Tentative Project - Part Three

[WesW]

quote: Originally posted by Harlan on 12-08-2000 11:24 PM Wes, You didn't really answer my questions from my previous posting. First off, what percent longer will your mod be in turns than the regular CTP2 setup, and how does that compare with what percent of new units you'll have. I still worry about getting too many new units before I can really use them. Ways to automatically update old units to new (for a price or a Leonardo wonder or something) would help, certainly.

At this point, I plan for the mod to use the standard Ctp2 timeline. If play-testing reveals that it needs to be adjusted, we can do that.
As far as units go, my aim is to give each unit a sufficiently long era of supremecy in its category to make it worth building. Ideally, you will be jeopardizing your safety if you don't upgrade your forces when I new unit comes along.
The land units are divided into 7 ages, each age with a unit from one of the unit build list, except for modern units like anti-air and marines.
The naval units are less precisely defined, but I am basing them on the Med mod 4 setup, which worked out well as far as spacing is concerned.
Air units are divided into WWII, Genetic and Diamond ages, roughly speaking.

quote: Originally posted by Harlan on 12-08-2000 11:24 PM Second question. What do you think about my comment that "less is more" and one shouldn't simply add a new unit or wonder or other, just because the graphic is there? I'll again point to the Ironclad and Monitor as an example. As far as I know, there was no such thing as defensive and offensive Ironclads, there was just one type. The Monitor was but an early single boat, and as one of the first Ironclads ever built, largely without any offensive weapons. This was an oversight (based on a need to rush a weapon, any weapon to meet the Merrimack) that was soon rectified by all later Ironclads. I can see why for logical reasons its good to look for an offensive and defensive ship in each era, but the Monitor is not what you're looking for for that era, unless you want to fly in the face of history.

From my understanding, the Ctp2 Ironclad is comparable to the successors of such ships as the CSS Alabama and the USS Kearsarge, who fought it out in the English Channel, and the forerunners to Armored Cruisers like the USS Maine.
Ships like the Monitor and Merrimac were specific to the US Civil War, but my understanding is that there were many Monitor-class ships built by the US Navy, and ships like the Merrimac played crucial roles in river warfare in the Civil War.
I plan to use the Monitor as a niche unit, available only to the first civ to research Steam Engines, for example. If less turns out to be better, then we can easily remove these units from the game.

quote: Originally posted by Harlan on 12-08-2000 11:24 PM I would also call into question some of the other unit additions as being unnecessary, such as the Privateer, but if you could explain the wonders they'll be attached to, maybe they're look better. The Galleon I agree is an important unit, but I believe that is exactly what the Carrack is. They're nearly the same thing, but I'm sure the Activision guys named it Carrack simply so there would be one less unit they share with Civ2. For instance, I asked the lead designer why he wouldn't include Chariot, and the name was the reason: the legal team said they were skating on thin ice with having too many things the same as Civ2, and there was no other name to call Chariot. Other ones I'd question: why a WW2 Frigate? Slinger? Horse Archer and Bandit Horseman (one or the other is fine)? Heavy Swordsman and Swordsman (again, one or the other)? The Zulus? These seem driven by a cos we have the graphics sentiment. Bombard, Culverin AND Cannon seems a bit iffy- 2 out of three is good, unless the mod will stretch time out a ton.

I envision the Carrack as a Colunbus-era ship, while the Galleon would be the next evolution, a 16th or 17th-century unit. There is only one Naval transport unit available after the Cog, the Transport, which comes about in the Industrial age. We may need another transport between the Cog, which I plan to use as an early Renaissance transport like Tom designed it, and the Transport, and move the Transport to the 20th century. Or, I can use the Galleon as a swift raider ala Francis Drake, available to one Civ to establish naval supremecy during the Renaissance era, and an able support craft to the SotL, when that unit comes along.
Frigates are going to be the first and only unit capable of defending against air units until the late 20st-century Missile Cruiser comes along. The Slinger is the Bronze age ranged unit, the Horse Archer a late-Medieval Ranged and Flanking unit, and a companion to the Knight, Bandit Horsemen will be Iron Age swift raiders with both Ranged and Flanking attacks, available to only one civ, Heavy Swordsmen are successors to Swordsmen (I spent about an hour combing websites trying to find a better name than Heavy Swordsman, but to no avail. Any suggestions are welcome.) The Zulu Warrior is another special unit, and will have mounted-unit mobility and flanking attack combined with infantries ability to move over any land terrian. They will be a bronze and iron age unit, and I may leave them active up to the Industrial age. As I said earlier, Bombards will be immobile defensive units created automatically, and not able to be put into the build queues of anybody, while Culverins and Cannon will occupy diffrent eras.

quote: Originally posted by Harlan on 12-08-2000 11:24 PM On the other hand, there are some holes that still need fixing. For instance, ICBM (I assume you forgot to mention Nukes), Seige Tower, Anti-Air Gun (pre-SAM). On another note, what about a provision in your mod for reducing the PW cost of adding, say, a Mega Mine to where a Mine was, or a Railroad to where a Road was. For instance, pay 300 instead of 500 if the original cost 200. I think it would be wonderful if someone made animations out of some of my units, but I also think it would be pretty near impossible, since they aren't based on 3D models.

I have not made any changes to nukes. I thought they were in the lists somewhere. I don't think there are flags present to portray siege engines accurately. If someone wants to try some slic stuff, be my guest. The anti-air artillery, which I had in the med mod I, I was going to wait and see how play-testing went. The anti-air category may have to be absorbed into another category anyway given the 5 build list restriction.

I will try and make another post dividing the standard units into their ages, and with wonder units in another list. Hopefully this will clear up some of the confusion.

As far as the Tile Improvements, I would love to be able to do that, but there is no setting for it at this time, unless you tried slic again.

Why don't we make a Civ2 mod for CtP2? Original techs, units etc... or not?

Why don't we make a Civ2 mod for CtP2? Original techs, units etc... or not?

[Pintello]

Hi Wes and Harlan,

Just to come to WesW's defense about the Monitor, the North built 60 something of those things just during the period of the Civil War. In fact, they were an entire official class of ships during the Civil War. I think the way Wes has broken up the early iron warships between coastal defenders and deep sea vessels is a good idea.

Wes, I like the way you are going to use one of your early "cannon" units as a strickly garrison type unit. If you can make the AI a lot more aggressive, that could be a very important developement. However, I don't think it is a good idea to use a ship as a garrison type unit. I think your plan to use the Monitor as a Shallow water defender/attacker is a better idea. If you want a garrison unit that is able to defend against sea units, just give the garrison cannon the ability to bombard ocean. I have already experimented with this and the AI definitely knows what to do with it. I think if you do give it the bombard ocean ability, you should also mitigate this by giving any naval vessels of this era the ability to counter bombard land though.

The reason the South's Merrimack type ships - they had more than one too, but not nearly as many as the North - were only used in bays and rivers was because the North had Monitor Class ships out is the coastal waters supporting operation "Anaconda." Anaconda was the name of the strategy the North used to blockade the entire Coast of the Confederecy. Later Monitor Class ships were able to handle the coastal ocean waters a lot better than the original Monitor could. Ericson, the guy who invented the Monitor, learned from his mistakes with the original Monitor and made lots of improvements on later models.

Regards,
Timothy Pintello
[This message has been edited by Pintello (edited December 09, 2000).]

Why don't we make a Civ2 mod for CtP2? Original techs, units etc... or not?

[Alpha Wolf]

If I might jump in for a moment, I somewhat disagree with the upgrade ability. Human based units makes alot of sense. Just give them new weapons and some training and they are upgraded. But how would a ironclad realistically get upgraded to destroyer, or a cannon to artillery, since the artillery in CtP2 is actually self-propelled (speaking of which, how did they think sp artillery could happen BEFORE internal combustion?)

Not sure if you'd be interested, but I'm greatly modifying the terrain values. I too am sick of 20+ sized cities surrounded by snow, altho the one that got me was an AI city around 500bc that was already 21 and was completely surrounded by swamps except for 3 water tiles and 4 squares of river. Along with that, I'm modifying the cost and output of the terrain improvements. i have some play testing to do, but you are welcome to it once I get it to balance realistically. I'm hoping that slic can reduce time and cost to upgrade from one improvement to the next. Unfortunately, my slic is elementary at best so if you hear how to do it, I'd appreciate the knowledge.

[MrFun]

No reviews from anyone? wow

[MrFun]

No reviews from anyone? wow

[Semjaza]

Yup, we're all too busy playing it to comment on it!

[Semjaza]

Yup, we're all too busy playing it to comment on it!

[Matte979]

Some comments about the wage slider. If you change the wage slider to 12 as base and 4 in each direction it will seriously alter the game. The science will go much slower, there is a problem though seems 12 is a bit to high, human players can put wages at 4 but computer players put it at 8 and 12 which will damage there economy badly. I suggest you lower the base to 6 and have it got by steps of 2 to help computer players.

The happiness costs to much if the base i 12 and step is 4..

/Mathias

[lev]

Wes, I just sent you an email about the old CtP1 unit sounds.

Also, I agree with Harlan about the "less is more" -- variety of units must be balanced with game simplicity, and I urge you =not= to include units that are too similar in function unless they really add something to the game.

Overkill of units is the one big reservation I have about the mod, and I think you should weigh each choice carefully.

I =do= think it would be great to have an atom bomb available before guided weapons tech, with only two movement points, so that it would have to be bomber-delivered.

[lev]

Another couple ideas about Wonders (forgive me if these have already been mentioned, but I have trouble keeping up with all the posts!):

1. What if Wonder obsolescense was triggered not by an advance, but by the building of another wonder? For example, the Dutch East India trading co. could become obsolete when and if someone builds the London Exchange.

2. To fix the problem of "free-building" wonders and mayors building those anyway, change the wonder effect so that it actually places the building in the inventory of any existing or newly built city, on a one-time basis. If the building is destroyed, you don't get another free one in that city. This is the way SMAC handles such things, and it works well.

However, that would require changing some of the Feats of Wonder, since some of them are triggered by having a certain number of particular buildings, and you'd get a double bonus by building (for example) the Internet since you'd also gain the "lots of computer centers" feat. Actually, I'd recommend changing the Internet and the London Exchange to research and gold bonuses (respectively) rather than free buildings to fix this, instead of changing the Feats themselves.

[Harlan]

Wes,
Again, I feel you didn't really answer my comments about units, though you came closer. I generally know what things like Slingers or Frigates are, and what their role in the game would be roughly (though Bombards being immobile was a surprise). What I was hoping for in response was a spirited defense as to why such and such a unit is a must-have. Does it make the game more fun and/or is it a necessity historically? I would argue for the units I mentioned, no and no. I highly doubt that if you didn't have a graphic for, for instance, a Slinger, you'd be thinking, "Dang! If only I had a Slinger, then the Bronze Age would be looking really good." In that particular case, Archers go way back, to far before the start of CTP2's timeline. (Historically, Slingers were the poor man's archer, not the precursor)

Especially as you're not planning to extend the timeline any longer at current, I think the units you add need to be held to close scrutiny. 20 extra units is a gimme, but its easy to slip into 30 then 40 then more, as more sprites become available.

Another example. The Monitor again. Its true about 60 of those were built during the Civil War. Maybe 100 worldwide of vaguely Monitor-y type boats. But these had a very short history- from about 1861 to 1869, when the design of the Ironclad changed utterly. The Ironclad itself was a transitional unit, with only about 30 years of dominance, and the Monitor just an early transitional model of that. I could come up with dozens of units that have as much historical justification as that. I assume CTP2 turns would be moving at about 2 years a turn at this point, so you'd have about 4 turns to build and move into battle a Monitor before it was historically obsolete. It would be great for a Civil War scenario, though.

Galleon: the Santa Maria, sailed by Columbus, was a Galleon (though his two other ships weren't). This shows how short a historical life the domination of the Carrack was (about 50 years), though the two coexisted for a while longer.

I'm not sure what the point of Heavy Swordsman is, still. The Frigate didn't have any special anti-air capability until the SAM was invented. For the anti-air role it arose the same time as the Missile Cruiser, but is merely a cheaper, smaller version of that.

Then there's the Mounted Archer, Horse Archer and Bandit Horseman. I can't see what would be the need for three. The Horse Archer could play the role of Bandit Horseman: the Mongol Warrior type raiding at the fringes. One thing I recall reading when making the Alexander scenario: it is commonly believed by military historians that Alex's army could have taken on just about any army of the world until about 1500 since there was so little advancement in military technology and prowess until that time. The only advancement ever in archers on horses was the invention of the stirrup around 300 BC- one probably couldn't tell the difference between a Hun and a Mongol.

Its interesting that Bombard can't move or be built in the regular way, but I must have missed the discussion on that. Can you say again what that's for? Ditto for Zulus- you're keeping the associated wonders with some of this stuff a secret for now, I guess.

Sorry to be a pain, but you said you'd be glad to respond to challenges on what units to include or not include. Now I'm going to go and try to figure out how to get my graphics implemented into you mod, since I have lots of time today.

[graystone]

Theocracy to Fundamentalism - I've never been able to stay with one to get to the other!! They were too far apart in the CTPI mods... Be SURE there's a way to stay 'religious' with clerics etc.. all the way through the game if that's the choice someone will be making. Maybe Theocracy - Fundamentalism - Celestial Utopia? Theotopia?

[Harlan]

On AI Cheating. I hope in your mod you give the AI better compensation for not being as smart as a human, than the regular game does. I would like to see less initial cheating, and more long term cheating. The problem with CTP1 was if you could survive long enough, the game eventually became a cakewalk. Whereas the game should be the other way: not too hard to survive initially, but the longer the game goes on, the greater the challenges. The only way I know to boost long term cheating is with these lines:

RELATIVE_AI_PRODUCTION_CHEAT_COEF 1.0
RELATIVE_AI_SCIENCE_CHEAT_COEF 1.0

I don't know: does the AI cheat more if these are over 1, or less than 1?

I hope other methods are worked into the mod to make the game tougher as it goes on, esp. ways to have the AI players bounce back after they start losing. One idea mentioned above was having the building of new wonders make old wonders obsolete. Off the top of my head, this gives me the idea of having a catch up wonder: doesn't do much in and of itself, but it would make a bunch of useful wonders obsolete. So if you're behind, its a great thing to build to sock to the player who's built most of the wonders.

[MrFun]

Hey Semjaza, did you seriously download my North America map? That's cool if you did - when you do find time, I would like to know what you think of it.

[MrFun]

Hey Semjaza, did you seriously download my North America map? That's cool if you did - when you do find time, I would like to know what you think of it.

[OmniGod]

Okay my review time... I've played the map for 250 turns and haven't found any real problems other than the northern islands (already addressed). There is no slowing down based on civs or size since the map is within the outlines given by acti... things that would have made it even better would have been starting with 2 settlers and militia unit in a ship landing on an already partial occupied north america... you could have real possibility with the map... another thing for future maps, is detail... detail is pretty important especially if you're doing a smaller scale map or a magnified region... just a comment, and I'm not sure how much you can detail 60 degrees by 120 degrees but overall I'm enjoying the map and can' wait for your next one...

nice job

Omni

[OmniGod]

Okay my review time... I've played the map for 250 turns and haven't found any real problems other than the northern islands (already addressed). There is no slowing down based on civs or size since the map is within the outlines given by acti... things that would have made it even better would have been starting with 2 settlers and militia unit in a ship landing on an already partial occupied north america... you could have real possibility with the map... another thing for future maps, is detail... detail is pretty important especially if you're doing a smaller scale map or a magnified region... just a comment, and I'm not sure how much you can detail 60 degrees by 120 degrees but overall I'm enjoying the map and can' wait for your next one...

nice job

Omni

[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.