Introducing the Medieval Pack II v1.0 Alpha

[Pintello]

Hi Wes,

I have done some testing with your latest text update. Following are some things I have noticed.

1) Barbarians are where they need to be IMHO. Good work there. They are a real nusance and they even managed to take a Viking city, but they aren't unstopable. Good work. I even got to go up against a stack of 6 Barbarian units with five of my own. I won, but only because I had a well balanced stack and they had all warriors. Its a good thing those warriors don't have flanking ability, or they would be real tough to beat in large stacks. Oops, I think I just gave Wes an idea.
2) Science is still far too slow. In this game science was slow for both me and the AI. I quit playing about 1698 and no body had gun powder or any other advance of this level. All of us had few if any of the Renessaince advanced and most if not all of us were still struggling to get all the classical advances. Since you are adding some more advances to your Med Mod II, and I think you should, you will need to do something about either adding more turns to the game or making advanced come more quickly. I would not be opposed to either possible solution.
3) On a good note, while I didn't see many boats I did see several civilizations that had extened their presense and even placed cities on other contenents or islands other than the one they started out on. This means that somebody is building more than one boat and using them, atleast to do some colonization.

Well that is about it for now. I look forward to seeing testing additional updates you create and the completed mod when you are done with it. I will continue on with this game, unless you produce a new update in which case I will have to start over again, and give you my observations as they come.

Timothy Pintello

[Harlan]

Thanks Iago for pointing that out. That just goes to show how utterly silly some terraforming options are when you think about it.

About science coming too fast or too slow. I've made a comment to Wes already that what's really needed is 4 separate copies of certain files, one for each map size (or closest to). So you'd have 4 different scenario folders within the Med Mod 2 folder, and pick one to start based on closest map size. Cos there's no way you'll have anywhere near the same number of cities on a small map as on a gigantic one, and thus the science will come way differently. Wes has said he'll deal with this, but further down the line since more important things come first. For now perhaps it would be best if everyone playtested on the same map size, say Medium (or do they call it Average, I forget), so at least we're all operating from a similar vantage point. Of course there will still be play differences, but they should be greatly lessened this way.

[Thomas Rahm]

Harlan,

you made a good point by suggesting a common map size for testing. I just experienced a considerable difference with science advancing related to the empire tab slider settings. I played on a huge (3rd size from bottom) map and could (with around 10 cities) cope with real life dates of interventions, while in an other game yesterday on a medium map I had not even discovered democracy closely to the year 2000. Refering to my post above I think its as well important to note that it largely depends on surroundings of cities, (with one river or sea square only there is not much of commerce/science income and as trade post improvements do not show up obviously, no improvement is possible until shopping malls). The competition with the AI could only be met by setting the wages always to minimum and collecting happiness improving buildings, which, in the long run are to expensive to support.

Consequently for reasonable testing (maybe in Beta stage) you or Wes should clearly define settings for map size, wage rate, and prob. even more.
BTW: besides the missing trade posts I just noted that although my empire income shows earnings of 72 and this sum is added correctly to my savings, all my cities (4 on a average map) show negative values. This started after switching to Republic in 1300 AD.

For Wes:
The AI behaviour I experienced today was quite challenging. The Americans repeatedly offered cease-fire although I, 4 or 5 times, eliminated their settler unit because they came to close. Several turns later they attacked four times with slaver units (1 success). After another peace offer, I was facing, all of a sudden, a stack of 7 mixed units, which did considerable damage.

I will continue with this game tomorrow and work a little with the diplomatic options of the 20th century.

PS: What about 0,5 commerce bonus for roads !?!

Thomas

[Thomas Rahm]

Harlan,

you made a good point by suggesting a common map size for testing. I just experienced a considerable difference with science advancing related to the empire tab slider settings. I played on a huge (3rd size from bottom) map and could (with around 10 cities) cope with real life dates of interventions, while in an other game yesterday on a medium map I had not even discovered democracy closely to the year 2000. Refering to my post above I think its as well important to note that it largely depends on surroundings of cities, (with one river or sea square only there is not much of commerce/science income and as trade post improvements do not show up obviously, no improvement is possible until shopping malls). The competition with the AI could only be met by setting the wages always to minimum and collecting happiness improving buildings, which, in the long run are to expensive to support.

Consequently for reasonable testing (maybe in Beta stage) you or Wes should clearly define settings for map size, wage rate, and prob. even more.
BTW: besides the missing trade posts I just noted that although my empire income shows earnings of 72 and this sum is added correctly to my savings, all my cities (4 on a average map) show negative values. This started after switching to Republic in 1300 AD.

For Wes:
The AI behaviour I experienced today was quite challenging. The Americans repeatedly offered cease-fire although I, 4 or 5 times, eliminated their settler unit because they came to close. Several turns later they attacked four times with slaver units (1 success). After another peace offer, I was facing, all of a sudden, a stack of 7 mixed units, which did considerable damage.

I will continue with this game tomorrow and work a little with the diplomatic options of the 20th century.

PS: What about 0,5 commerce bonus for roads !?!

Thomas

[Martock]

Wes, got a wee-bit of a problem here. i just downloaded the recent text files and unzipped into the CTP2 directory...everything went normal...i start up the game, choose your mod, then i have a choice...either the 'domestic' or the alpha...at present, only the domestic works. if i choose alpha, i get an error message like such:
Units.txt:2494 and it'll say something about the shield cost missing or the firepower, etc...now if i go into units.txt, and goto line 2494 it pulls up this:
Category UNIT_CATEGORY_MARINE (which in my units.txt file in the scenario is indeed line 2494 {for the storm marine]) the marine's info is all correct as far as i can see, yet it's acting like all the units info is gone. any ideas??

Also, if you check out the thread mr.orge and mod makes alike...you'll see that a lot of thoughts and work have been going into the barbarians...i may indeed see my little terror dream come true! :P

[Alpha Wolf]

Beware the science is too slow/fast argument.

People who expand like crazy will get science faster than those that play with fewer cities. I havent played Wes' mod yet as I'm working on some AI issues, but in my play testing, when i only have 5 or 6 cities, my science is sooo slow, but when I get a game were I can build 20 or more cities, the science seems to fly. i played one game where i had few cities and was taking forever to get new advances, but the english had gunpowder by 1600 BC (yes you read that right) because they had cities EVERYWHERE. Judging by city names, it looks like they had taken a large number of irish and chinese cities.

Since every one has their own style of play, this argument will never be resolved to eveyones satisfaction.

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

[WesW]

Thanks for the title, Mark. Should I go on all the forums and post now, so that more people will find the site? I guess you couldn't put "webmaster" on the title, since you had to make the thing for me.

I don't know why some of you are reporting not being able to get Trade Posts. I have not altered that file in any way.

I don't want to try and add commerce to roads right now. I don't think it is needed, and the AI is certainly not programmed to factor in this concept in its planning.
I have followed Chris' (Gedrin) lead in eliminating the science handicap assigned to the human player (I had reduced it to 20 in the last upload). I agree with him that this penalty is unnecessary and redundant, since the human is given a flat-rate science penalty as well.
Once I get the beta uploaded, we can adjust the science costs as needed.
Also, that is an excellent idea to set a standard map size for everyone to use. I have found that it is the number of cities in each civ that matters most, and not necessarily the map size.
Still, I think that we need to choose "regular" size, with 6 civs when starting our games. This is what I always play, and the standard that I set the mod for. Once we get this settled, we can work on adjusting things for the huge maps that many of you use.

(School marm voice) Martock, sorry the units version doesn't work right now, but it was only there for you to see the units, and you have had plenty of time to look at them before, young man. Btw, if you want to be the Klingon Barbarian from Hell, you can try fitting it into the "from" line in your profile like seemingly "everyone" else is doing these days. (I even know a professor at Appalachain State who is doing that now.)

From what some of you have been saying, it seems as though my small diplomacy alterations are having an effect in the game. If this is true, the AIs should be much more accepting of gifts and cities than they were before.

Tim, nice idea regarding the Warrior.
There is so much you can do with this game. I was thinking last night, and remembered the Fire Ships the English used to break up the Spanish Armada. You could have those in the game as well. You could designate them as one-use units like missles, and give them a small basic attack value but a large bonus versus wooden ships, like the Fire Trireme currently has.

I have made Sea Engineers submarines, so that they won't be as visible and vulnerable as they were before. I also added Sea Engineers to the Land Settlers build list, after the Urban Planner. By the time you get Sea Engineers, all the decent land will normally be taken anyway. I also made Sea Cities start at size 3, like with Urban Planners.

Also, in the dicussions with Harlan and Charles (Diodorus) about the advances, we decided to add three new governments to the game.
1)City State, an ancient form of Republic, loosely modeled after the Greek Hellenistic League.
2)Absolute Monarchy, a successor to Monarchy, modeled after such rulers as Louis XIV "I AM the state."
3)Fundamentalism, a modern-day Theocracy, modeled after Revolutionary Iran, though most any religion can produce intolerent zealots.

I am also going to change the strengths and weaknesses of many of the governments. Nothing radical, just switching values from one gov to another mostly. I have made a color-coded legend like I did with the units to help you tell immediately what a gov's strengths are.

I am also going to get with Harlan and Charles and make some more changes to city improvements so they will be in place when I send the files to Chris to put into the new Chop spreadsheet.
I have already added the Bastion and the Supermarket, which is a Granary type of improvement. I have also made a number of changes to increase the max city size to 80, and the max amount of overcrowding that can be relieved to 68 (the max number of tiles that a city can occupy, I think).
The world's pop increased from 1 to 6 billion during the 20th century, and we need some more things to simulate this in the game. At Harlan's suggestion, I have already made Hydroponics Domes available with Agro-Industry, a late-19th century advance. They may look a little out of place, but the effect fits in historically.

I forgot to mention it, but with the new timeline, I have set the game to end at 2200, after 560 turns, I think. This should allow more than enough turns to do whatever you want to in the game.

(Now can you see why I wanted to get the AI behavior down before we got into all this other stuff?)

[JETAMBER]

[This message has been edited by JETAMBER (edited January 09, 2001).]

[Martock]

Wes, i remember hearing earlier that the alpha didn't work and just the domestic did. i guess i was just hopeful that it'd be working now. at present i can't even get the domestic version of the mod to work and remain stable. i can play a few rounds and then **poof** i'm back to the desk top. i don't know why this is the case. it doesn't seem to be linked to any one particular issue. i played about 50 turns last night in one game and then 7 in another!! in that 50 turn game though i noticed a BIG problem. the AI was going thru goody huts like a kid in a candy store (no problem there) and he had 1 infantry unit and 1 HOVER infantry unit!! and this was something like 960 BC!!!! THAT'S A BIG PROBLEM. when i saw that, i saved the game immediately since i thought u might want to see this. a few turns later however, that particular game crashed...nuts.

i really don't want to have to go and reinstall the game again...it's kinda annoying if u ask me...personally, i'd like to install the game twice on my computer in 2 different directories...one for your MOD and one just for tinkering around with. however, i can't even do that...damn annoying installer...

oh and as for the "klingon barbarian from hell" signature, i'd rather have that bestowed upon me by mark than just add into my 'from' line as a signature file thingy.

[GreatDane]

To WesW

Regarding diplomacy:
Is it possible to alter how positive the other AI's are to each other.It seems that in all the games I have played the AI's always hate each other. At least some of the should be more positive and make alliances. I would really like to see the AI gang up on me.

[Pintello]

Hi Wes,

Your changes sound pretty good. I just question reducing the game turns to 560. Game turns go pretty fast in CTP2, so why not keep them at the 800 or so that they are at by default.

About the new governments. Is the proposed Absulute Monarchy similar to the previously proposed Imperialism government form and thus replacing it, or did you forget about Imperialism? The Imperialism Government form seemed like a pretty good idea. As I remembered it, the Imperialism governement was going to allow you to expand rapidly with a high city limit and a low distance from capital penalty, but was going to limit you in other ways like science and mayby happiness. Just some questions there, no real complaints.

About those Barbarians. Me and my big mouth. Now the Barbarians are going to be harder than ever to deal with. No seriously, giving Warriors the flanking ability would actually do a pretty good job of distinguishing them from Archers and give you a reason to build both, once you had the Archers unit. As it is now, if you have Archers and Warriors, why build both? They both have the same defense and assault strength, but Archers have the ranged attack as well. Unless the proposed Chariot units will be early enough in the game and have the flanking ability, in which case it may by redundant to give Warriors the flanking ability. If that is the case, it may be worth giving the Warrior somthing like a 15 attack and a 10 defense, while giving the Hoplite a 10 attack and a 15 defense while leaving the Archer as it is right now. Another way you could distinguish between the Archer and Warrior would be to reduce the Archer's defense value, but I am not sure how well the AI will use it if this is done.

Well enough rambling for now.

Regards,

Timothy Pintello

[Alpha Wolf]

quote: Originally posted by Martock on 01-08-2001 09:16 PM Wes, got a wee-bit of a problem here. i just downloaded the recent text files and unzipped into the CTP2 directory...everything went normal...i start up the game, choose your mod, then i have a choice...either the 'domestic' or the alpha...at present, only the domestic works. if i choose alpha, i get an error message like such: Units.txt:2494 and it'll say something about the shield cost missing or the firepower, etc...now if i go into units.txt, and goto line 2494 it pulls up this: Category UNIT_CATEGORY_MARINE (which in my units.txt file in the scenario is indeed line 2494 {for the storm marine]) the marine's info is all correct as far as i can see, yet it's acting like all the units info is gone. any ideas?? :P

I tried to use the UNIT_CATEGORY_GENERAL, but I got those same types of mesages. I'm not sure how to go about adding a new unit category but it would be nice to know.

------------------
History is written by the victor.
[This message has been edited by Alpha Wolf (edited January 09, 2001).]

[colorme]

quote: Originally posted by GreatDane on 01-09-2001 09:41 AM To WesW Regarding diplomacy: Is it possible to alter how positive the other AI's are to each other.It seems that in all the games I have played the AI's always hate each other. At least some of the should be more positive and make alliances. I would really like to see the AI gang up on me.

I think the biggest reason the AIs hate each other is that in all diplomatic states (DEFAULT, etc.), the AI regards you less each round that you trespass. This soon gets them disliking and then hating each other.

I was able to get rid of this problem by setting some of the trespassing regard values to 0.

[Martock]

Wes, a new hiccup has cropped up for me. got to playing with the domestic version and was happy to see the return of the militia's until this:
In Object MM2_MilitiaCityGrew, variables 'MM2_MilitiaCityGrew#tmpCity' and 'noname' are of different types.

there is another version that deals specifically with militia that are in a city that is disbanded thus killing the militia. now while this does nothing but dump me to windows(i can get back into the game just fine as it doesn't crash me to windows) it is a bit annoying since this happens fairly often.

any ideas??

[Martock]

oooh...brain fart...one other thing...the AI in my game seems to be ICSing...ALOT...the AI seems to just plop the cities down willy-nilly, some practically right next to each other with no room to grow. i went thru the strategies.txt file and edited the MinSettleDistance from 4 to 6 (though there were a few set to 5, and 7). i'll start a new game and see if that clears up the ICSing...i do by the way, have a game saved that shows the AI ICSing...

[Alpha Wolf]

quote: Originally posted by Martock on 01-09-2001 08:55 PM oooh...brain fart...one other thing...the AI in my game seems to be ICSing...ALOT...the AI seems to just plop the cities down willy-nilly, some practically right next to each other with no room to grow. i went thru the strategies.txt file and edited the MinSettleDistance from 4 to 6 (though there were a few set to 5, and 7). i'll start a new game and see if that clears up the ICSing...i do by the way, have a game saved that shows the AI ICSing...

thats how I got rid of the crammed city syndrome. it works for the most part, but for some reason, certain civs completely ignore settledistance.

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

[Martock]

yea Alpha, when i changed that and started a new game i noticed the same thing. another funny thing i noticed, i can always count on at least 1 civ dying out from "unknown" sources...in my current game, i believe it was turn 8 the french were killed. i turned to the cheat menu to see what was the cause...even deployed a whole slew of units in the area the french inhabited. nothing...not even a barbarian. they just vanished. c'est la vie i guess... :P

[Alpha Wolf]

quote: Originally posted by Martock on 01-09-2001 11:13 PM yea Alpha, when i changed that and started a new game i noticed the same thing. another funny thing i noticed, i can always count on at least 1 civ dying out from "unknown" sources...in my current game, i believe it was turn 8 the french were killed. i turned to the cheat menu to see what was the cause...even deployed a whole slew of units in the area the french inhabited. nothing...not even a barbarian. they just vanished. c'est la vie i guess... :P

I think they starve. i went thru the terrains and gave them better values. Its been awhile since I've seen a city plopped down somewhere stupid now, or seen a civ die before the barbs even show up. Looks like the AI calculates the values on a 2 tile radius (at least thats what it looks like its doing) to determine whether its appropriate to settle there. Too many of the terrains had high values but no food production, so the city couldnt actually support even a pop of 1.

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

[WesW]

Picking up where we left off....(I feel like a parrot whose cage has been moved to a different room or something)

With the first version of the militia trigger that Wouter sent me, I had to out-comment some lines at the bottom of the file to get rid of some crashes that I got. I think you guys are getting the same thing. Wouter sent me a revised edition of the trigger sometime last week, and I must have uploaded it without correcting those lines again. I have asked Wouter to check it out, so that we can fix this once and for all.
I don't know what is causing the weird AI activity, as usual, but these things seem to clear up on their own as I refine the mod.

I will obsolete Warriors pretty early in the game. I don't think we will have to worry about re-arranging unit values once we have the beta going.
And yes, Absolute Monarchy is about like Imperialism. Diodorus pointed out that Imperialism was a governmental policy, rather than a government type, so I changed the name to the one he suggested.

I have also gone into the diplomacy.txt and altered most of the regard penalties in the game for committing acts of agression. Mostly, I raised the penalties for doing specific bad things to the AIs, like killing their settlers or enslaving their citizens.
However, I also reduced the penalty for being on the same continent to -1, which is the same as the bonus for being at peace with a civ. Hopefully, this will stop the effect of always being on bad terms with your neighbors, at least the peaceful types.
I also took the advice of removing the penalty for moving after you have been asked to stop tresspassing. Maybe this will allow the AIs to withdraw their troops now.

I didn't realize that the game lasted up to 800 turns currently. I have re-calculated the time chart, and here is how it ended up:
Age________________dates________ years per turn_no. of turns
Ancient Age-- 4000BC to 1000BC ________30_________100
Classical Age 1000BC to 500CE _________15_________100
Medieval Age- 500 CE to 1500CE ________10_________100
Renaissance-- 1500CE to 1800CE _________3_________100
Industrial Age 1800CE to 1880CE_________1__________80
Modern Age--- 1880CE to 1980CE _________1_________100
Computer Age- 1960CE to 2080CE _________1_________100
Genetic Age-- 2080CE to 2200CE _________1_________120

The Industrial Age doesn't really have a land units progression of its own, so it can be shorter without messing anything up. The last age is longer to allow you to finish up anything you need to do.

Also, I think we are finally finished with the new advances and improvements. We ended up with 3 new improvements:
1)Harbor, a gold improvement for coastal cities, available with Shipbuilding,
2)City Clock, same as in Ctp1, available with Mechanical Clock,
3)Bastion, a Ren-age City Walls. It gives +30 to defense. I have lowered the effect of the Forcefield by 30 so that you end up with the same defense level when you have all 3.

Re-named improvements:
Drug Store to Sewer System, available with Sanitation.
Orbital Lab to Public School, available with Public Education.
Computer Center to Research Park.

This is in addition to changing the effect of the Movie Palace to +3 happiness and the Television from +1 to +3 happiness, in addition to its current gold production.

I am still adjusting the effects and costs of the overcrowding/max city size improvements.

I will post another text update with the new advances chart when I get finished.

[ajbera]

Wes, a suggestion: change Research Park to Research Laboratory.
Research Park implies something similar to Industrial Park, which would boost production rather than science. Research Laboratory reminds me of the National Labs we have situated around the country (Los Alamos National Lab being the most famous, where Wen Ho Lee was recently employed and suspected of filching atomic secrets; I myself worked at Brookhaven National Lab on Long Island, NY for seven years.) These laboratories certainly have a pleasant, "park-like" atmosphere, but the words "Research Lab" really reflect the hard scientific R&D that occur there, and the boost to the national science level they would provide (excepting the occasional radioactive misadventure.)
Just my two cents, and my small way of saluting one of the coolest jobs I've had.

[colorme]

quote: Originally posted by WesW on 01-10-2001 06:19 AM However, I also reduced the penalty for being on the same continent to -1, which is the same as the bonus for being at peace with a civ. Hopefully, this will stop the effect of always being on bad terms with your neighbors, at least the peaceful types.

I doubt this will solve the problem. If you notice, even those you're at peace with still dislike you (the civs I mean ). I think you'll have to make it 0. Also, the trespass regard, etc. may have to be made 0.

[ssoszka]

A couple of thoughts about improving the game:

Is it possible to "Trade" food, from one city to another? I recall a civ-type game in which you could dedicate a caravan to deliever food to a city within your empire. Could a "send food" button be added to the city starvation warning message when it pops up? I really hate losing a city to starvation.

On the same subject of food, can a "humanitarian package" be developed within diplomacy (al la Berlin Airlift) in which a set amount of food can be given to another civilization much like gold can be given? This would probably require some sort of message indicating a starvation situation in a civilization, much like when the completion of a wonder is anounced.

One last comment on food: Does soil depletion play a part in this game? It seems that food and war are two big factors in historical civilization exstinction.

Well, I am going to have a peek inside the 'fridge now...

NOTE: I found that disbanding a city makes this mod cranky, I got the following SLIC error: "In object MM2_MilitiaCityDestroyed, variables 'MM2_MiliaCityDestroyed#tmpLoc2' and 'noname' are different types".
[This message has been edited by ssoszka (edited January 10, 2001).]
[This message has been edited by ssoszka (edited January 10, 2001).]
[This message has been edited by ssoszka (edited January 10, 2001).]

[Thomas Rahm]

Hi, (if there s anybody still in here),

I need your help as I am obviously the only one who is not authorized any longer to build trading posts with the alpha mod.

In a normal original game everything goes smoothly with researching horse riding. When choosing that, the follow-ups (mounted archer and trading posts) appear in the right part of the research window properly. After installing the mod with the text version of 4 January I still had no problem with researching that %$§"@ horse riding and getting trading posts. then I installed the text version of 6 January over the existing files and noted that inventing horse riding not longer triggers trading posts ( and is not longer shown in the resaerch preview window). I reinstalled the 4 Jan version without success (still no posts) and finally reinstalled the whole game.
Result: in normal games trading posts and with the mod pack no trading posts.

I want my posts back, pleeeeeeease.

Thomas

[Thomas Rahm]

Me again,

WES,

I just found out that in the tileimpr.txt the advance triggering trading posts is banking. Was this your intention? Please apologize my ignorance if you mentioned it somewhere else, but do you really want to make me wait centuries for my science boosters...

Any idea when the beta might be ready?

Thomas

[ssoszka]

Wes,

I have been getting errors when playing the domestic version of Med Mod. The error stems from the units.txt #2494 (storm marine) Basically the error says that this unit is not defined (no attack value, defense value, etc). I have gotten it several times when loading the game from a saved file, and another time when moving my units onto a goody hut. After getting the error CTP becomes unstable and crashes.

-Shawn
[This message has been edited by ssoszka (edited January 11, 2001).]

quote: Originally posted by WesW on 01-12-2001 12:05 PM I have raised the max size that a city can be disbanded from 3 to 20. It's there for those of you who want to use it.

surely disbanding a 15-size city should create some unhapinness, right??

[Thomas Rahm]

Thank you for the posts, Wes.

I am just about to finish another game on a regular map with 6 other civs, difficulty hard. I went for 8 cities this time (to compensate for the posts).
Concerning the financial balance (I am in 2000 now) I made the observation, that with democracy (about 1900)it is nearly impossible to cope with the expenditures (if you try to get all buildings in all cities, and I tried). I had to switch to max rations and 8 working hours, to obtain 75 happiness with min or next to min wages and science reduced to 40%. I might have misunderstood but I think I read somewhere that most of the buildings cost 1 per population. This would roughly correspond with the increases I experienced.
On the other hand with all buildings (in particular science support)its quite easy to take a considerable lead in science very early (imagine I had trading posts available!!!!!!!!!!!!). So there is still room to ensure upkeep for the buildings later on. But I still cant figure out how the costs are calculated. Savings from the empire tab are identical to the increase/decrease of the total money. However numbers on city manager screens are totally different. Do I overlook something?
Until switching to democracy I noted that trading a good makes the difference between prospering and struggling of a city (not sure whether you would like to have those kinds of details/observations).
By the way, with my 8 cities empire I had my first AI contact in 1935 only, although I covered a continent (1/6 of the map). Since then one nation declared war and tried to pillage my ports. After I had build ironclads they offered cease fire immediately. (couldnt agree though).

Looking forward to getting the next updates.

Thomas

PS: Did anybody notice that the AI knows what huts are empty and what are goody huts. They do not even touch the empty or barbarian ones.

[WesW]

Thanks colorme for the diplomacy advice. I got regard and trust mixed up when I went through and made the changes. I have set the shared continent penalty to 0.

I will see how the pic looks on Research Park or Lab.

Sorry about the Trading Post, Thomas. I don't know why I set it to Banking. I have put it back in Horse Riding.

Guys, if you are getting error messages about new units like "Storm Marines", then the mod is not loading properly. You can try re-booting and re-loading your saved games, but if you get the error again, you will have to start a new game.
I have received some emails from Don and Harlan concerning the bug, and they may be making progress on eliminating it. I certainly hope that this can be done before the beta comes out.

I have raised the max size that a city can be disbanded from 3 to 20. It's there for those of you who want to use it.
I made some changes to the strategies.txt since some of you have found that defensive bonuses are taken into account when the AI figures up defense value.
I am really going to be interested to see what we get with all the AI & Diplomacy changes.

I have made all warships from the gunpowder age up flankers. No explanation for this should really be necessary.

At Harlan's prompting, I have re-arranged the ages in the game somewhat. I have re-inserted the Diamond age, which will contain the Future techs in the game. I shortened the post-Industrial ages to 80 turns each to make room for this age. I think Harlan and Charles (Diororus) are going to get together and come up with some realistic names for these, rather than calling them "Future Engineering Tech 1" or something.
I have also spent a few hours trying to get the advances chart to look better and print out on a single page like it is supposed to. I put the branch names between the advance blocks, with a second list in the middle of the chart so that they are always visible. I also added a color-code legend at the bottom of the file.

Below is a paste of the Med string, which lists all the new stuff added so far for the beta, and some of the things altered as well. I also included the 5 advances I removed from the game.
The pillbox and barbed wire are not working in the mod right now. Last I heard, Don was working on some code to get them into the game. I will decide later whether or not to leave them in the mod.

## from gl_str ##

#### NEW ADVANCES STRINGS ####
ADVANCE_AGRO_INDUSTRY "Agro-Industry"
ADVANCE_ARISTOCRACY "Aristocracy"
ADVANCE_ASTRONOMY "Astronomy"
ADVANCE_AUTOMATIC_RIFLES "Automatic Rifles"
ADVANCE_AUTOMOBILE "Automobile"
ADVANCE_CITIZENSHIP "Citizenship"
ADVANCE_COMBINED_ARMS "Combined Arms"
ADVANCE_COMPASS "Compass"
ADVANCE_CONSCRIPTION "Conscription"
ADVANCE_CONTRACEPTION "Contraception"
ADVANCE_CURRENCY "Currency"
ADVANCE_DECIMAL_SYSTEM "Decimal System"
ADVANCE_DEEP_BATTLE_TACTICS "Deep Battle Tactics"
ADVANCE_DOMESTICATION "Domestication"
ADVANCE_ELETRO_MAGNETISM "Electro-Magnetism"
ADVANCE_EQUAL_RIGHTS "Equal Rights"
ADVANCE_EVOLUTIONARY_THEORY "Evo. Theory"
ADVANCE_FLINTLOCK "Flintlock"
ADVANCE_GERM_THEORY "Germ Theory"
ADVANCE_HIGH_PRES_CONSTRUCTION "HP Construction"
ADVANCE_HUMAN_RIGHTS "Human Rights"
ADVANCE_IMMUNIZATION "Immunization"
ADVANCE_INFANTRY_TACTICS "Infantry Tactics"
ADVANCE_INTEGRATED_MOBILE_WARFARE "Int. Mobile Warfare"
ADVANCE_INTERNET "Micro-computer"
ADVANCE_JOINERY "Joinery"
ADVANCE_MACHINE_TOOLS "Machine Tools"
ADVANCE_MECHANICAL_CLOCK "Mechanical Clock"
ADVANCE_MECHANICAL_POWER "Mechanical Power"
ADVANCE_MILITARY_ENGINEERING "Military Engineering"
ADVANCE_MOLECULAR_SYNTHESIS "Molecular Synthesis"
ADVANCE_OCEANOGRAPHY "Oceanography"
ADVANCE_PAPER "Paper"
ADVANCE_PLASTICS "Plastics"
ADVANCE_PSYCHOLOGY "Psychology"
ADVANCE_PUBLIC_EDUCATION "Public Education"
ADVANCE_RADIO "Radio"
ADVANCE_REPEATING_RIFLES "Repeating Rifles"
ADVANCE_ROCKETRY "Rocketry"
ADVANCE_SANITATION "Sanitation"
ADVANCE_SOLAR_POWER "Solar Power"
ADVANCE_STEAM_ENGINE "Steam Engine"
ADVANCE_STIRRUP "Stirrup"
ADVANCE_TELEPHONE "Telephone"
ADVANCE_THERMAL_IMAGING "Thermal Imaging"
ADVANCE_WHEEL "Wheel"
ADVANCE_WOUTER "Locutus"

#### RE-NAMED ADVANCES ####
ADVANCE_AGRICULTURE "Plough"
ADVANCE_CONCRETE "Engineering"
ADVANCE_BALLISTICS "Composite Bows"
ADVANCE_RELIGION "Org. Religion"
ADVANCE_BANKING "Paper Currency"
ADVANCE_AGRICULTURAL_REVOLUTION "Crop Rotation"
ADVANCE_NAVAL_TACTICS "Chronometer"
ADVANCE_DEMOCRACY "Civil Rights"
ADVANCE_ELECTRICITY "Electrification"
ADVANCE_NAVAL_AVIATION "Flight"
ADVANCE_TANK_WARFARE "Mobile Warfare"
ADVANCE_ADV_INFANTRY_TACTICS "Assault Tactics"
ADVANCE_ADV_NAVAL_TACTICS "Steel"
ADVANCE_TOOLMAKING "Metal Working"
ADVANCE_COMMUNISM "Socialism"
ADVANCE_ADV_URBAN_PLANNING "Urban Planning"

REMOVED:
4)CORP. REP.
2)FASCISM
1)MONARCHY
3)TECHNOCRACY
5)VIRTUAL DEM.

#### Units STRINGS ####
UNIT_WARRIOR "Warrior"
UNIT_SETTLER "Settler"
UNIT_SWORDSMAN "Swordsman"
UNIT_SLAVER "Slaver"
UNIT_MOUNTED_ARCHER "Mounted Archer"
UNIT_SAMURAI "Samurai"
UNIT_CATAMARAN "Coracle"
UNIT_HOPLITE "Hoplite"
UNIT_JAVELINEER "Javelineer"
UNIT_DIPLOMAT "Diplomat"
UNIT_CATAPULT "Catapult"
UNIT_CLERIC "Cleric"
UNIT_ARCHER "Archer"
UNIT_FIRE_TRIREME "Fire Trireme"
UNIT_KNIGHT "Knight"
UNIT_LONGSHIP "Longship"
UNIT_PIKEMEN "Pikemen"
UNIT_SLINGER "Slinger"
UNIT_CULVERIN "Culverin"
UNIT_CAVALRY "Cavalry"
UNIT_SHIP_OF_THE_LINE "Ship of the Line"
UNIT_INFANTRYMAN "Grenadier"
UNIT_LAWYER "Lawyer"
UNIT_FASCIST "Fascist"
UNIT_ABOLITIONIST "Abolitionist"
UNIT_CARRACK "Carrack"
UNIT_MACHINE_GUNNER "Modern Infantryman"
UNIT_ANTIAIR "Artillery"
UNIT_IRONCLAD "Ironclad"
UNIT_TROOP_SHIP "Troop Ship"
UNIT_SUBMARINE "Submarine"
UNIT_STEALTH_FIGHTER "Stealth Fighter"
UNIT_BATTLESHIP "Battleship"
UNIT_SECRET_AGENT "Secret Agent"
UNIT_FIGHTER "Fighter"
UNIT_AIRCRAFT_CARRIER "Nuclear Carrier"
UNIT_URBAN_PLANNER "Urban Planner"
UNIT_TANK "Battle Tank"
UNIT_STORM_MARINE "Storm Marine"
UNIT_NUKE "Nuke"
UNIT_DESTROYER "Destroyer"
UNIT_TELEVANGELIST "Televangelist"
UNIT_CARGO_HELICOPTER "Cargo Helicopter"
UNIT_CRUISE_MISSILE "Cruise Missile"
UNIT_EMPATHIC_DIPLOMAT "Empathic Diplomat"
UNIT_INTERCEPTOR "Interceptor"
UNIT_JET_BOMBER "Jet Bomber"
UNIT_CYBER_NINJA "Cyber Ninja"
UNIT_MOBILE_SAM "Mobile SAM"
UNIT_CORPORATE_BRANCH "Corporate Branch"
UNIT_STEALTH_BOMBER "Stealth Bomber"
UNIT_SCOUT_SUB "Scout Sub"
UNIT_PARATROOPER "Commando"
UNIT_CYBERATTORNEY "CyberAttorney"
UNIT_SPACE_PLANE "Space Plane"
UNIT_MOBILE_SUBNEURAL_AD "Mobile Subneural"
UNIT_SPY_PLANE "Spy Plane"
UNIT_AT_ARTILLERY "AT-Artillery"
UNIT_SEA_ENGINEER "Sea Engineer"
UNIT_MOREY_STRIKER "Moray Striker"
UNIT_KRAKEN "Kraken"
UNIT_PLASMA_DESTROYER "Plasma Destroyer"
UNIT_DREADNAUGHT "Dreadnaught"
UNIT_ECO_TERRORIST "Eco-Terrorist"
UNIT_HOVER_INFANTRY "Hover Infantry"
UNIT_HEAVY_CAVALRY "Heavy Cavalry"
UNIT_BRONZE_SWORDSMAN "Br. Swordsman"
UNIT_INFECTOR "Infector"
UNIT_CRAWLER "Crawler"
UNIT_MONITOR "Monitor"
UNIT_HORSE_ARCHER "Horse Archer"
UNIT_SPEARMAN "Spearman"
UNIT_FRIGATE "Frigate"
UNIT_SPY "Spy"
UNIT_ECO_RANGER "Eco-Ranger"
UNIT_LEVIATHON "Leviathan"
UNIT_FUSION_TANK "Plasma Cannon"
UNIT_NUCLEAR_SUBMARINE "Nuclear Submarine"
UNIT_PT_BOAT "PT Boat"
UNIT_ELEPHANT "War Elephant"
UNIT_SELF_PROP_GUN "Self-Prop. Gun"
UNIT_BANDIT_HORSEMAN "Bandit Horseman"
UNIT_TRIREME "Trireme"
UNIT_HEAVY_SWORDSMAN "Heavy Swordsman"
UNIT_LONGBOWMAN "Longbowman"
UNIT_CITY "City"
UNIT_SPACE_CITY "Space Colony"
UNIT_OCEAN_CITY "Sea Colony"
UNIT_LEGION "Legion"
UNIT_ZULU_WARRIOR "Zulu Warrior"
UNIT_NOBLE "Noble"
UNIT_WEREWOLF "Werewolf"
UNIT_PRIVATEER "Galleon"
UNIT_CARRIER "Carrier"
UNIT_MISSILE_CRUISER "Missile Cruiser"
UNIT_BOMBER "Bomber"
UNIT_DIVE_BOMBER "Dive Bomber"
UNIT_LIGHT_CAVALRY "Light Cavalry"
UNIT_ATTACK_HELICOPTER "Attack Helicopter"
UNIT_FYRDMAN "Fyrdman"
UNIT_ARQUEBUSIER "Arquebusier"
UNIT_BOMBARD "Bombard"
UNIT_COG "Cog"
UNIT_CANNON "Cannon"
UNIT_DRAGOON "Dragoon"
UNIT_MUSKETEER "Musketeer"
UNIT_HOWITZER "Howitzer"
UNIT_PLASMATICA "Plasmatica"
UNIT_HOVER_MARINE "Hover Marine"
UNIT_HOVERTANK "Hovertank"
UNIT_SWARM "Swarm"
UNIT_PHALANX "Phalanx"
UNIT_BERSERKER "Berserker"
UNIT_WAR_WALKER "War Walker"
UNIT_RIFLEMAN "Rifleman"
UNIT_AIRBORNE "Airborne"
UNIT_MARINE "Ranger"
UNIT_GERMAN_TANK "Mech. Infantry"
UNIT_GERMAN_TANK2 "Light Tank"
UNIT_BRITISH_FIGHTER "Fighter"

UNIT_SPEARMAN_MILITIA "Spearman Militia"
UNIT_PHALANX_MILITIA "Phalanx Militia"
UNIT_FYRDMAN_MILITIA "Fyrdman Militia"
UNIT_MUSKETEER_MILITIA "Musketeer Militia"
UNIT_RIFLEMAN_MILITIA "Rifleman Militia"
UNIT_MACHINE_GUNNER_MILITIA "Modern Inf. Militia"
UNIT_PLASMATICA_MILITIA "Plasmatica Militia"

#### New Governments ####
GOVERNMENT_CITY_STATE "City State"
GOVERNMENT_ABSOLUTE_MONARCHY "Absolute Mon."
GOVERNMENT_FUNDAMENTALISM "Fundamentalism"

#### New Improvements ####
IMPROVE_BASTION "Bastion"
IMPROVE_CITY_CLOCK "City Clock"
IMPROVE_HARBOR "Harbor"

#### Re-named Improvements ####
IMPROVE_ORBITAL_LABORATORY "Public School"
IMPROVE_DRUG_STORE "Sewer System"
IMPROVE_COMPUTER_CENTER "Research Park"

TILEIMP_PILLBOX "Pillbox"
TILEIMP_BARBED_WIRE "Barbed-Wire Fence"

CONCEPT_DIVEBOMBER "Divebomber"

## from ldl.str ##

UNIT_CATEGORY_GENERIC "Generic"
UNIT_CATEGORY_SPECIAL "Special"
UNIT_CATEGORY_SETTLER "Settler"
UNIT_CATEGORY_TRANSPORT "Transport"
UNIT_CATEGORY_ATTACK "Offensive Infantry"
UNIT_CATEGORY_DEFENSE "Defensive Infantry"
UNIT_CATEGORY_RANGED "Artillery"
UNIT_CATEGORY_SEA "Naval Warship"
UNIT_CATEGORY_AIR "Air"

UNIT_CATEGORY_SCOUT "Scout"
UNIT_CATEGORY_FLANKER "Flanker"
UNIT_CATEGORY_MOUNTED_RANGED "Mobile Artillery"
UNIT_CATEGORY_SUBMARINE "Submarine"
UNIT_CATEGORY_AIR_DEFENSE "Fighter"
UNIT_CATEGORY_AIR_ATTACK "Air Attack"
UNIT_CATEGORY_BOMBER "Bomber"
UNIT_CATEGORY_ANTI_AIR "Mobile Air-defense"
UNIT_CATEGORY_SPECIAL_FORCES "Special Forces"

# Empire Level Description Strings
EMPIRE_RATIONS_AMOUNT_0 "6"
EMPIRE_RATIONS_AMOUNT_1 "9"
EMPIRE_RATIONS_AMOUNT_2 "12"
EMPIRE_RATIONS_AMOUNT_3 "15"
EMPIRE_RATIONS_AMOUNT_4 "18"
EMPIRE_RATIONS_AMOUNT_UNIT "Kg"

EMPIRE_WORKDAY_AMOUNT_0 "4"
EMPIRE_WORKDAY_AMOUNT_1 "6"
EMPIRE_WORKDAY_AMOUNT_2 "8"
EMPIRE_WORKDAY_AMOUNT_3 "10"
EMPIRE_WORKDAY_AMOUNT_4 "12"
EMPIRE_WORKDAY_AMOUNT_UNIT "Hrs"

EMPIRE_COMMERCE_AMOUNT_0 "1"
EMPIRE_COMMERCE_AMOUNT_1 "3"
EMPIRE_COMMERCE_AMOUNT_2 "5"
EMPIRE_COMMERCE_AMOUNT_3 "7"
EMPIRE_COMMERCE_AMOUNT_4 "9"
EMPIRE_COMMERCE_AMOUNT_UNIT "Gld"

# Added for WWII Scenario
STATUSBAR_TILEIMP_SELECT_PILLBOX_BUTTON "Pillboxes can be placed on any land-based tile."
TOOLTIP_TILEIMP_SELECT_PILLBOX_BUTTON "Pillbox"
STATUSBAR_TILEIMP_SELECT_BARBEDWIRE_BUTTON "Barbed Wire Fence can be placed on any land-based tile."
TOOLTIP_TILEIMP_SELECT_BARBEDWIRE_BUTTON "Barbed Wire Fence"

#Age Names#
AGE_NAME_ANCIENT "Ancient"
AGE_NAME_CLASS "Classical"
AGE_NAME_MEDIEVAL "Medieval"
AGE_NAME_RENAISS "Renaissance"
AGE_NAME_INDUST "Industrial"
AGE_NAME_MODERN "Modern"
AGE_NAME_COMPUTER "Computer"
AGE_NAME_GENETIC "Genetic"
AGE_NAME_DIAMOND "Diamond"

## From Info.str

## Age Change Messages ##
AGE_ONE_ENTERED "Our fledgling empire is evolving. We have entered the Ancient Age."
AGE_TWO_ENTERED "Our fledgling empire is evolving. We have entered the Classical Age."
AGE_THREE_ENTERED "Our fledgling empire is growing. We have entered the Medieval Age."
AGE_FOUR_ENTERED "Our empire is beginning to flourish culturally and scientifically. We have entered the Renaissance Age."
AGE_FIVE_ENTERED "Our empire is beginning to flourish economically. We have entered the Industrial Age."
AGE_SIX_ENTERED "We have firmly established our mastery of the planet. We have entered the Modern Age."
AGE_SEVEN_ENTERED "The mysteries of science are beginning to unfold before us, and our people stand at the threshold of a bold new epoch in knowledge and productivity. We have entered the Computer Age."
AGE_EIGHT_ENTERED "The mysteries of life are beginning to unfold before us, and our people stand at the threshold of a bold new epoch in scientific understanding. We have entered the Genetic Age."
AGE_NINE_ENTERED "We are fast approaching the zenith of human achievement. Our empire has entered the Diamond Age."

Well, look this all over. I will post another text update soon, the last one before the beta comes out. I have sent Chris the files to integrate into his chop sheet. I don't know when he will get them back to me. It will probably be a few more days at least before the beta is ready, but all the changes in this last text update should be enough to keep everyone's interest until then.

[WesW]

Thomas, I did not know that the AIs could tell what the goody huts had in them, though I have had my suspicions in the past.
Also, your post describing the gold situation is "exactly" the type of reports I need. I will try and make a thread where I detail exactly the type of stuff I want you guys telling me. I should have done that a month ago, really.

Onto the mod...
I am really excited about the AI changes I have made in the last few days. I read the thread about the latest batch of files that Mark has documented, and realized that I seem to have missed the strategies.txt when it was posted last month. Well, this week's batch answered some questions I had about the defense buildings, and when I got into the strategies, I found the answers to some more questions I have had. Everything is starting to fall into place regarding how the settings and files inter-relate, and I think we are going to be really pleased with what we witness with this upcoming text update.
I have been piecing together little tid-bits of info I have run across in the forums and personal emails about the AIs behavior and weaknesses, and now I am finally finding the flags that control this behavior, and I am understanding how they all relate to one another. I will get something from Harlan about his Alexander testing, and another thing from CoolKitty or Alisia, and if you put them together you can get a picture of what is happening. That is all in addition to what you guys have been telling me here, which has been the bulk of my info.

As to the actual changes...
Using what I learned in the strategies doc., I adjusted some of the building priorities. I also fiddled with some of the goals settings.
The big thing, however, was in the fears and motivations, probably the only area of the text that I have largely ignored until now. I had looked over this section briefly a month or so ago, and it looked pretty good, so I have been concentrating on other areas. Well, looking at it with what I know now, I saw that it was all out of whack, and explained much of the timid and dumb AI behavior you have been reporting. I think that this section was why the AIs are often so reluctant to launch an invasion, prefering instead to fortify and play defense, even when they had superior forces. And also why they kept asking for cease-fires even after you repeatedly attacked them. With my changes, I "think", knock on wood, that you are going to see much different behavior from the AIs now.
Basically, Militaristic and Ecotopian types are going to be much more aggressive. It may be impossible to stay at peace with them. If it is, I will try and adjust that so that you can have peace if you want it badly enough.
The "peaceful" types, (Diplomats, Economists and Scientists) should put up with much less abuse before declaring war, and be much more willing to launch invasions when they do. If you treat them nice, then they should generally treat you the same way, but the opposite should also be true.
All this is untested, but I feel better about it than I ever have since I started fighting with the AI files over a year ago in Ctp1. As to the AIs willingness and/or ability to launch overseas invasions, I don't know, but if we can get them to act rationally even half the time, it will be a big step forward.

On another area, I went into the Improvements.txt, and filled it with the actual improvements available in the game. What? You are asking "Isn't that stuff supposed to be there in the first place?" To my knowledge, yes it is, but it hasn't been, except for a few basic things. That is why I have been asking if the AI built maglevs, or even railroads (ports, too), because these things were not in the improvements list originally. I caught a post by CoolKitty saying that the AI didn't seem to build Trade Posts until it had built all the mines and farms it needed, which meant that it rarely built Trade Posts. Well, with gold being so precious due to the new improvement cost system, I had to figure a way to get the AIs to build the commerce improvements about as often as it did the food and production ones. Well, I decided to interweave the commerce TIs in with the production TIs. This shoudl have the AIs building them quite often. Then, I went into the tileimp.txt, and mad it so that commerce TIs can only be built on Deserts, swamps, tundra, jungle and forests; terrains which cannot support food or produciton TIs, or at least not very well in desert's case. I am going to be very interested to see the results of this.
Btw, I deleted the Pillbox and Wire code from the tileimp.txt so that they would not cause crashes in the game. If Don or someone gets them to work properly, then we can re-insert them and see what the AI does with them.
As soon as I hear back from Wouter (Locutus) regarding the militia and partisan code, I will post this new text version.

[Starfighter08]

I'd like to know if the mod is designed to "work" on the original version of ctp2 or with the latest patch from activision?

BTW: You all are doing a great job, I'm looking forward to playing ctp2 with the med mod.

Regards