txt, & Tech Tree

82) Additional Government Changes: There wasn't enough difference between Communism and Fascism, so I dropped Communist science to 65 (from 70 - still better than the 60 in Cradle 5) and increased the Max City thresholds for Fascism (65>70), Ecotopia (75>80), Technocracy (80>85), and Virtual Democracy (85>90) so that every gov-type from Democracy on up will see an incremental increase in Max City.
- File changed: Govern.txt

83) Submarine Availability Issue: This unit becomes available with the L17 "Oil Refining" Advance, and is only one Advance away from Industrial Revolution. As a result, it's possible (even probable) that the player can build Submarines before constructing the first Ironclad. The solution is to shift submarines to L17 Internal Combustion, since that adds two interim Advances (Electricity & Oil Refining) before submarines are available. It also makes sense, since you need an internal combustion engine to power a submarine anyway.
- Files changed: Units.txt, Great_Library.txt, & Tech Tree

84) Submarine Transport Issues: The Nuclear Sub currently can carry 2 small land units, but that ability will be removed so they can only transport missile units (SmallAir). Realistically, these are deep-water vessels and would never travel close enough to shore to insert spies or commandos. As for the Submarine, it can carry 1 missile or one civilian land unit (SmallLand). In this case we'll remove the ability to carry missiles since historically that was never something done by diesel subs. Also, it would allow them to carry Nukes, and that is just wrong.
- File changed: Units.txt

85) Infantryman Obsolescence: The Infantryman unit currently expires with L18 Mass Production, mostly because that is when the upgrade unit (Machine Gunner) is available. However, the Infantryman is an early Industrial Era unit, and it should go obsolete much earlier, probably with Communism, since at that point the player can build two of the three Late Industrial-Early Modern Era gov-specific infantry alternatives. Both the Conscript and Red Guard are superior units, can also upgrade and do not disband.
- Files changed: Units.txt & Great_Library.txt

86) Secret Agent Issue: Unlike all the other Spy-type units, the Secret Agent did not have the "IgnoreZOC" attribute. Fixed.
- File changed: Units.txt

87) Truck Sprite Positioning & Shadows: When the truck moves North or South, the sprite is positioned to the far right side of the tile. The solution involved changing the image size. The original images used a 140x90 template and moving them to 96x72 (the same as most native CtP2 sprites) resolved the positioning problem.

In addition there were no shadow files. After examining several other units with shadows, the closest match was to modify those used by the M3A1 unit from WW2 scenario, which is also a 5-image sprite. The only issue with the borrowed shadows is they appear on the right side of the unit, whereas all (or at least most) of the other sprites have theirs on the left. This was most noticeable on the N & S facing images, so I did a left-right transform and that solved the problem.
- File changed: gu198.spr

88) Truck Unit Sounds: Along with the graphic issues, there was a short pause in the engine sound when the truck moves, so the starting and ending segments of the wave file were snipped and now it loops seamlessly.
- File changed: truck_move.wav

89) Revised Troopship Sprite: BureauBert's Sprite database includes a notation on the CtP1 Troopship that it "has a better death animation", and it really does. The CtP2 death animation has 10 images in which ship parts fly off in several directions while the hull breaks in half and sinks. Not bad. But the CtP1 animation is much more realistic and has 20 images in which multiple explosions occur in different parts of the ship (looks like gunfire hits) during which it gradually sinks beneath the waves (see attached). Since portions of these sprites were previously needed for the new Steamship, I decided to deconstruct the CtP2 sprite and rebuild it using the CtP1 Death animation.

After deleting the entire Death animation, that left only 72 CtP2 image files to convert. The CtP1 sprite has 100 images, but we only need the 40 from the "Death" animation. No editing was required for any of the individual files, so the whole process was fairly straightforward (just the usual time consuming effort to change the tga files to tif and develop the sprite creation text file). The new sprite has the same number as the old (so no text file changes). Tested in game and it looks great - totally seamless.
- File changed: GU030.spr

90) Lawyer & Legal Team Issue: Both units use the same voice and sound files for every action, in particular Acknowledge & Can't Move. The options from the CtP1 voice file include 2 that will make good alternates for the Legal Team: "Acknowledge" will use gudv23-2 ("See you in court") while "Can't Move" references guxv23-1 ("Cease and Desist"). In addition, the Legal Team will also use the "Death" cry from Urban Planner and the "Walk" sound from the Abolitionist (uses existing CtP2 files).
- Files new and changed: Units.txt, sounds.txt, gudv23-2 & guxv23-1

[Kull]

Cradle 5.1 Status:

With all the new improvements in place (everything discussed in Posts 366 through 453), one "robot-civ" campaign has already reached 1904 AD, and since then I've been running a full human-player campaign (Minoan civ) which is now well into the Modern Era. So far all the new enhancements are working seamlessly, the mod is completely stable, and the AI is definitely a far greater challenge. I considered carrying this playtest on into the Future periods but at this point most of what I'm doing now is tweaking and adding minor improvements. There is no doubt that v5.1 is already vastly superior to v5.0 in every way.

Accordingly, the release is imminent!

[Kull]

Cradle5.1 Download and Installation: The new Cradle 5.1 mod is now available for Download from Dropbox (link below):

Cradle v5.1 zip file

Installation instructions are fairly simple:

1) Cradle 5.1 is expressly designed to work with the 2011 version of the Apolyton Edition, and does not work with the recent 2025 version of AE or "vanilla" CtP2.

2) Cradle 5.1 is "standalone" and does not require a previous Cradle 5.0 install and (because it has a different directory name) will not overwrite a previous 5.0 install.

3) Unzip the download into your CtP2 Game folder. If you did it properly, you will see a folder named "Cradle51" at the same level as the "Scenarios" or "ctp2_data" folders (see attached example).

4) Inside the "Cradle51" folder you will see a file named "userprofile.txt", which needs to be copied into the ctp2_program\ctp\ directory. WARNING: You may want to preserve the userprofile.txt file which is already present in the ctp\ directory, so rename the existing one (to something like "userprofile (original).txt") BEFORE you copy in the new file.

5) Start up a session of CtP2 as you would normally, and it will automatically begin with the new Cradle movie (hit <enter> to bypass, if desired) and start-up screen.

Additional Items:

- Cradle 5.1 does not have an instruction manual but there is a document called "Cradle5 posts at Apolyton" in the Cradle5/Documents folder. As the name implies it is a compilation of all the posts made to the Cradle 5 development thread at Apolyton, and is text searchable. In addition, the in-game "Great Library" includes detailed descriptions of all the many new units, features, and concepts.

- Inside the Cradle51 directory there is a file called "Cradle 5.1 Tech tree.bmp", which should prove very useful. It includes a "Legend" at the center/right/top of the document.

- Swap File System: The Swap File System IS present in Cradle 5.1. It is designed to improve immersion by modifying text message and some graphics as a prelude to the Modern Era, and is implemented by a double-click executable after the player has researched "Democracy". Please see the "Swap File" entry in the Concepts section of the Great Library for more details. NOTE: The mod is pre-set to the Ancient Era, so no action is required when starting a new campaign.

- Soundtrack: What would CtP2 be, without the music? An mp3 version of the soundtrack is in the Cradle5.1 directory. It does not play automatically, but runs separately after you start it.

[Kull]

Cradle 5.1 Requires the 2011 Apolyton Edition version of CtP2, which can be downloaded from CivFanatics:

https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/call-to-power-ii-apolyton-edition.27588/