Chris
Well, I'm glad to hear that this is tough...
Here are some things I found while hacking into the files, which may help you understand what is going on in your game. Some is speculation though...
In the default game, the City Buildings had been placed in various lists, but mainly in the list that applies to the benefit. (for instance, Mills would be in the Production list, but not in the Gold list) If an AI is on a particular 'mindset', it will build the items it is able to on that list, so placing other buildings within that list will spur it to build more buildings. So this will then increase its infrastructure capabilities. I did the same thing with Wonders.
As for the wonders, the AI is scripted to go on a particular path in what advances to research, so one of the reasons you may be beating the AI to a wonder is because you are reaching its advance first. Given the chance, the AI will build a wonder though.
You can always build a unit move it to another city and disband it for some production on a building to get it up quicker. Take a look at the tech tree and make a beeline to some of the advances that allow you to build up infrastructure. Warriors and slingers will carry your military for awhile.
RE: GOLD
On the Wage slider bar, the base wage is set at 4 gold in the default game. In version 1.05, the base wage is set at 12 gold per a recommendation of a post from someone who said that will make the game more difficult. I had been using that setting since it was posted in December.
This is my entry in const.txt with the default in parenthesis
UNIT_WORKDAY 0.2 # slider to work (was 0.15)
BASE_WORKDAY 1.0 # work per person when slider is zero
UNIT_WAGES 2.0 # what does 1 notch mean (was 1)
BASE_WAGES 12.0 # gold per person when slider is zero (was 4)
UNIT_RATIONS 3.0 # what does 1 notch mean
BASE_RATIONS 9.0 # food per person time POP_HUNGER when slider is zero (was 12)
In the default game, you get a 25% boost in science, due to gold for every click of the slider. In Cradle, you only get a 17% boost, and you have to fork out more gold for wages too. (plus you have less flexability with the sliders due to happiness penalties) Realize this though - the AI is tied into the same wage structure as the human, so it also has to work hard to maintain gold. I did not give the AI any ongoing gameplay gold bonuses.
You will have to use the sliders though to catch up - but I believe, based on observation, that the AI really does not use its sliders too much. This was a huge advantage for the player, because he could drop wages, maintain a somewhat peaceful demeanor in the early game, and catch up in science - then BAM, unleash his military in concentrated attacks.
You can go into that file and drop the base wage setting though. It's an easy fix - and I always meant for this Mod to be a base for somebody to go into the files and make their own settings. The most time consuming work was getting the advances/units/wonders entered into the database. There are a whole lot of variables to balance out though. Feel free to play with the wage settings and tell me what happens - how many turns it takes to get the next advance, for example.
I will be adding Gold production to Mines in the next update.
RE: DIFFICULTY SETTINGS
On the different levels of difficulty, the AI will start out with more stuff than you - settlers/advances/gold/PW, and it will also have a production boost on the hardest levels. This was the case in the default game, and is the case in Cradle. I generally have been working with the 'Very Hard' setting to be harder than the default 'Impossible' setting, so the Cradle 'Impossible' setting is even harder because of what the AI gets at the beginning of the game.
For me, when I played CTP1, the game lost any challenge once I got the science lead - the same happened with Alpha Centauri the few times I played that. Once I can produce better weaponry and couple that with a passive AI and the game loses its luster. So Cradle is meant to make the game challenging for a longer time, by making it harder to catch up sciencewise and boosting the AI in other areas. Yeah, I know it is somewhat unfair...but I hear a lot of good players griping about the lack of challange in CTP2. A lot of the griping is based on a weak tactical military AI, so boosting it in other areas helps offset that issue.
And I seem to have been able to make the AI more willing to attack and couple that with high Barb settings and there is enough to keep someone busy for at least a little while...
To be honest, I do not think I could handle Impossible either.
I just ran a short test with some SLIC code submitted by Immortal Wombat, which allows for Wonder units. I also am trying to get some SLIC code for Capital replacement - a small thing, but nice to have.
