Introducing the Medieval Pack II

[WesW]

Here ar a couple of pastes from the Med mod 4 Main Readme. They spell out my principles regarding the progression of units from one age to the next. The ages in the Med mod II will be slightly different, and I plan to have two types of mounted units per age when available, a ranged and a flanking unit.
Let's hold off on discussing the wonder units until I can put together a detailed listing of their stats and abilities.

"3.0 CONVENTIONAL UNITS:
I have made many changes to the Ancient and Renaissance units, in order to break up the Ancient age into an Ancient and a Medieval age, and I also ended up separating the Renaissance into Early and Late ages. I wanted each age to have a scout, a defensive and an offensive infantry, a ranged unit and a mounted assault unit. I have added several units to the game, and changed the roles of other units to accomplish these goals. Their new stats are listed in the Med Charts spreadsheet.

Unit strengths and abilities to increase by about 50%, generally speaking, from one age to the next, up to the Modern Age (this age begins with the Riflemen unit). Unit costs only increase by about 25% from one age to the next, so it definitely pays off militarily to keep science strong."

Later on in the readme:

"...This separation of the ages is also important because unit strengths double from one age to the next, beginning with the Modern Age. (This means that Riflemen are twice as powerful as Musketeers, and so on.) Unit costs and support continue to increase by about half the amount of the power increase. Beginning with the Modern Age, many units gain special air and/or naval abilities, which increase their cost as well. I have tried to arrange all the ages so that defensive units are the first obtained, thus granting the Militia upgrade, and offensive units the last obtained. This should give you a cushion if you are not the lead civ tech-wise, but if you get too far behind, and see Armor bearing down on you when you are still using Musketeers, you are dead meat. (Which is how it should be, imo.)"

Here is an explanation of the militia triggers. The units created will be different in some ages, but the principles will be the same. Cities will gain an additional militia when they increase in radius, up to a max of four units for Ctp2.


"I have added several SLIC triggers developed by Locutus and the SLIC group.
The first creates a defensive Militia unit when a city is founded. The unit created is the civ's current defensive unit at the time of the city's founding. This means that all cities will be defended by at least one unit, in addition to any martial law effects.
The second trigger keeps Militia units from being moved. It does this by destroying the unit when it leaves the city, and creating a replacement in the city that the unit left.
The third trigger automatically upgrades the Militia units whenever their civ gains knowledge which allows them to build the next age's defensive unit. It also allots additional militia units based upon the size of the city. Cities receive a second unit if they are size 9, a third if 17, and a fourth at 25. Additional units are allotted when the militias are upgraded. Militias left behind from destroyed or disbanded cities are also destroyed at this time.
The upgrade sequence for land and sea cities is: Phalanx, Fyrdman, Arquebusier, Musketeer, Riflemen, Machine Gunner and Plasmatica."

While I am at it, here is part of the section on sea and air units. Again, specifics might change, but the general principles will be the same.


"NAVAL UNITS:
The new aips have the AI constructing more ships, so I eliminated the pillage ability for Triremes,
Fire Galleys and Subs to avoid the aggravation of continually having to chase them off.
However, I gave the ability to pirate to the Ironclad, Sub and Battleship.
I gave all ships from the Caravel on up five extra hit points, and reduced their other values to off-set this. This was made because the extra hitpoints given by the Cohort-type Wonders were affecting ships more than they were land units, which was not what I intended.
I removed the ability of Ships-of-the-Line and Caravels to bombard land, because the AI would throw them away bombarding cities. However, they, and all gunpowder ships, can bombard water and counter-bombard, so if they are attacked from the sea, they can defend themselves.
The Destroyer can now carry 1 small land unit, and submarines can carry small land units as well. This gives you the ability to land special units onto shore from a warship (Destroyer), or undetected (subs.).
Battleships can now carry two Cruise Missiles.
The Missile Frigate is the earliest naval unit capable of bombarding air units. All earlier units are defenseless against air bombardment, except for aircraft-carrying Carriers.
The Carrier can carry Fighters, Dive Bombers, Bombers and Helicopters. The Aircraft Carrier has been re-named the Nuclear Carrier, and can carry all air units, plus Space Fighters.

AIR UNITS:
There is a bug in the game which renders aircraft defenseless when attacked over water. CD called this the "water bug". I found that if planes are bombarded over water, it produced normal results (i.e. no water bug). So, I took away the air_attack ability from all other units, and replaced it with the bombard_air ability. This seems to have effectively gotten rid of the water bug in engagements not involving the active air-defense ability. I then increased the hit points for all air units, as this gave good results for bombard combat. In order to keep the overall power of air and SAM units the same, I reduced their attack and defense values by the same percentage as their increase in hit points.

MISC. NOTES:
Every unit that can bombard can now counter-bombard."

The "Water bug" has been fixed for Ctp2, but at this time I think the philosophy of having air units bombard sea and air units, and vice versa, rather than engaging in hand-to-hand combat is both better for gameplay and more realistic.

Here is what I did to the DiffDB for Emporer level, which is what I play on. There are similar lines in Ctp2, where the AI is currently given no bonuses in any category.

"DiffDB (Emporer Level):
--------------------------------OLD
--------------------------------NEW
AI_TECHNOLOGY_COST -0.1 -0.1 -0.3 -0.4 -0.5
------------------ -0.1 -0.2 -0.2 -0.3 -0.3
AI_PRODUCTION_COST +0.35 +0.3 +0.25 +0.2 +0.1
-------------------+0.0 -0.1 -0.1 -0.2 -0.2
AI_GOLD_ADJUSTMENT +1.0 +1.0 +1.1 +1.2 +1.2
-------------------+1.0 +1.1 +1.1 +1.2 +1.2

"

[WesW]

Here is an updated verison of the post I made a couple of weeks ago in the units poll thread. It lists the standard land units for the game in their respective ages.

Here are some preliminary recommendations for land units:
Age------- Defensive--- Offensive--- Ranged------ Mtd Ranged----Flanker
Bronze---- Spearman--- Swordsman---- Slinger----- Zulu Archer- Light (Jav) Cavalry
Iron------ Phalanx---Heavy Swordsman-Archer------ Mtd Archer--- Heavy (Noble) Cavalry
Medieval-- Fyrdman---- Pikeman---- Catapault----- Horse Ar----- Knight
Renaissance ------Musketeer------ Ctp2 Cannon---- Dragoon----
Industrial ------Infantryman------- Ctp1-Cannon------Cavalry----
Genetic - Machine Gunner-Fascist-- Ctp1 Arty------- Ctp2 Arty---- Tank
Diamond - Plasmatica- Hover Infantry-AT-Artillery- Plasma Cannon-- Hovertank

I knew I added the Fyrdman for a reason...
Using the Fyrdman lets me move Pikemen over to the Medieval age offensive unit (the sprite looks more like a Halberdman, which was definitely an offensive unit). I can thus use the Ctp2 Warrior as the Swordsman, which is was originally intended to be and which it looks like. (I will start a thread in the future exploring the interesting merry-go-round involving this and a couple of other units.)
This improves the setup in several ways, giving better, more appropriate sprites to a few units. The Light and Heavy Swordsman are paired with the Light and Heavy Cavalry to denote the increased use of armor from the Bronze to the Iron ages. This will be represented statistically by giving the Heavy units more hit points than the Light units.

[This message has been edited by WesW (edited December 09, 2000).]

[XMon]

Hey Wes

Glad to hear you're gearing up the Med Mod for CTP2. I'm pretty underwhelmed with the factory version and need to get hold of a hot rod version.

A couple of thoughts...

The more units the merrier! For two reasons. One, it gives us more "eye candy" and makes for a more seamless transition up the military tech tree. I hate the jarring transition from a colonial period looking infantryman to a Desert Storm era machine gunner. It makes the game a little more complex and a lot more "real feeling" to have a more diverse selection of units. The WWII era units you had in Med Mod 3/4 were great. And I wouldn't mind a few more. I even like that you had Armor and Tank (tho Tank seemed to come in a bit too late in the timeline). It played really well. Please use the little green Bomber sprite over the big gray and yellow one tho! Second, a more selfish reason, for wanting tons of units included is that whoever creates a mod, even if I love it, I'm going to tweak it. And it's easier for me to remove or change units than it is to add them.

Don't forget that the WWII scenario should provide some juicy new sprites to work with too!

One thing that bugs me about the current game that I haven't seen mentioned as a possible need for a fix is that with the advances on the tech tree, the units and building and Wonders and tile improvements gained by researching that advance often seem to be way out of whack as far as a historical timeline. For example, Economics gives you London Exchange and Shopping Malls. What?! Submarines, Oil Refineries and Offshore Oil Drilling Platforms all come at the same time? That bugs the hell out of me b/c I like to choose my advances in a somewhat historically accurate manner and seeing Calvary units around shopping malls irritates me.

About spies and Cyber Ninjas "sueing" UW units...I guess you didn't catch any of my posts in the CTP forums but I was using the Cyber Ninja for this in CTP (Med Mod4) for around a month prior to CTP2 coming out. I did not give that power to the spies or secret agents because it's almost too powerful. You may just as well delete all of the UW units entirely. Also, I "imagine" this ability as some sort of assassination of the UW unit and thus hold off and give it to a unit which I think of as more of a ninja killer type gimmick. Also I have some thoughts about the flow of the game which I'll get to in a sec... I thought it might be cool to have an earlier unit with this capability, which would require the completion of a Wonder to build and only be available for a short period of time (until the Wonder went obsolete). For example, during the Crusades there was an extreme Muslim sect called the Assassins and an extreme Christian monastic order called the Knights Templar. These two groups had substantial dealings and conflicts with each other during that time period. I thought it would be cool to make both units tied to Wonders (a la Alamut for the Assassins and Crusading for the Templars) with the Assassins being a stealthy attack unit with the "can sue" function and the Templars being an extra-powerful knight unit with the ability to see stealth units. Something like that.

I think that when a Wonder becomes available that gives a civ a special unit then there should be, for balance and in the same time period, another Wonder that can give a second special unit to another cive to prevent one civ from being too dominant.

Game flow...I notice many guys here want every unit type to be available for every historical age. Meaning they think there must be a ranged unit, or a flanking unit or a sea bombard unit for all time periods. I hate that. I think the tactics of warfare should change over time. That's one thing the original game has gotten right. I have grown to appreciate the fact that coracles have no attack power! They shouldn't. I always grew so bored with CTP in the latter stages of the game because (with the exception of the introduction of space units - love that space bomber!) you were merely upgrading your units with a more powerful version of the same thing with a different sprite. I don't mind doing that (upgrading units - as I stated with the "more is merrier" bit above) but I want to see changes in strategy as well. The introduction of the Fire Trireme is exciting because it changes naval strategy. The introduction of the catapult is exciting because now you can bombard and this changes how you attack cities and ships. If you want to introduce military capabilities earlier than the original game does, then maybe it could be with Wonder specific units. Just an idea.

I'd love to see units that are available only to Barbarians (pirates, bandit horsemen, guerillas etc).

If anyone could come up with a way for amphibious assault units to attack a ship from a ship like they do a city (attack the units in the ship and seize the ship if victorious) then they would be a CTP god.

Ditto for anyone who can figure out how to bring back Space.

Ditto for anyone who can figure out how to have different movement speeds for different units (missiles that have a movement of 15 tiles move faster than foot troops that have a movement of 2 tiles, for a more pleasant playing experience).

I'm telling you, don't discount stealth land attack units. They add a new dimension to modern era game play and they're fun to boot. Which reminds me...think it's possible to make stealth units "non-stealth" if they stack?

Sorry this is so long...I guess I got a bit carried away. Look forward to Med Mod CTP2 and thanks for the hard work Wes.

[colorme]

Wes,

I don't understand why you say that the AI is currently given no bonuses during gameplay. In the DiffDB I have, it says (for example, on 'very hard' level),

% amount to multiply production cost by per age for ai
AI_MIN_BEHIND_PRODUCTION_COST_ADJUSTMENT 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0
AI_MAX_BEHIND_PRODUCTION_COST_ADJUSTMENT 0.4 0.4 0.5 0.5 0.7

Remember that the AI_MIN is used when AI is less than
50% stronger than human, and the AI_MAX is used when its less than 30% weaker than human. In between these strengths the bonus given to AI is a linear interpolation of these two adjustments.

To me, that seems like a lot of bonus. And its even more in the impossible level.

[Greyhawk]

quote: Really liked the idea of Railroad increasing food through re-apportionment. Could something be done with creating a "hidden" building (say "Depot"), giving it a +10% food, and give all cities the building upon the Civ's reaching Railroad tech? Just a thought.

Why not make it a Feat of Wonder? Whoever gets railroad first gets a boost in their food produced for X amount of turns. That way it wouldn't continue forever and would be more realistic. In other words, as other civs get the same tech the effectiveness wears off.

[Alpha Wolf]

By chance, will your mod make any difference as to where units are placed during combat? Seems like my too often my flankers end up in front getting killed instead of on the sides adding support. I'm thinking it might have something to do with mixed aged stacks.

[Chris B]

I feel very strongly about Elphant Cavalry and Berserkers (huscarls). Please consider these in your open category.
-CB

[Chris B]

I feel very strongly about Elphant Cavalry and Berserkers (huscarls). Please consider these in your open category.

By the wya, the link to your homepage is busted. did you change it?

[WesW]

To colorme's comments:
I am not a programmer, and so I might be wrong, but I thought those line in the diffdb were either on or off, and not used in linear interpolation. If colorme is right, the others of you who do know about such things please confirm this one way or the other.

As to Xmon's comments:
I think that the addition of the flanker concept and the mixture of special abilities, especially in the later ages, will give you the option of different fighting styles. This may be limited somewhat if you only had standard units, but the main reason I am adding all the special units is so that you can go for different ones in different games and see what kinds of strategies come out of it. I think the special units are going to add enormously to the replay value of the game.

Also, everyone remember that all this is still in its infancy. We haven't even begun to play-test the basic setup yet. There will be plenty of time to decide what to keep and what to adjust and so-forth. And, if I make some decisions that you don't agree with, you are all free to change the mod to your liking. Once I get my new website up, I will be happy to post peoples' variations of my setup.
It should be easy to remove units from the mod, either my adding the "cantbuild" line to the units text, or by out-commenting the slic code. Adding things is much more difficult, as some of you know and others will find out.
One reason I am adding about every decent sprite available right now is so that I can establish a place for them in the newsprite.txt and other places. Then people, including myself, will only have to make adjustments rather than re-designs.

[Harlan]

Wes,
I guess you've decided not to answer my comments at this time, but I still want to hold you to an answer at some point.

One thing I most look forward to with this modpack and other modpacks is an improved tech tree. Man, does the official one suck. Submarine coming before Electricity? Come on! So many problems like that.

By the way, I wouldn't expect any new sprites with the official WW2 scenario. The idea with the scenarios was to use the same rules and setup in every way as the regular game- I caused a lot of pulled hairs for some Activision folks with the Alexander scenario by veering away from that. Unless they changed things, the scenario will be the invasion of France in 1940.

[WesW]

No new sprites!? What the hell are they going to use for infantry? Are the Germans, British and French going to use the P-38 Lightning for the only air unit in the mod?
People are expecting a model of the entire world, ala the Civ II scenario. If they just get the invasion of France, and no new sprites or rules to support it, you are going to hear some MAJOR griping.

[Greyhawk]

quote: [Genetic - Machine Gunner-Fascist-- Ctp1 Arty------- Ctp2 Arty---- Tank

I've been reading through all the posts here and have decided maybe I should post my $.02 for all its worth.

In looking at the lineup in the Genetic Age, doesn't it make more sense to rename it the Modern Age? Then you have one future age, which is the Diamond Age. Any comments?
[This message has been edited by Greyhawk (edited December 10, 2000).]

[lozina]

i must agree that you need new sprites... a ww2 scenario with no new sprites would be silly... just as wes said- everyone having the same few units. it would basically center on artillery, tank (which looks like a modern M1-Abrams by the way), an american looking bomber, a german looking fighter, and a brittish looking infantryman... maybe some german looking machine gunners and all american looking ships. that would be the whole senario...

id like to see:

Germany:
V2 rockets (like cruise missiles),
railroad guns (units which may only travel on rr but may bombard from a long distance!)
u-boat (cheap costing sub)
m-109 fighters (cheap costing fighters)
those messershmitt jets (short range but excellent air-to-air attack)
tiger tanks (expensive but lots of firepower and health)
howitzer (awesome artillery piece)
panzerfrast (infantry with high special attack vs. vehicles)

Russia:
generally have very low costing vehicles and infantry but less powerful along with:
sniper (hidden unit which can attempt to kill off an infantry unit or assassinate ruler)
--dont know much else bout the russians in ww2

Japan:
kamikaze! (basically a fighter sprite acting like a missile)

America:
aircraft carrier, larger troop ships, paratroopers
atom bomb (nuke)
b-29(?) superfortress (very powerful long range bomber)

i cant think of any more im so tired !

also couple other features:

1 new concept- some units require particular buildings in order to manufacture. for example- if you want to build a fighter- the city needs to have a general factory, ball bearing plant, engine factory(?), aerodynamics lab.. you name it. and also- when air units make bombardments they may target specific buildings like these which are required for construction of specific units.

also maybe a fire effect- special units like arsonists can start em or bombardments have a chance of creating a fire- or maybe you can have an option when you bombard to use incendiary bombs. fires have a chance of destroying pop and buildings each turn and at end of turn checks to see if it burns out. fire dept improvements increase chance of being put out.

how bout pillbox tile improvements? maybe some tile improvement like a mine but it automatically bombards units which come in range? maybe only france has em to simulate imagino(?) line
barbed wire tile improvements (infantry cannot pass)

maybe im getting carried away with this post- its not even in the right forum anyway!

[skorpion59]

Harlan is right, don't expect much. When I was going to do a scenario for shipping with CtP2, the first requirement was, no units that don't come with CtP2. Don't know how Harlan got past this one but luckily he did.

Now, right about here is where I would normally be saying, it is time for somebody to create a WW2 scenario. However, I don't think that is possible anymore. The people that know me, know I am an avid CtP supporter. With that said, I now have to say, Activision screwed this one up big time. Not being able to create scenarios is much worse than the MP problems. I mean, CtP1 did scenarios better than CtP2 and that was one of the biggest gripes surrounding CtP1, lack of scenario support.

[wheathin]

To keep the AI in the game (or help a straggling human), Harlan's got some good ideas (catch-up wonder, etc.) Here's more:

1. The tech-sharing from CtP1 MedMod

2. See my thread on upgrading obsolete units

3. Bigger DiffDB.txt bonuses for AI in late game

4. Increase the odds that AI starts with two or more settlers (can the AI start with three?!)

5. SLIC: every wonder increases the rate of tech diffusion from the civ that builds it? Each wonder attracts tourists and pilgrims - it enhances tech transfer from that advanced civ as the pilgrims return home. I.e., each wonder functions as a Great Library in reverse.

6. Feats of Wonder geared towards the AI? We tend to want feats of wonder that reflect our own building styles, but surely there are AI play strategies that could be rewarded. First to move a unit into and out of the same city for 20 turns in a row. Seriously though, there's gotta be something...

7. One wonder per age per player

[XMon]

A couple more thoughts...

If there are no new sprites in the WWII scenario then they may as well just keep it as far as I'm concerned.

Wes, would you consider having the militia units be one step behind the current defense unit? Militias tend to be more along the lines of armed citizens and thus would not have state of the art weaponry. If you just discover machine gunners then all your cities get infantry militia etc.

How about losing the "City Wall" graphic in the modern age? You can keep the defense bonus effect but a wall surrounding a modern city looks weird.

I know you had concerns about the tech tree in Med Mod 4 causing the game to be unstable but I must say that my last few games of MM4 were quite stable. Why? Don't know really. It had Gedrin's latest version of the Dissemination Trigger (better alternative to auto upgrade IMHO), and I removed rail launchers and a few futuristic units. No crashes at all. I do hope you include an enhanced tech tree. The default tree is a mess.

[WesW]

quote: Originally posted by wheathin on 12-11-2000 10:22 AM To keep the AI in the game (or help a straggling human), Harlan's got some good ideas (catch-up wonder, etc.) Here's more: 1. The tech-sharing from CtP1 MedMod 2. See my thread on upgrading obsolete units 3. Bigger DiffDB.txt bonuses for AI in late game 4. Increase the odds that AI starts with two or more settlers (can the AI start with three?!) 5. SLIC: every wonder increases the rate of tech diffusion from the civ that builds it? Each wonder attracts tourists and pilgrims - it enhances tech transfer from that advanced civ as the pilgrims return home. I.e., each wonder functions as a Great Library in reverse. 6. Feats of Wonder geared towards the AI? We tend to want feats of wonder that reflect our own building styles, but surely there are AI play strategies that could be rewarded. First to move a unit into and out of the same city for 20 turns in a row. Seriously though, there's gotta be something... 7. One wonder per age per player

It may be easier to adjust the penalty given the human in the diffdb than to try and slic a bunch of stuff to help the AI. Btw, the feat of wonder proposal is hilarious.
I am getting worried about having to use slic for any and every adjustment we want to make to the game. I am going to try and find other means to solve problems whenever possible, and save the slic for big things that can't be addressed any other way.

Also, I have found out how to implement Harlan's new city styles into the game. I am going to wait about adding the Industrial age for now, unless Harlan or someone else figures it out, then I would be happy to drop it in the mod.

I started a new game last night to test out the city styles, and it was immediately apparent that setting wages to a base of 12 was too high. Therefore, I have set them to a base of 8 with each notch changing the level by 2, which is midway between 12 and the original setting of 4. This should give good results, and we can tinker with building settings to further refine things.
I also reduced the base workday from 10 to 8, with each notch representing a change of 2 hours. This was what things were in Ctp1. Unit, building and other costs are going to be changed in the mod anyway, so we can adjust them to fit this new setting.

Finally, if someone would change the necessary text files so that each pop only worked an average of one tile in the first radius, I will put this in the mod, and see if helps address the issue of cities growing too fast early on in the game. I think the settings are in strategies text, but I could be wrong. If you do send me something, please specify what changes you made to which lines.

Btw, can anyone confirm or deny colorme's statement that the Min and Max ahead and behind bonuses are applied linearly throughout the game, rather than being triggered either on or off when the AI crosses the specified threadhold? This is a big deal.

Most of the time here has been spent discussing military units, which I enjoy as much as anyone, but we need to get these "domestic" issues of growth and production nailed down first, as well as getting building and tile improvements cost-to-benefit ratios evened out.

[wheathin]

Food issues:

For initial city growth, if there is not a net positive amount of food in the first 8 squares + center, the city can't grow. So, if you give certain types of terrain *negative* food values, you might be able to tailor better which terrains will support cities? I.e. give tundra a negative value high enough so that if a city has 4 tundra squares adjacent to it, it just can't grow at all, no matter what kind of land it's on. After all, any city located near that much tundra is just too cold - odds are it's nearby beaches, climate, forests, etc. are too hostile to support a multi-million pop city...


BTW: Is the mod gonna end up changing everything back to the CtP1 values? Just curious - it seems that's where we're going.

[colorme]

Wes,

In DIffDB, I read a comment line which talked about the interpolation business, and hence my suggestion.

Also, I mentioned this in some other thread, that in most CTP2 games I've played, the AIs seem to have huge ups and downs in their power graph, often over just a few (50 or so) turns. It isn't clear to me why this should be so. I usually end up with a pretty linear power graph, usually with minimal downs.

Do the AI do badly because they fight with each other a lot? But then, given that they're incapable of a massive attack, whereas their defense is pretty good, the huge ups and downs in power don't seem right.

Anyone have a clue about this?

[wheathin]

The powergraph is highly weighted to military units. It could be the AIs are building large armies and then having them destroyed in combat. It could be that the same few cities keep changing hands. Or, it could be that once an AI takes a few cities, it is willing to let a victim make peace. Later, the victim regroups and takes back its losses.

Solutions?
Generally, the AIs have to be more willing to go for the kill - if an enemy is down, keep kicking them. The little nickle-and-dime attacks are wasteful and don't get much payoff for the invested time and production.

A lot of AI civs build massive armies, and there's no retreat option for them. So when it's 12 against 12, and the battle goes down to the last hit point, that can show up pretty clearly in the graph.

Just a guess.

[Alpha Wolf]

I'm having fairly good results with lowering the initial production values of a city. Under the current production model, a new city gets the full production of its tile, plus a city bonus, plus 1/8 of of the surrounding area. I cut the city bonus to 5f-10p-10g. This seems to greatly slow the growth of cities. I also gave snow and desert tiles 0 food. I'm also playing with the way the AI decides where to settle so that they wont start cities that cant be supported. You can also determine how closely the AI packs its cities. A major prob i saw was that AI cities would grow rapidly but then stagnant as multiple cities tried to share the same tiles.

------------------
History is written by the victor.

[Alpha Wolf]

Also, I mentioned this in some other thread, that in most CTP2 games I've played, the AIs seem to have huge ups and downs in their power graph, often over just a few (50 or so) turns. It isn't clear to me why this should be so. I usually end up with a pretty linear power graph, usually with minimal downs.

Do the AI do badly because they fight with each other a lot? But then, given that they're incapable of a massive attack, whereas their defense is pretty good, the huge ups and downs in power don't seem right.
---------------------------------------------
I've noticed this in my graph after losing major battles, or the lose of a city, especially a powerful one containing one or more wonders. BTW, I have been attacked by a stack of 8 which totally caught me by surprise.

------------------
History is written by the victor.
[This message has been edited by Alpha Wolf (edited December 11, 2000).]

[Daniel Frappier]

Hi,

Taken from DiffDB (Impossible)
----------------------------------------------------
AI_MIN_BEHIND_PERCENT 1.8
AI_MAX_BEHIND_PERCENT 0.8
AI_MIN_AHEAD_PERCENT 2.0
AI_MAX_AHEAD_PERCENT 3.0

AI_MIN_BEHIND_GOLD_ADJUSTMENT 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0
AI_MAX_BEHIND_GOLD_ADJUSTMENT 1.5 1.5 1.3 1.3 1.1
AI_MIN_AHEAD_GOLD_ADJUSTMENT 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0
AI_MAX_AHEAD_GOLD_ADJUSTMENT 0.9 0.9 0.9 1.0 1.0
----------------------------------------------------

wich means i believe: if the AI is rated at 3 times or more the strenght of the human then use AI_MAX_AHEAD_GOLD ==> the AI will have a 10% penalty for gold.

if the AI is in between 2 and 3 times the strenght of the human then AI_MIN_AHEAD_PERCENT is use ==> no bonus or penalty.

if the AI is in between 1.8 and 2 times the strenght of the human then nothing special.

if the AI is in between 0.8 and 1.8 times the strenght of the human then AI_MIN_BEHIND_PERCENT is use ==> no bonus or penalty.

if the AI is less then 0.8 times the strenght of the human then AI_MAX_BEHIND_PERCENT is use ==> the as a 50% bonus for gold.

It's the same principle with Science & Production. Me to i have won the first game i played (at impossible) but like i mentionned to WesW before, the AI is not as bad as it looks but with those settings it simply can't and will never compeat with a human player.

In my game I play with:
----------------------------------------------------
AI_MIN_BEHIND_PERCENT 1.5
AI_MAX_BEHIND_PERCENT 0.85
AI_MIN_AHEAD_PERCENT 1.5
AI_MAX_AHEAD_PERCENT 2.5

AI_MIN_BEHIND_GOLD_ADJUSTMENT 1.1 1.25 1.4 1.55 1.7
AI_MAX_BEHIND_GOLD_ADJUSTMENT 1.4 1.6 1.8 2.0 2.4
AI_MIN_AHEAD_GOLD_ADJUSTMENT 1.0 1.05 1.1 1.15 1.2
AI_MAX_AHEAD_GOLD_ADJUSTMENT 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0
----------------------------------------------------

and something similar for science & prod and the AI do LOOK much better.

[Celestial_Dawn]

Thank you Daniel. Based on what I've seen of DiffDB I am in agreement with your observations.

Wes, the scope of your mod looks great! I am in agreement with Harlan however as far as the "less is more" approach - minimalist changes are better in this case if the timeline isn't going to be extended.

CtP timeline seems to have a lot more turns, so adding one or two units here and there shouldn't be problematic. However, you're talking about lots of new units ... it'd be better I think to start with a few, and then scale the timeline up progressively as you add more - and only if necessary ... don't want game to be too long.

And my humble suggestion - perhaps basic game balance should be addressed first before worrying about adding new units ...

That said, can't wait

And sigh - anyone know where I can find a tech tree? Scanned? I don't have a foldout, and it'll save me having to reconstruct the entire tree by hand ...
[This message has been edited by Celestial_Dawn (edited December 11, 2000).]

[lozina]

about cities growing too fast- i think i made modified by files just the way i like it... firstly- i reduced the percentage of plains and grasslands and included more inhospitable terrain like deserts and white tiles. then i made deserts, mountains, white tiles and sea tiles negative food value (except beaches and shallow water which gives 0-- i hated the huge megalopolises on a shore of a barren wasteland) but when u add nets you start getting food from water tiles. makes sense dosent it? by that same token- i made plains give 0 food and grasslands only 5. jungles & swamps give 10 food and forest i raised production. why do jungles give 10 food and plains 0?? well- think about it- a plains by itself is just grass. unless you're a buffalo its not useful to you. so in order to get food from plains you must have farms. so now i dont have huge cities growing in some barren plains with no farms- with original model i can get a size 30 city WITHOUT any farms in plains and i found that quite ridiculous. but now- my cities grow much much slower- but more realistically. if you work on a city with improvements and such you can get a nice size 12 in the early age- otherwise if u neglect it- you'll only get maybe a size 4. it really does work great for me. another thing i hated was how advances are researched so fast. by time i discover fighters and a few turns after i build my first fighter i get the intercepter technology. thats just silly. well good luck!

[wheathin]

Another AI-heleper idea that doesn't require SLIC: how about giving the capitol improvement a few extra bonuses, such as a city-wall benefit? This has to help the AI, because how many human players lose their capital in a game? And having or losing the capital is such a huge blow...

Perhaps also, to mimic the extra size of the capital, (as the seat of government, court, etc.) the capital could get a food or gold bonus?

quote: Originally posted by Celestial_Dawn on 12-11-2000 11:15 PM And sigh - anyone know where I can find a tech tree? Scanned? I don't have a foldout, and it'll save me having to reconstruct the entire tree by hand ...

http://apolyton.net/ctp2/downloads/u...treeposter.pdf

[phenyl]

lozina: the thing with having specific country style units in world war 2 is that they are going to be very similiar in game play. maybe there should be a different sprite loaded for units with maybe a small amount of tweaking stats. depending on the civ who owns them? the idea about limiting unit production to cities that have specific advances is really good. something like that was done in the end game of ctp1, so for sure it is possible!

re:fire. that is a great idea. i suspect that it would invovled slic, but having fires (set or otherwise) as well as other natural disasters triggered randomly would mix up the game a bit. they (i am thinking earth quake) could affect terrain, cities and improvements too!!

pillboxes would basically mix tile improvements with unit abilities. ?? the only way i know of doing this is locking a unit to one location. the auto-defenders in cities that would die when moved are a good example. not really what you are suggesting as you could even hear them die when you moved em

xmon: your ideas are very good. the idea of tweaking combat strategies (flanking, etc) is good. this could also be used to introduce combined arms tactics if it were reliable.. (modern units working better together than seperately)

ship to ship combat seems like a pirate kind of thing to me esp the potential to damage/lose the ship, etc, potential gain cargo (gold), etc... pirates could be a barbarian only unit, along with other "anarchy" types (bandits, etc..)


wesw: i think it is a very good idea to pre-package the sprites ahead of time. even going so far as to pre-define empty sprites that have redundant graphics for later extension ... (free variables) if its that much easier to package at once..... this would also allow for a degree of flexibility if people were ever going to try and combine mods.

[lozina]

phenyl- on limiting unit production to cities with necessary buildings-

i was fooling around the alexander the great scenario included in the game and have found it does something similar. the scenario has specific cities allowed to make the triremes... these cities were predetermined by the creator. I've been studying the code and am trying to modify it so instead of checking for specific cities- it checks if the city has the buildings required in order to build that unit. if i can get it to work ill need help with a rational and realistic 'requirement tree' for units in the game (i.e. maybe in order to build a caravan that city needs a bazaar, catapults require mill and academy? etc..) ill let you know if i get lucky and it works!