Anybody NOT having problem with sea colonies?

chrisis · January 28, 2001, 06:15

Just wanted to ask if anybody has ever seen the real sprites for sea-colonies in normal game.

I also saw an interesting effect when I switched to cheat mode: I made a world full of water, gave every player a sea-colonizer (sorry, don't know about the exaxt word for it, I have the german version), turned off fog of war and looked what the AI would do. Then, the surprise: A little moment before the city had been built (by the AI) the city already was here - but with the real sea-sprite!. But as soon as the colonizer went into the city, the sprite changed and the city looked just like every other city does.

So two little questions:
1) Is the mistake with the sea-colonies in every case in every game on every computer, or are only some people having this problem?
2) Why do the colonies have the right sprite just a moment before they are really built at all?

ok
cu
chris

PS: I didn't know exactly into which part of the forum I should write, so I put it into the general. I hope, this wasn't a too big mistake

[This message has been edited by chrisis (edited January 28, 2001).]

OmniGod · January 28, 2001, 12:34

The problem with the sea-cities is that activision never made the cities realize where they were. This leads to land cities on water. A few people have tried to implement the ocean_city trigger but to no avail. This is the most obvious mistake that Activ left unfinished... and they say this is a "acceptable" finished product... heck the graphics aren't even finished... give me a break. In our opinion the solution is hard coded and not available to us. Maybe there's another way around it but it's not becoem apparent yet..

Rich

David Murray · January 30, 2001, 22:27

quote:

Originally posted by OmniGod on 01-28-2001 11:34 AM
The problem with the sea-cities is that activision never made the cities realize where they were. This leads to land cities on water. A few people have tried to implement the ocean_city trigger but to no avail. This is the most obvious mistake that Activ left unfinished... and they say this is a "acceptable" finished product... heck the graphics aren't even finished... give me a break. In our opinion the solution is hard coded and not available to us. Maybe there's another way around it but it's not becoem apparent yet..

Rich

Can't say I've ever managed to get to that stage in the game...but that sounds pretty f—— up. Another reason why Activision should be shot.

Gwap · January 31, 2001, 08:12

I'm not quite sure how undersea cities should play but I likes them the way they are in my game. Allowed me to include the sea within my borders and make tunnels between my various islands. Saves me on ferrying troops about with the rubbishly slow transport ships; they drive themselves. And seeing as the AI (artificial idiot) doesn't attack, they're quite safe even if they aren't supposed to stick out above the waves (handy so you can rest your planes and missiles on them).

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Nostalgia isn't what it used to be

David Murray · January 31, 2001, 14:00

quote:

Originally posted by Gwap on 01-31-2001 07:12 AM
I'm not quite sure how undersea cities should play but I likes them the way they are in my game. Allowed me to include the sea within my borders and make tunnels between my various islands. Saves me on ferrying troops about with the rubbishly slow transport ships; they drive themselves. And seeing as the AI (artificial idiot) doesn't attack, they're quite safe even if they aren't supposed to stick out above the waves (handy so you can rest your planes and missiles on them).

The problem with them is that they are supposed to look like sea cities. If you've ever played CTP1 then you'll know what I mean. In CTP1, the sea cities also couldn't build certain units and improvements.

In fact, I think CTP1 was less buggy and just as good as CTP2.

CTP2 really is a pile of w—k.

[/quote]

Dida · January 31, 2001, 16:50

The sea cities in CTP1 are not bug free either.
I just can't see how we can land a aircraft in a city that is several thousand feet below the water surface.

David Murray · January 31, 2001, 20:48

quote:

Originally posted by Dida on 01-31-2001 03:50 PM
The sea cities in CTP1 are not bug free either.
I just can't see how we can land a aircraft in a city that is several thousand feet below the water surface.

Maybe they made rust-proof, water-compatible planes.

Alpha Wolf · February 1, 2001, 02:26

What!!! Dont y'all remember the flying sub from Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea?

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History is written by the victor.

Purple · February 1, 2001, 18:37

quote:

Originally posted by Dida on 01-31-2001 03:50 PM
I just can't see how we can land a aircraft in a city that is several thousand feet below the water surface.

Think of the sea cities as built like off-shore oil drilling platforms or floating islands tethered to the sea floor.

Alpha Wolf · February 2, 2001, 01:46

those sea mines most float too

Altho i do admit that the sea farms look more like they float.

Didnt they get rid of the space layer because it was buggy???? hmmmmmmm

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History is written by the victor.

Pintello · February 2, 2001, 20:26

Hi Guys,

I have looked at all the files trying to figure out how to put the proper icon for sea cities back in the game, but I haven't come up with anything. I am totally at a lost to know what to do. Is there anyway to fix this problem? It really bugs me.

Timothy Pintello

Pintello · February 2, 2001, 23:55

Hi All,

I have finally found the solution to the whole Ocean City sprite thing. The key to the whole thing lies in the agecitystyle.txt file. Each age has its own set of icons for each city size and style. The problem comes in when you try to build an Undersea city before the 4th or 5th ages. Ocean City sprites don't appear until then.

What I did was I took the sprites for the Ocean City in the 4th and 5th ages and copied them to all the previous ages and styles. This way, when I went into cheat mode and gave myself a Sea Engineer and built an Undersea City, it gave me the proper sprite.

I also noticed another property of this file. The Ocean City sprites only go up to cities of size 40. After that, the sprite reverts back to the equivalent sprite of the equivalent sized Land City for that age and style. The Land Cities allow much larger city sprite size styles than the Ocean Cities do.

One fix for this may be to make equivalent Sea City entries for the different size ranges for Sea Cities after 40 and then just assign the last Sea City sprite to all the following sizes. Alternatively, someone could take it upon themselves to creat new Sea City sprites for each of the remaining Sea City size ranges.

On a side note, if anybody is interested, the largest city size possible in CTP2 is size 200. Don't know if that was already known.

Regards,

Timothy Pintello

Alpha Wolf · February 3, 2001, 00:02

can you use the terraintype function to determine whether it is a water tile and if so change the icon to the sea city icon?

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History is written by the victor.

chrisis · February 3, 2001, 08:31

I've now changed the file as you said, and it works - but as soon as I am in the 5th age (I've trieed with cheat-mode) all the new built cities have the land-sprite again (the futuristic, though)... so: anybody knows a solution for this?
And an other thing that hasn't been solved is, that there can still be built all the buildings that shouldn't be buildable in a sea-city. So: is there a solution for that also?

btw: why must the players tweak those simple things (I mean simple for a programmer because I'm mostly sure that those are hardcoded bugs) and not the company that made the game?
[This message has been edited by chrisis (edited February 06, 2001).]

chrisis · February 6, 2001, 05:29

Nobody else ever had problems at the beginning of age 5 and the modifications suggested by Pintello? I mean, it's just interesting that the modification really works up to the genetic era but at soon as I arrive the diamond era the sea-city sprites change back to normal (diamond era) land sprites. And imho that looks really ugly...

But, maybe the mistake lies in the difference of how ctp1 and ctp2 handle sea cities: While in ctp1 everything about the citystyle in the various ages seems to be in age.txt, in ctp2 those things have been splitted into age.txt and (more important, imho) into agecitystile.txt. So, maybe that's really a hardcoded implementation-mistake we cannot do too much about...

The best would be Activision changed their mind and brought out a patch that fixed this problem (and lots of others too, of course

)

Pintello · February 6, 2001, 17:57

Hi Chrisis,

I tested it in the Diamond age and it worked fine for me. Are you sure you copied the entried before you moved them. You may have accidentally used cut instead. This catches me sometimes. Also, if the sea cities are larger than 40, they start using the land sprites again.

Timothy Pintello

chrisis · February 7, 2001, 04:10

quote:

Originally posted by Pintello on 02-06-2001 04:57 PM
Hi Chrisis,

I tested it in the Diamond age and it worked fine for me. Are you sure you copied the entried before you moved them. You may have accidentally used cut instead. This catches me sometimes. Also, if the sea cities are larger than 40, they start using the land sprites again.

Timothy Pintello

Yes, I have really copied, not pasted, I've looked more than once over the file

. And no, they are not greater than size 40

.May it be possible that you sent me your agecitystile.txt so that I could compare mine and yours? That would be really nice.

Thanks
christian

TheBirdMan · February 9, 2001, 08:15

Alpha Wolf, your post feb. 2 2001 at 00:46.

Some say that Craptivision also knew, that both the water and the land layers were buggy too.

But obviously they didn't dare to remove these layers also

Grandpa Troll · February 17, 2001, 14:34

quote:

Originally posted by TheBirdMan on 02-09-2001 07:15 AM
Alpha Wolf, your post feb. 2 2001 at 00:46.

Some say that Craptivision also knew, that both the water and the land layers were buggy too.

But obviously they didn't dare to remove these layers also

LOL..I luv it!
Craptivision!
I am not so good at names..I had been mis-quoting the company name as SUCK-U-Vision!

Thanks for posting this correct name TheBirdman

Troll

Jonny · February 17, 2001, 14:55

quote:

Originally posted by TheBirdMan on 02-09-2001 07:15 AM
Alpha Wolf, your post feb. 2 2001 at 00:46.

Some say that Craptivision also knew, that both the water and the land layers were buggy too.

But obviously they didn't dare to remove these layers also

I wish they had removed the land and sea layers: if they did, we would all be playing Civilization 2 right now and the world would be a better place.

Jonny

February 21, 2001, 04:15

Hey it works! Except I've got that diamond age problem. (yes, I did not cut, I copied) Anyone solve that yet?

chrisis · February 23, 2001, 01:38

quote:

Originally posted by Mister Pleasant on 02-21-2001 03:15 AM
Hey it works! Except I've got that diamond age problem. (yes, I did not cut, I copied) Anyone solve that yet?

I still do have the problem too... imho that's really hardcoded and nobody can do anything against it (excecpt activision, but as we all know, they don't want).

Martin Gühmann · March 3, 2001, 08:00

I tried to implement the correct sprites for the ocean cities into citymod, but I have also the diamond problem. But there is a difference between citymod and unmod CTP2: the internal name in citymod for the diamond age is AGE_SIX not AGE_FIVE as in CTP2. It also appear in the last age, but I tried to add a postdiamond age but with no effect. It has also nothing to do with the diamond sprites. Therefore I have the feeling that it is not be hardcoded. But it works the sea cities larger than 40 The last line must be: Sprites { Type 1 MinSize 36 MaxSize 999 Sprite 96 }
and it works with cities until a size of 999.

OctaviusIII · March 6, 2001, 20:14

This is the first of the plethora of bugs mentioned in the forums that I've actually come in contact with (other than the impotent AI), which happens to involve the undersea city sprites. I'm in the Genetic age, I've been researching straight for undersea cities and when I finally got one I built my sea engineer, built one and....it looks like a land city. No cool sprite. No underwater city. Just a friggin land sprite. Whoo hoo. I've checked my txt files and I can't figure it out; everything looks to be in shape. Next time I'll just wait until a game is finished before I buy it. But until CivIII I'm stuck. Anyone got any suggestions?