PROJECT: Playtest

[Tamerlin]

Originally posted by The Big Mc
Just had to abandon my play test. I started with 3 AI I killed two before they got too many cities but the Greeks keep building more cities ( A lot of new cities) I ended up with 61 cities and the AI had at least 11 left So baring a perpetual period of anarchy I can’t conquer the world .

the AI on easy ( easy making it better to spot bugs as you not concentrating on the AI ).

You know, you can also win peacefully...

More seriously, the Blood bath should be implemented in the original CtP2 game.


Delenda est Carthago.

[The Big Mc]

Originally posted by Tamerlin
You know, you can also win peacefully...

How does one do that.

[Tamerlin]

Originally posted by The Big Mc


How does one do that?

Limit yourself to 60 cities...

[The Big Mc]

With capture city code and const.txt tweaked so I can have unlimited slaves.

[LDiCesare]

I agree with Tamerlin about the trade routes. I did see the ai build 2 routes, but think it's totally counter productive to build any, even between cities connected by roads.
I strongly doubt that trade routes provide that much extra gold. I usually get thousands of gold per turn without actively trying to get them, and not even trading (wish it was like that IRL), so having to pay for lots of caravans is pretty painful.
About roads, how are sea tiles counted? Does the cost to cross them decrease with seafaring techs? Eventually making them cheaper than railroad?
I also wonder if the routes provide benefit to both parties? Here's how galciv works for comparison: 50% profit for sender, 50% for receiver. This results in heightened relations for people you trade with. Don't know if it can be done?

[Tamerlin]

Hi LDiCesare, we haven't seen you in the Rugby thread for a while...

The new cost of the trade routes makes them worthless IMO and the tremenduous number of caravans produced by the AI to open one trade route would be better used elsewhere.

I agree with you when you write that a trade route should benefit both sides... I also think that a civ (along with the human player) should be offered the opportunity to refuse the creation of a Trade Route (though it could have an effect on your reputation, of course). But why would you accept to open a trade route with a angry nation near your national borders? On the contrary, nations you have good relations with would accept a trade route more easily, this would give another dimension to the diplomatic part of the game.

[Flinx]

[Edit]

[Peter Triggs]

I agree with you when you write that a trade route should benefit both sides... I also think that a civ (along with the human player) should be offered the opportunity to refuse the creation of a Trade Route (though it could have an effect on your reputation, of course).

These are very good points. Remember to bring this up when we get around to re-doing the trade system.

[The Big Mc]

as well as all these

Trade

[tyrantpimp]

Trade Routes And Infrastructure

It seems to me that people are sour about the trade route situation. I found the new implementation to be decent enough and playable. However in the spirit of compromise I have a theoretical solution that could prove practical.

Instead of penalizing for lack of infrastructure with high caravan costs for early trade routes. Why not just allow early trade routes to be less efficient. This would reflect the attrition damage caravans would experience wondering through untamed lands. With every upgrade in infrastructure a gold bonus could be given to the trade route, this would reflect the increase in capacity of caravans and their increased survivability and speed.

The solution may not be perfect but it lends to the realism that was sought after in implementing the new system. At the same time it appeals to the "fun factor" of gameplay.

(If this idea is floating around already then please disregard, I havent been following the forum lately.)

[Tamerlin]

Let me tell you what I think about the new system in another way.

Opening a trade road requires something around 30 caravans (assuming your cities are linked together by a road network).

Thirty caravans are worth 11400 production points I could have used to build:

76 archers, 65 hoplites or 15 catapults...

I could have rather built three armies made of 6 hoplites, 4 Archers and 2 Catapults each along with one more army made of 6 hoplites and 6 archers...

But as I am not a warmonger I could have used this production points to build 21 Academies, 21 Bazars, 38 Granaries or 42 Sanctuaries.

Assuming I had ten cities at this time I could have built 1 Academy and 1 Bazar in each of them.

Do you still think it is worth building caravans and wasting so many production points?

[Maquiladora]

Tamerlin has the right idea, IMO.

As long as trade routes in CtP2 give only gold, they wont be valuable enough, alright, maybe if they gave 100 times as much gold, but thats silly.

In civ3 gold supports units, in civ2 trade routes give trade arrows, which gets portioned into science, trade is very important in both games. In CtP2 gold is used for rush-buying and maintenance, so what if i can buy a few more units? Maybe if i built that other building earlier my city instead of all those caravans it would be more developed anyway. Trade should give commerce... or something more important than gold will ever be in CtP2.

[Flinx]

I am interested in the trade discussion, but maybe we should take it over to the Trade thread....

If you set AutoRenameCities=Yes in userprofile.txt (I think that is what I did) when you build a city a box pops up with the proposed name which you can accept or edit. If you edit it the name that appears over the city on the map is the old one but the name in the city tab is the new one....

If a foreign spy is successful at stealing a tech from you, two identical messages show up in the message tab...

Both of these are probably true for the 1.1 Activision version.

How is the 'Overall' graph calculated because it seems to be almost identical to the 'Economics' graph?

This thread is about to reach 500 posts... maybe we could start a new one with a goody package attached

[J Bytheway]

Originally posted by Flinx
This thread is about to reach 500 posts... maybe we could start a new one with a goody package attached

Yep, I'm trying to compile a new playtest version now, but encountered a few unexpected problems along the way. When I have it ready I'll post it in a new thread.

[Tamerlin]

Originally posted by Flinx
I am interested in the trade discussion, but maybe we should take it over to the Trade thread....

I don't agree with you as we are not talking about trade in general but about the cost to open a trade road and its effect on the game in the latest playtest version.

Originally posted by Maquiladora
In CtP2 gold is used for rush-buying and maintenance, so what if i can buy a few more units? Maybe if i built that other building earlier my city instead of all those caravans it would be more developed anyway. Trade should give commerce... or something more important than gold will ever be in CtP2.

As far as I am concerned I am always playing with the Updater2 so I need Gold to pay the updates... and I need much Gold.

This thread is about to reach 500 posts...

True!