New Ancient Mod in the works

[Chris B]

Im most interested in the units. Waht are they?? Also, it is an ancient age mod. How far will you be allowed to advance

[Dale]

Hexa, I'll have a go for you. I always run the diplo mod now (the AI is too stupid without it) so I can evaluate how it goes with the mod (and if any tweaking of either is needed).

------------------
Author of Diplomod. The mod to fix diplomacy.

Rommell to a sub-commander outside Tobruk: "Those Australians are in there somewhere. But where? Let's advance and wait till they shoot, then shoot back."

[hexagonian]

OK, here goes...
(Don't know if I am going to regret this or not.)

As it has been hinted at on the Sprite thread, I am currently working on an Ancient Age Mod. This mod is intended to be eventually used as a foundation for Ancient Scenarios, if anyone is interested in using it that way. I am also structuring this mod as playable in a random single-game setup. As it falls now, the science cost of the Advances, up to the Age of Reason, are approximately the same as the cost of the Advances up to Mid-Genetic in a default game.

Currently, the Tech Tree is pretty well established up to the beginning of the Dark Ages. There are are few things that I want to tweak in terms of the Tech Tree up to that point (mostly in terms of historical order), but from a playability standpoint, I believe it is ready to go for test purposes. I would like to add some more post-Dark Ages Advances though and flesh out that era more.

To give you an idea, what is happening, I have added 38 additional Advances up to the Dark ages. From a playability standpoint, the Ancient Age will take you to the Mid - Modern Age it terms of turns. It is eventually my intent for the Medieval/Renassaince Advances to take you to the end of a normal game.

I have also added 14 Ancient Age military units, 3 Ancient stealth units, 13 City Improvements and 8 Wonders in addition to what is already in place (the exception is the Wonders, some which have been either removed or renamed)

This will be a rather eurocentric Mod too. The Tech tree is built around what was happening in Europe and the Middle East from a historical standpoint.

I have also been adding the various tweaks that have been posted onsite for things such as Happiness, AI production and attack capabilities too.

Concernng units, it was my goal to have a vey gradual transition from unit to unit in terms of capabilities. This, I hope, will make combat a little tougher. I used up just about every sprite available for that time period too. I followed the following order in terms of availability, and there is generally some overlap.

Defensive
Offensive
Ranged
Flanker
Ranged/Bombard
Elite

I also hope this will work with the AI Frenzy/Diplomod, but really haven't extensively tested this yet, as I have been more concerned about entering the data, and making sure the game doesn't crash. (though I have an early version of the Frenzy Mod on my default setup) Does anyone know if I need to have that as part of the Scenario pack, or does the Mod read that slic file, since I do not have a special slic file for the Mod?

Initially the ideas I had floating around in my head were going to be implemented once the final MedMod came out for my personal use (at least in terms of concentrating on only the Ancient Age), but since one of my goals was to greatly extend the playtime of the Ancient Age, I decided to start building my own tech tree and unit lists, and it grew from that point.

I hope to be able to send an Alpha test to OmniGod tomorrow to post and for players to try. This is, however, a work in process. I do need to see how it plays, and more importantly, how it balances out. There are so many variables to take into account, and trying to accomplish one thing often will throw something else out of whack. And if anyone has followed what Wes and others have done with MedMod, they will have a greater understanding of those issues.

Finally, I am open to suggestions as to what needs to be fixed - this is why I will be posting the Mod at this point in time. I have run the game several times through the cheat mode for 150 turns or so without a problem, but in a game, there are so many events that can occur that can cause a crash - and those events often do not happen in every game.

If you playtest, I ask you to do the following
- Keep an eye on Gold, Pollution and Unhappiness. I especially want the game to take Unhappiness and make it a bigger issue for the player.
- Keep an eye on Combat inbalances, and tell me if there is a unit you end up favoring to the virtual exclusion of others.
- Do additional City Improvements need to be added?
- Follow the timeline and see if it coincides with what is occuring in the game.
- Make suggestions regarding how to flesh out the Medieval Age in terms of Advances.

There will be a Tech Tree and Units chart in the readme file to evaluate, but it requires Adobe Acrobat Reader to open.
[This message has been edited by hexagonian (edited January 31, 2001).]

[hexagonian]

The mod has been sent to Rick for posting.

Here is the unit list as it stands now.

Land Units
-----------
Spearman (D)
Warrior (O)
Slinger (R)
Javelin Cavalry (F)
Chariot (E)

Hoplite (D)
Phalanx (O)
Archer (R)
Mounted Archer (R)
War Elephant (E)
Belfroi (R/B) - This will be the Siege Tower if I can figure out the bonus for attacking cities
Horseman (F)

Legion (D)
Centurion (O/E)
Comp. Bowman (R)
Catapult (R/B)
Cataphract (F)

Man at Arms (D)
Pikeman (O)
Crossbow (R)
Knight (E/F)
Trebuchat (R/B)

Arquebusier (D/R)
Infantryman (O/R)
Cannon (R/B)
Cavalry (F)

Sea
---
Coracle (D) (t2)
Trieme (O) (t2)
Greek Fire Trieme (R)
War Galley (F)
Longship (F/R) (t3)
Carrack (t5)
Galleon (t4)
Ship of the Line (t3)

Special
-------
Nomad - early settler unit - obsolete when settler comes up
Caravan
Slaver
Diplomat
Prophet
Spy
Settler - increased cost to build over the nomad
Cleric
Abolitionist
Revolutionary

Chris and Dale
I will email copies of the Tech Tree and Units list to you to look at. You need Adobe Acrobat Reader.

The timeline is set up for 900 turns but can be extended in one of the files (I believe it is const.txt, but don't hold me to that, as I do not have the files in front of me) The existing tech tree is still in place post- Renassaince. All you will need to do is adjust the cost of advances to a more reasonable level. I added techs and adjusted cost to stretch the game out.
[This message has been edited by hexagonian (edited February 01, 2001).]

[hexagonian]

Rich has relaunched his King Arthur site and my mod is partially up there. The mod does not have all the pictures and sprites though so it will not work. We are working on the problem now though.

I have also set up a temporary place to download everything - its at
http://www.mydocsonline.com

login is hexagonia
password is hextapul

The file is broken into 6 Zips -
1 Text Zip
2 Pictures Zips
3 Sprite Zips

Simply unzip the Txt zip in the Scenarios folder and unzip the pictures in the scen/default/graphics/pictures folder and the sprites into the scen/default/graphics/sprites folder. There is a readme file too.

And input is welcomed, especially on stuff after the Dark Ages.


[This message has been edited by hexagonian (edited February 01, 2001).]

[hexagonian]

Text file error in the Unitcon Text file causes crash

ICON_IMPROVE_ZIGGURAT { FirstFrame "UPIP200L.TGA" Movie "NULL" Gameplay "IMPROVE_ZIGGURAT_GAMEPLAY" Historical "IMPROVE_ZIGGURAT_HISTORICAL" Prereq "IMPROVE_ZIGGURAT_PREREQ" Vari "IMPROVE_ZIGGURAT_STATISTICS" Icon "UPIP200L.TGA" LargeIcon "NULL" SmallIcon "NULL" StatText "IMPROVE_ZIGGURAT_STATISTICS" }

The last TGA entries originally read 'UPVP200L.TGA'

it should read

'UPIP200L.TGA'

Barbarians on the highest setting is a killer. They are everywhere. This will have to be tweaked down a touch, as they are taking out civs.
[This message has been edited by hexagonian (edited February 01, 2001).]

[OmniGod]

Okay posted in 2 files on the Court and in 1 huge file in the db.

[hexagonian]

Thanks Rich.

To all,

Please remember that this is a work in process. As such I will be posting updates on this from time to time. I will post updates at
http://www.mydocsonline.com

login is hexagonia
password is hextapul

in a folder entitled updates.

And once again, any input concerning crashes, bugs or imbalances is appreciated.

[TacticalGrace]

No!

centurion was part of a legion. don't have it as a separate unit

Britannica.com says this:

"the principal professional officer in the armies of ancient Rome and its empire. The centurion was the commander of a centuria, which was the smallest unit of a Roman legion. A legion was nominally composed of 6,000 soldiers, and each legion was divided up into 10 cohorts, with each cohort containing 6 centuria. The centurion thus nominally commanded about 100 men, and there were 60 centurions in a legion. "

similar siutation with a hoplite and phalanx. A phalanx is a way of fighting. A hoplite is the type of soldier used by Greece in a phalanx. So a hoplite unit is fine but I don't think you should have a phalanx AS WELL.

"During the 7th century BC the Greek city-states adopted a phalanx eight men deep. The Greek hoplite, the heavy-armed infantryman who manned the phalanx, was equipped with a round shield, a heavy corselet of leather and metal, greaves (shin armour), an 8-foot pike for thrusting, and a 2-foot double-edged sword. Since the phalanx held in solid ranks and was divided only into the centre and wings, there was generally little need for an officer corps; the whole line advanced in step to the sound of the flute. Such a formation encouraged cohesion among advancing troops and presented a frightening spectacle to the enemy, but it was difficult to maneuver and, if penetrated by enemy formations, became little more than a mob."

[hexagonian]

Point taken...

I then need a designation for a comperable infantry type unit that would be an upgrade for a legion, that will be used by a Dictorship government. My thought was, as Rome would give the control of the government to a single man during times of military distress, I wanted to have a military unit available to that government, similar to the Fascist/Fascism setup.

Same with the phalanx/hoplite setup. My starting principle was to have a starting defensive unit in each grouping, and as the phalanx was a military tactic (hence the Barracks prereq), this was the solution I came up with, to come up with a more advanced infantry-type unit for that period in the game. It's not so much that I am presenting a single unit so much as I am also presenting concepts of tactics and leadership within the upgraded units.

And if you can come up with actual designations for the units, I would be willing to use them. Making the name changes is not too hard.

Same with the placement of improvements on the tech tree. Farms come available a little later in the game. It can be safely argued that farming has been around for a long time before it comes up on my tech tree, but I worked on the principle that if you settle a city, the food that you get from your tiles is a result of farming anyhow - but once you get water lifts, you now have the ability to increase the production on your tiles. The same arguement can be made with Archery. Archery has been available for a long time - incorporating slingers and archers at about the same time might be historically accurate, but might not serve a gameplay purpose. As much as I would like to keep it historically accurate, all units have to have a defined purpose in the game. Its no good if the unit is in the game but is never used, because a very similar unit comes available soon after that trumps it.

Part of the problem too is since the timeframe has been expanded for the Ancient Age, I need to add additional units to keep the game interesting.

The Greek Fire Trireme was an early spelling error in the unit spec sheet, which has been corrected in the current text gamefiles. In the game, the designation is Fire Trireme too. This is also something that also needs to be addressed, as Greek Fire was discovered in the Early Medieval Ages (according to Encarta, at least)

One other area on the Ancient Tech tree that I want to tighten up is the Masonry spot on the tree. I would like to come up with another designation for that spot, as Masonry is the same as Brick Making.

One final note in playtesting last night. The slinger unit is not acting as a ranged unit in battle. This is odd, because I used the archer text for that unit - only replacing the names and the range factor. I am also getting some unexpected results with the spearman/warrior units in battle. All three of these units have some combat factors of 5 instead of 10, which is what the weakest unit of the default game uses. So I have to take a closer look at this.

Keep the input coming

[This message has been edited by hexagonian (edited February 02, 2001).]
[This message has been edited by hexagonian (edited February 02, 2001).]

[TacticalGrace]

quote: Trieme (O) (t2) Greek Fire Trieme (R)

the hard to spell Trireme.
I've heard a few pronounciations of this one too.

Greek Fire Trireme might sound a bit odd if it's built by someone other than the greeks.

[hexagonian]

Update 1.02 at
http://www.mydocsonline.com

login is hexagonia
password is hextapul

I had discovered that ranged units need to have a minimum range setting of 15, so I had to reformat all of my settings for units.

I also was getting some unusual battles with units that had a setting at 5. So the settings are now stating at 10 - had to bump up all the numbers too.

A block on purchasing Legions and the old Centurion and Legion unit has also been removed. The text was picked up from Alexander scenario and I didn't realize the block was there.

I replaced the Trireme with a Bireme, which was a Phoenician 2-oarbanked precurser to the Trireme. I also replaced the Fire Trireme with a Trireme, since greek fire was not discovered until the 7th century AD.

Replaced the Centurion with Palantini, which was the elite Legion guard of the Emperor.

Barb settings are very good now with some tweaks to Risks.txt and the build priority list. Playing on setting below raging Hordes and they are a constant irritant. Raging Hordes are set even higher too.

Maintaining happiness is a challenge now too.

[Diodorus Sicilus]

Ancient Nomenclature...
The Roman military unit was the Legio, usually changed to Legion in English. Under the Empire, at least, the 'official' elite unit was the Praetorian Guard or Praetorians. Under the late Empire the Scholari were the Guard units of early Byzantium, but now we're getting obscure and the term will probably mean nothing to most people.
The Classical Greek army fought in a Phalanx, which meant either the entire army or more specifically the heavily armed and armored foot, composed initially of Hoplites (from their large round shield, the Hoplon). Later, after the Peloponesian War, the phalanx got lighter, was composed of Peltasts with an elongated shield called a Pelta or Theuros, but still tight-packed with long spears. The Macedonian phalanx, actually pikemen, was the Pezheteroi, or Foot Companions (of the King, Philip or Alexander). Elite units could be the Sacred Band (Theban Hoplites) or the Hypaspists (of Alexander)
Ancient Warships. Earliest were the Pentekonters or '50-oared ships' (25 to a side) which date back to the "hollow ships' of Homer (9-10 century BC). These were comparable to the Phoenic Bireme of 8th century BC, but both were 'way outclassed by the Trieres or Trireme, which was faster and the first known ship to use ram tactics extensively instead of just carrying troops to board the enemy. Successor to the Trireme were the Cataphractii or 'roofed ships', heavier Quadriremes, Quinqueremes, Heptiremes, etc with heavier construction, a lot more marines, and occasionally, light catapults and ballistae. These comprised the fleets of Alexander's Successors, Carthage, and Rome (Republic)
The Greek Fire Trireme, if used, should be called the Dromon, or 'runner' - the Byzantine ships that carried the Greek Fire Projectors. First recorded use of Greek Fire was in 673 AD, it was invented by one Kallinikos HOWEVER a Rhodian admiral used some kind of incendiary mixture much earlier, in late Roman Republic times. Common and peculiarly Rhodian ship was the Triemiola, a modified Trireme that also used sails and (normally) board and storm tactics as well as ramming.

[Steve5304]

i think were getting into too much detail........Ill wait to D/L this mod till the Reviews come in

Besides last time i downloaded an ALpha i found myself Fixing the Alpha........


Looks good tho and 3 cheers for the creator


--------------------
'enslave the enemy'

[Harlan]

Hexagonian,
Just finished downloading your mod. I haven't started it yet, but from the files it looks very good. A few quibbles though... First, I find it very strange that there's a tech called Christianity, and that its the only religion in the game. I understand that you're taking a very West-centric approach, but it still seems a little wierd to me that your world has only one religion. No Islam even, which came to control most of the Mediterranean, including Spain, East Europe up to Vienna, etc... Personally, I'd have allowed multiple paths (hopefully exclusive of each other), or called Christianity the more generic Monotheism.

Second thing: I also find it wierd that the tech tree has everything funneled through the one Dark Ages tech. Wierd because a) why would anyone want and "research" the Dark Ages, and b) it breaks all the logical connections between techs around that time, like Christianity leading to Theology or whatever.

Anyways, just my 2 cents, hope you don't mind.

Also, if you have the "raw" graphics for the tech pictures that you've done yourself, please send them to me. By raw, I mean before you put the backgrounds on, hopefully while they're still in layers. That way, I can add them to the graphics files I've got, and it will be easy for people to get them all in one location.

[hexagonian]

Harlan,

I definitely want to add Islam to the tree and the government Caliphate, which was actually my 'test' Government when I was first attempting to modify files.

As for the Dark Ages setup, I was using it as a means to extend the playing time between the Ancient and Early Medieval units. Someone made the suggestion about how he used that format to simulate the period of time between the collaspe of the Roman Empire and the rise of the Feudal state in Europe. I was looking at it from a play standpoint first, but since I am now planning on filling out the tech tree post-ancient, this will be re-evaluated. This whole thing initially started out as only in the Ancient age but appears to be growing.

I may also drop down the length of the game from the 1000 turns it is now, to something lower. It's actually nice to have an option to play a shorter game.

I will definitely welcome a 'floor plan' for the Medieval Techs from anyone. My first concern now is to make sure that the basic structure is sound, especially in terms of combat, pollution, and happiness. (especially happiness) I am using the suggestion that Wes made regarding using pollution to simulate happiness problems, as this was something that really griped me when I first played the game. So if you are playtesting, please note how those issues are going. I want the player to have to struggle with infrastructure problems. I may have to make entertainers available earlier. Please also note if the AI is building wonders.

I do not have the raw images, as when I started this, it was going to be for personal use, but I will send you what I do have.

Diodorus,
Thanks for the suggestions and I will be incorporating them on the next update. I went to the bookstore on Friday night and got the info which I had incorporated in my current update. I went with the term Palantini, but will probably change it to the more formal and recognizable sounding Praetorians. Same with the phalanx going to Hypaspists.

The War Galley will go to Heptiremes, as they are designed with bombard capabilities, and this fits the bill nicely.

I also do welcome anyone to take a look at the various text files in the govern.txt. What I did there was take the more advanced governments and used them as a base for the early ones. I also tweaked some numbers in there, as I printed them out and had them all in front of me at one time. If anything seems unusual, then notify me.

And make sure you are using the version 1.02. (see above post for link).

[hexagonian]

For those running into the Saved Game Reloading Bug, this is a workaround that was suggested by BlueO. Unfortunately, you also have to make sure that you do the first suggestion every time you play, or you will not be able to reenter the game at that point

===================================

The fix I use, and I mentioned this before in the gu spr thread (and someone else mentioned it in another thread), is to make sure you launch a new game with the mod first, before loading any saved files. Then after you started the new game with the mod, load up the saved file. Doing this, will ensure your save file continues to work, after you exit the program. However, if you forget to do this even once, and overwrites your save files, that save file will not work, next time you load it. It is a hassle, but it works... for me at least, haven't heard anyone else having success loading up saved files. shrug..

The other fix is to overwrite all the files in your ctp2data directory with the mod files. This was the method I used, before I discovered how to put mod files in the scenario directory. This method had worked for my mod without any fancy tricks. The one big drawback with this method is, you can't load any other scenarios.

You'll run into a bunch of errors, if you try to load other scenarios.

[Flash]

Hex,
Have you ever played the game Legions? It have all kinds of ancient units.
For instance, Convicts (chained in position for defence), Cattle (stampead into enemy position), Flaming pigs, ect. Combat values on some units alittle off for my taste but convertable.

Flash

[hexagonian]

How far have you gotten into the game Chris...any crashes with 1.02?

Now if I can get ahold of the CTP1 .tgas for the Knight, or, for that matter, some of the other tgas.

The Zulu warrior mixup happened because I had downloaded every sprite that had been created, either for CTP1, CTP2 or the Med Mod. I downloaded the sprites from the MedMod2 zipped sprite file and the numbering setup wasn't clear to me, so I must of got the wrong sprite in the wrong folder. I will fix this up once this gets close to a final release.

Are the sprites for the CTP1 and CTP2 Phalanx very similar to the point of causing confusuion. I will take a look at both this week to see if there is enough differentiation. Same with the Legion sprites. I was going to use the Phalanx sprite from the Alenander Scenerio, but they looked too much like the Legion/Palantini sprites, especially when all are in play.

The Horse Archer was my Chariot sprite until Tom came out with the stunning Chariot sprite

I'm currently pretty happy with the number of units in the ancient age. If you can come up with a justification for additional historical units based on gameplay, I will see what I can do. (The Ancient Age has 3 clearly defined Combat Unit trees now)

And the combat differences between the units is smaller in this mod, so more units might not serve a purpose. That is one thing I really want some reports on - how combat plays out. Differnent styles will alter perceptions, especially if you are a defensive or offensive player.

My son plays AOE2. I played AOE but was never very good at it. I have the reflexes of a rock. But its a cool game, nevertheless. I usually tell my son what to do as he is playing. (usually reminding him to collect more resources!!!!!)

[Dale]

Started a game with your mod last night. 8 civs, huge map, only on hard. I also played it with the Diplomod V3.2 active. Here's how it went.

First thing I noticed was how slow progression is. While not a BAD thing, it certainly provides a different element into early strategy. I started off my first city with the standard warrior/warrior/settler/settler/wonder routine. I picked up a couple of extra spearmen within about 20 turns so I was off 'n runnin' with the exploration.

My city growth has slowed dramatically. That's one thing I noticed early on. No longer can you do the settler/settler/settler build queue without thinking of major effects. Also, happiness base being increased is excellent because now I can't have the sliders at the standard left/right/left settings. I actually had to compromise between food/production/wages. Well done.

One gripe I do have is it would be usefull to have a two-square viewing unit at the start. It's too annoying moving units back 'n forth exploring. Just a gripe.

Here's what transpired:
At the end of 170 turns, I'm equal first in rating with two other civs. I have three neighbors, and have traded blows with all three. At one time I had a two front war. It's actually very challanging. I'm having a lot of fun. Also, (NOTE: I'm not playing with frenzy AI in this mod) the AI will attack viciously with stacks of 8-10!!!! I was shocked! I had to up my defenses up to 8-12 units. What I have to do now to hold onto my cities is build warriors/slingers in my cities till they reach 12, take 4 out, station ready to receive units from other cities (to make a stack) and keep building units. It's hard to get round to building improvs since the AI is attacking relentlessly. We have short 20 turn wars, but they are vicious, and usually result in a lot of city swapping. However, I am making inrounds and have captured two capitals. The third capital is just too far away at this point. It's a LOT of fun! Also, I seem to have two trecherous civs and one honourable civ. The honourable civ will declare war but the other two will just attack. Even as far as attrocities killing civilians. It's great, I've never seen a 'non-frenzy' AI doing these sorts of things.

Diplomacy with the diplomod is a lot of fun too. What's been happening is I will get some diplomacy done through peace-times, but during war all I get is angry demands for advances/gold/cities. I've been able to get a couple of maps and a few advances, but most of the reception is negative. Refusing the AI in peace-time has most-often precipitated war.

Overall, I'm enjoying this mod a LOT! It's great fun and excellent work Hexa! Can't wait for the next part. BTW, the diplomacy mod works perfectly with Cradle mod.

------------------
Author of Diplomod. The mod to fix diplomacy.

Rommell to a sub-commander outside Tobruk: "Those Australians are in there somewhere. But where? Let's advance and wait till they shoot, then shoot back."

[Chris B]

(please don't take offense to this, i really appreciate your mod)
Ive been doing a lot of playtesting in your mod, and i have some comments. I realize its alfa, as you may do these things later, but i have some suggestions. The ctp1 phalanx would be more realistic for the hoplite (you could ame your existing one the militia), and the ctp1 knight for the cataphract. the horseman i think should be heavy cavalry and your cataphract should be horseman. Also, you could include the ctp1 legion, TD swordsman, and Alexander scen Phalanx as units. The zulu warrior has a javelineer sprite, which is incorrect. I woukd like to see horse archer and fyrdman in there as well. Your tech tree is awesome!!!!! As soon as this mod gets further on in development, I'll use it to base my developing Persian Wars scenario on (I'll quote you). Sory, i don't mean to be such a whiner.
also, with all ou ideas, sounds like somebody else here plays AOE
[This message has been edited by Chris B (edited February 05, 2001).]

[Lord of the Isles]

Can I ask you to put version 1.02 at Apolyton or King Arthur's Court? Puuuullleeaasseee?

I keep getting "server not responding" from webfolders.mydocsonline.com and the current stuff at the two CtPII sites seems to be version 1.0.

[hexagonian]

Dale,

Thanks for the report, this is what I am looking for.

I am especially happy to hear that the AI is working this way in terms of aggressiveness without the FrenzyMod. This is fantastic.

The rate is intentional. You start out with the ability to build very little. (Most of the time you can only build Shrines, Warriors and Spearmen.) What is also good to hear is that you have to expend a lot of resources to defend what you have. Barbs are a constant irritant. I do not intend them to take the place of a civ in a game either, but the combo of Barbs and aggressive civs makes it difficult to expand militarily.

I also pushed back some city improvements until later in the game. You only get 5% each from a Bazaar and Marketplace, so you end up spending more production/upkeep for the same benefit you would normally get from a Bazaar in the default game. There was an obscene amout of gold in the default game. Trade is further back too. Add to this your base happiness is 75 instead of 73, and there are some decisions to be made.

Do keep an eye on pollution/unhappiness. I am trying to use pollution to simulate unhappiness, and I dropped the bonuses for happiness improvements. It is my intent that you will possibly need to use more entertainers, and I want this to happen in the game.

Sorry, but vision is tied into range and movement ability, so the Warriors will not be getting binoculars.

I have yet to touch the Diplomatic aspects of the game, and I would not even know where to start. I haven't tried your mod yet. I would be willing to incorporate your SLIC coding into this, but one thing I was concerned about was reports of one-sided trades with the AI concerning maps and advances. Have these issues been resolved? I would like that the AI be somewhat resistant to early map/advance exchanges, as I want there to be a gap between the AI and the human player for as long as possible. In the harder settings the AI does start with an advantage too. Generally, when the human can overtake the AI in this area, the game starts to become one-sided, in favor of the human.

I would definitely welcome you to be willing to develop that aspect of this game further. I have no clue how to work in SLIC either.

I will now be working on the Tech Tree for the Medieval Age, which will take some time to do.

LotI
I will send the version 1.02 to OmniGod tomorrow, as I have to redo the units Spec sheet, but I will email you what I have today. Simply replace ALL the txt files from 1.0 with the ones from 1.02. I do not know if the Zip program will do this for you - generally I unzip on my desktop and do a cut and paste.

Happy Gaming

[Dale]

Hexa:

Thanks for your comments.
It's certainly shed a little light on the game I'm playing (didn't have any time last night to continue) with your goals brought out.

One thing I have noticed that I believe needs to be fixed is that for some reason the AI's will not persue building the early new wonders. I had no competition in wonder building (not that I really had a chance to ).

On my diplomacy mod, the final (3.2) is completed, fixes those 'free-gimmies' problems. However, due to the extended anchient age, one change I would definitely do is to extend the length of the map-swapping catch (which slows the AIs swapping to almost nothing for the first 300 turns) to a much longer span. This will fit in with the extended time-line. What do you feel? Also, the diplomacy mod fits seemlesly in. So if you play with the diplomacy mod in your main files, cradle fits in without any manipulation.

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Author of Diplomod. The mod to fix diplomacy.

Rommell to a sub-commander outside Tobruk: "Those Australians are in there somewhere. But where? Let's advance and wait till they shoot, then shoot back."

[Harlan]

Warriors wouldn't need binoculars to see farther than one space. Presumably, the units that have extra vision aren't actually going to every square they see, but rather learn from people they come into contact with what the surrounding terrain is like. That's why units like the Spy have good vision, not because they're personally covering every tile themselves. Of course for some units, you could also attribute the extra vision to small reconaissance parties constantly coming and going from the main body.

With the Warrior, one could justify having them see farther, by saying they're relatively primitive and thus can easily establish a dialogue with the people living outside the civilizations (the kind you find when you living in the "huts") and get more information out of them, whereas city folk like the Hoplite would not.

[hexagonian]

Dale,

The Diplo settings sound very good. Is there a way to bundle your work with all that I have here, or do you recommend keeping the elements separate?

The Wonder issue is definitely something that was in the back of my mind as an issue that may have to be adjusted.

A question - when you started building a Wonder (and I'm assuming that you were using a good production city to do so) how many turns would it take you to complete it. There is a tolerance level in which a civ will not build a wonder (based on the number of turns that it takes to complete it) If the AI civ cannot build the wonder it the alloted turns, it will not do so (at least according to the coding that I saw) I may have to bump that up to a higher level. There is also a list where you can change the priorities of what a civ will build, which I may have to make some switches to.

The WonderBuildList has all the entries to it though. I'm assuming that Wonders are not tied into Slic either, because I went through all the Slic files and couldn't find anything in them related to wonders.

Harlan, in working with Wes, has he run into the same problem?

I also had given a lot of thought to the Warrior vision aspect. I know for a lot of players, warriors were very valuable because of the extended vision, but that is what makes getting to Projectile Weapons and Horse Riding a priority now. If I do increase it back to 2, there will be a huge price jump for them.

Related to that - In your combat, has the AI been stacking with a combo of ranged and unranged units?

[Dale]

Hexa:
Ahhh...... the wonders (in my two best cities) were averaging from 50 to 70 turns per wonder. That's out of the default range for the AI I'm sure. Both cities were size 8 cities with at least two mines.

I can see your point now about the warriors. I withdraw my request.

It's probably better to leave the two mods seperate. A lot of people have the diplomacy mod already and it may just create confusion if it's installed in the main ctp2_data program directory and under the scenario as well.

The stack combos I was getting attacked by had both slingers and warriors. I came across the odd spearman, but not many. Cities would have a higher concentration of slingers than field stacks.

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Author of Diplomod. The mod to fix diplomacy.

Rommell to a sub-commander outside Tobruk: "Those Australians are in there somewhere. But where? Let's advance and wait till they shoot, then shoot back."

[OmniGod]

While I've not had a chance to play a game in a week or so (dam project) this is sounding pretty good. The file in the db has been removed and all future data for the mod will be found at King Arthur's and I'll update it to the most recent as soon as I get the files from hexagonia. I'm also going to split the files ala WesW for units/text/pics at the request of hex so as to decrease the amount of actual ddl'ing the testers have to do when an update is available. All this will be done as soon as I get the next update. Enjoy the game, it's sounding good.

[Lord of the Isles]

First of all, a public thanks to all those working to improve the game, especially Hexagonian, Dale, Wes and BlueOrange. Wonderful work all of you.

I managed to get a few hours in with the Ancient mod last night. I have DiploMod 3.2 as well (so it's a similar environment to Dale's) and have been playing on hard, regular size world, 8 civs (assuming there aren't settings in the Ancient Scenario that override these). The only bad news is that about 70 turns into my first game it crashed back to the desktop. The AI was moving and a new civ had just moved a mounted unit next to one of my cities. This is the first time I've had CtPII crash on me in 5 weeks of playing, including the last 4 days with DiploMod installed. I have a saved game from about 10 turns before the crash and will go back to it when I have time and see what happens the second time through it.

But all the other news is good. I'm up to 180 turns in my second game and no problems so far. It's *fun* and much more challenging than any of the unmodified games I played. One unusual thing in this game is that the Barbarians have conquered all but me and two other civs: I have 12 cities, Cubans 2, Australians 1 and the Barbarians 23. From memory there were a couple of Barbarian-captured cities about turn 100, which isn't so abnormal, but from that point on they started to overrun the map. They were using single Warriors only (but increasing numbers of them) until about turn 140 when I began to notice a few slingers and some stacking as well. There have been a few size 3 stacks and the biggest was 6 (though still a lot of single units). It may be that the stacking is accidental: the Barbarian AI happens to move 3 units to end their turn on the same square. Next turn they often go their seperate ways again (though some stacks have stayed around for a few turns). Haven't seen any Barbarian spearmen yet. Oh, and one other thing I noticed was that the Barbarians often bypassed a heavily defended (8 unit) border city to head into my Empire to attack a couple of less heavily defended cities (2 units each). Imagine, a sensible strategy from the CtPII AI!

I like all of the modifications I've noticed. Slower growth and the higher unhappiness setting have forced me to do more micromanagement of both individual cities and the empire settings, and the new tech tree is great. The Diplomods have been giving me lots of map info - more than I expected after Dale said he'd tried to lessen that. Two points: though (I think) civil disorder due to unhappiness doesn't work because of Activision's stupidity I try to play as though it does, always adjusting settings to prevent cities appearing in red in the resources list.
And I don't take advantage of AI civs accepting unfair swaps (like advances for 100 gold or to see my map that they already saw just 5 turns ago). It would be good if they *didn't* give advances for so little though.

I agree with Dale that the two mods should be kept seperate. And keep the Warrior with 1 space vision.
I've noticed the same thing that Dale did with regard to Wonders: no other civs started any (or at least I got no messages about them). I've built three and have one more in the works - three of them were listed around 40-70 turns to build but when I built the Pyramids it was only 30 or so turns at my most productive city. Of course, with the Barbarians rampant I guess none of the other civs had the breathing space to start Wonders.

Minor points: though I have AncientMod 1.02 the notes with the Scenario when launching a new game say Base 1.0 or similar. I've been impressed with your new entries in the Library but one or two links have taken me to the wrong places (will try to remember to write down these to provide more detail). And the new Wonders I've come across (Olympics, Stonehenge) are fantastic ideas, though matching movies would be great.
Good heavens, I can't believe I mentioned such a minor point - what an ungrateful swine!

[hexagonian]

Thanks for the input.

There is a setting where somebody can set the chance for a riot when the happiness hits below 75. This can be raised, I just have to think where I saw it.

Regarding Barbarians
I've noticed that when a Barb takes over a city, it will continually pump out units. It still seems though that the AI is somewhat incapable of handling all of the pressure. I had changed the build priority for the AI to start off with building a garrison unit.

Has anyone tries the game on the lower Barb settings? The reason why I asked is because of the report from Dale that he was seeing the AI fielding some good stacks and that the AI was using them to attack. Given the choice between having rampant Barbs or an aggressive AI, I would choose the latter. There are ways to drop the intensity of the Barbs too.

Regarding Wonders
The default for when an AI builds a wonder is at 35 turns for most of the strategies - so anything above that and they will not do it, and this is showing up in the playtesting. I do not know how to program the AI to do what I normally did in PBEMs - start building something else and then make the jump to a wonder as I get close. The AI will also Rush Buy wonders, but it does not seem to be able to think long term. I have two choices - either drop the cost of Wonders or I will probably boost the number of turns allotted to the AI.

I had weakened the effects of most of the wonders too. There was a very good post awhile back in the CTP1 Forums regarding Wonders, and how they are really unbalancing.