Is CTP2 as modifiable as the original?

Locutus · November 22, 2000, 16:55

Well, it might not always have been extremely friendly for the modmaker but it *was*, correction *is*, extremely powerful and CtPII is even more so. I'm not sure about how easy it will be to use, some people complain that editing text-files is difficult but personally I don't see how that could possibly be. I mean, you know how to operate a keyboard, don't you? That's all you need to know, (although I'll admit some documentation would of course ease the process).

and no ghen, there aren't any mods quite yet, that'll be a few weeks at least

But there's an huge earth-map floating around these forums somewhere...

ghen · November 22, 2000, 23:22

Thankies

ghen · November 23, 2000, 01:09

What mods are out? (direct link, I forget where they're kept)

Ghen
I'm trying not to buy another damn game, but you guys are making it hard.

DarthVeda · November 23, 2000, 01:30

The original wasn't all that mod-friendly as I recall...

primalScream · November 23, 2000, 07:40

LOCUTUS, is CTP2 al uit in Nederland???? zo nee wanneer dan wel...

When will CTP2 arrive in the Netherlands?

WesW · November 23, 2000, 11:32

(WesW don's his Carnival Announcer outfit, and grabs his megaphone)
"Step right up, ladies and gentlemen. Do you know how to cut-n-paste? Can you change numbers in simple text files? If so, then you too can be a mod-maker in Ctp2!" (As long as you are not creating new graphics.)

I have been going through the files, beginning work on the Med mod II, and this is all I have been going: cut-n-paste, and changing some numbers. You do have to know enough about the game to know what those settings do, but once you are familiar, then it's not any more trouble than changing things in Civ2, for example.

There is no more fuzzy logic, no more having to alter multiple files to alter one aspect of the game. In short, if you have ever wanted to make major changes to a game, to see what you could do, then this is your chance!

colorme · November 23, 2000, 12:52

In CTP II, I'm more or less satisfied with the AI defense. It seems to be putting in combined arms with lots of units in the important cities. One grouse though is that it doesn't seem to be able to adapt. i.e. There was one civ that was doing extremely well in science, but pretty bad militarily (from the rankings), so I decided to go after it. Even after I began to capture its cities, it didn't seem to shift emphasis towards the military. Result was that I reached modern age in 1500 AD, thanks to its awfully well-developed cities!

Also, AI offense still sucks big-time. It doesn't know how to mix units, still prefering to take pot-shots with lone machine-gunners (and worse, lone cannons!).

BTW, I was playing on the hard level. Maybe "impossible" is better, but I daren't hope so

So, question is, can the AI offense be made better with a mod? Seems like all you need to do is to ensure that any army/navy/airforce that the AI uses for offense should have certain minimum values of A/R/D/etc. Also, can the AI army please be supported by a carrier task-force, if the battle is halfway across the world??

colorme · November 23, 2000, 14:09

Actually, with regards to my previous post, has anyone checked out the aidata/strategies.txt file (The ai files seem very much cleaned up BTW)?

Perhaps the "Attackmatch","Defensematch",etc. parameters could be tweaked? In particular, can they have values greater than 1 ?

ghen · November 23, 2000, 15:24

what I want to see in an AI once in a while is a relentless swarmer, one who pumps units at you throughout the game like a madman. Gets you ready for early fights in multiplayer

colorme · November 23, 2000, 18:20

ghen,

Look at the "strategies" file in /aidata. Seems like the default unit-support-cost = 15% of empire's production. Even in attack-mode, its only 35%. I usually play the game with about a 50% support cost! Am I doing something wrong? But then again, I win!

The improvement and advances research of the AI is pretty good right now, but that's no use unless it adopts an aggressive attack approach, like ghen mentioned. I plan to tweak some of the above parameters and see how that makes the AI attack more aggressive.

WesW · November 24, 2000, 03:46

The support percentages Colorme mentioned are part of the problem, it needs to be about 20 to 35% all the time, with the other part being an inadequate number of unit types that the AI uses for its build lists. When I get into the Med mod II, I am going to totally re-write this section of the strategies.txt, like I did in Ctp1.

Btw, 50%?! Something doesn't seem right, there.