PROJECT: Playtest (Thread No. 6)

[Martin Gühmann]

So I made some changes to restore the original game, even slightly unbalanced it should remain unmodified. Everything else can then be kept neatly in the scenarios folder.

I would prefer to have it balanced.

I found some other inconsistencies in the great library but didn't know which way to fix them:

Destroyer: GL says it can Anti-Air active defend, units.txt has "ActiveDefenseRange 1" but not "Defend: Air" so doesn't work.
Interceptor: GL says it can Anti-Air active defend, units.txt has nothing regarding active defence.
Leviathan: GL says it can active defend against air, sea and land, units.txt has only against air.
Morey Striker: GL says it can Anti-sea active defend, units.txt has "ActiveDefenseRange 1" but not "Defend: Water" so doesn't work.
Plasma Destroyer: GL says it can Anti-sea active defend, units.txt has anti-air defend.

Hospital: GL says it reduces overcrowding by 0, left over from CtP1?

Suggestions?

I would correct the unit.txt and give what is advertised in the Great Library. Except for the hospital, I think this is balanced well enough, so that we don't need to mess with it. And just remove that line.

By the way, you should check again the files you have submitted. For that use the Show Differences option from the Tortoise Log Messages dialog.

In particular you should check the GlHidden flag, and for some reason, I think you should be able to upgrade warriors if you can upgrade archers, too.

-Martin

[Maquiladora]

I would prefer to have it balanced.

But how far should we go? We could change everything to be balanced, but the game would become unrecognisable from the one out of the box. I was told this was for mods put in the scenario folder.

For example creating hills and mountains with terraforming was removed because it was unbalanced against the AI, but people may have liked this feature, especially in MP games. The only other major thing I changed back to the original game in terrain.txt was adding production back on the coast and rivers, commerce and food back in forest.

These will not upset the balance, and in fact I noticed that extra production doesn't help much in forest, because they still prevent you from building more farms. Extra commerce could be worth more in the early game when science is slow, and you run out of things to build eventually anyway.

In particular you should check the GlHidden flag

What is wrong with it? I put those at the top of the unit so they would be more noticeable, like the Alexander scenario did. This won't affect compatibility with previous saves will it?

I think you should be able to upgrade warriors if you can upgrade archers, too.

I thought I would upset no one using the Apolyton Pack upgrades so what do you suggest it upgrade to? Hoplite or Samurai?

Also I forgot to mention a problem with the upgrades, that the units now go obsolete at their upgrade, and not at the obsolete advance given. For example I want to build Mounted Archers after I discover Cavalry to use them as cheap garrison or border lookout, and units.txt says they obsolete at Industrial Revolution or Tank Warfare so they should.

[Maquiladora]

Hospital: GL says it reduces overcrowding by 0, left over from CtP1?

Ah the problem was it was looking for raisemaxpopulation whilst saying "reduces overcrowding effect" so it said 0:

Reduces Overcrowding Effect by {BuildingDB(Building[0]).[b]RaiseMaxPopulation[/b]}

in buildings.txt it lowers overcrowding by 8, so I'll just correct the GL.

Edit: I didn't realise how different these other languages of the GL are. For example the French, Italian and Spanish versions don't tell you which prerequisite buildings you need, or by how much overcrowding is reduced. I don't think I want to fix all these

[Martin Gühmann]

But how far should we go? We could change everything to be balanced, but the game would become unrecognisable from the one out of the box. I was told this was for mods put in the scenario folder.

For example creating hills and mountains with terraforming was removed because it was unbalanced against the AI, but people may have liked this feature, especially in MP games. The only other major thing I changed back to the original game in terrain.txt was adding production back on the coast and rivers, commerce and food back in forest.

Terraforming was against the AI now the AI can terraform if the city needs more food, so I don't see that there is anything to balance, in fact the AI did much better in my last test game with the original values. Conquering a lot of cities, I just have to adjust my new garrison calculation, so that the AI does not move units out of city after a conquest leaving the city behind with a lot of slaves.

These will not upset the balance, and in fact I noticed that extra production doesn't help much in forest, because they still prevent you from building more farms. Extra commerce could be worth more in the early game when science is slow, and you run out of things to build eventually anyway.

So you have to terraform.

What is wrong with it? I put those at the top of the unit so they would be more noticeable, like the Alexander scenario did. This won't affect compatibility with previous saves will it?

So there it went, and I thought you had removed it entirely.

Edit: I didn't realise how different these other languages of the GL are. For example the French, Italian and Spanish versions don't tell you which prerequisite buildings you need, or by how much overcrowding is reduced. I don't think I want to fix all these

That's because I added them for CityMod2, ApolytonPack, and GoodMod. Since I don't speak any of those languages, it is only in the English and German version.

-Martin

[Martin Gühmann]

But how far should we go? We could change everything to be balanced,
I thought I would upset no one using the Apolyton Pack upgrades so what do you suggest it upgrade to? Hoplite or Samurai?

From what I have seen is that the upgrade path we had before was okay but maybe we should check it again. Anyway, you should add the upgrade paths for the additional units back. You can't research them you can't build them, but you can have them from a save game from a previous version, so you should have the opportunity, upgrade out.

Also I forgot to mention a problem with the upgrades, that the units now go obsolete at their upgrade, and not at the obsolete advance given. For example I want to build Mounted Archers after I discover Cavalry to use them as cheap garrison or border lookout, and units.txt says they obsolete at Industrial Revolution or Tank Warfare so they should.

E's features are amazing, aren't they?

-Martin

[Maquiladora]

Terraforming was against the AI now the AI can terraform if the city needs more food, so I don't see that there is anything to balance, in fact the AI did much better in my last test game with the original values.

Yeah the AI terraforms forest now for more farms. BTW I wanted to ask something about the AI using farmers.

For example I set "TurnsAcceptedForOnePop 20" but even in high growth cities the AI will use farmers eventually because it can't build farms there fast enough. I think the AI builds improvements every 5 turns or so it seems?

Even if a city has 21 turns to next growth the AI will use one farmer, obviously this is a problem because it chokes science and production unnecessarily.

I tried setting it to 50 turns per growth and the AI would still use farmers eventually, when they couldn't build anymore farms or because they couldn't research better farms or fishing fast enough.

In the latest AE Mod I posted I had to set it to 999 turns and had the AI terraform and create farms every turn using slic. But there is a problem with this in hills/mountain cities where it can't terraform early in the game and obviously it won't use farmers, so I just told the AI never to settle there.

That's because I added them for CityMod2, ApolytonPack, and GoodMod. Since I don't speak any of those languages, it is only in the English and German version.

Ah, I never noticed they weren't part of the original GL.

[Maquiladora]

From what I have seen is that the upgrade path we had before was okay but maybe we should check it again. Anyway, you should add the upgrade paths for the additional units back. You can't research them you can't build them, but you can have them from a save game from a previous version, so you should have the opportunity, upgrade out.

I didn't change the upgrade paths for the Longbowman, so it can still be upgraded out of. I didn't remove any other units, the Elephant Warrior is the only other new unit in units.txt but it's never been researchable, so I didn't touch it.

E's features are amazing, aren't they?

Well they are but some just need a few creases ironing out.

[Ekmek]

E's features are amazing, aren't they?

Well they are but some just need a few creases ironing out.

man, i miss the sarcasm

IIRC I had to do this because the game would crash if the unit was still availble. But I figure martin can figure a way to make it work with advances and not unit availabilty

[Martin Gühmann]

man, i miss the sarcasm

Then you have to stay, try a game, the AI got some improvements , and will get some more improvements with the next release.

IIRC I had to do this because the game would crash if the unit was still availble. But I figure martin can figure a way to make it work with advances and not unit availabilty

You should have tried harder. Well, let's see what I can do.

-Martin

[Maquiladora]

Not sure if this is a bug or not, but it seems even when a unit dies normally in a city under attack, it adds it's production to the currently building item when it dies, as if you had disbanded it there. I guess this is unintentional?

[Protra3211]

I found the AI a bit passive when it came to diplomacy.For example I could declare war, take two cities and within two turns have a peace treaty.Even AI,s with aggressive personalities would make a peace treaty with you without having any trust in you.
Another thing have seen is the AI,s declaring short wars with the same nations and back to cease fires again and back to war again.
What I have tried to do is add the 3.5 Diplomod with diplomacy text file.Worked well.AI,s not repeating short wars .Have many staces with other civ,s.Still too passive and able to threaten any AI get what I want.Now of course changes could be made in the -diplomacy text file found in folder aidata to help make AI,s less trusting and more unlikely to sign treaties.However the problem is the AI,s will be too aggressive to each other and at war all the time which makes them easy tragets for human player.Is there a way to just make the AI more aggresive to the human player when it comes to diplomacy?

[Maquiladora]

Is there a way to just make the AI more aggresive to the human player when it comes to diplomacy?

Yes, but you need to use slic to tell the AI to use certain diplomatic states only when dealing with other AI's (or just the human).

In the latest AE Mod I did this (actually I just copied Diplomod with some small tweaks), so the friendly AI's are more friendly with other AI's, and more aggressive with the human. The download is in this post. The slic file is "AEM_AIAIdiplo.slc".

[Protra3211]

Thank you Maquiladora.I did a quick test with a playtest game.I downloaded the AE mod v2 and used the AIAI diplmod slc file and diplomacy text file and placed them in my the latest playtest game .Worked perfect.Went to war with a AI near me .Took two cities and was able to get a cease fire.However no mater what regard level they were not willing to give a peace treaty.Seems the AI has a little more edge to it and is not as easy to bribe.Will start a new game with the playtest.These files should be looked at.Mod looks intresting as well.Thanks again.Had spend 2 days going over old mods checking diplmod versions and other file setting.This seem to be the best so far.
Side Note :Playtest has been improved over all.AI is building more stacks of units to go to war and is expanding faster.

[Maquiladora]

I found a couple of bugs, see screenshot below.

1) The "smooth borders" option borders don't scale when the camera is zoomed out any further than normal.

2) See the trade profit of a route crossing the middle of the map. In this case Berytus is x=19, y=36 and all destination cities that give over 1000 profit start past x=0. This is on a small earth map. For some reason when I reloaded the save the route costs were back to normal though.

[Maquiladora]

2) See the trade profit of a route crossing the middle of the map. In this case Berytus is x=19, y=36 and all destination cities that give over 1000 profit start past x=0. This is on a small earth map. For some reason when I reloaded the save the route costs were back to normal though.

Well I was wrong about it being because the route crossed the end of the map coordinates. I don't see another common pattern though yet.