PROJECT: Playtest (Thread No. 6)

[mapfi]

thanks for the tip for the build queus, didn't know that one

one thing that doesn't seem to work is disbanding a city via the national manager. i can click the button but nothing happens. have others seen that as well or should i attach my savegame?

a minor thing which is just a nuisance is that the path routing for some special units seems to be off - let's say i want to frnachise a city, the unit will not directly walk to it but to a square that has no roads - i guess the reason for that is that the AI uses the same routine and you don't want the human to know where to look if it gets attacked?

[Maquiladora]

Originally posted by mapfi

one thing that doesn't seem to work is disbanding a city via the national manager. i can click the button but nothing happens. have others seen that as well or should i attach my savegame?

Seems to work fine for me. Silly question but was your city size less than 4? Because when you try to disband a city that is too big, it doesn't give the warning when you disband from the national manager.

[mapfi]

Originally posted by Maquiladora


Seems to work fine for me. Silly question but was your city size less than 4? Because when you try to disband a city that is too big, it doesn't give the warning when you disband from the national manager.

Not so silly - so I can't disband a city that is larger than 3? Ok - did not know that. I can see why one would reason that you cannot disband a large city but then Martin's city capture options give you exactly this possibility - I think it should be either or...

[Martin Gühmann]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Maquiladora

Probably the values from the userprofile.txt would be helpful.

Do you mean these:

WetDry=5
WarmCold=5
OceanLand=0
IslandContinent=5
HomoDiverse=5
GoodCount=5

Well, I tested these settings and the map looked ok, maybe I should next include the map plugins that were created with the same build not some older ones, even if it should make no difference in therory.

Well, could you try the same testing with the executable you have compiled yourself, and see wether you can reproduce it?

-Martin

[Madcr0ws]

Hi all, just a quick one...Do I need the CD to play the latest play test or is there a no cd patch for it I can grab somewhere?

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Madcr0ws
Hi all, just a quick one...Do I need the CD to play the latest play test

Yes, you need the CD to play the Apolyton Edition.

Originally posted by Madcr0ws
or is there a no cd patch for it I can grab somewhere?

No, there is no no-CD patch for it, that would violate the CTP2 source code EULA, at least our understanding of it. But no-one looks into your computer, so you can compile a version that doesn't require the CD, for instance the debug version has this included by default.

But considering that Activision released the source code at all, it should pay off for them, at least a little bit considering that you should be able to buy the game cheap at some place like eBay.

-Martin

[mpt]

It is pretty cheap on ebay. Does buying it there really pay off at all for activision? Doesnt all the money just go to the ebay seller instead?

I remember when i bought the first call to power they had a nice map of the advances so that would be an advantage to getting the box version. Its sad but i think someoone has broken the eula, probably not someone here but i have seen ctp2 on the torrents quite recently.

Even compiling the debug version dont you need the media files from the cd? I thought you did.

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by mpt
It is pretty cheap on ebay. Does buying it there really pay off at all for activision? Doesnt all the money just go to the ebay seller instead?

I don't know.

Originally posted by mpt
I remember when i bought the first call to power they had a nice map of the advances so that would be an advantage to getting the box version.

I guess that you must be very lucky to get such a box.

Originally posted by mpt
Its sad but i think someoone has broken the eula, probably not someone here but i have seen ctp2 on the torrents quite recently.

Even compiling the debug version dont you need the media files from the cd? I thought you did.

Yes you need the media files, and as you noted, that's no problem to get them.

-Martin

[mpt]

delete

[Protra3211]

Hello everyone.
Started a game with the new playtest -level hard -giantic map-large continents with water way around them.
I did make a small change in one file-userprofle-I set the auto expire treaty to 20 turns.
So far after 315 turns im doing ok.In the middle of the pack with 8 other nations.The Phoenicans are a superpower as well as the Zulu nation.Both are on my border so should be a intresting game.Been at war with the Zulu nation.They manged to push me back and take one city.But I have recaptured it.It was no use needed to end the war as they had way more powerful units.The AI plays good defense of its cities and builds plenty of garrison units.Its only in the early part of the game that you will catch the AI weak in this regard.
Not perfect in offense but it will stack units up to 8 and spreads its forces out in a way to block you from going around them.Most AI factions have between 20 to 26 cities.Have to see how much the AI will expand over time.They have space to build cities but so far not using it.
I found something of intrest on the Bureau Bert.s CTP2 Modification site.The Frenzy AI mod 2.5. of note-states-reworked the entire targeting frame work using new CTP2 AE features.Loaded this mod into my game -reload slic and so far intresting results.AI using bigger stacks to attack other AI,s-(used cheat to peek) but AI is not stripping away it city defense like the older versions of Frenzy.Leaving the AI open to counter attacks.AI,s still will sign cease fires after 20 to 30 turns.

[Maquiladora]

It seems that with CtP1 sprites, or any unit sprites made with the sprite maker, the move animation doesn't work, the unit just uses the first frame and slides along.

If you can be bothered, try the CtP1 warrior I've attached, replace the CtP2 warrior gu003.spr. The attack animation works but not the movement. And it's the same for at least the CtP1 settler, archer and artillery, probably them all. I tried lots of things with makespr but I can't get movement working with the AE.

It's strange because they move fine with CtP2 1.11, so how long has this been broken? Maybe it's just the loop animations which are used for movement, but not for attack. I haven't checked other types.

[Ekmek]

Originally posted by mapfi


Not so silly - so I can't disband a city that is larger than 3? Ok - did not know that. I can see why one would reason that you cannot disband a large city but then Martin's city capture options give you exactly this possibility - I think it should be either or...

IIRC there is a txt file where you can change the value from three. i wanted to added it at one point but found it was already there.

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Maquiladora
BTW I noticed that rush-buying (for units, buildings and wonders) is still being doubled for some reason. I reported this bug a long time ago I think. The upgrade code is working fine though, and is not doubling the unit rush-buy modifier from govern.txt to get the upgrade cost.

Not exactly, this is only true if no previous production is store, the true formula is the following:

rush by costs = rush buy modifier * (1 + percent of remaining production) * remaining production

So in other words if you just one percent of production is missing then the rush buy costs are 1.01 of the missing shields.

As it looks like it is purpose to have a higher penalty if there is more to complete.

-Martin

[Martin Gühmann]

A new version of the Apolyton Edition is ready for testing and playing. It is featuring a new way to upgrade units, an improved AI and a flicker bug fix.

If you want to upgrade units there is now an extra button on the unit order button bank, on the status bar you can see: How many units you can upgrade in the active army. How many units you could upgrade if you had the gold to do it. And the total number of units in the army. Furthermore, you see the gold you need to upgrade all the units you can upgrade and the gold you would need to upgrade all units in the army.

Various fixes have been added to the AI. In addition, the basic AI unit to goal assignment algorithm was redesigned. So that the AI now checks first whether it has enough units for sieging a city, instead of assigning and moving units to a city with canceling the goal if it figures out later that it does not has enough units. Also the AI unit rally algorithm has been redesigned so that the AI can group its units before it sieges cities.

A very nasty bug was a flickering of the tile highlight square that is painted around the tile on that the mouse pointer points. Such flickering draws your attention to it, even if nothing of interest is there, this is very tiring, but now it is removed so that you can play longer without getting tired.

Here is the download link.

And here is the list of changes from the readme:

2008-10-08 (Revision 907)
Fixed:    The tile highlight square at the mouse pointing position does not not
          blink anymore. In general, blinking items draw attention even if
          there is nothing important. In that case it was blinking always at
          the of the GUI repainting speed, which just makes the player tired.
Fixed:    The AI now uses the right settle city bounding rectangle for settling.
Changed:  The AI only considers a city in its goal assignment as unexplored if
          no tile improvement is visible. That is the same way as a human player
          behaves, since if he sees a tile improvement without a city then he
          concludes it must be in the dark.
Added:    Extra upgrade command for the order button bank. The upgrade command
          has to be enabled before the game start from special rules screen.
          The upgrade command button is only visible if an army is active
          that contains an upgradable unit.
Fixed:    The AI does rebuild its capitol if it has lost its capitol.
Fixed:    The ration, workday, and wages sliders now add happiness, even if
          the overall slider happiness is positive. This behavior is the 
          expected one, even if the programmers capped the total increase,
          originally.
Changed:  Cities are now watchful for seven turns like in Cradle, so that
          slavers go more to other cities.
Changed:  If the AI build for offense it builds city walls first. Makes its
          defense stronger and protects from slavery.
Fixed:    Slaves do not go to cities if those cities are at the population
          maximum.
Fixed:    Slave raid failure message now displays the target city correctly.
Fixed:    Slavers do not go to cities with walls.
Fixed:    The AI does not consider boats with cargo as defenders although
          the cargo cannot defend. (e.g. Slavers)
Changed:  Cleaned up various AI code files to improve code reliability and
          speed.
Fixed:    The game does not crash anymore if a new civilization has the same
          player number that was used by a civilization killed previously.
Fixed:    A crash while the game checked whether a unit can settle.
Changed:  Instead of moving units first to a goal and then canceling the goal
          if it has not enough units when the units were already moved, it now
          does not send its units to those goals at all.
Changed:  The AI now considers all goals on the base of nearby units.
Changed:  The AI uses an algorithm for rallying troops that works.
Fixed:    Slavers now go to cities with at least to population points.
Fixed:    Some problems in multiplayer, but not all.
Changed:  Some settings in goods.txt and DiffDB.txt for the Apolyton Edition Mod.
Fixed:    A crash with missing population assignment data.
Fixed:    The AI can now settle more than one city per turn.
Fixed:    A potential crash in the char window.
Fixed:    A bug caused by adding new civilisations during the game.
Fixed:    The AI strategy is restored after a game reload, this fixes the AI's
          settling behavior for instance.
Fixed:    A bug that makes the game crash if a unit is killed after a reload
          before it had its turn.

[Maquiladora]

Excellent job Martin I'll give this a try today.

Did you submit a news item for this yet? If not I can do it.