The Medieval Pack II Beta: The Gathering - Page 2

Bluevoss · March 9, 2001, 19:25

Wes,

I'll look at the diplomod thread and keep trying. Keep your chin up. About two years ago, a comrade and I cracked Sierra's Red Baron flight model code and modified the aircraft to fly better. We thought we had everything figured out and playtested it (so we thought) to death. But within 30 mintues of posting, a deluge of problems were reported.

Still, we weathered it. And since then, groups have built on what we did to improve the game far beyond what was released. Which is why RB3D is still a popular games three years after release.

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Bluevoss-

preacherman · March 9, 2001, 22:08

Wes Playing game in cheat mode. at each pause could hear sound for walking. seem to happen most with player 4 sometimes with 3. I/A/W flow chart should of had roads with wheel, not so. Why do zulas sound like horses?

March 10, 2001, 07:25

Just to report more or less the same issues...
Game crashed on 2380 BC(a bit earlier) but I tried the gigantic map, and barbarians are still not agressive enough. There are plenty of them, but they don't attack straight.

I built a settlers and went into a goody hut, barbs were there, and they didn't attack me next turn. Plus instead of goiong to the city 2 squares away, they left in the opposite way and dissapeared. All barbs were archers, and I found a stack of 6 once with a warrior, this time they killed it straight, but again didn't go to the nearby city. (barbs seem to stack regularly now)

Everything else seemed fine, science runs well, and new tile values are much better.
Great work, everyone!!!

[This message has been edited by Coflek (edited March 10, 2001).]

Chris B · March 10, 2001, 21:10

Wes, I'm having a problem remnicient to the 1 i had with alpha. It still can't read the different governments and callls it a database error when I load. However, I didn't use modswapper. Modswapper works, but the only mod it sees is the standard game.

WesW · March 11, 2001, 04:14

I have been making some improvements to the mod, and fixing some minor glitches. Mostly, I added stats for the Wonder units (I can't think of another name for them right now), I seemed to have fixed the mountain city sprite problem, which no one had reported, and I altered the Intro readme to provide a warning about using Modswapper.

If you followed my initial advice regarding its use, you have made the same mistake I did, and you will need to get the originals download from my webpage. Please read the revised Intro at the top of the thread, and manually place the three files in the originals download in their proper folders.

On the downside, I have not been able to fix the "75 turn glitch", though I have noticed a few things, which may enable some of you computer-savvy guys to figure out what is going on.

1)The computer seems to stop running the game, and start searching the hard-drive for something as soon as the glitch occurs. This would suggest to me that it is not related to the pauses that occur when a goody hut gives an advance or unit.
2)If you load autosave, which puts to back to the turn where the glitch occurs, and use cheat mode to select the problem AI, or one who goes after him, and press End Turn, the game will cycle through with no problem.
However, when you re-assume control of player 1, the game will crash at the same point that it did before, meaning during the same AI's turn. The problem AI, I believe, is the one after the last color shown, meaning that whatever causes the glitch happens at the very start of the player's turn. This would suggest that the glitch is not dependent upon anything which happened in a particular turn, but rather upon the human being in control of player 1.

I have not tried playing as another player (2 or 3, etc.), though I did try out-commenting the scenario and diplomod slc's and re-loading slic in the cheat mode to see if that would do the trick.

If anyone has any thoughts, please state them, and those of you who can play the mod need to try tinkering with it, to see if you stumble upon anything which might help us.

David Murray · March 11, 2001, 08:07

Looks good so far, but why has it completely messed up entries in the great library? I hope that's going to be fixed sometime--I have no idea how to fix it.

Some more stuff I wanted to say but...er...I forgot.

"Sometimes I feel so inar...inar....inar...inarticulate."
[This message has been edited by David Murray (edited March 11, 2001).]

GreatDane · March 11, 2001, 11:24

Regarding the 75 turn crash bug:

This may not be relevant but I will report it just in case.
I used the cheat mode to select the AI player as Wes suggested, and when I ended the turn, the game gave me the message about not being able to support the units.

Maybe the bug is related to this somehow, maybe not.

Anyway keep up the good work. This mod got me playing the game again.

Gooner · March 11, 2001, 21:51

Wes, I am not a programming expert, so what I'm about to suggest may be completely off-beam, but I'm going to suggest it anyway.

In my limited experience of programming languages there is normally some sort of debugging routine that you can use when stepping through a program - either a box on screen listing the current command line or some sort of text file that is generated.

I wouldn't mind betting that the guys at Activision had some sort of routine like this when they were writing the game - especially for the SLIC stuff.

I wonder if it's possible for somebody to either write a debug program or somehow coax it out of Activision? It would make the writing of mods a darn sight easier.

The mysterious crashes could then be pinpointed rather than at the moment trying to sort things out by trial and error.

If what I have said is completely ridiculous, forgive my stupidity.

WesW · March 12, 2001, 03:09

UPDATE ALERT: Well, not an update per-se, but very improtant. I found the cause of the glitch! It is one of the triggers in the scenario.slc. I don't know which one yet, I will test them out in the next couple of days by trial-and-error to see which one it is. I should have the rest of the texts updated as well by then to eliminate the other mistakes that I have found in the mod.
In the meantime, you need to open up the MM2_script.slc, and out-comment the MM2_scenario.slc line at the bottom. Those of you having trouble with the Diplomod can out-comment that one as well for the time being.

Mal the magnificient · March 12, 2001, 14:53

At long last I've managed to catch up with the rest of the crowd and get this mod working before catching the same loop c2400BC. I think someone else has already reported the "Call to Power:Not responding" on the CTRL-ALT-DEL menu which seems to suggest some attempt to read the CD-ROM.

But then I'm not a tech so wouldn't know any better and haven't even got the ability to come up with an original username (Is it possible to change this or am I doomed forever to live with this ridiculous title)

So not being able to add anything new to the thread this is just a short thank you to you guys out there working so hard to turn this into an interesting game. I only wish I knew enough about it too help more.

One thing I have noticed though is that the Advance chart seems to be the game original and not the new one. Have I printed out the wrong document?

Mal the magnificient · March 12, 2001, 20:57

Duh! I thought the commenting out of the scenario.slc code would catch the turn 75 glitch!!

But I had never even made it to turn 75 - more like turn 60 - until I did the dirty on the script file. Now I reach the turn 75 problem but without the stomping around.

Still much better stuff now where there's no chance of getting lucky and putting two AI civs out of the game before 3000BC now that there's the home guard out to hold the home front. Even if we can't get to the stage where we would have done the pesky little b*st*rds anyhow.

....

One other point though, Dale's Diplomacy Mod is designed to improve the AI diplomacy - Very good idea!!!

But there is another area of the game where CTPII has improved on CTP but seems to have given ALL the advantages to the human players. Don't tell me that you haven't done the same but you wander along to a new city at the early stages of the game and say to yourself - "Well let's see". If you get lucky you win a free city while, if not - you can always retreat when you see your lone warrior faced against a stack of five samurai and archers. If I knew where to look I'd start lloking for ways to work on this while you guys are working on the serious stuff

Dale · March 12, 2001, 22:28

I'll be emailing a new MM2_diplomod.slc to Wes today. It disables break agreements and the re-creating of embassies. The AI will still try to create embassies normally, it just won't automatically re-establish them after a war. It's a random value.

There's just too many problems with break agreements (both the script in MM2 and the normal diplomacy mod script) so I've decided to cancel it. If you have no problems with break agreements, just simply don't update.

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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."

preacherman · March 13, 2001, 01:49

Wes,Found many problems, no crash though. No militia, according to Tec tree should get roads with wheel--don't show up till trade. got to gunpower and cannon making and no new units. lost archers early in game with no foot replacements for then, makes it real hard to take mountain citys. catapault (were called sege engins) won't bambard. When they became obsolete no replacement for them.In the chart for land units Culverin available with cannon making and obsolete with cannon making.
The futher into the game I got the less slowdowns I had. I am up to 1560AD. I saved the game hope I can get it back.
Had one Ai with 2 settlers in my civ, requested withdraw--they aggreed two turns later one had left the other built a city in center of my civ.
Other wise mod works good at war most of game with at less 4 out of 5 Ai civ. barb not even worth talking about. Ai's attack all my citys with large stacks.Gold seem great--PW was genarated of--happnes became a problem at city size above 7--no room to adjust bars without lose of happness. playing hard--normal map--6 civs--barb's on roving bands.
[This message has been edited by preacherman (edited March 13, 2001).]

Mal the magnificient · March 13, 2001, 20:39

Is this a topic in itself or what but I've got that turn 75 crash again - 1840BC to be precise?

All I can add here is that the message that the Native Americans are racing to build the Temple of Karnak is the last thing I see before the game sticks. That and the 30 times or so that the TryMilitia error has dumped me out of the game between one and three times before the inevitable conclusion.

And reloading the autosave gives me exactly the same problem.

Seriously though, the play is still better than the original product.

Locutus · March 14, 2001, 17:01

Update: I found the cause of the 75 turn problem. A fix should be available soon. If you can't wait: go into MM2_scenario.slc and replace all instances of 'Event

isbandUnit(' with 'KillUnit(' (without the quotes). Haven't tested it yet, but I'm pretty sure this solves the bug.
[This message has been edited by Locutus (edited March 14, 2001).]

WesW · March 15, 2001, 02:31

Dale sent me another update today with a Diplomod version which should re-establish embassies plus be rid of the bugs encountered. As posted above, Wouter has found the cause of the glitch and should have that worked out soon. I have corrected over a dozen things both big and small with the text portions of the mod. I should have things ready for upload soon after receiving Wouter's glitch-free version.
Those of you testing may want to skim over the Main and Triggers readmes again when the next update is posted, since some things have changed pertaining to units and the triggers.
I have also filled in values for the wonder units, though one of the de-bugs has resulted in the fact that they will no longer be available from huts, thus no one will be using them until the slic is worked out for them, which may take some time. I think they make for interesting reading, though, and show what the mod will be like when finished.

HRuquet · March 15, 2001, 17:58

Wes,

Please let me know when you have updated these things. I deleted all of the files that have to do with the "Industrial age" thing like you suggeested.

Thanks

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WesW · March 15, 2001, 21:57

UPDATE ALERT: New text update posted!

Note: I got Richard's email 20 min. too late, and had to upload another version of the texts with the pop.txt fix. Now you will need to use modswapper to load and save the original game, then load the Med Pack again in order to include the pop.txt in the mod.

I play-tested the game this evening, and the glitch is gone, and I had no other problems.
Please try trading militia upgrade advances to see if the trigger works correctly when that event occurs. Also try and notice if it works if the advance is stolen.
The code is in place to remove improvements from build lists if a Wonder is built which grants that improvement to every city, though I have not tested it yet.
Basically, I was having so much fun playing the game, I thought I would go ahead and post the update, and work out any trigger problems later. At least there should not be any bugs this time.
Thanks to everyone who reported on the beta so far. I think I have corrected all the text inaccuracies reported by you.

Other than filling in the wonder unit values, I gave each unit the "build only one" flag which settlers have. This means that cities will no longer make multiple units after building the one you give it in the queue.

Several text glitches were corrected. Please report anything you see that is inaccurate.
Don't forget to go over the Main and Triggers readmes again.

Enjoy!
[This message has been edited by WesW (edited March 15, 2001).]

Locutus · March 16, 2001, 06:13

Quick note for everyone who's been having those annoying TryMilitia and similar problems: set DebugSLIC to No in ctp2_program\ctp\userprofile.txt and your problems should disappear like snow for the sun.

GreatDane · March 16, 2001, 10:42

Thanks for the text update. Everything seems to work fine now.

Here is the only problem I have noticed so far:
The siege engine becomes obsolete too early (cannon making). Since cannons are only available when you get machine tools, I think that the siege engine should be obsolete when machine tools is invented instead.

March 16, 2001, 12:04

Wes,
Have you seen the city expansion that BlueO put into his mod? I think it would be pretty cool if you put something like that into your mod. Something where the cities would actually expand as they get bigger. After all, you can't expect a city to grow a lot in size and not start taking up more land. And the decreased amount of land to use for tile improvements (farms, etc..) would accuratly represent cities running out of room and resources. It's just a thought, let me know what you think!

alley_cat · March 16, 2001, 15:11

Well, a thing that should be corrected is the sounds issue when a unit makes sounds it isn't supposed to (for example, a foot unit who makes horse movement sounds when it moves). Also I hope that the End turn freeze problem had been solved.

HRuquet · March 16, 2001, 15:11

Hey Wes,

I happened to be playing the game last night with the new text, and everything seems to work well.

The only problem I see now is that when you build Stone Henge (If I spelled it correctly) an error comes up saying it can't locate the stone henge.tga I have looked in the area and the .tga file is there.

Any Suggestions?

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[This message has been edited by HRuquet (edited March 16, 2001).]

WesW · March 16, 2001, 21:17

Thanks for the wonder info, H. You can bypass this problem right now by turning off the wonder movies. I have corrected the problem, and it will be included in the next update. This is another thing that worked in Ctp1 but not in the sequel.

I have plans to use CityMod in the Med pack. I am waiting until we get the basics down before I start on the extras like CityMod, though.

If anyone notices any errors in the mod, except for the Great Library, please report them. This includes things like sounds which don't match the units. I corrected the Zulu Peltast (formerly the Javelineer), which used the Mounted Archer sounds before.

alley_cat · March 17, 2001, 05:33

I installed the new Medival Mod, and after I overwrited all the files and opened an existing game (in the Original game, not through the Mod mode) all my cities, that before I installed the mod were in the Genetic age (an Hi-tech city with Arcologies in it) turned to an image of an olf city (6th century maybe). What to do? Will it also be this way if I start a new game in the original game?

alley_cat · March 17, 2001, 05:53

And another thing - the halts that occur at the end of almost every turn for about 30 sec. havent been fixed. They must be fixed in order for the Medival Mod to be truely great.

alley_cat · March 17, 2001, 09:01

Sorry I post so much, I just found another bug. somewhere in the first turns of the game, at the end of my turn, suddenly all my Spearman Militia just died for no reason! And I could never fight with them (attack).

Another thing: Why does the Stonehenge and the Temple of someone I dont remember his name "boosts the scince in host empires" and the harbor "adds +0 to city defence"?

Locutus · March 17, 2001, 14:39

alley_cat,
RTFM, or rather read the readme's... You're not supposed to be able to attack (or move) with Militia units. However, it is rather odd how all the Militia's just died. I assume there weren't any replacements? If not, could you give me all the details you have on what was going on at the time of their death? Did you discover any advances? Did you walk into a ruin, had you just traded an advance with tha AI or stolen one from them? Anything you could tell me would be useful, esp. if it's advance-related.

preacherman · March 17, 2001, 18:58

I am having problems. I downloaded the Mar.15 scrip file loaded I/A/W wes's instrutions. first problem came when I built Temple of Karnak, it took me to desktop with error "unable to find the file, Temple of Karnak.TGA" Brough game back up with save file then started to get slic errors at end of each turn "in object MM2_TryMilitia, variables"MM2_tryMilitia#temploc'and'noname' are of different types. I also lost militia at that time. I could bring game back up continue to play. I started to get many more error messages such as.

In object mm2_getage, function_hasAdvance: referened playeris not in game
\scenario.slc:183:array index 254544386 out of bounds

The out of bounds array index will change to 4 or 5 differnt ones. Militia and advance every time.

I will be able to continue the game after hitting ok. they will come up 2 or 3 time per turn.

I don't know what I did wrong but sure could use some help.

I had Chichen, Hagia, Aristotle's Lyceum, still could build Shirns, courtrooms, and all science inprovments.
[This message has been edited by preacherman (edited March 17, 2001).]

HRuquet · March 17, 2001, 19:06

Wes,

I was playing again and noticed that the cannon's don't make any noises untill they get destroyed, but nothing when they fire. and I also noticed that when I get bombarded by other players they loose there cannons'and also that when I bo,bard someone, they don't do any damage.

Thanks,

My name is Herb by the way.

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