PROJECT: Playest II

[The Big Mc]

I add the continental shelf tiles that were missing I also add 3 new tile imps for something else.

[Tamerlin]

Updater2

Originally posted by tyhox
@Tamerlin

Can you explain how to activate updater2?

Thank you.

Hi tyhox... and welcome.

Download the file attached to my post, open it and follow the process detailed into the Updater2_Readme.txt file. The readme is also explaining how to use the Updater2 and how to mod it to suit your own taste.

If you have the least of a problem with it you can post your questions into the Download the unit Updater2 for the Super Apolyton Pack v2.0 thread.

If you are using the Updater2 with the latest playtest version and the latest French files I posted in this thread or in the translation thread you just need to unzip the Updater2.slc into your C:\Program Files\Activision\Call To Power 2 SourceCode Playtest\ctp2_data\default\gamedata (C: being the default installation directory) and add the line #include "Updater2.slc" at the end of your Script.slc file located in the folder where you unzipped the Updater2.slc.

Burn those Xmas hats...

Even the angry smilies are plagued with them...

[Tamerlin]

Stupid DP.

[Lou Wigman]

CTD

Start a new game. Now either select "Options" "New Game" or "Restart". Repeat a few times and it will crash. The crash occurs whilst "loading" the new game. The number of "tries" varies somewhat but it will eventually crash.

Running on P4 2.8Ghz with Radeon 9600 video card.

On a related issue. It is my view that when starting a new game the "game options" screen should be activated rather than the "Apolyton" screen.

More to follow.

[Lou Wigman]

Here is my feedback from playing the 20/10 apolyton beta.

I found few obvious errors. There were some minor nuisances but these were somewhat nebulous and difficult to reproduce and pin down. I played "vanilla" with no mods because this is to form the base on which the Apolyton edition will be founded. My comments must be viewed in that light. No flaming please. I am aware that many of the issues that I raise are fixed in various bits of slic code and mods.

I started playing on Hard. This proved to be ridiculously easy. Switched to Very Hard. Even this is very easy. Had gunpowder BC. Swapped to Impossible and played a number of games up to 1800 or so before losing interest.

TIME LINE
This is clearly wrong. Only on Impossible did I get anything resembling an historical time progression. The time line should be realistic on Normal/Hard.

GOVERNMENTS
There needs to be some early governments and the existing governments need looking at. Monarchy/Republic/Theocracy only become available quite late in the game. Since Republic is clearly superior science wise the other two are redundant.

MONEY
The game absolutely gushes cash. At no stage was money ever a concern. This is wrong. The human player should have to work hard to make a buck.

TRADE
A compete waste of time and not worth bothering about. See "money" above. The game needs to be rebalanced so that you HAVE to trade in order to survive financially. Here is a whole branch of the game that is currently irrelevant.

TRADE GOODS
These should give a commerce benefit in their tile so that the human player will be forced to target them carefully. See "money" above.

UNITS
The initial military units (hoplite/archer) are cheap enough so that it is possible to have some decent wars early on. The wheels quickly come off though. No sooner do I have an army put together then along come Pikemen. Oh the micro-management hell upgrading them all! Worse than that, they cost a lot more. So by the time I have upgraded all my hoplites along comes Gunpowder. Upgrade again! More expensive still! Basically I was not able to field an army except right at the start. All my aggressive intentions come to nothing because of this. I simply lacked the industrial muscle. The AI has the same problem. It is too difficult to put an army in the field and keep the reinforcements up to it.

ATTACK AI
As I said in my point above the AI never launched a serious attack. I am reasonably sure that this is because the AI cannot build enough units. Occasionally, after being at war for a very long time, the AI manages to put together an invasion force of 12 units. It will sometimes attack with this. If it loses the army its all over since it takes forever to replace the losses. Originally I was going to comment on the AI behaviour but combat is so rare that nothing useful can be said here.

CITY DEFENCE
The AI does not defend its cities effectively. Sometimes, but only sometimes, it will defend the most obviously threatened city. Usually there are only one or two units in each city. This could also be related to my point on units above.

WITHDRAW AGREEMENT
The AI does not obey this.

SLIDER SETTINGS
The initial default slider settings should be changed. They are balanced for late game governments but are completely inappropriate early on.

CONCLUSION
The vanilla games is rather tedious and, quite frankly, boring. The game needs to be far more dynamic and multi-facetted in order to make it interesting.

I have probably glossed over a whole range of other issues but this will do for now. A lot of the issues that I have raised have been addressed in the various mods. I have no idea what will/will not be included in the final release. Clearly there are some very experienced "modders" on the forum who have a pretty good handle on what needs to be done to fix these problems. The most useful thing I can do is to offer to play test whatever comes along.

[Peter Triggs]

Thanks, Lou. Valid points: keep em coming, they're being noted.

[Tamerlin]

Thanks for the report Lou, this is the kind of reports the modders need. The AI is the big part of the SourceCode project and the lack of comments from the original coders makes it hard for them.

You should try the Apolyton Pack 2.0 if you like the original gameplay or Peter's Call to Conquest mod if you want a strong military challenge. The two mods should work adequately with the current Playtest Build.

[Maquiladora]

GOVERNMENTS
There needs to be some early governments and the existing governments need looking at. Monarchy/Republic/Theocracy only become available quite late in the game. Since Republic is clearly superior science wise the other two are redundant.

Monarchy isnt redundant since you can get to Monarchy in 8 advances which includes most of the essential advances anyway like Drama and Trade. While its 11 advances to Republic. Theocracy is definitely redundant, its strength is gold and extra gold doesnt pay back half as well as extra growth, production or science, unlike in CtP1. Theocracy is also right next to Fascism, which makes switching to Theocracy at all that more pointless.

For a start I'd like to get rid of this boring ladder system of governments, you research a new government with higher city cap, you enact new government, theres no difficult choices. Its like playing a 10 piece jigsaw puzzle, its nice the first time but the second and third its pretty obvious, its stops being a game and instead a simple task. I should be making different choices always, even after my 1000th game of CtP2 I should be made to consider the state of my civ in the game and decide which government is better for me right now.

Instead of adding more governments (which would make things even more difficult to balance) I'd like to see all the governments have clear and equal advantages over the other and force the player to choose. This might involve increasing and slightly evening out all the city caps between different governments, and properly make the government policies the only stats to look at rather than just the city caps.

[Lemmy]

You kinda already gave a solution, but i'm not sure how feasible it is.
The problem is that the city cap is static, so change it to something dynamic or base it on the average number of cities per civ.
For example the average number cities per civ is 20 and Democracy gives +20% higher city cap, then the city cap for Democracy at this point would be 20+20% = 24.

[Ekmek]

1) Or actually to make it a tough choice I'd make the crappier govts have higher city caps and the better govts have lower city caps.
Bringing the question:

Do I be expansionist with a bad govt

OR

have a small but efficient empire?

kind of gets historically realistic too.

2) As for the gold problem, maybe we should look at increasing the upkeep costs of city improvements, maybe by a factor of 5 or 10. This will create a situation where you either try to keep cash on hand to upgrade units etc or you need to raise money to pay for all of your infrastructure.

i looked into adding unit upkeep costs as well, but my weak coding skills have slowed me down. It would also be nice to make tile improvements have a gold cost as well. That way there's a challenge of always trying to pay your bills.

[The Big Mc]

TIME LINE
This is clearly wrong. Only on Impossible did I get anything resembling an historical time progression. The time line should be realistic on Normal/Hard.

Yes I like this a realistic time line Don’t go to historical you should aim for the car for about 1605.

This accounts for the dark ages effect.

GOVERNMENTS
There needs to be some early governments and the existing governments need looking at. Monarchy/Republic/Theocracy only become available quite late in the game. Since Republic is clearly superior science wise the other two are redundant.

I always like the idea of changeable governments lets say that technocracy is great for science as well as production. But to get the science bonus you have to surrender some of that production bonus like on a slider bar.

MONEY
The game absolutely gushes cash. At no stage was money ever a concern. This is wrong. The human player should have to work hard to make a buck.

TRADE
A compete waste of time and not worth bothering about. See "money" above. The game needs to be rebalanced so that you HAVE to trade in order to survive financially. Here is a whole branch of the game that is currently irrelevant

Yes and no trade should help make a nation rich and increase science rate however a civ should not be forced to trade to survive.

[Ekmek]

another thought about the money issue. maybe we should make improvements like mines have a NEGATIVE gold value so it subtracts for the normal gold value of a tile.Its adds more to the human's choice about how to develop and it impacts the money situation. A tighter gold return than impacts your development and science vs tax decisions should be implemented.

[Maquiladora]

Shouldnt this say like "Increases scientists in host city by 5"?

[Ekmek]

yes an error maq.

looking at those city improvement upkeep costs shows that we definietely need to rebalance those to make gold a more challenging feature.

[Lou Wigman]

OK. here's some more.

GAME SPEED
The game is VERY slow once you reach the middle ages. Even with the memory leaks and the hard disk whirring away in overdrive the original game was faster. Something has gone awry here. The original specs were 233Mhz. I am running 2.8Ghz. AI turns run at 2+minutes. Way, way too slow. Completely destroys any game continuity. Turning animations off etc. makes no difference. The AI seems to "hang" on certain civs. It is always the same civ that takes forever to complete its turn whilst the others are always pretty quick.

ADVANCE ON CAPTURE
You usually get an advance when you capture a city. Nothing wrong with this but it needs to be a bit less frequent.

BUYING WONDERS
A message appears saying the I have run out of time because so and so is about to complete a wonder. The reason for this message is so that the human player can buy it. If you do you've done your dough cold because you DON'T get the wonder.

WONDER MOVIES
I have turned these off. So when I complete a wonder I don't get any feedback at all to say I have completed it. Is it possible to have a message box telling me of this event?

NAVAL AI
This does nothing at all. It used to rip up your fishing nets. Not that I mind since now I can actually build some sea improvements. Still it isn't really very satisfactory.

BOMBARDING
Bombarding a city should destroy city improvements on a random basis.

FASCIST UNIT
Fascism is arrived at not long after gunpowder. This leads to the situation of having machine gun equipped infantry in Medieval times.

INFRASTRUCTURE
This should be available earlier in the game. Give the player more options for creating PWs.

SHOPPING MALL
Putting a shopping mall in the countryside is absurd. Something else is needed. For example "Market Garden", "Dairy Farm", "Cattle Ranch", "Lumber Mill".

ADDITIONAL TILE IMPROVEMENTS
At present there are slots for 12 tile improvements. How hard would it be to create some additional ones? Let me suppose that these improvements are in an array with tile[0] being farm. Let us now create a new tile imp in tile[12]. After a suitable trigger tile[12] appears in the slot that "farm" used to occupy. Farms can still exist but you can't build any new ones. Possible? Problem for the AI? Does that matter if we are careful about the extras?

CITY CAP
Once you reach your city cap any additional cities become a real problem. If you are in a vicious war then you can't help but acquire some additional ones. We could give the option of destroying the city just captured but that is pretty unrealistic. A possible suggestion is to pinch an idea from Europe Universalis and have an option called "Create Puppet" with suitable diplomatic constraints.