Making Cradle 3+ fully compatible with the Apolyton Edition

[Kull]

Hanging Gardens Wonder: This Wonder is associated with the Level 6 Aqueducts Advance, and thus can't be built until long after it historically appeared. Even worse, it grants a free Aqueduct in every city, which is pretty overpowered and realistically there's no connection between that benefit and this Wonder, since the historical structure was not a "Garden" but rather a Ziggurat.

Thus the logical shift is to the L3 Applied Math Advance which has no associated benefits and immediately follows Astronomy. That also suggests a more appropriate benefit: A 5% Science boost and a free scientist to the city which builds it, since this aligns with the benefits granted by the Ziggurat building in the prior Advance. In addition, we'll add Brick Making as a pre-req for Applied Math since you definitely need bricks for the Hanging Gardens! This will also ensure that the associated Nebuchadnezzar Wonder Unit does not appear until after his historical predecessors, Hammurabi (Code) and Khufu (Pyramids).

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[Kull]

Code of Hammurabi Wonder: This was originally associated with the L4 Jurisprudence Advance, but that means it appears long after its true historical era. Moving this to L2 Writing is a good fit because that Advance doesn't have any associated units or buildings. Obviously, one of the noteworthy things about the "Code" is that it was written down, so it's a logical link.

[Kull]

Pyramids Wonder: This Wonder is associated with the L2 Brick Making Advance, yet the Pyramids were constructed from stone. By contrast, Ceremonial Burial is another L2 Advance and offers no direct benefits (buildings, Wonders, etc). Which is odd, because you'd be hard pressed to find a more exemplary structure to accompany this Advance than the Pyramids! Done (See attached).

[Kull]

Stonehenge Wonder: Historically this is the oldest Wonder, yet it's associated with the Level 2 Astronomy Advance alongside the "Ziggurat", a building from a later period. The solution required the creation of a new Advance called Megaliths (see attached) placed at L1 in the "Construction" group alongside its immediate pre-req (Stone Working). Megaliths is a low cost Advance, but also a "dead end", so the player has to balance the desire for acquiring an early game Wonder versus potentially falling behind in the Tech Race.

As for Stone Working, that will become the pre-req for Religion (previously there wasn't one) which links the "Construction" series into the path leading to most of the building-granting Advances. The 2D art for Megaliths was taken from the Astronomy Advance, and replaced by new art featuring a Babylonian Star Disk.

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[Kull]

Adjustments to three Advances: Shifting Domestication from L2 to L1 and moving the Alexander Wonder from Republic to City State made a lot of sense but the extended playtest caused me to look closer at the Tech Tree positioning of several other Advances and Wonders (and thus their location in the historical timeline). Several stood out as an issue, and we'll start with a few of the Advances:

1) Slave Labor Advance: It seems odd that this would be a "Society" Advance, especially since historically the first instances on record are associated with Warfare. Instead we'll shift it over to the poorly populated "Energy" series (see attached), since that's what Slave Labor was really all about - "free" energy. Also, we'll remove the Stoneworking pre-req but keep Religion (a Level 1 Advance should not have two pre-reqs).

2) Jurisprudence Advance pre-req: In the earlier versions of Cradle the pre-req was changed from Monotheism to Judaism, but it's not clear why. Realistically, primitive Judaism is sort of assumed as the original form of Monotheism (hence the Temple of Solomon Wonder), but not the formalized version which appears after the Babylonian Captivity (as represented by the Torah). Will revert the pre-req back to Monotheism.

3) Christianity Advance pre-req: One of two pre-reqs is Monotheism, but that is already part of the sequence which leads to the other pre-req, Ethics. However, with its removal as a pre-req to Jurisprudence, Judaism is now a "dead-end" Advance, although historically it was the true precursor to Christianity. Will make Judaism the pre-req in place of Monotheism.

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[Kull]

The CtP2 Science Victory:
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Since the subject came up, let's take a closer look at the original CtP2 Science Victory. It requires a Wonder, 2 Buildings, and a Tile Improvement. Exactly the same as Birth of an Empire, just fewer quantities of each. So which Advances make them available?

1) Solaris Project Wonder (1): Requires the Gaia Controller Advance

2) Gaia Computer Building (10): Requires the Gaia Controller Advance

3) Power Satellite Building (10): Requires the Gaia Controller Advance

4) Processing Tower Tile Improvement (5): Requires the Gaia Controller Advance

All of them are unlocked after a single Advance. The question is, when does that Advance appear in the Tech Tree? The attachment answers the question. It is the final Advance in the standard CtP2 Tech Tree.

At that point there is literally nothing left to build or discover, so now and only now is it possible to win a Science Victory. By contrast, the Cradle version can be achieved roughly 1/3 of the way through the game, or it can be delayed and implemented at a later time, or bypassed altogether. In other words, the player does not have to run through the entire 5500-year game period in order to achieve a "non-conquest" win, but can "opt out" much earlier and still gain an official victory. As opposed to just getting bored and walking away. Given the two options - for me anyway - the Cradle system seems like a much better approach.​

[Kull]

So you can't have a futuristic science victory any more?

It was changed in Cradle a long time ago, I'm just making some adjustments to that system. It's important to recognize that Hexagonian never intended for Cradle games to extend into the modern era. Under Cradle 5 I've made a HUGE number of improvements in order to make that a possibility.

In fact, that's one of the main reasons for changing the "Arch" requirement. So long as the human player ensures that no AI civ has 25 or more cities, they cannot achieve the "Birth of an Empire" Victory, thus allowing the game to continue into the Modern Era and beyond.

[Cyberguy00]

So you can't have a futuristic science victory any more?

[Kull]

"Birth of an Empire" victory (Part 2):

The player can easily track the progress of this Victory by clicking the "Empire" button on the top left of the screen (see top image on the attachment) and then clicking the "Birth of an Empire" selection (or use the ctrl+g hotkeys).

The original screen (see 2nd image) was very "techy" in appearance (as befits a late game Science Victory) and Hexagonian modified it for Cradle 3 (see 3rd image). That was better, but it's been improved even further for Cradle 5 (see 4th image). We now have a better mix of colors and thinner frames which keep the text from bleeding into them.

Looking closer at the last image, you'll see a large yellow circle in the bottom right of the game map window. This is the 10-hex "cultural radius" surrounding the one colony, and covers 6% of the map (see the "Cultural Coverage" value in the box just above the top right corner of the map). As additional colonies are built, new areas of yellow appear on the map. For example, the third image shows a map in which 94 colonies were built, and the "Cultural Coverage" comprises 81% of the map. Please note that "coverage" is the total amount of "yellow" on the map (not a sum of individual radii), so that two adjacent colonies will project a nearly identical radius. Separating your colonies will provide coverage to a much greater area.

When all elements of the Victory have been satisfied, the color of the "Declare Empire" button at the top of the tracking screen will change to Gold (same color as the "Build Manager" button on the bottom). Clicking the button will start a countdown and so long as all elements of the Victory remain intact, you will win the game in 5 turns.

Lastly, a new "Victory Movie" has been created for "Birth of an Empire". This was made by editing the opening sequence of the CtP1 intro movie, which features a trireme approaching an unknown shore and culminates with a centurion planting a staff bearing the CTP symbol.

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[Kull]

"Birth of an Empire" victory (Part 1):

As noted earlier, Cradle has replaced the late-game CtP2 "Science Victory" with the ancient-era "Birth of an Empire", which essentially means a player has been able to duplicate the Roman Empire at its height. All of the pieces required for the Science Victory have been renamed to better fit this new incarnation, and that includes the enabling Advances, various Costs, and everything else. This turned out to be a much more complicated system than I first realized, plus several changes have been made for Cradle 5. Accordingly, let's review all the main features:

1) Once a player discovers the "Tribunal Empire" Advance, they can build the Pax Romana Wonder (the CtP2 Solaris Project). That Wonder is the first element in the Birth of an Empire Victory option, and it must be completed before any of the other requirements can be constructed. What I did NOT realize is that "Wonder completion" allows EVERY PLAYER - not just the Wonder owner - to pursue this victory! Very important to remember that.

2) The second required element is that a player has to construct an Arch building in 25 cities (the CtP2 Gaia Computer). The building can only be constructed following completion of Pax Romana AND if the player has discovered the "Concrete" Advance (changed from "Bureaucracy" in Cradle 3/4). In addition, a city can only build an Arch if it already has a Shrine, a Granary, a Bazaar, a Ziggurat and a Work Camp in the City Inventory. Arches are very expensive to build (Production Cost = 2000) and maintain (Upkeep = 15)

3) The third required element is for the player to construct a minimum of 25 Magistrates (see attached). This was called the Power Satellite in CtP2, and the Monument in Cradle 3/4. These have the "Bureaucracy" Advance pre-req, and again, can only be built after a Civ has completed Pax Romana. Technically these are buildings, but they do NOT appear in the City Inventory, meaning they operate in every way just like a building that is listed after # 64 in buildings.txt (see description of that particular problem in Post # 223). It would have been nice if this "building" could have moved to the end of that list (thus freeing a slot for something else), but alas it didn't work, despite tons of tweaking and testing. Importantly, there is NO LIMIT to the number which can be built by any single city, so long as that city already has Conscripted Labor, an Arena, a Forum and a Physician in the City Inventory. Unlike the Arch, there is also a "maximum" value associated with Magistrates: If the player constructs 50 or more, that doubles the "cultural coverage" provided by each Colony (more on that next).

4) The fourth requirement is for the player to construct at least 10 Colonies (the CtP2 Processing Tower). These are Tile Improvements, have the "Civic Engineering" Advance pre-req, and as with the others, can only be built after somebody has completed Pax Romana (also see post # 156 for a different way to create Colonies). Each Colony projects a 10-hex "cultural radius", and this can double to 20 hexes if a player constructs 50 or more Magistrates. In addition to the count of colonies, this victory element requires that 50% of the map be covered by the cultural radius.

That's all well and good, but since Magistrates are not listed in the City Inventory, how can you keep track of how many were built? Even worse, the "cultural radius" does not appear on the game map! How then is it possible to monitor progress toward this victory, much less attain it? Fortunately that's not a problem, as we'll see in the next post.

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[Kull]

New "Organizer" Unit:

As some of you may have noticed, the Eco-Religion Advance block in the Tech Tree attachment (above) includes a new unit, the Organizer. The rationale is that we have a new quasi-religious Advance which talks about using conversions to gain adherents, so the idea is to add a unit which "paves the way" for the Ecotopia by converting enemy cities to the "new religion".

The Ctp1 Forever Future mod has already provided two new female sprites for Cradle5 (Assassin and the Plunder II "captive"), and in this case we'll use one more (see attached). The sprite had a slight issue with the Idle animation (only worked in one direction) so it was deconstructed and rebuilt (130 images) and now serves as the new Organizer.

This unit will be fairly cheap for the late-game era, and has the ability to "Convert Cities" (low probability of success and death) and "Raise Money" (Sale of Indulgences). As with some other civilian units, the Organizer has Stealth but cannot see other Stealth units and has limited vision range (in other words, you can't use her as a "spy"). She is also gov-specific, and can only exist under the final three gov-types (Technocracy, Virtual Democracy and Ecotopia).

Files changed: newsprite.txt, uniticon.txt, sounds.txt (plus 4 new sound files), Units.txt, UnitBuildLists.txt, gl_str.txt, GL.txt, Tech Tree, new Sprite and 2D art.

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[Kull]

Eco-Religion Advance:

Inevitably, my work on the chain of Advances leading from Oligarchy to Tribunal Empire (see above) suggested that it would be a good idea to look for similar issues affecting the rest of the governments. Fortunately, in most cases there are no direct links leading from one to another, but there is one exception - Virtual Democracy is the pre-req for Ecotopia. Both are late-game CtP2 govs, and this linkage has always been part of the base game. However, reading through the descriptions and history, there's really no connection whatsoever between the two, and in fact they are polar opposites in almost every way. Accordingly, I've added a new Advance in the "Social" series called Eco-Religion, and it describes the process by which the Environmental movement becomes radicalized, ultimately leading to the extremist Ecotopian Government. This new Advance has the AI Surveillance and Neural Reprogramming pre-reqs, and replaces Virtual Democracy as the pre-req for Ecotopia.

Files changed: uniticon.txt, Advance.txt, advancelists.txt, gl_str.txt, GL.txt & Tech Tree plus new 2D art

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[Kull]

The path from Oligarchy to Republic to Dictatorship to Tribunal Empire:

The extended human playtest identified some issues involving all the mid-to-late Ancient-era Govs. Linkages between the Ancient-era govs were identified as a problem back in Post # 35, and while that solution was beneficial, the issue wasn't fully resolved.

1) The first problem is there's no Advance between Oligarchy & Republic:
Which means that immediately after discovering Oligarchy, the player has the option to skip it altogether and simply wait a few more turns to research and choose Republic. The least intrusive solution involves changing the "Compound Bow" pre-req from "Barracks" to Oligarchy (which already has the "Barracks" pre-req). The "Ballistics" Advance requires "Compound Bow" and currently leads to "Ballista Towers" (which is fine). But now we'll make "Ballistics" the pre-req for Republic instead of Oligarchy and that creates linkage and space between the two gov-types.

2) The second problem is there's no Advance between Republic & Dictatorship:
Fortunately there's an easy fix for this. Simply change the "Bureaucracy" pre-req from Oligarchy to Republic and then make "Bureaucracy" the pre-req for Dictatorship instead of Tribunal Empire.

3) The third problem is there's no link between Dictatorship & Tribunal Empire, and in fact you can get either one before the other:
The Great Library tells us that Dictatorship is the period between the Roman Republic and the Empire, so it's clear that we need to establish a path which leads from Republic to Dictatorship to Tribunal Empire. Here again there's a simple solution. "Ethics" is already a pre-req for Tribunal Empire, but now we change the "Ethics" pre-req from Republic to Dictatorship and that provides both the link from Dictatorship to Tribunal Empire and puts an Advance in between.

Files changed: Advance.txt, GL.txt & Tech Tree (see attached)

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[Kull]

"Food Imports" replace the "Silo" Building:

The Silo is a problem for several reasons, in particular since it appears to be shoehorned into the Tech Tree as some sort of intermediate Granary (using almost identical 2D graphics), while the text refers to its benefits as being available after the "Agricultural Revolution", which actually is a different building, the Food Silo.

In addition, it's VERY redundant with the benefits granted by the Aqueduct, a building which can be constructed at almost exactly the same time. The attributes of each structure are:
- Silo: 1700 Cost, 4 Gold Upkeep, 15% Food, 5 turn Starvation protection
- Aqueduct: 1200 Cost, 3 Gold Upkeep, 5% Food, 5 turn Starvation prevention

Clearly there's a high level of redundancy there, all of which contributes to City Size growth, which is not something we want to be fostering anyway. Looking at this historical era (late Roman Republic, early Empire), the Romans had developed a food import system without which the people of Rome would starve. And in fact, Greek City States used similar methods throughout their history.

Breaking that down, it's a system which provides food for coastal cities since it's only economical to transport large amounts of food by sea. So that suggests a "building" which can only be constructed in port cities, provides a regular supply of food, no starvation protection (the people eat what comes in, it isn't stored) and lastly it should be expensive to build and maintain, since we are replicating the entire system, not just a single structure. Those parameters suggest a revised building with the following attributes:
- Food Imports (new building name - see attached): Coastal cities only, 2000 Cost, 5 Gold Upkeep, 10% Food, 0 turn Starvation protection. And given the total reliance on the Sea, and the current position on the Tech Tree, the granting Advance will be "Hullmaking". Another option would be to create a new "Sea" Advance located between Map Making (L5) and Hullmaking (L7), but at least for now that's an unnecessary complication.

Lastly, since this isn't really a building it will not have (or be) a PrerequisiteBuilding for any other structures. For example, Granary is currently a pre-req for Silo which in turn is a pre-req for Food Silo. With this change, there won't be a PrerequisiteBuilding for Food Imports, while Granary becomes the pre-req for Food Silo.

Files changed: uniticon.txt, buildings.txt, BuildingBuildLists.txt, gl_str.txt, GL.txt & Tech Tree plus new 2D art

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[Kull]

Infantry Unit Gap:

When a Civ transitions from Oligarchy to Republic, there are ZERO buildable infantry units available to carry the player through during this transition. Spearmen become unbuildable with "Barracks" (the immediate pre-req for Oligarchy) while both Hoplites and Hypaspists disband at Republic. Meanwhile the next disbanding Infantry unit (Legion) isn't available until "Iron Working", so the player has to rely entirely on "Specials" (see post # 34), and there's only one of those (War Elephant).

A related problem involves the "plunder" script which grants free units after battle (as discussed back in post # 37). Much of this file was altered earlier, but playtesting has uncovered a problem with the unmodified section. From "Barracks" until "Iron Working" the script provides Hoplites, but at that point in the game they are only one Advance away from disbanding!

Looking closer at the five Disbanding Infantry units, it seems that two of them (Legion and Man-at-Arms) can exist during THREE govs, while for Swordsman, Hoplite and Hypaspist it is only TWO. It turns out that if we are consistent and extend availability of the latter three to a THIRD Gov, that solves all the problems:
* Swordsman is still obsolete (unbuildable) with City State but does not disband until Oligarchy
* Hoplite is still obsolete with Republic but does not disband until Dictatorship
* Hypaspist is still obsolete with Republic but does not disband until Dictatorship

Files changed: Units.txt and GL.txt (unit and concept entries)