Making Cradle 3+ fully compatible with the Apolyton Edition

[Kull]

Road-type TIMP cost revision:

TIMP Costs were addressed (and reduced) as part of the "TIMP Project" (See Post# 328 and those which follow) and separately to deal with some outliers (See Post# 353). What was not looked at were the TIMP costs for the various Road types, and it's clear they should have been reviewed as well. As just one example, CtP2 Railroad costs range from 120 to 800 while the Cradle range is 240 to 1400. That's because the Cradle progression of Road>Stone Road>Railroad has the exact same costs as the CtP2 Road>Railroad>Maglev, even though technologically "Stone Roads" appear at Advance Level 8 while you don't get Railroads until L16.

Accordingly, a better approach is to price Stone Roads at the midway point between Road and Railroad, and then set Railroad & Maglev to match the values in CtP2. By contrast, considering the construction difficulties one would face when building a "real world" Undersea Tunnel, their TIMP cost was understated (often the same or less than a Maglev) and has thus been increased.

- Files changed: tileimp.txt & tilerefund.slc

[Kull]

Mounted Archer Battle Issue:

Although the Mounted Archer is categorized as a "Ranged Unit", on the battleboard it always takes a position in the front row. Even in cases where it has the same attack value as another unit (such as the Hoplite) it will be selected first (see left image). If the stack includes units with better Attack values, the Mounted Archer never provides ranged attack support, but sits in the first row, waiting it's turn. Checking the unit stats, I noticed that the unit has identical stats for Attack and Ranged (A15 & R15) so as a test the Ranged value was changed to 16 and that made the difference. The Mounted Archer now performs as a ranged unit in battle (see right image)

- File changed: Units.txt

[Kull]

Hero Promotion Issue:

The code in elite.slc allows "Ancient Era" elite units to be promoted to Hero (and from Hero to Great General), as a reflection of an Ancient Era system under which individual heroism in battle was recognized and often led to promotion and followers. As such, the Hero and Great General sprites are Classical Era infantryman. However, if any of the Ancient Era elite units are not upgraded, they will continue to serve in armies during late Medieval periods and beyond, all while the Hero promotion code is still active. It's not really a bug, but we don't want units like this perpetually swaggering around the map, especially since there's code in place to automatically upgrade all of them with the Age of Reason.

Slic coding is not my specialty, but in this case I was able to insert just 3 lines of code into elite.slc (rows 163-165) and extensive testing (see example) has confirmed that while normal units can still be promoted to Elites (a key Cradle feature from the beginning until the end), promotions to Hero and Great General now cease as each civilization discovers the "Dark Ages" Advance.

- Files changed: elite.slc & Great_Library.txt

[Kull]

Additional Victory Enslavement Issue:

Cradle 5 has a number of mechanisms designed to ensure that VictoryEnslavement ends with the discovery of "Age of Reason". For example, all the Wonder Units with this ability are automatically upgraded to Brigadier or Field Marshall (see Post# 216). However there is one exception. The Janissary unit retains the ability (a 20% chance of enslaving the enemy in any battle), and although the unit is "Gov-specific" for Caliphate alone, that form of Government lasts until Democracy (which is only available several Advances AFTER "Age of Reason"), and even then there's no requirement to make a change in Government. So we'll still have units that can take slaves even after the Emancipation Proclamation Wonder eliminates them from cities world-wide. Admittedly all slavery did not end at that time (it still exists in the Modern World), but the levels are extremely low in comparison to the empires of the Ancient Era. The other factor is that most civs will be using the Caliphate Gov during this period, and the Janissary unit is the only offensive infantry unit available. That means armies will have a LOT of Janissaries, so Victory Enslavement is going to generate quite a few slaves, even with a 20% enslavement chance. By contrast, there are only 12 Wonder Units total with this ability in the entire game, but you could have that many Janissaries in a single stack! The only other non-Wonder unit with VictoryEnslavement is the Praetorian, but it exists concurrent with the (cheaper) Legion, so the player (and AI) has an Infantry alternative for their armies.

Before getting into solutions, the important thing was to test the algorithm. How exactly do these percentages work? Is the calculation made per unit, per stack, per count of destroyed units, what? I'll spare you the details but extensive testing revealed the mechanism:

THE RULE: When units have a "VictoryEnslavement" percentage, the game derives a single percentage for each combat by summing up the percentages of each unit in the stack, but ignoring all numbers higher than 100%. For example, since Janissary units each have a 20% chance, a stack containing 5 Janissaries has a 100% chance of generating a slave. But if there were 6 or more Janissaries in the stack, the percentage would not increase beyond 100%.

So what does this mean? For one thing, 20% is too high, given the number of Janissaries that will be in the game over the extended period between Caliphate and Democracy. Otherwise enslavement will continue at a very high level. There is no doubt that the Ottoman Empire (the historical employer of the Janissaries) and it's allies did retain the slavery institution long after the Emancipation Proclamation (primarily Christian men as Galley rowers and women for harems), and while the numbers were not huge, it still existed. Accordingly, it's "OK" (in historical terms) if a few slaves pop up in cities after the Proclamation, but there should not be many if we want Cradle to reflect the "World Reality" of that period. In addition, the Patriarch units will still remain, and they have the ability to free those few slaves which appear post-Proclamation.

Additional testing showed that 2% per unit generates the low number of slaves we're looking for. With that number, even a stack of 12 Janissaries has only a 24% chance of generating a slave, and most stacks will have fewer than this. Also, now that we understand the mechanism, it's clear that 20% is also too high for the Praetorians. Having 5 in a stack would guarantee a successful enslavement in every battle, and that's too easy, even given the widespread existence of slavery during the Classical Era. Accordingly that number will be reduced to 10%, and might eventually drop further.

- Files changed: Units.txt & Great_Library.txt

[Kull]

Wonder Unit "Victory Enslavement" changes:

1) Genghis Khan: Enslavement in Cradle populates cities, but Genghis is the Great Leader of a non-urban Nomad society. While the Mongols did take slaves, for the most part it was for re-sale or the taking of women who were integrated into the tribe (which is already represented by the Cradle "Captive" units). Attila is a similar Great Leader and he does not have this ability, probably for that very reason. Accordingly v5.1 will remove Genghis' Victory Enslavement capability.

2) Saladin: Of the 8 Great Houses in Cradle, the Wonder units for 2 of the last 4 did not have Victory Enslavement, and removing it from Genghis leaves Saladin as the lone exception. However, while the Moslem armies of the era did take slaves, it was primarily for resale or to serve in the Galleys and the harems. In general, from the Medieval period onward, armies did not pursue conquests for the express purpose of taking slaves, and removing Victory Enslavement from Saladin aligns with that reality. Slavery as a widespread institution still existed, of course. Anyway, the enslavement levels under the Caliphate are fairly low, and at this stage of the game will mostly be generated by the remaining Ancient Era Wonder Units, Slavers and the Janissary unit (more on that next).

- Files changed: Units.txt & Great_Library.txt

[Kull]

Hagia Sophia Wonder Unit:

While we're on the subject of Wonders, the Great Library text is wrong, since it claims that this wonder "gives Special Unit Charlemagne", but that unit comes instead from the House of Charlemagne wonder. Thinking about this a bit more, there's a good case for granting a free Patriarch unit instead. If ANY wonder was to give a free Patriarch, it should be this one since the historical structure was built in Constantinople and it was the "home city" for one of the original 5 "patriarchates" and eventually became the headquarters of the Eastern Orthodox church after the "Great Schism". Files changed: GL.txt and wonderunits.slc

[Kull]

Replacement Wonder Movies:

Cradle 5 has a mixture of new movies along with others that were borrowed from CtP1, CtP2, and Cradle 3. All of them have full motion and most include the same background music. However, two do not. The Silk Road and the Manhattan Project had to be borrowed from Cradle 4, which - for mod size reduction reasons - replaced all the Wonder movies with single-image videos that didn't move or include sound. However, those two now stick out like a sore thumb in comparison to all the others in Cradle 5, and so both have been recreated using full motion video and background music.

As an aside, even though Cradle 5.1 is adding 4 new movies, we're also removing 7 others (not needed for various reasons), so the total effect is a small increase of only 2.2MB.

[Kull]

Cradle 5.1 Intro Movie:

Cradle 5 shipped with the Cradle 4 Intro Movie, but things will soon be different. Cradle 5.1 includes a new intro, with the original Mesopotamian "Cradle of Civilization" in the background and featuring a text box which credits the current Mod Developer as well as the Series Creator. It's only 18 seconds long and the background music comes from the CtP1 "Sphinx" Wonder Movie.

[Kull]

Improving the Renaissance:

The Renaissance Advance currently provides NOTHING when you discover it, which seems crazy given it's prominence in Western History. Given that additional Wonders are possible, the choice is one of several Italian structures. St. Peters in Rome, the Duomo in Florence, and any of several Palazzos would be worthy candidates, but the Sistine Chapel - in particular Michelangelo's transcendent frescos therein (see attached screenshot from the new Wonder Movie) - seems like the best choice given its world-wide renown. This will not be a Visible Wonder, and given the 64-structure limitation we'll have to "fit it in" (See Post# 229) by changing the nature of the 4th Great House Wonder (House of Julius Caesar), the same as was done to the first three.

In addition, we'll add a new Feat for being the first to discover the Renaissance. It will look much like the one for "Computers", providing a limited boost to Science for 15 turns.

[Kull]

Movies for Alternate Events: Among other things, the uniticon.txt file specifies the artwork which is associated with every entity in the game, from Advances to Concepts to Units and everything in between. And that includes Movies, since this is the file which tells the game which Movie to play every time a Wonder is built. Interestingly, EVERY entry has a "Movie" line, so I thought it would be neat to have a video associated with the "Dynastic House" building, and spent half the day yesterday creating one which used pan & zoom effects on a still image of the Standard of Ur. Very cool, one of my better movies. Put it in game and ran a short test campaign to see it play in-game. Except it didn't. Then assigned it to the Movie entry in the Dynasty Government. No effect. Next to the Dynasty Advance. Nada.

Disappointingly, it seems that Movies will only play if they are associated with Wonders or some specialized events such as various types of Victory or the Intro movie for a mod. Now we know.

[Kull]

Deconstructing & Rebuilding the "Bombard" Sprite:

Another of Tom Davies' (Morgoth) creations, this is a nice "Early Medieval" cannon with good animations. As described earlier, part of it was used in the construction of the new Galley sprite (see Post# 369 above), but it's also going to be included in Cradle 5.1. We'll talk about that in a later post, but for now let's look at the sprite. The main problem is the missing Idle (thus no on-map motion), but the Death animation had some out-sequence images that needed to be fixed, plus a shift in the shield location. There are three animations (Move, Attack & Death), comprising 124 images (including shadow files). The sprite was deconstructed and rebuilt (see attached), to include a simple "Idle" animation.

[Kull]

Various Changes and Fixes for v5.1:

1) All the "Specialist" entries in the Great Library (f/e any mention of Farmers, Scientists, etc) say they come from "Workers to be assigned". That category of the population includes Slaves and Citizens, but only the latter can be used as Specialists (see Post# 273 for details). Accordingly, the text in all affected entries now says "Citizens to be assigned". File changed: Great_Library.txt

2) The file which helps players to install the mod now has a new section at the top which specifies that Cradle 5 requires AE-2011 (i.e. it does not work with the original CtP2 nor the recent AE-2025). File changed: Install.txt

3) The "Unit Upgrades" concept says the Chariot unit upgrades to Mobile Archer with the Barracks Advance, but it's really Mobile Tactics. Fixed. File changed: Great_Library.txt

4) The Alexander unit had the "Bombard" effects removed but it still had the "CanBombard" lines in units.txt (and thus the Bombard Icon still appears on its ButtonBank), so if you tell it to Bombard, it attacks. Same issue applies to the other three Wonder Units which had "Bombard" removed: Nebuchadnezzar, Atilla, & Genghis. In addition, Charlemagne was never supposed to have it, but also had the "ButtonBank" icon. Made changes in units.txt to remove the icon from all 5 units. In addition, the GL entries for Attila & Nebuchadnezzar still said they could Bombard, so those have also been fixed. Files changed: Units.txt & Great_Library.txt

5) The GL tells you which units can Bombard both Land and Naval, but does not provide that distinction for units that can only Bombard Land. The entries for Ballista, Brigadier, Colonel, Great General, Khalid ibn al-Walid, Marius, Saladin & Sun Tzu have been fixed accordingly. File changed: Great_Library.txt

6) The Tech Tree had the "F" code (for food) next to Hanging Gardens (the benefit in previous versions of Cradle). Now reads "S" for Science (the Cradle 5 benefit). File changed: Cradle 5 Tech tree.bmp

7) Elite Legions can Beach Assault, but it didn't say so in the GL. Fixed. File changed: Great_Library.txt

8) The GL says Legion units disband at "Monarchy and Above" but it's really "Theocracy and Above". Fixed. File changed: Great_Library.txt

9) The "Feats" Concept entry in the GL did not provide a link to the "Traits and Golden Ages" entry (which lists the per-civ traits granted by the Feat system). Fixed. File changed: Great_Library.txt

10) The new Great Library Visible Wonder graphic looked a bit "stark". Added 2 trees on the left side, which gives the building a more natural appearance (see attached). Files changed: gtset555.til & gtset565.til

[Kull]

Deconstructing & Rebuilding the Maquiladora "White Warrior" Sprite:

For a number of reasons (details to follow in a subsequent post), the Swordsman will shift to a later Advance, and it's place (enabled by L1 Agriculture) will be assigned to the new Clubman unit. The sprite is Maquiladora's White Warrior, a re-colored version (white & tan) of the American Indian Warrior from CtP1. As with most of these older sprites, the Idle animation is missing, which means the on-map "movement" animations do not work. The sprite had 310 images (including shadow files) and two animations (Move and Attack). The sprite was deconstructed and rebuilt (see attached), to include a pair of new custom animations for "Idle" and "Death".

[Kull]

Medieval "Galley” Sprite:

For over 2000 years, the primary warships of the Mediterranean were oared galleys. Many of these are present early in Cradle, but they aren't properly represented in the mid-to-late Medieval Era. One of the greatest naval battles in history was the all-galley "Battle of Lepanto" in 1571, and that would be impossible to recreate in Cradle (or CtP2 in general). But that will change in the next release of Cradle 5. The new "Galley” is a modified Quinquereme sprite, featuring a different color (Orange vs Red) and a large bow-mounted cannon. Which means the Attack animation no longer uses ramming but rather a large blast of cannon fire (see attached).

[Kull]

Re-sizing the IW Crossbowman Sprite:

As discussed back in Post# 190, Immortal Wombat's medieval era Crossbowman sprite had everything going for it, except it was almost half the size of other infantry units (see middle image on the attachment). At the time I opted to replace it with the CtP1 "Forever Future" mod's Crossbowman, a modified WW1 infantryman (see left image). In a vacuum that seemed like a good idea, and I rationalized it in the earlier post. However, once my campaign entered the Middle Ages and armies began filling up with "WW1 Doughboys"....well, the visual disconnect was a bit too much.

One of the nice things about "Make Sprite" (the Activision-created sprite building program) is that it's very flexible when it comes to the size of the images used to create a sprite. The default size is 96x72 pixels, but Tom Davies built his sprites (f/e the "King's Eye) with files that were 120x90. In this case, I was able to individually increase the size of all 272 IW crossbowman images from 96x72 to 140x105, without losing much detail, and when rebuilt the sprite is now the same size as the others in Cradle 5 (right image).