Introducing the Medieval Pack II v1.0 Alpha

[Harlan]

Preacherman's comments echo my own a while back, the ones Wes thought were very bizarre (in that case, the AIs may have been extremely lucky- starting with two settlers and finding more from huts and so forth).

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. The AI shouldn't start with upfront cheats, or at least as few as possible. I don't like this in the regular game, and I wouldn't want it in a mod. There's a better way to have them cheat, if they must: long term cheating. Let them start with pretty much the same stuff, but be able to produce things faster, research things faster. Its sooo much better to have the game start off easy (relatively)and get harder than the reverse, which is what always happens in CTP2, and is one of its worst problems in my opinion.

Getting rid of the upfront cheats and toughening the long term cheats alone will make this modpack a great improvement over the regular. The tougher levels should just have greater long term cheating, not any more up front cheating.

And also, why not make Impossible live up to its name? It seems the tough levels aren't tough enough.

Of course Wes just agreed to this in the previous post, but I felt like emphasising this anyways .

[preacherman]

I can tell yoou this, the way the game is set now it is taken all my skill to stay alive. I am into the late 1800's I am having to play with the food, wage, and workday bars to keep my cive alive. with all my wars atlest 2 most of the game. (I only started one of them). AI's are much more aggresave now. Trying to keep a big army leads to not enought production. If you adjust to get prod. up then you drop science. I have been forced to research the military advancements to keep up with the AI's. so I ran out of money. could we get trading posts back? I have only seen 1 AI boat that was a long boat.
I like the mod it is just a little over powering when you first start and you have people showing up all over and you only have two citys. I must have had 20 units running around my civ till the wars started then they left.

[Alpha Wolf]

quote: Originally posted by WesW on 01-01-2001 10:46 PM The first time I looked at the DiffDB I was surprised at how much advantage the AI was given. Yet all everyone talked about was how they could easily wipe the floor with the AI on Impossible level. It seems that my changes to AI settings have made a big improvenment, because I have not touched the DiffDB settings at all. I will go back and reduce the human handicap, and see if that addresses the growth and science problems you are all reporting compared to the AI. Btw, check out the advances thread. I have posted the techs I plan to add to the game, and will shortly upload the advances chart for you to look at.

Apparently, IMPOSSIBLE to activision means playing catchup from way way behind. i agree completely with harlan and have removed some of the AI's big lead as the Ai gets tougher militarily. Isnt it funny that the AI starts with a big lead, but then slows down so its not so far ahead. I may be behind in tech, but the Ais cant match me militarily and I just build a few armies and kick butt.

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

I haven't been playing the last couple of days but I am happy to see that the AI is so much better. I agree that AI should cheat in the long term more, and it would be good to have at least one level where Ai would be better long - term, so lets say the player would need to learn and use all the tricks and struglle all the way trough to stay alive, let alone win... (the win should be a rare occassion, at least for a while) this should be impossible level, as it says... and will make the game much more enjoyable. For the people who cant cope there you have the levels below... it seems that the mod is going this way so it is great... I'll start it again these days.
[This message has been edited by Coflek (edited January 03, 2001).]

[PinkFriend]

To WesW

It looks like files of 'Advances.txt' and 'Units.txt' have different versions. Such 'Units.txt' has in 'Unit_Archer' section string of "ObsoleteAdvance ADVANCE_ENGINEERING" but Advances.txt don't contain
such advance. There are several links to unexisting advances such as RADIO, MICROCOMPUTERS, STIRRUP etc. Maybe these files are from CTP1 mod?

Please, send me (akrav@ibrae.ac.ru) correct file (files) and of course correct this bug in your MOD's site.

P. S. Your e-mail does not work properly and return mail sended to you.

[Martock]

Wes, i downloaded the Med Mod II yesterday and installed it last night. everything seemed to go ok until i clicked the launch button. then problems arose. i'm not sure if this is the same problem that was already listed in another topic but it totally smooshed my ctp2 install. basically i got about 30-40 (i lost count after that) errors - DB error can't find engineering, radio, etc (as with PinkFriend) - i didn't do anything to the files, just used winzip to put them into the scenarios folder. it seemed to go fine and i can't think whatelse i might have missed. i downloaded 4 files off your site, 1 pictures, 2 sprites and 1 text file. am i missing something??

please advise me on what u think may be going screwy here...thanks!

[Paul]

Read Wes' post on Dec 31, 18:09. You should choose the second Med Mod scenario called domestic. The other one is not ready.

[WesW]

UPDATE ALERT: New text version available.

Remember, you don't have to get the graphics files again unless specifically stated.

Sorry about the crashes, guys. I didn't realize that altering the unitbuildlist.txt would crash the domestic version. I apoligize for accusing P-man of loading the wrong version, when I had made the mistake.
I have added a version of unitbuildlist.txt which has the new build lists, but not the new units. Now, the AIs will switch build lists depending on the situation. You may not notice a great improvement to their unit choice due to the fact that there not really enough units in the standard version of the game to fill out all the new lists. However, you should see some things that are different, so let me know what you do or do not notice.

I have also drastically reduced the amount of gold that the AIs start with in the game. I think that this was accounting for the large starting advances the AIs had. They could rush-buy about everything available on the two hardest levels. They started very hard with 2000 gold, and impossible with 8000! With all the units you guys were reporting, this may have actually hurt them in the long run by giving them high unit support costs from the outset of the game. Now they start with 750 and 1000, respectively.
I also reduced the number of advances they started with on impossible from 8 to 6, and reduced the human penalty in science and food on very hard.
I have also reduced the science handicap for the human player from 25 to 20 for all levels. This is the amount of extra science points added to advance costs for each advance you have discovered. (This is why the number of turns to discover an advance sometimes increases when you get another discovery through trade or goody hut.)
All of these things should reduce the starting advantage of the AI relative to the human, without substantially affecting AI performance in the long run.

Finally, I greatly reduced the chances of starting with an extra settler. It seems that I get the extra settler 90% of the time on very hard level.

Also, I have added three new ages to the game, the Classical, Medieval and Industrial. I only have new city sprites for the Industrial, which come from Harlan's Ctp1 mod.
The Ancient and Classical eras will use the current Ancient sprites. The Medieval and Renaissance eras will use the current Ren age sprites. The Industrial age will use Harlan's Industrial age sprites. The remaining three ages will use their current sprites. Btw, I have re-named the Genetic age to the Computer age.
I have noted the years when all the ages begin at the top of the Advances chart, which is included in the new text upload. What do you think about changing the Diamond age, which will begin in 2040, to the Genetic age?

Be sure to look over the new advances chart, since we are about finished with the placement of advances and the things they enable. It has been a lot of work. In fact, it has been about all I have done this week. Classes start again Monday, so I hope to have everything settled by the end of the weekend. I am detailing all of the changes in this aspect of the mod in the advances thread.

Pink, don't pay any attention to the advances referenced in the "units" version units.txt. I had a mix-up with Paul when I asked him to alter that file for me. He put in the advances as they were listed in the Med charts, which didn't need to be done.

[Pintello]

Hi Wes,

There are a lot of discrepencies between your Advance Chart and what is found in your Units.txt and Advance.txt files. Some examples are as follows, but they are by no means the only ones.

Chart says Battleship comes with Modern Metalurgy, but Units.txt says Advanced Naval Tactics. Advanced Naval Tactics doesn't even appear on your chart.

Units.txt says Sea Engineer comes with Nano-Assembly, but Chart says Ultra-Pressure Machinery.

Chart says Oil Refining is the Prerequisite for Modern Metallurgy, but Advance.txt says Age or Reason and Iron Working.

These are just a few discreptancies. There are many more, but I don't have time to isolate them all right now. Mayby I will later.

Just a heads up for you.

Timothy Pintello

[preacherman]

Martock, did you try to load a saved game with second text update? I did the same thing and got major crash. need to start new game.
Wes, couple problems.
1. set a embassy with one civ then he killed my diplamat. yet we did not go to war on deiplomicy screen.
2. I had my game reduced and went to city screen and the computer crashed.
3. crime, I am in the year 1980 with 16 citys largest is a 12. I am producing 2035 and losing 483 production points to crime. I have 11 citys with courthouses. with this much lost to crime it cuts into how much of an army you can have. Might want to see about city improvment to help cut crime. I know that I have never been able to beat the AI's to Chichen Itza, so another wonder wouldn't be much help. It does make the game very intersting though.
My computer goes into shop for new mother board today so will be back in couple weeks.

[Alpha Wolf]

Wes,
I made very silmiliar changes to my game as to the advantages the AI starts with. Its helped alot. I had to, because one game the AI rush built ChichenItza on the 3rd turn. Didnt even get a message that it was started, just one that said it was complete. Talk about a shocker. I've only been playing on Impossible and lowerd gold to 5000 and they dont seem to be going too crazy buying everything. Besides, they need a few units for when the barbarian hordes come sweeping across. In most of my games, at least one civ will be overrun by the barbarians

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History is written by the victor.

[WesW]

UPDATE ALERT: New advances chart posted.

Tim, it's like I told Pink- I have not yet begun to edit the text files to match the advances chart. We are not yet through deciding on new advances and so-forth. Once we get everything settled, I will send the necessary text files to Gedrin so that he can place them in his Chop spreadsheet. Then I will begin altering the text files and hopefully have the beta ready by sometime next week.

P-man, I don't know off-hand what would cause the things you listed in your post regarding the Diplomat.
I would suggest building Correctional Facilities for the crime, and maybe switching governments.

[PinkFriend]

As I've seen AI come to attack more often. But it is not enough. What's the way to do AI more agressive? Can it fight the others and conquer my and other AI's empires? And will it make alliances and peace treaties with other AI's?

[PinkFriend]

As I've seen AI come to attack more often. But it is not enough. What's the way to do AI more agressive? Can it fight the others and conquer my and other AI's empires? And will it make alliances and peace treaties with other AI's?

[Pintello]

Hi Wes,

I have played some with the most recent text update now. Following is what I've noticed.

The first game I played I lost. I wasn't defeated per se, but I was so far behind everyone else in the post AD years that there was really no hope of catching up. This I think was a combination of a bad start and lots of problems with Barbarians. I didn't even get my second city until after 0 AD. Like I said, I was in bad shape.

I started a second game. This one went quite a bit better. I got a good start and even make 2 peace treaties with the Hebrews and the Native Americans. Both seem to be keeping them very well and are extremely happy with me. I will try to get an Alliance with the Hebrews soon. This will protect my southern flank from that "evil genuis" Gahndi of the Indian civilization and it will allow the Hebrews to expand in areas on the otherside of my empire. There is more than enough room there for both of us and it will make a good buffer between me and the Zulus who really don't like me for some reason. It may have something to do with my conquering of an isolated Zulu city that was very close to my capital, but who knows. :-)

I have some observations about the AI behavior.
1) The Barbarians can really mess you up now. For evidence I use my first aborted game.
2) The AIs seem to be more aggressive, but they still have a hard time actually getting up the nerve to attack you directly. Alpha Wolf has posted some modified files on his website, that he says has made the AI quite a bit more aggressive and hard to beat. he says that using these files, he has even lost some cities to the AI. Those might be worth looking at.
3) The AIs are very good at managing their empires both economically and scientifically. I am last in both areas in my current game, even though I have 6 cities, which is about the same number of some of the middling empires. I am also last militarily, but I have not seen where any AIs have conqured any others. Not in this game anyway. One AI did take a city of another AI in the last game that I abandoned though.
4) I haven't seen any slavers in this game, but I did in the other game so the AIs are using those if they are of that kind of personality.
5) I am still not seeing much of an Navy on the part of the AI.
6) In their older and larger cities, the AIs are doing a fairly credible job of defending them with a fairly good mix of ranged and assault troops. Seems to be about 40% defense/assault troops, when you include militia, to 60% ranged. The result is that you are not likely to be able to take a well established AI city without atleast 1 stack of 12 and 2 may be needed even in the relatively early part of the game. This bodes well for the AI when units like the Infantry and cannons come out. It may be very hard to challenge then. At least in regards to taking over its cities.

I will play this game much further out and give you more information as I discover it.

Thats all for now.

Timothy Pintello

[tdean001]

My roommate and I are interested in running the Med mod i multiplayer. Any suggestions as to how I would go about setting this up?

I was gonna try just over-writing stuff in the CTP2/CTP2_data directory, but I'm understandably hesistant

[Thomas Rahm]

Hi Wes,

You actually succeeded to make a real challenge out of CTP2. With your Mod the game finally has the features I was looking for since Civ1 (must have been in the 60s).
I just finished a first round and would like to share some observations with you and the others around here (actually the computer told me that this round is finished):

+ setting was hard, 8 civs, huge map. (I should mention that I prefer staying defensive with 4 or 6 cities only. Enough to beat the AI in the normal game in next to impossible level.)
+ costs for the upkeep of city improvements are not reflected (upkeep allways 0, however I am charged like hell).Its very difficult but not impossible to keep a "positive income" and keep science over 50% at the same time. The reason might be that the first commerce improvement comes in relatively late (trade posts).
What about giving roads (to be invented earlier) at least +5 commerce?
+ You have linked aristotles lyceum with gunpowder a second time. I invented it earlier already. Though it didnt show up again after gunpowder arrived.
+ After the invention of internet and building that wonder I have been charged for something in all cities. (computer centers?, software licences?)
+ I was leading in science very early 500AC and remained first until 2150, which could not work in economics and military with regard to my four cities only. But I had to micromanage my cities each turn to avoid loosing money permanently.
+ In 2150 the Ai civs came to close to my territory, so I had to take over 3 cities to re-establish a moderate distance.( in order to keep my 4 cities, I sold everything and went the "diet? way" down to 3 to disband the cities. During that action strange strings appeared in the message box and all of a sudden lots of new units showed up in the build managers which finally took me back to win98.
+ Barbarians: Two or three stacks came across may way early on without being a challenge (you may guess that I have forts around my four cities, ha). Nevertheless their behaviour was reasonable. (attacked weak points and withdrew after reinforcements went into my positions.
+ AI civs: Not to much exchange throughout the game, which changed dramatically after I cleared the land around my zone. Consequently he attacked with a bomber stack (doh) and followed on with three 10stacks of a deadly mixture of inf, tanks, arty and machine gunners. This was the moment when the program decided to switch back to windows. (a good choice!)

Enough for now, colleagues, I think i should show those guys now that 3 10-stacks are not really a problem.
(Im sure I left one or two nukes somewhere near my capital, he,he)

Hope you can understand my austrian-german english

Thomas

[Maksim-Smelchak]

I've really enjoyed the Medieval Mod and can't wait for the new units/advances/etc. to be added to it. Here are my observations after taking a game to a science victory and playing too shorter experiments. Most of the observations relate to the Medieval Mod itself but a few are non-MOD CTP2 comments.

(( 1.) Overall MOD AI changes.

a.) Units. The MOD AI uses few if any special units. I've never seen a slaver used before or after the MOD. I did see a Corporate Branch used, but the computer only moved it around never actually USING it against another player.

b.) The AI is MUCH more agressive! What an improvement! In the early game, the MOD AI game me a real run for my money. Between the AI and the Barbarians, I was harassed well through the game. The AI also does an ecellent job of scouting. I don't do nearly as good a job of exploring the world. It's JUST TOO BAD that the AIs seem very willing to TRADE their better maps for my dinky one!

c.) Specialists. The AI uses a lot of specialists. When I take an AI city, I turn all but really necessary specialsts off for efficiency.

d.) Economy. The AI stil can't create a good economy. The graph readily shows that I pull way ahead of the computer in economy ver early in the game. Some of the warlike AI personalities NEVER even build bazaars!

e.) Science. Even with weak economies, the one or two competitiors in the late game (1900AD on)can still beat me to advances. I conquered one AI and found that he was using an extremely high percentage of scientists in his cities. That explained why the other AIs were beating him up before I moved in.

f.) Navies. The computer still has no naval sense. It's still using aircraft carriers without aircraft! I've never seen it use a stacked fleet either except for two or three submarines that would seem to act as a wolfpack under certain conditions.

g.) Technology Exploitation. The computer doesn't know that since it discovered airplanes before me that it could use that against me to strike my units from the field. I do it to him. If I hit airplanes first, my bombers clear his cities for my armies Blitzkrieg style.

h.) Tile Improvements. While the AIs seem to be using a very high level of improvements in comparison to me (at least twice my 20% pw rate), it never terraforms. It makes toms of mines and farms but never changes a desert to a plain. Terraforming seems more productive in both the short and long term. It will also fill an area with mines to the last square in many areas. Changing a plain to a grassland is better than farming a plain. Sure it's more expensive but it pays more in the long term. I can match the computers heavily aided manufacturing by having bigger populations which is largely due to terraforming bad tiles to grassland. Why the computer would mine a river is beyond me. Rivers mean more population in my book.

(( 2.) MOD City Growth and Development: Size, Production, & Commerce.

a.) Science. Some people mentioned that their cities grew at a slower rate and that science was slower to research. I found the opposite to be true. My cities grew VERY Quickly and science came more quickly than ever thanks to my ajusting empire settings to low wages and food levels. Even so, the computer still grew much more quickly than I did. Is the AI cheating? My cities had Max level 5 or 6 pop while he had large groups a pop 9 cities! Does he no longer lose a population by creating a settler. That's what it looked like to me.

(( 3.) MOD Diplomacy.

a.) Trade. The computer doesn't realize when there are more than two trade routes at certain points. Here's the situation. My computer "ally" was waring with a nearby neighbor who had a trade route that "coincidentally" crossed one of mine. My computer "ally" repeatedly pirated the enemy route which "accidentally" ruined our relations. The computer could have moved one square over and pirated the "enemy's" route where it didn't cross mine. Note: This is not a change from the pre-MOD, but it is still bloody annoying.

b.) No overall Change. I didn't notice any significant change. The only useful diplomatic gambit is Blackmail. Threatening gets the player everything with most enemy civs who aren't warlike. Warlike civs simply dislike you and won't change their opinion no matter how many advances, cities, money, etc. is given to them. Not even the wonders seem to help. The AI civs due seems to be much more agressive to one another than previously. After about 800AD, the AI civs were all at war with each other, EVERY ONE OF THEM. I sat back and laughed while they destroyed each other. This held true in the game I won and two shorter games that I experimented with.

c.) Diplomatic Victory. Diplomatic victory is only possible by conquering militaristic nations that will never make peace with the player. The weaker nations can be threatened into alliances but the militaristics will never do so.

(( 4.) MOD Barbarian Occurrences and Goody Huts.

a.) Barbarian HORDES. A very large number of barbarians prowl around my cities so I was forced to build a mobile defence to scare them off of my tile improvements and to strenghten my garrisons to discourage attack. In the ancient era, all of my cities had a phalanx and an archer. I could get away with just a phalanx before. They probe my cities constantly and try to destroy my tile improvements. However, they don;t seem to use knights or other large MP units to do this. I use knights to destroy a tile improvement and then move away from the city so that it isn't smashed by catapults. The computer hasn't figured out how to do this.

b.) Goody Huts. I don't us the savegame cheat with goody huts and noticed that I found an abnormally high level of huts with NOTHING in them. It could have been random chance. (Game 1: 3 empties/8, Game 2: 4e/6, Game 3: 3e/7.) Hwever, more settlers came up and I never found a "lost colony" insta-colony. This was no loss in my book. I prefer settlers so I can choose position.

(( 5.) CTP2 Comments not related to the Mod.

a.) Terraforming. I desperately wish that I could terraform outside of my controlled areas. Connecting roads becomes very problematical over any distances. For example, in the Alexander scenario, I can't build roads to the Arabs which makes any trip down there a LONG one. Perhaps we could change the system to allow terrain tile changes at double cost ONLY in areas not controlled by another player. Alexander cerainly brought engineers who could bridge and road difficult areas for his armies.

b.) Combat. I wish I could arrange my stacks (in combat) so that my arty didn't get stuck up front sometimes like it does in the new WWII scenario. Warlords II had a superior sytem where stack order could be changed at any time.

c.) Units. Can we figure out some way to be able to UPGRADE obselete units a la SMAC? It would of course have to be slightly more expensive than buying a new unit, but it would be worthwhile and take less time than building a new one. I end up with several generations of "town miltia" in my cities. The obselete units do have their uses but I'd prefer "modernized" units.

d.) Statistics. I really miss the statistics screen from Civ2 which told me who hit writing first and who had the largest city. Those little numbers made it more fun for me.

e.) Pollution. Why isn't there an empire screen that tells me my civ's TOTAL pollution score. Right now, the best way I can figure is to tally my city screen. This would be much more useful in trying to make pollution treaties. It would also be nice to have a "seer" function which would tell me my estimated pollution total before I bought a city production building.

f.) Governments. I find it really easy to surpass my maximun # of cities with the current limits. Perhaps they maximum could be upgraded witha large financial output. It could work.

g.) Units. Why can't bombers destroy terrain tiles? Bombers cartainly went after industry in WWII. I find that war is much easier if I just wipe out all of the computer's tile enhancements. It's easier than trying to take a fortified heavily defended city and I can do it with only a few "skirmishers" (cavalty, tanks, etc.).

h.) Units. In Alexander, it was easier to destroy Persian and other Enemy fleets by stationing a few catapult armies around coast and bombarding them. It sinks enemy navies quickly and protects expensive nets. I think all ranged units should be able to bombard sea or at least most of them.

i.) Units. What happens when two player use Corporate Franchises on a city? Does the last Branch take the production? Do both?

j.) Terrain. It would be really royal if I could perform multiple operations on a tile such as changing a mountain to plains and building a road at the same time.

k.) Alexander. Has anyone been able to get the colonists that seem to be possible from the Corinthian league? How about the three other wives? I can on;y find the Sogdian one.

l.) Ending. Where in the @%$^#$#@ directions did it tell us that 60% of the globe must be covered by the obelisks to win? I read everywhere including within the game's reference before I read that here and WON my first science victory. That wasn't very clear IMHO.

m.) Population. I wish the game would tell my what my city's maximum population was ata ny time so that I'd know when to by aqueducts, hospitals, etc. I had the timing down to a fine science in earlier games but the CTP series doesn't seem to make that clear. Any ideas anyone?

n.) Buying. I wish I could "partial" buy things to speed up production.

o.) Slavery. Why can't I choose which city to send my slaves to? The slaves certainly don't have any choice in the matter! I end up getting one or two cities closest to my enemy that are turned into "super cities" in ancient periods by massed slaving. I literally has a size 36 city (in the MOD) nearest to two enemies in 100BC! I would rather spread slaves out over my empire to decrease revolt chances and to spread my good fortune.

p.) City Tiles. I wish I could choose which city tile set that I was going to use. I wouldn't mind using the little Asian Pagoda building just once.

q.) Razing. I wish we could DESTROY large enemy cities. The only way to do it currently is to either conquer a size 1 city or to "SETTLER" it to death. Even after the city is destoyed, my larger cities won't expand to use the newly freed territory. A large city a much greater potential than two or three small cities. This makes planting cities by an enemy a good policy because it limits the enemies growth while providing a defendable area that's better than a fortress.

r.) Fortresses. How does one take over a fortress to have authority over it's land. Destroy it? Is that the only way? In Alexander, Persia still held fortresses after I destroyed all of their cities.

[WesW]

quote: Originally posted by tdean001 on 01-06-2001 09:58 AM My roommate and I are interested in running the Med mod i multiplayer. Any suggestions as to how I would go about setting this up? I was gonna try just over-writing stuff in the CTP2/CTP2_data directory, but I'm understandably hesistant

Please don't overwrite the original game files just to get the mod to work.
If you and your buddy use the same version of the mod, then you should be able to play the mod in multi-player.

Thanks to Tim and Thomas for their posts. I especially need info on how income works under the new improvement cost setup in the late-game stages.
I didn't realize that building a wonder which gave you the effects of a building (Internet) would result in you being charged for such a building in all your cities. I will have to keep this in mind to see if it needs to be changed. I will also need to remember to change the preq of the dummy wonder (the second Aristotle one) when I make the beta.
Thomas, you need to review the "Med charts" spreadsheet in the "Med readmes" folder. It details how I have changed improvement costs for some types of improvements.
If you suddenly started getting access to all sorts of strange units, then that means the game was not loading the mod correctly. This is why the game crashed on you shortly afterward. I hope that Don or someone else will find an answer to this problem soon.

Getting the beta files in shape to send it to Gedrin will take a lot of work, and I have been under the weather lately, so it may be a week or more before I have the beta ready to upload.
On the other hand, if I can get somemore info on how the AI works, I may be able to upload another text version of the Alpha with further refinements to AI behavior. This will at least give you something else to study while I work on the beta files. Myself, I would rather get the AI settings nailed down before throwing all the beta stuff at you as well.

We are just about finished with the new advances chart, at least as far as picking the advances and names (the links between advances may take days more to iron out). I am going to post a chronological list of the emails I have sent during this tech development phase, so that all of you interested can see the work, formation and quality of the chart that has emerged.
I was pretty proud of myself for putting together the Med mod I chart, but I can safely say that this new chart is several grades better than that one in both historical accuracy, and, I hope, in gameflow.

edit: Thanks, Maksim, I didn't see your post until I had already made this one.

I have made some more changes to the strategies.txt. Among other things, I have restored settlers at the expense of air transport units when in the attack and seige modes. I have raised the attack and seige settings for some peaceful ai types so that they are closer to the level of defense. I have raised the pillage setting for attack mode so that the AIs will pillage more if they are not strong enough for an outright attack.
I am setting 600,000 as a neutral value for the various settings here. (You guys need to remember this in case I forget someday.) This means that the defend goal is over 600,000 for defense mode, while the offensive goals are under 600,000, and vice-versa for the offensive modes. I have set the difference between the various goals at 5,000. I hope this is close enough so that the AI might switch from one goal to the next depending upon the situation.
Ideally, I would like to have an AI that could go from defensive to seige or attack mode if the opportunity presents itself. Right now I am just guessing at how to do this, but if I can get enough feedback, then maybe we can hit upon the right settings.

I also added Sea Settlers to the land settlers list, so maybe the AIs will start building more of those units.

I am holding off on adjusting the goals.txt until I can find out more about it.
[This message has been edited by WesW (edited January 06, 2001).]

[ssoszka]

I have a couple of questions and a few ideas. First the questions.

I downloaded the med mod 2 files off of Wes's site and I unzipped them into the scenario file as directed. I made a file called Med Mod 2 in which I placed them. When I went to create a new game using the mod, I got as far the med mod scenario screen, but there wasn't a "scenario" I could pick to start a game, it was just blank. I realize that I must have done something wrong so if anyone has any suggestions I would be most grateful.

My ideas. Some possible additional advances that might be interesting: aeronautical metals (aircraft grade aluminum & titanium made a big difference in aeronautics), and herbal medicine (in the ancient age, may want to link it to religion and to trade, can even add a trade good for medicinal plants (i.e. frankensense & myrrh, ginseng, etc).

Shawn
[This message has been edited by ssoszka (edited January 06, 2001).]

[Harlan]

Max,
A few comments based on points you brought up. For one thing, this isn't the right place to make comments about the Alexander scenario. There are some Alex related threads around as well. By the way, in the latest version of Alexander, seige weapons can't bombard ocean anymore.

You made a point about terraforming being easy and effective and you want it easier. It should actually be much harder! I get really POed about terraforming, because I find it extremely unrealistic. Up until this time in history, there are certain types of terraforming that have happened, but others have never happened and won't for some time to come. Namely, changing to and from Forest is pretty easy, and from Swamp to Grassland or Jungle or Grasslands to Plains is possible, but that's about it. One certainly can't change things involving elevation, like Hills and Mountains, to other elevation heights. Can anyone imagine the energy it would take to cut down part of Tibet to make grassland? Ain't gonna happen, its never even happened with lowly hills. Also, how does one improve the soil to turn Desert into Grassland for instance? You can irrigate it to get some boost, but if the soil sucks, it sucks. Up till 2000 AD, no one has truly improved soil quality over huge expanses, though all too often we've made it worse (witness the Desertification going on all over the world- there is no "Grasslandsification" going on anywhere).

In the mod I hope terraforming becomes as rare and expensive as it really is (with noted exceptions like to and fro Forest). I think this will make the game better, as you are forced to make tougher decisions on where to start cities and how to develop them, instead of simply changing the terrain to whatever you like around it.

Also, I've never tried it myself, but I think you can build tile improvements outside your cities. I recall reading somewhere that you can build fortresses on any unclaimed land if you have a unit standing adjacent to the square. Then once you have the fortress you get to claim some of the land around it, and build roads or whatever there. In that way you could have built that road to Arabia if you wanted without making a string of cities there.

[Maksim-Smelchak]

Harlan,

Thanks for your reply. What I meant by easier was that I would like to make certain aspects of terraforming easier such as building those roads across the desert. I do agree that some aspects of terraforming are much too easy in CTP2. In the far future (i.e. the Diamond age, etc.), I see this as possible. The previous post was my first so excuse me if I put comments in the wrong place, I just wanted to get it all out at one time. My compliments to you as well for the wonderful work that you've done. I didn't know that one could terraform outside of one's border if a unit is there. I'll have to try it out. I hope that the other information was of some use to you. I realize that a lot of the mods I suggested are easily done such as changing bombard orders on certain units. I posted on the Alexander string requesting a copy of the new trial so I've got a better handle on those things.

My best to all,
Max.

[Maksim-Smelchak]

Harlan,

I have a few comments regarding terraforming.

"You made a point about terraforming being easy and effective and you want it easier. It should actually be much harder! I get really POed about terraforming, because I find it extremely unrealistic. Up until this time in history, there are certain types of terraforming that have happened, but others have never happened and won't for some time to come. Namely, changing to and from Forest is pretty easy, and from Swamp to Grassland or Jungle or Grasslands to Plains is possible, but that's about it. One certainly can't change things involving elevation, like Hills and Mountains, to other elevation heights. Can anyone imagine the energy it would take to cut down part of Tibet to make grassland? Ain't gonna happen, its never even happened with lowly hills. Also, how does one improve the soil to turn Desert into Grassland for instance? You can irrigate it to get some boost, but if the soil sucks, it sucks. Up till 2000 AD, no one has truly improved soil quality over huge expanses, though all too often we've made it worse (witness the Desertification going on all over the world- there is no "Grasslandsification" going on anywhere)." - Harlan

Irrigation is only one part of what I've always imagined terrafroming to entail. I have imaged when I play the civ games that "terraforming" is much more than just a science fiction definition of that term. Part of it involves inundation such as what occurs along the Nile (only partially naturally) and another portion of CTP2's terraforming involves breeding crops or livestock to suit the terrain. The "green Revolution" that currently feeds much of the world was nearly entirely a product of making more hardy breeds of foodstuff plants such as rice and wheat. Selective breeding has been going on as long as man has had agriculture and domesticated livestock. True, it wasn't a science until the mid to late Rennaissance but it existed.

About the comment about soil quality not having ever been truly improved, I absolutely agree especially in the poor loam soils of jungle climates. That is exactly what's happening in Africa. "Slash and burn" agriculture such as is popular is South and Meso America certainly supports this. Mother Nature solves poor soil quality problems by causing floods. That's how the Egyptians managed to start one of the world's first great societies bt taking advantge of the seasonal inundations. Places where man has used the principle of controlled flooding have TRULY improved their soil quality. So many of the Stalin era water projects did exactly this. Most of those prjects had serious side effects too but they did alter soil quality to better support agriculture. Several projects in China are now doing the same thing. For some odd reason, the only soil I ever terraform in CTP2 tends to be about waterways. It's a weird coincidence.

It is of course easier to destroy than to create or improve. Maybe to simulate this, you could make it easier to terraform terrain to a worse class. Armies could "sow salt in Carthage" by occupying a square and paying a price to terraform the soil to desert. Defending borders would certainly be more important if invaders could cheaply turn your soil to desert. It's an idea.

I can think of one example of the desert being turned to grassland: The Israelis. They have "turned the desert green." Israel which imported large quantities of foodstuffs prior to 1948 now actually exports many foods. How did they do it? (A highly debatable question which I wrte a lengthy thesis on) It is disputable that part of their "green explosion" came from Golan Heights water, but technology certainly has had something to do with it as well. Much of Israeli agriculture uses highly improved water efficiency and "hydroponics" type technology. "Drip lines" came from Israel. Hydroponics doesn't mean a space station or special nutrients other than is normally provided. It means to grow plants in water with the nutrients coming from water rather than the soil. Hydro (water) + ponos (labor) = hydroponics. The Israelis grow strawberries in the desert by placing large pipes in the soil vertically and cutting holes down them. The top of these pipes are covered with a shade net and the crops are then watered from the top increasing water efficiency by measures ahead of what we have now. Most of the techniques of hydroponics have been around since ancient times. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon aren't really much more than a hydroponics experiment.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is that where any large amount of manpower can be assembled, the environment can be changed. It'd expensive and difficult but it can be done. That's how man built their own mountains - the Pyramids and how man harnessed the rivers to make the desert green - the Hoover Dam. The Nile originally inundated only the near banks of itself but later irrigated much larger swathes of farmlands with irrigation. I can't remember the name of the irrigation device but it's not much more than a scoop that a farmer laborously dips into the river and then his irrigation. Farmers n Egypt still do this hours and hours a day. Artifical mountains beside the pyramids exist in for skiing purposes in place like Japan. Sure, it would take forever to terraform Tibet but it could be done. The Tibetans terrace instead. When the snow melts, they channel it and the dirt mixed into the slurry into their terraces. The Phillipines has a giant terraced mountain that has existed for centuries and would have been one of the Wonders of the ancient world if Asia would have been better known.

"In the mod I hope terraforming becomes as rare and expensive as it really is (with noted exceptions like to and fro Forest). I think this will make the game better, as you are forced to make tougher decisions on where to start cities and how to develop them, instead of simply changing the terrain to whatever you like around it." - Harlan

I think that making terraforming more rare and expensive would really change the game for the better. It would mean that the early strategy to plant a city right away would be less valuable than scouting around to find a better location. I would welcome the change. I've tried games where I did a minimal amount of terraforming which simulated a different concept of the game like I think you are proposing. It was still fun.

Cheers and the best to you, Harlan,
Max.

P.S. Forgive my poor language, it isn't perfectly native if you hadn't noticed. I worry for my idioms.

[WesW]

UPDATE ALERT: New text version available.

I went ahead and uploaded the strategies changes I talked about above. I also updated the standard units in the Med charts spreadsheets to show their enabling and obsoleting advances, and the changes I made to the Marine and Paratrooper unit types.

I decided to combine the Marine and Paratrooper types into one, special forces-type of unit for the Modern and Genetic ages. The Modern age unit is the Ranger, and the Computer age unit is the Commando.
I have also listed the Chariot that Tom Davies (Morgoth) is working on as the Ancient age Mtd. Ranged unit.

I forgot, but I have also re-worked the timeline to a new setup which roughly follows the dates given on the top row of the advances chart. I plan on each age to last roughly 80 turns. Since there are 8 ages in the game, and only 7 unit progressions, the units of the Renaissance and Modern ages will bleed into the Industrial age, which does not have its own layer of ground units.

[Thomas Rahm]

Shawn,

you dont have to create a folder (file?) call medmod..
just zip everything directly itothe scenarios folder. the package will create its on folder where everything is placed properly.

regards

Thomas

hey wes, how do you like your new title?
[This message has been edited by MarkG (edited January 07, 2001).]

[Thomas Rahm]

Wes,

I started a new game this morning and noted some strange things. I apologize if any of them are explained in the advances chart, but I can have a look at it only tomorrow (you know, Excel is in office...)

+ After inventing horse riding, trade posts should be available. (at least until yesterday they were). Now I am around 1000 AD and still no trade posts ?

+ sliders at empire tab: the first two moves at any slider show + or resp. - 4 and than 6 but it doesnot show up at the bar above (citicen happiness) only additional moves are calculated properly.

+ the classical education invention shows all militia types in the preview window.

+ what about giving roads +3 commerce ---- or +2 ?
or +1?????


Tomorrow I will start my diplomatic offense and tell you how the AI thinks about me.

Regards

Thomas

[Harlan]

Max,
The examples you provide are the exceptions that prove the rule that terraforming never really happens, except in the "wrong" direction. Take the Israel example. In CTP2 terms, what they're done is built a hydroponic farm on a Desert tile, but not actually changed the Desert tile itself. It may look green and lush if you go there, but the question is what would happen if the Israelis stopped their irrigation and went away? Would the land stay lush, or would it go back to Desert? Obviously it would go back to Desert. The rainfall hasn't changed and the soil hasn't changed.

Ditto with the other examples. Some soil types have a lot of potential if they get some irrigation, the black earth soils of Russia are like this. But that's just tapping the potential already there, not creating something new. In Egypt, the floods had made the lands around the Nile fertile long before humans. Flood management simply allowed them to build farms there without them being washed away. This example proves that the only easy terraforming is in the destructive direction, cos since the Aswan Dam was built, the floods have stopped and the soil is now getting worse every year.

Regarding the hill examples you brought up, those are pathetic little hills. In CTP2, one tile is about 50 by 50 miles square. The Pyramids or ski mountains would be less than 1% of 1% of this. No one has ever terraformed such land up or down, and no one ever will, IMHO. Even if you had vast energy powers at your command, it would be a stupid waste. Why not just terrace lands on the hills instead of completely blowing them into oblivion?

Just like it takes at least decades to build a city but they can be destroyed in a day, so it is with land. To create good soil over large areas takes literally thousands of years of Mother Nature doing her thing, but destroying good soil can easily be done in a few years through poor management or outright hostility, like the salting of Carthage's fields. (actually the salting of those fields didn't really have much of a long term effect cos they didn't do it very thoroughly, but that's another story)

I think it's thoughtful of the engineers involved that they put mineral resources INTO the Hills that they create, so that Mines can take them OUT.

[This message has been edited by lago (edited January 07, 2001).]

[Chris B]

i realize its just alfa, but militia in mine don't appear. I even took off can'tbuild on all of em. Wazzup with that?