Announcement

**Solver** · October 2, 2004, 08:17

Originally we planned to not release anything official until the game was at least on par with the official v1.11 patch. However, all the SP changes from that patch (and many other improvements) have long since been incorporated, while virtually no work has been or is being done on MP at all AFAIK.

Personally, I'd argue that the game currently surpasses the 1.11 patch, in my personal evaluation. That is solely because of the SP changes.

1) Do we want to have an official (or semi-official) release now or do we want to wait until all MP changes from the patch have been incorporated?

I want a release. Got to take into consideration the fact that incorporating MP changes will take a LONG time. AFAIK, we have no network programmers, so without new coders experienced in that area, it will take quite a while to implement those changes, taking in account that the MP code in current version is poor.

2) Where does the MP game stand now? Is the MP game of the Apolyton Edition better/more stable/faster than the original game or not? Is one version clearly preferable for MP, or do they both have their virtues? I guess the MP playtesters can answer this best...

I'll leave that to the MP playtesters, but from what I've read, it seems that it's possible to play games under the current build, too. I'm not sure if we have PBEM/Hotseat tested at all.

3) What must still be done before we can have an official release? What features are currently on the to-do list or under development that should still be included in the first official release? (E.g. barbarian placement, bombardment range?) And what other things need to be done? (E.g. readme, credits, etc)

I think that the feautures are fine as they are. Yes, there's discussion on barb placement and bombard range, but neither feauture is so crucial that it's needed for a release, it's just us pondering mainly. I'd say fix the new National Manager sort bug, to give it a cleaner look and fix the bug where you can't get tiles that were occupied by enemy forts to count as your territory, and then we have everything we need for the first release. Oh, maybe the diplo-photo issue too.

The credits are fine, I guess everyone is on the list, though I haven't checked thoroughly. The readme might need a bit more work explaining what it is, and stating that mods do actually work with the game.

4) How should we refer to this release, if we decide to have it? Should it be labeled patch v1.2? Apolyton Edition v1.0? Something else? How do we make clear to non-intimi what exactly this release is supposed to be (and what not) and where it stands compared to the original game and the official patch?

Using CtP2:Apolyton Edition seems the best, we I think agreed to that some time ago. Patch 1.2 will create confusion with the Activision version. CtP2:Apolyton Edition 0.9 perhaps?

5) If we do decide to release now, how do we maximamize publicity to get as many people interested as possible?

Obviously everything we can do on Apolyton. A directory download for the latest build, a forum announcement and a news item. If possible, have CFC post a new item too.

6) Where should this project go after the release (if we have one)? Will we work on another similar patch with MP and SP fixes and rebalancing, without significantly altering gameplay? Should we start to seriously redesign internal mechanisms such as AI? Should we actually start to implement some of the more radical gameplay changes that have been discussed in this forum in the past year? What is the priority of PBEM and Hotseat and maybe other modes of play?

Further along the same lines, I'd say. Continue fixing SP bugs, get someone to work on MP if possible. AI is my top gameplay priority overall for the game, so I'd love seeing it improved. As for radical gameplay feautures, no, they're too hard to implement, and about most there is no unanimous agreement. Instead, focus on adding new SLIC functions that would allow modders to create new feautures.

PBEM is a high priority. Look at CtP1, it's alive and kicking through PBEM, being a 5 years old game now. Online matches are played, too, but nowhere near as much as PBEM.

**child of Thor** · October 2, 2004, 08:29

point 4:

if we go for a release before fixing MP as well - then i'm thinking something like 'Apolyton CTP2(Call To Power II) Singleplayer version x(1.0?)'.

something that makes it pretty clear this isn't the complete finished article.

point 1:(yeah i'm not being sequencial

)

Not sure - i think maybe if we can have a conserted push to find a network coder(like pm'ing all the guys who signed up and have programming skills) first, just to see if we can get one; then decide from that point forward wether to go for the single player release if no programmer is forth coming.

I'd rather see one complete release, BUT if this isnt likely to happen until my tauntan freezes in hell

- then i think the 'SP version' would be a good idea.

point 5:

i'm not sure on this one. As its so hard to get hold of a copy of CTP2 these days, maybe we need to go have a look in our local area's to see if we can find any copies for sale, then have a thread here letting people know where they are(like a 'where to find CTP2' thread or something).
I've got no idea how many people play CTP2 these days? So its difficult to know how best to get the word out. Most CTP2ers that look for info on the net will find us here at poly i'm guessing(if you google for CTP2 poly links turn up alot).
Maybe start a thread in the Civ3 forums?

**Solver** · October 2, 2004, 08:34

Not sure - i think maybe if we can have a conserted push to find a network coder(like pm'ing all the guys who signed up and have programming skills) first, just to see if we can get one; then decide from that point forward wether to go for the single player release if no programmer is forth coming.

Even if we do that... it will still take a lot of time to get MP up to par with 1.11, even if work on it starts now. Which would push a complete release back even further. On the other hand, doing a release now might help us get that network programmer for the next release.

**Solver** · October 2, 2004, 08:42

I just checked with the wishlist Locutus posted for the patch 1.2 here:

Apolyton Civilization Site

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=109369

As it can be seen, all fixes on that list excluding the MP ones have been implemented, plus several others. So the question really boils down to whether we want a release before MP is fixed or not.

**Maquiladora** · October 2, 2004, 09:29

My reply in the cafe:

Well last time I tried MP (previous playtest from current) it wasn't playable IMO, although it ran fine, there were bugs with collecting public works tax, a major part of the game.

I don't know about Hotseat or PBEM, but if this is intended to be a big release then it might be an idea to take out the network game button or at least include some kind of very noticeable warning.

1. I have to say wait until MP is finished, one of the biggest and famous bugs with CtP2 was the rush-buy bug, we all leapt when we heard it was fixed, but now there's other bugs, fine that can't be helped much right now, but I think there are a lot of silent MP out there as well as SP who would rejoin the MP community if it were fixed. I understand if the coders want a release now, they're the ones putting the gritty work in right now but as I said I don't think we should be in any rush.

3. If this is released I would at least like to see tweaks to some simple text files, it's a simple job (compared to coding) and it has a big effect on the AI, which can only project more progress in the project. Files like strategies.txt, I was testing a new advancelists.txt for example with the last playtest, but it needs changes in strategies.txt and maybe some others to fully help the AI.

**Solver** · October 2, 2004, 09:34

I have to say wait until MP is finished, one of the biggest and famous bugs with CtP2 was the rush-buy bug, we all leapt when we heard it was fixed, but now there's other bugs, fine that can't be helped much right now, but I think there are a lot of silent MP out there as well as SP who would rejoin the MP community if it were fixed.

There are SP players that would play MP if it was fixed. I would myself possibly play a PBEM game or two. However, there are many more people who are not playing CtP2 at all, waiting for some official source build release (some of these people Apolytoners from other sections).

If this is released I would at least like to see tweaks to some simple text files, it's a simple job (compared to coding) and it has a big effect on the AI, which can only project more progress in the project. Files like strategies.txt, I was testing a new advancelists.txt for example with the last playtest, but it needs changes in strategies.txt and maybe some others to fully help the AI.

I would strongly suggest that Apolyton Pack 2 + GoodMod text files go together as 'official' for CtP2:AE. The reasoning as as follows. These mods significantly improve the AI and add many nice feautures and impove game balance. Yet, they are not as radical as Cradle, and basically are not too different from the vanilla game, so they'd go in fine.

Another thought... has checking the government type through SLIC been implemeted? Maybe before the official release, we need to make city limit scalable to mapsize, or else a 10 city limit on a huge map is ridicilous.

**Maquiladora** · October 2, 2004, 09:44

I would strongly suggest that Apolyton Pack 2 + GoodMod text files go together as 'official' for CtP2:AE. The reasoning as as follows. These mods significantly improve the AI and add many nice feautures and impove game balance. Yet, they are not as radical as Cradle, and basically are not too different from the vanilla game, so they'd go in fine.

Yeah I was thinking that too, but I think we should relook over each change to make sure. Personally I'd like to see some discussion on what changes are made, like for example in SAP2 the terrain values are changed, this might not sit well with people who want to see CtP2 exactly as it was with 1.11 but only with a better AI.

**Solver** · October 2, 2004, 09:46

people who want to see CtP2 exactly as it was with 1.11 but only with a better AI.

I wouldn't think there are many of these people. Those who played CtP2 for a week and abandoned it because of poor AI won't know all the details. And they will want a balanced game when they come back, not a game that has exactly the same values as earlier. And it's a fact that with the science costs and terrain values of the original game, it's unbalancing. SAP2 seems to make that balance much better. Changes like that are exactly why I want it to be an official part of CtP2:AE, that would give it not only better AI, but also balance.

**Maquiladora** · October 2, 2004, 10:22

I wouldn't think there are many of these people. Those who played CtP2 for a week and abandoned it because of poor AI won't know all the details. And they will want a balanced game when they come back, not a game that has exactly the same values as earlier. And it's a fact that with the science costs and terrain values of the original game, it's unbalancing. SAP2 seems to make that balance much better. Changes like that are exactly why I want it to be an official part of CtP2:AE, that would give it not only better AI, but also balance.

I don't think we should jump the gun here and include all changes from SAP2 without looking at them all again individually. I need to look at SAP2 again but I particularly didn't like no production on beaches, although at one time I thought this was good in terms of realism, I think it was an unncessary change for realism and a big impact on gameplay that didn't need an impact.

**Solver** · October 2, 2004, 10:26

But these changes weren't make for the sake of pure realism, it was balance that was kept in mind. Coastal city production was that way lowered slightly, for balance purposes.

**Maquiladora** · October 2, 2004, 10:33

In what way?

When I mentioned this Peter made the point that the AI aims for the coast to settle and this would cripple its production. Although we can change what the AI decides now this would still weaken sea warfare. I see that beaches were the best tile in the game unmodded 10/10/10 but I think it's far too drastic an effect on gameplay to remove all production there.

**kaan** · October 2, 2004, 12:39

I think that we could make a "real" release soon if we want to.

I imagine that it would be called CtP2:AE 1.0

Before we can get so far we would have to have at least 3 release candidates with no new features, just to clear out any bugs we might find (I dont want a v1.0.12a situation).

Before we can do any of this i think we must have a bugzilla running otherwise we will miss a lot of anonymous playtesting feedback (its easy to fill in a form and you dont have to register to do it).

For future releases i think we could use the Debian way to handle new features. They have "stable", "testing" and "unstable" versions of their packages and slowly advance new versions from unstable towards stable, but at the same time small (security)updates travel much faster through. This would however require a version control system for the source code.

thats my 2 cent
Klaus

**EPW** · October 2, 2004, 14:46

MP, although playable. has a whole bunch of glitches that make virtually unplayable. I think we should release an "official" patch anyways, just note that mp doesn't work right.

I guess it would be okay to include SAP2, but I think it would be better to make a new mod based on SAP2/Goodmod instead. I personally didn't find the AI in SAP2 to be all that great, though definitly a great improvement over the original AI.

Also we could use parts of the CTC mod slic stuff to allow the AI to use Airplaines/cruisemissiles/nukes properly. Actually I would rather see the CTC AI than the SAP2 AI as the CTC one is more focused.

Also I can't stand the 0 production beaches in SAP2. You can't mine the ocean until late in the game so it needs the production. I think giving it at least 5 production and possibly letting oil rigs increase production rather than commerce would be good.

**Solver** · October 2, 2004, 14:54

I'd agree that a separate mod to go with CtP2:AE would be ideal, but then we'd really need to discuss what to include. I like SAP2 exactly for the reasons that it's an overall improvement to AI and other aspects, yet it doesn't deviate from the vanilla game much. Including code snippets from CTC also seems like a good idea, and Martin's SLIC files from GoodMood at the very least that are also a considerable AI improvement.

Specific changes such as 0 production for beaches could be up to debate then...

Announcement

PROJECT: Everyone read & discuss: Time for an official release?

PROJECT: Everyone read & discuss: Time for an official release?

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment