Cradle 1.04 posted!

[hexagonian]

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

login is hexagonia
password is hextapul

README INFO - CRADLE 1.04 UPDATE
===============================================

IMPORTANT - YOU NEED TO MAKE THE FOLLOWING CHANGE IN YOUR
userprofile.txt file

located in the following directory
Activision\Call To Power 2\ctp2_program\ctp

Look for the line
DebugSlic=Yes

and change it to
DebugSlic=No

This is needed for the militia slic file. Otherwise the gamefile will do some weird things...


1.04 has several tweaks, most important are the following...

1. Wouter (aka Locutus) has provided me with a SLIC trigger for militias to be created when you build a city. This will help alliviate Barbs taking over AI cities in the early going. Playtesting has confirmed that this is working. I also have included the original SLIC file if you want to switch it out.

2. The Goverment files have been extensively gone over and tweaked.

3. Pollution settings have been adjusted to (hopefully) push back dead tile creation without sacrificing the unhappiness issues. Aqueducts and BathHouses have increased pollution bonuses.

4. Iron Working is a prereq for Geometry instead of Ballistics. This is to make sure that it preceeds Siege Weapons.

Unzip and replace all text files.

There are also three .tga files for the militia units, which are also included in the zip. Make sure they end up Call To Power 2\Scenarios\Cradle of Civilization\scen0000\default\graphics\pictures folder.

If you are loading this mod for the first time, you will need all the files from the 'sprites and pics' folder on my download site.

And make sure you look at the readme files, and pdf charts for reference!!!



[This message has been edited by hexagonian (edited March 19, 2001).]

[Shaka II]

Feedback from the front lines:

I have been playing V1.03 to about 500+ moves. At this point I think I will retire and try V1.04, since it is getting a little easy now. I had some tough times with happiness due to population at around move 350-400. But drama advance and a feat of wonder (building many arenas)pulled me through.
I think the tweaking of gov types as you stated is appropriate. I went dynasty, city state, oligarchy, and the last move, tribunal empire. I tried to switch to republic after city state and was mega unhappy. I had not discoverd drama and could not tweak entertainers. Even later, Republic was no good as it yielded no Science, since I needed to peg sliders for happiness. I think you're max cities are about right for large world as I played. Maybe would work on huge also.

I have been playing with Diplomod V3.3, so there may be some differences due to that. I played very hard, moderate Barbs. I didn't see any real threat from Barbs. This is contrary to what I have read here. Could it be Diplomod? The early game is very intense and a struggle to survive, but around turn 300-350 the AI seems to slow down. I think Diplomod is making the AI too friendly to each other?

One thing about the year advances with moves. They go 1 year at a time after ~100BC, so it would take another 1,000 turns to go past 0AD? You might tweak that a bit to make the years wind up ~1800AD (easier said than done).

Anyway, I will now dive into V1.04 at hardest level and with full Barbarians. I think I'll use a single continent this time. My Barbs never had a stack of more than 1! If I don't see the Barbs this time, I will disable Diplomod.

This mod is great!

[Shaka II]

That was supposed to be 1,000BC that the years advance 1 at a time.

[Dale]

Shaka:
The diplomacy mod doesn't affect the Barbs. It only touches players 1 and higher (Barbs are player 0).

BTW, just so you know (and many others out there) I made the AI's a lot more friendlier to each other to try and create a "gang-up" affect. It's too easy for human players to wipe out the AI's one-by-one, so I tried to create "gangs" which is simulated by a regard cheat for same-govt AI's.

------------------
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]

Some other barb info...

Generally, I expect the Barbs to be less of a problem for a player as the game progresses, now that the militia trigger is in place. That is because the barbs should not be able to take as many AI cities, now that they are defended. Once they take cities, they start cranking out more units, so the tendency is for them to gradually overrrun a weak civ.

Barbs are released from goody huts too. As the AI has a greater priority to search goody huts, more barbs are released in the early stages oof the game, As goody hut are cleaned out, there will be less barbs released.

Barbs will also generally attack units. Often they will lose, so they will be depleted too. There is a trigger to actually increase more of them in greater frequency in risks.txt, so if you are finding them to be less of a problem now, you can go to that file and bump up the percentage of a random appearance and the number of barbs. Currently, I have them set to appear as the most advanced unit that is available to the civs.

It has been my goal to have them as a constant nusiance, but not to have them overtake the game. With the militia in place, I may now have the freedom to push the envelope further.

As I was testing the setup on the highest level, I has a stack of 12 parked outside of my capitol in the early game. They did not attack because I had been building military and the city was fully stocked with units. (basically I was just testing the game for crashes, so I kept hitting 'end turn').

[hexagonian]

Never mind...
[This message has been edited by hexagonian (edited March 21, 2001).]

[leonli316]

Is there any NEW Advance, units, improvements, or Wonders compare the Cradle 1.03. I be happy to see more modern advance, units, improvements, and Wonders.
[This message has been edited by leonli316 (edited March 22, 2001).]

[hexagonian]

At this point, no, mainly because the Med Mod is focusing on a wider scope of history. I wanted my mod to have a different focus.

I had initially created the mod because that timeframe of history is the most interesting to me - and I wanted the game to play out through the Renaissance.

However, if anyone is willing to work on the Modern and later ages as an add-on to this, they are free to do so and I would be willing to help out.

BTW, how far have you played into the Mod turnwise and where are you on the tech tree?

Here is the current comparison chart for the governments, based on a cluster of three cities set up in the cheat mode. Tyranny was the base from which I worked.

.................................................. .................................................. ..............SLIDERS
...................................Food........... .Pro ..........Gld.........Sci ........Ration......Work.......Wage
Tyranny........................101............148. ...........9.............11............4.......... ..12............8
Dynasty..........................92............144 ............9............21.............5......... ...10............8
Ci State....................... 133.............129............9.............27 ............5............10............8
Oligarch......................... 97............172............13............21..... .......7.............10............8
Republic.......................157.............134 ............4............40............ 5..............8............8
Dictators....................... 119............208 ............11............23............5......... ...10............8

Above Governments will have a base happiness of 75 without taking Martial Law or Entertainers into account.

.................................................. .................................................. ..............SLIDERS
..................................Food............ Pro ............Gld.........Sci ........Ration......Work......Wage
Trib Emp.....................147...........186......... ...13............32............7............10.... ........12
Monarch.....................133............230 ............13............28............5......... ...10............12
Theocra.....................162.............200 ............15............34 ............7..........12............12
Caliphat....................171 .............176.............4 ............44............5...........10.......... ..12
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
.................................................. .................................................. ..............SLIDERS
..................................Food............ Pro ............Gld.........Sci ........Ration......Work......Wage
Democra.....................223.............200... .........4.............51............7............ 10...........12
Commun.....................165.............269.... .......15............36............7............10 .............8
Fascism......................157.............244.. ..........6.............46............5........... .10............12
Cor Rep......................183.............277...... .....10............49............5............10.. ..........12
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
.................................................. .................................................. ..............SLIDERS
..................................Food............ Pro ............Gld.........Sci ........Ration......Work......Wage
Technocr........................244..........238.. ..........0............77...........10............ ..8..........16
Virtual D........................305..........242......... ....0............81...........10..............8... .......16
Ecotopia........................205..........216.. ...........4............77............4........... ....8..........12

Above Governments will have a base happiness of 72-73 but wil be able to get to base 75 with Martial Law units or Entertainers. Advanced governments are needed for larger empires though (over 30 cities).

Communism currently has a base happiness of 75 - this may need to be tweaked, but I wanted to try something regarding the wage settings.

Technocracy and Virtual Dem have a science research rate of 100%, so gold savings is at 0.

Most of the governments have a Martial Law benefit now.

I had to analyze the setup in the default game to get an idea how it worked. As suspected, the switch I had made for the slider happiness penalty was throwing everything out of whack. For anyone who is modding, it seems that you need to make sure that your government has some manuverability on the sliders/martial/law/entertainers to be able to achieve positive numbers in all areas without falling into a riot state. My setup allows for less grace/margin of error than the default game, so it should be more of a challenge.

I did not take empire distance/pollution unhappiness into the equation, figuring that when those issues do crop up, you will have to use more entertainers/build roads to offset those effects. Generally, the more advanced governments allow for larger empires and the distance penalties are smaller.

Republic is supposed to be a good science/growth government, but the goal is to have players move onto higher forms of government too. One thing I am not sure about is how Tribunal Empire and the earlier governments will ultimately compare, because a player will have less manuverability on the sliders when he moves into Tribunal Empire, since it is the first government where wages are boosted. Boosting the wages up one notch over what is is in the earlier governments puts gold into the negative and thus, also crimps science.

As I now know how to tweak the numbers to get a particular result, feel free to make suggestions as to what needs to be changed for game balance issues.
[This message has been edited by hexagonian (edited March 22, 2001).]

[Shaka II]

I played another game, this time at the hardest setting, max barbarians, and Diplomod off. I think Dale is right in that the mod probably makes it a bit harder by making the AI "gang" up, or at least not fight with each other, although sometimes an agressive civ will take over other civs and become a bigger threat. The barbarians were definitely more noticable this time and took over several AI cities near me.

I played through to the Dark Ages and Theocracy govt. The game was a challenge to about move 400, but after this it was too easy. I noticed that some of the AI civs had cities that were in a constant state of unrest (red city with yellow fist), and sometimes revolted. I think the AI in general is not thriving past this point in the game, so they may need some help, like +3 happiness. Perhaps they need to be taught which city improvements to build to alleviate overcrowding, or given some other happiness boost.

The sprites are great and the cataphracts and composite bowman rule (where I left off).

[hexagonian]

Shaka

Please send me a couple of saved gamefiles, so I can see what is happening. There are a couple of possibilities here, regarding the rioting cities.

The cities are not using entertainers - if the cities are small, then they are not able to, but if they are large, they should be able to. There are settings in strategies.txt that can be tweaked, and is the preferable way for me to go.

I can bump up the happiness bonus for some of the buildings too. This was not what I had originally intended, but is an easy fix. I had originally reduced their effectiveness though.

As for the dropoff of difficulty, I would like to see your files to see what governments the AI civs are in.

RE barbs,
Seems the AI is still not handling them as well as they could. In the game I am playing now. at the highest setting, they are a real thorn in my side, and prevent me from doing all that I what I want to do, but I can keep them at bay at least. I do not want the barbs taking a lot of AI civ cities though (at least as the norm)

[Shaka II]

I sent 2 files to your mydocsonline account. Is this where you meant? Anyway, it appears that the AI may not be able to support city improvements, and so they are lost (sold off). Consequently, they get even unhappier. This happened to me in one game until I discovered what was going on and adjusted money flow, etc. I checked a few of AI cities at 1083BC and good share had no improvements at all.

[hexagonian]

Thanks Shaka - I got the files and took a look.

You did a great job managing your setup, given the difficulty. As it appears, you played the mod as it was intended to be played. Everything you have done is in the black too.

All of my setup was done to make it tougher on the human - a player had to choose what to do, and it could very well crimp him in other areas...In that regard I think I suceeded.

Unfortunately, the AI does not know how to manage it's setup - and it is this area that needs a lot of work still.

Several reasons, I suspect..

Lack of gold, in combo with an inability to manage the sliders. The AI also seem to place an inordinate amout of emphasis on city pop growth (causing more to be payed out in wages). This coupled with the increased pollution causes happiness to spiral to unmanageable levels and science to burn out.

I have to take a closer look at what I have done. I have some ways to manage these issues.

1. In strategies.txt, I can lessen/remove the AI priority to use farmers. I think the AI places a high priority on them now - this is reflected on how fast the AI cities tend to grow.

2. I can reduce the pollution effects on unhappiness, and I can increase the happiness bonus for Shrines. I might also have to move up entertainers to an earlier stage of the game - currently they are coming in at Drama, which is about 25-30 Advances into the game.

3. I may have to move Trade up to earlier in the game too, to make Caravans available for the AI. It's interesting to note that Shaka did not build any routes, yet his gold was in the black. Good management!!!

What I did with the sliders is something that I want to retain, but if these fixes do not work, I may have to go back to the default setup.

This will take some time to do, but I will post something when I can. Feel free to do some tweaking for your own gameplay.

[hexagonian]

After looking into the problem further, I have tenatively done the following to my files, and will run an extensive playtest this weekend on these settings.

HAPPINESS
I think this was the main problem area in what I did. My original goal was to make a player work hard to maintain happiness, which was successfully done, but the AI was not able to incorporated what I did in its overall strategy.

1. Entertainers are now available with Religion, instead of at Drama. This should give the AI the means to counter unhappiness. I also bumped up the priority for an AI civ to use entertainers. Players usually do not use entertainers other than a last resort for happiness, so this change should not effect the player too much.

In Shaka's gamefile, none of the AI civs had reached Drama. The only early happiness modifier within the early game is Martial Law and Shrines (a total of +4) - which wasn't enough for the AI. Extreme unhappiness leads to riots, cutting production/gold and eventually starving a civ.


FOOD
1. The food coeficient for population growth has been raised from 200 to 225. This will slow down how fast a city will grow, as it will now need more stored food to increase in population.
2. I have reduced the benefits of a farm/net from 10 to 5. This might be changed back with what I did with (1).
3. I also reduced the priority for an AI civ to use farmers.

Remember that large populations need to be paid, so if you do not have the gold, you civ will flounder in science.


GOLD
1. I switched Trade and Currency on the Tech Tree, making Caravans available sooner in the game.
2. Bazaars were originally reduced in my Mod to a 5% bonus. They will go back up to 10%.
3. A slight reduction on upkeep costs for some of the early buildings.

It should be noted that one of the reasons there was so much gold available in the default game was the extreme flexability that a player had with the sliders. Since that flexability had been reduced in v1.04, more gold should be able to brought back. As a sidenote, my original alts were done as a means to play against my normal playing style (I tend to build a lot of gold enhancements and trade routes)


OTHER
I had originally given a 50% change for an attacker to destroy a city improvement if it attacked a city. On paper it seemed like a good idea, but becomes an unbalancing weapon in the hands of a savvy player, as he can then use his cheap units against AI cities with the purpose of weakening the infrastructure of a civ. With increased Barbs in the game, they will also seriously weaken early civs with their constant attacks on cities.

The default was at 10% - I moved my setting to 20% and may drop it down.

Again, thanks Shaka2 for the gamefiles!

[hexagonian]

It was a good week for modding...

After an initial testing of 330 turns, the AI is working as it should concerning the happiness/infrastructure/pollution issues. I plan on running the test through more turns to see how it handles the more advanced governments, but so far, I am very happy with the results. I may have to remove some happiness bonuses that I had initially implemented when these issues had cropped up.

I also have been able to get the AI to build more Trading Posts, which was an ongoing gripe of mine too.

[Chris B]

I played for about 150 turns last night and this morning- which leads me to draw this major conclusion:
First off- after all initial improvemants are built early in the game, so then all there is to build is units, which after you build too many makes you go broke beacause you can't pay support and have to sell and rebuild your improvemants constantly. I think early advances take far too long to research and you should make scientists, merchants, an early form of capitalization, an early caravan, and mines available sooner. In gneral though, I think you should reducethe costs of early advances. Please keep these suggestions in mind.
-CB

[hexagonian]

There were problems with 1.04 that were related to the issues that Chris raised. I have gone into the files and done a lot for the next version. What I also did was run a game through 700 turns, checking on the AI every 100 turns to see how it was managing its affairs especially in regard to infrastructure. Testing confirmed that the AI was able to manage to stay in the black in all areas after my changes, so I am optimistic that this will also be the case with a human player.

I haven't run into having to disband units in any of my testing yet, but I tend to focus on science/production before food. Emphasizing food and pop growth will actually do more to stunt early science, because you end up having to pay out a ton of money in wages, leaving very little for science. So I will build Mines and Trading Posts before Farms/Nets - usually saving the bulk of my PW until I get Mines and once I get the Production and Gold infrastructure in place to support growth then I grow either through conquest or peaceful expansion.

Now that the militia code is in place, it may be better to go back to the expensive unit setup too. This will slow down how many units are in your forces. I preferred the expensive model too, but had dropped the prices as a means to get a lot of AI forces out on the map to defend against Barbs - no longer needed now.

And I will say this - Taking away the built-in advantage of being able to max out the sliders does make science slower...which was a goal of mine from the start. Even one click on the slider changes the nature of your science rate dramatically. On the flipside, my advances generally follow the cost structure of the default game - I used it as a template.

I do understand that most players like to move through the ages quickly - I tend to fall in the minority on that. I will provide a Advance.txt file in the next update, where all Advances costs are dropped by 33%, but I firmly believe that this will also make for a much easier game too. My goal was to make the human have to work - and yes, this mod probably will be more militaristic in nature, but the trick will be to figure out how to balance the books to support your armies - you will have to make sacrifices in science to maintain a high production level, which really wasn't the case in the default game.

I may have to look at making a couple of the City Improvements available sooner in the game (most likely the Forge). It's not too difficult to do so either. I did switch Trade/Currency on the tech tree, so caravans are now available earlier too.

Version 1.05 is unofficially up at my site, but I have to do the data entry for that revised Advance.txt file, which will be rebundled with version 1.05 tomorrow.