The Medieval Pack II Beta: The Gathering (Part 2)

[alley_cat]

I found a few bugs in the game:
* I have the latest Med Pack build, and I noticed that my Phalanax doesn't make any sound while it walks.
* I took my Spearman Militia, from my capital city, for a little walk. On the way we found ruins who turned out to be a new city. As soon as my Spearman touched it, I heard a dying sound, and suddenly I found a new Spearman Militia in my capital, and there was, of course, another one in the just found(ed) city.

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Let people hear what they want to hear
[This message has been edited by alley_cat (edited April 13, 2001).]

[alley_cat]

I found more problems:
When I discovered the technology (don't remember which) that makes me enter the Classical Age, ALL my Spearman Militia in all my cities died, after each one making a death sound plus a death sprite graphic (a speaman falling and fading away).

An enemy Catapult was bombarding from his city an army of mine who was parking right next to that city. Instead of hurting my army (I'm pretty sure it wasn't hurt although I can't say for sure) the Catapult itsekf was destroyed!

I don't know if it's supposed to be this way (so forgive me if it is) but after I conquer a city which it's image is diffrent than my cities (for example, a Medival city image and a modern city image), the image doesn't change to reflect any other city in my possession

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Let people hear what they want to hear
[This message has been edited by alley_cat (edited April 13, 2001).]
[This message has been edited by alley_cat (edited April 13, 2001).]

[hexagonian]

Unit tgas finished and posted.

[alley_cat]

Found another problem :
Whenever I use my Partisans to assassinate someone in an enemy city, CTP2 say that an Eco-Terroris assassinated, and not the partisan

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Let people hear what they want to hear

[WesW]

There are a couple of numbering differences between the Cradle mod and the Medpack, so wait until I include the new pics in the next update to get them.

How are you guys moving the militia units? You should not be able to, and I have not been able to move them with mouse or arrow keys.
I will try and make a Partisan assassinate message for the mod.
I too noticed that the Ctp1 sounds supposedly included in Ctp2 do not work, and I have set them back to standard Ctp2 sounds. When the public release is out, I will make an optional sounds zip using the files Lev put together from Ctp1.
When you conquer another civ's city, are the city sprites supposed to change to match your own? I don't mind the current setup, myself, as it keeps some of the culture of the old civ present.
The other things you reported are supposed to happen.

Wes
Question! Is the tech. sheet now complete or will there be an update when the Mod is finnish? The reason I ask is because I want to take it to Kinko and have it blow up into 11"X17" but it cost about $6.00 per copy.

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[MrFun]

How limited is production and gold in this mod pak?

Do any of you guys feel frustrated with the limits, is it too much, or is it at the right limit settings?

I do not want it to take me 30 turns to produce one Musketeer unit, nor 50 turns to build a Granary.

And I must be honest -- I am eagerly waiting for the completed, tested version to be released. Keep up the great work guys!

[GreatDane]

I have now played up to the year 1692 with the new text update. So far everything is looking good. Science is going well. And I have plenty of gold. I am playing on a large map with 8 civs on very hard level. I am not very good friends with any of the AI civs. For some reason they just hate me (which I like). I am 2nd in science and about 6th in the military ranking.

Just one bug: Just discovered musketeers and all my fyrdmen militias died but were not replaced by musketeers. Update: I just discovered that I have a musketeer militia in one city. Still none in all my other cities.

The updated Great Library is great. Good work.
[This message has been edited by GreatDane (edited April 14, 2001).]

I have Militias in one or two cities at most. Just discover Feudalism. I can build Knights but cannot build Samurai or Longbow man. They are not in the building queue. Pikeman are my main defender right now. The Horse Archer still looks like a Cavalry unit.

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[David Murray]

Regarding the new Great Library texts, for your consideration:

I notice that the Great Library files have been (for the most part) updated to reflect the new changes. This is a good thing.

However, I was browsing through them this evening...as I love history, and I can sometimes spent hours reading the historical backgrounds Activision wrote in the Great Library...and I noticed a couple of things.

Firstly, the historical analysis of Equal Rights is rather laughable. It says that everything, humans, animals (and I think it even said plants) were all granted equal rights. What a load of utter sh*t. We haven't even achieved equal rights for human beings yet, let alone ANIMALS. Also, it features the word "animistic" (just like the rest of the entries, made up) and refers to equal rights as being "similar to Bronze Age man". If we're going to have a revamped Great Library, let's at least act like grownups about this.

The remarks on socialism are typically condescending. Also, they fail to include the fact that the only form of socialism isn't Marxist socialism. Socialism exists in many European states, where they are enlightened enough to allow same-sex marriage, legalized cannabis and progressive taxation. It seems that in our own country we're so far backwards we're still adhering to the Ten Commandments, let alone gay rights.

I also had to cringe when reading updated entries on the corporation...and even Activision's entry (renamed and modified to the Statue of Liberty) on the Empire State Building...the "glory" of corporate America? You mean boom and bust? One day things are fine, next day your shares are worth nothing? Or the glory of making Third World countries bust because they are too busy in the heinous crime of trying to build hospitals before repaying debts?

Like Hillary, I smell a rightwing conspiracy.

I have had about 4 crashes in the last hour. All of them are Invalid fault 187:00442707. It crashes when I start to move a ship.
Units that I cannot build because they never show up in the queue are Bandits, Legion, Amazon, Hoplite, Berserker, Nomadic Horseman, Fire Trireme, Long Ship, Arquebusier, plus the two that I mention in the last post. Almost every turn one or more of my units died. I’m in Monarchy gov. around the year 900AD.


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[David Murray]

I'm going to up sticks and go to the off-topic forum to see what they're saying, but I will still come in here now and then to download updates to the MedMod and to provide constructive criticism.

It's been nice here, very nice indeed.

[WesW]

I thought I had removed the Amazons from the Advances chart. Well, they are gone now.
Here is a description of the Elite units concept that I wrote tonight for the Main readme. We are far enough along now that I can lay this out. It should clear up the confusion Joseph and others may be having with the concept. Elite units are shown in teal on the Advances chart (see the Legend at the the bottom of the chart).

"Elite Units:
History: Throughout mankind's long history of warfare, various societies have developed unique units which enabled them to create or defend their empires. The characteristics of these units are remembered to this day, and their role in civilization is represented by the Medieval Pack II's Elite units concept.
Stats: When a civilization acquires the enabling advance for an Elite unit, it has a random chance of gaining the ability to build it. If it does gain the ability to build an Elite unit, it loses the chance to build any other Elite unit of the same Age (though it is still elibile to gain Elite units of other Ages). Also, only one civ may have the ability to construct any given Elite unit. In addition, some Elite units come in pairs (Zulu Warrior and Zulu Peltast, Berserker and Longship, and Arquebusier and Bombard). The individual stats and abilities and all Elite units are given in the Special page of the Med charts spreadsheet."

I believe that this is one feature that the Med pack will be well remembered for, along with the unit heal trigger which more experienced civ'ers will appreciate.
Chris (Gedrin) has started work on it, now that he has finished the refugee trigger. I guess this would be a good time to cover that trigger as well. This is from the Triggers readme:

"Chris converted his Ctp1 Refugee trigger over to Ctp2 format for the Medpack II. This trigger takes one quarter of a city's population, rounded down, and gives it to a random city in the civ right before the city is captured. This means that the pops may be sent to the same city from which it originated (you know how confused people get when they panic). "

I will let you think about how this will affect gameplay and cause problems for both the winning and losing civs. It is another feature that makes conquest more difficult (and realistic, imo).
If we have time, I want to implement a trigger which destroys up to half the buildings in a city when it is captured, ala civ2.

Between the triggers for unit healing, refugees and this one, the nature of conquest will be drastically changed in the game.

I don't know what the ship crash would be from.

I usually don't notice if emoticons are used in a post icon, this not being the OT, so I was confused over David's post initially. I seemed to remember that he had a conservative reputation on the OT when I frequented there a couple of years ago. Anyway, things made more sense when I noticed the wink.

I am continuing to tweak and test. I have been adjusting things in many areas of the game as I come across them, or back to them as the case may be. Expect the next update by Wednesday.

[David Murray]

I think you maybe have the wrong David in mind...the wink was just to mitigate some of the venom...no offense meant but I think you need a slightly more impartial writer for your Great Library files.

I decided to come back and try MedMod because I was bored with Europa. Talk about being overrated.
[This message has been edited by David Murray (edited April 15, 2001).]

[jadlakha]

WHy does the CTP2 Soundtrack work with med mod 2?

[janilxx]

Wes I really hope you read this. You have skipped my postings too many times

First the militia:

Militia can still be moved as you know. And I have said this before but I will say this again. You can move militias with keyboard. Can you read this... Keyboard. Huhuu keyboard! I hope you are not humorless person.

But what thew hell happened to the working militias. Now when I get phalanx my all militias(of course) dies but I do not get a new ones(like phalanx). So after phalanx I do not have militias. Unless I build a new city there will be phalanx militia. This worked with the previous version but not anymore. Is there any ways to see medmod's version number from the game? I am "sure" I have installed the new version If there is no way could you add new method/function tha can be triggered from the chat window(like /show_mod_version)?


AI settlers:
Are they in withdraw contract or could they be got to the withdraw contract? I mean if I say "withdraw your troops" to AI and he accepts that after a while his settler will be in my territory again. I think this annoys many players. So would it be a good idea to add settler units into the withdraw contract?


I tried to seek this from the manuals but I did not find this out. But I remember I read somewhere that you can only have 4 or 5 conversations per AI in turn? Is that right? I think I had5 or 6 conversations with the same AI in one turn. Is this a bug?


And I have said this before too. If someone(AI) finishes a wonder and I was doing that wonder too I will lost all my production points in that city. Should it be so? I think this is not a good idea? Or maybe you should only lose a half of your production points?

It was 5th round and I got the first message saying that AI started to build Temple of Karnak. 6th round the other AI started to build that wonder too. Is it really a good idea that AIs starts building wonder this early? If it isreally a good thing for AI then it is but this seems a little bit odd to me.

That was all again.

-Jani

[WesW]

quote: Originally posted by janilxx on 04-17-2001 01:49 AM Wes I really hope you read this. You have skipped my postings too many times

I have been meant to say something about this topic for a while, but I could never remember to when I sat down to write.
This goes out to everyone: Each and every post here is read by me. A majority of the things posted may not be directly replied to, for a number of reasons, but they *are* read.
If someone notices a bug or a setting that obviously needs changing, then I will usually reply directly to them in my next post. Other times, I will make a note of their observation, and check it out the next time I play the game. If I decide to change something, you will see it in the next update. I may not refer to the person who alerted me to the problem, but I hope you guys are posting so that we can make the game better, and not for personal recognition. If someone posts about a game imbalance, and I find that it *is* balanced imo, then I may not reply to it. It takes me about 30 to 60 minutes to make these posts as it is, and I have to spend that time in the most efficient manner. If several people chime in with the same opinion, then I usually modify the game to correct this, though it may take a few days or a couple of weeks (see my next list of game changes). Then there are times when people report *bugs* that are explained in the readmes. I hope you understand why I don't take 20 minutes a day typing in the readmes again. Occasionally, though, I do forget to comment on something that needs to be addressed.
Note: Many people seem to think that the word miscellaneous means "not necessary to read". This is not true. All the stuff in every readme is there because you *need* to know about it. To help with the debug item, I have explained it in the Intro file alongside the installation instructions, so that more people will see it.

quote: First the militia: Militia can still be moved as you know. And I have said this before but I will say this again. You can move militias with keyboard. Can you read this... Keyboard. Huhuu keyboard! I hope you are not humorless person. But what thew hell happened to the working militias. Now when I get phalanx my all militias(of course) dies but I do not get a new ones(like phalanx). So after phalanx I do not have militias. Unless I build a new city there will be phalanx militia. This worked with the previous version but not anymore. Is there any ways to see medmod's version number from the game? I am "sure" I have installed the new version If there is no way could you add new method/function tha can be triggered from the chat window(like /show_mod_version)?

I have tried moving the militias, and have never been able to do so. Can you move them any time, from the very start of the game? If you become able to move them after the upgrade bug appears, that may be explained. If you can move them from turn 1, then that is disturbing. I have tried to move them a couple of times in my games, and I never can. When Wouter first made out the militia code, he said that the slic2 had functions that kept them from being moved, period.
There has never been a bug-free version of the militia code. You may have gotten lucky and had a game where it worked correctly, but the code was buggy. Wouter is working on this, but he has been very busy with school lately. The code has gotten so complex that I can't even follow it any more, so I leave that part of the game to him. I am waiting just like you guys for him to find the problem.

quote: AI settlers: Are they in withdraw contract or could they be got to the withdraw contract? I mean if I say "withdraw your troops" to AI and he accepts that after a while his settler will be in my territory again. I think this annoys many players. So would it be a good idea to add settler units into the withdraw contract? I tried to seek this from the manuals but I did not find this out. But I remember I read somewhere that you can only have 4 or 5 conversations per AI in turn? Is that right? I think I had5 or 6 conversations with the same AI in one turn. Is this a bug? And I have said this before too. If someone(AI) finishes a wonder and I was doing that wonder too I will lost all my production points in that city. Should it be so? I think this is not a good idea? Or maybe you should only lose a half of your production points?

All land units should be in the withdraw contract. If the AIs are repeatedly tresspassing, you will have to deal with it as you see fit.
You can have 4 conversations with each player per turn. If you can confirm more than this per turn, then it is a bug, though I don't know how to correct it, since the code says 4.
You won't lose your production if you have another item in the queue below the wonder. The concept of losing all production is supposed to be in the game, from what I can tell (there is no setting for it that I can find).

quote: It was 5th round and I got the first message saying that AI started to build Temple of Karnak. 6th round the other AI started to build that wonder too. Is it really a good idea that AIs starts building wonder this early? If it is really a good thing for AI then it is but this seems a little bit odd to me. That was all again. -Jani

The AIs should not be starting wonders that early, but sometimes they do. There is nothing that I know to do about it, and I have tried. One time when I used cheat mode to check out the AI who did this, I found that he was stuck on a small island, and did not have enough room to expand normally. I think the ai routines default to wonder-building if the criteria for building other things is not met.

Btw, does anyone know of a graphics program other than Paint Shop that I can get for free? Or do you know of a way of defeating PSP's 60 day timer? I dl'd a new trial version, and it still would not let me run it because I had expended the previous dl's time limit. I do not anything right now that can make pics for Ctp2.

[XMon]

Wes,

Check your email...

[Palpatine]

Well i have just installed the mod. I start the game and get these messanges:

Moving a unit:

[\ctp2\ctp2_data\default\gamedata\mm2.scenario.slc: 383:Array index 0 out of bouts]

Ending a turn:

[In objekt mm2_EveryTurn, variables ´mm2_EveryTurn#tmpcity´and ´noname´are of different type]

This message is followed by the first one. What I am doing wrong? I am using the german version. Hope this doesnt cause the prob. Copyed the files from the "english" folder in the coresponding german one.

Thx for your help Palpatine

I have not try to move a militias but the other part of them dieing is correct. When you discover a new Tech. with new defenses units the older militias died and is not replace with the new units. If you build a new city you will get the new militia units.
The ships that I was having a problem with where cheat ships and I deleted them from the game. However now I'm having a problem with a Carrack that was build in one of my cities. I had this ship for many turn (est. 40 turns) but now ever time I tried to move it the game crashes with Invalid Fault 0197:00442707. I will delete it as soon as I restart the game.
I had SoundBlaster Live install today because SB128 had a few conflict with some games however I had 3 crashes w/CTP 2 since I came home. All on moving this ship.


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[alley_cat]

Funny, Jani.
I reported these EXACT same things (the two first ones anyway) a few posts ago. Wes was kind of surprised that I oculd move the Militia. He also answered to my ICQ something about that the militias WERE supposed to die. It happend to me after I advanced to the classical age. you check if this happened to you too...

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Let people hear what they want to hear

[WesW]

This is the weirdest double post I have ever had, but I might as well make some use of it...

Palpatine, you are seeing the debug slic error. Refer to the Misc readme.
[This message has been edited by WesW (edited April 18, 2001).]

[janilxx]

Things to test(Anyone can test these, I have only about 5-10 hours/week to play):

These things are discussed better after these items.

- When does militiias move with numpad(arrowkeys)? In turn 1? Or only after you get phalanx?
- Does the militias move when they are in army and you try to move the whole army?
- How many conversations you can have in turn with the same AI? Should be 4 but there might be a bug

quote: I have tried moving the militias, and have never been able to do so. Can you move them any time, from the very start of the game?

I have tried to move militias only few times. Select the militia(only militia no other troops in army) and then use arrow keys or numpad(I suppose I have allways used the numpad) to move the militia. This way I have tried few times to move militias and militias have allways moved. I have not tried to move militias in the turn 1 or 2...

Someone said that he could move militias(with mouse?) when militias are in army and you are moving the whole army. I tried this "a long time" ago too and militias really moved then. I do not know if this is fixed now.

quote: There has never been a bug-free version of the militia code. You may have gotten lucky and had a game where it worked correctly, but the code was buggy.

Ok. I was lucky sometimes when I got the game where I had Phalanx militias working(when I got phalanx technology and spearmen militias get killed I got phalanx militias). This was in previous version(27th march etc?).

quote: The code has gotten so complex that I can't even follow it any more, so I leave that part of the game to him.

Maybe you should make some kind of code templates. All medmodders should use the sime kind of indents, variable names etc.

quote: Are AI Settlers in withdraw contract or could they be got to the withdraw contract? All land units should be in the withdraw contract. If the AIs are repeatedly tresspassing, you will have to deal with it as you see fit.

Could you or someone other medmod maker check this from the code? I mean that it seems that AI does not think settlers belong to the contract. Please check this from the code. Please I am begging you.

quote: I tried to seek this from the manuals but I did not find this out. But I remember I read somewhere that you can only have 4 or 5 conversations per AI in turn? Is that right? I think I had5 or 6 conversations with the same AI in one turn. Is this a bug? You can have 4 conversations with each player per turn. If you can confirm more than this per turn, then it is a bug, though I don't know how to correct it, since the code says 4.

I am pretty sure I had more than 4 conversations in same turn with the same AI.

quote: You won't lose your production if you have another item in the queue below the wonder. The concept of losing all production is supposed to be in the game, from what I can tell (there is no setting for it that I can find).

Ok I have to try to remember this. Maybe this could be said in medmod manual?


Jani

[XMon]

As far as settlers not withdrawing...I believe that the withdraw.slc does not withdraw anything designated as civilian. May want to check with Dale about that but I believe that's the way it is set up. I also think that he posted a way to change the code so that all units withdraw. You may want to search the forum for an old post on withdraw.slc.

[Palpatine]

Well sorry for my stupid question. Reading all readme´s could help sometimes *g*. Sorry again for wasting your time wes. You do a great job with your mod.

Palpatine

[janilxx]

I just thought that maybe my whines have had too negative tone. I think that this mod will make CTP2 a lot better game. But only after many bugs have been fexed and some/many new things have been added(like pirates or two kind of them).

I am sorry to said this but actually I am not sure have I seen a lot of good changes yet. There have been MANY changes and when they have been fixed to work properly I am pretty sure I will be glad. But now, of course because this is beta, I have not got as much as I hope to get someday.

Damn I am negative again. Maybe I just try to say that you guys are doing very great job there and I hope you will fix a lot of things before you remove the word "beta". Don't release a buggy medmod until you have fixed bugs. And after that you can start to make additions(pirates etc) and then release MedMod2.

What the am I talking about. Just keep on good work and good luck and thank you for doing this mod.

Jani

Started a new game, the old one to many crashes. The Militia's are still around after building Phalanx and still in all cities.

[Palpatine]

I found a bug in the tga pic of the cannon unit. It should be named UPUP117L.TGA . In the zipfile it is written upup117C.tga. Hope this bug wasnt reported before *g*.

Palpatine

[Dale]

Correct. Civilians won't be withdrawn by script. This was done so diplos and settlers could move through to new hunting grounds. Really though, what's the big problem with settlers moving through your nation? They're only trying to get to a place to settle. Anyways, I have to change something else in the withdraw script, so I'll look into it.

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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."

[WesW]

UPDATE ALERT: New text update posted.

This update contains all the new unit pics that Hex made for the modpack (I managed to make the Trireme pic myself). The Ctp1 Marine that I added in the last update is still included in this update, for those of you who missed the last update.

There is a whole list of things in this update. Players will have to start a new game after they install this update, so you may want to take that into account before you install.

I have added messages to tie old the orbital lab feat to public schools. I also adjusted messages to try and account for the fact that spies can sue, and the new Partisan and its abilities. I have had trouble getting these messages to work, however, so if you see messages which say "unitrecord[0].name" instead of the unit's name, let me know. I can also use some advice from you if you know why some messages work, and others don't.

I fixed the last remaining alphabetical errors in the units and tile improvements sections of the GL.

Unconventional units:
I did not realize that assassinations caused anarchy, so I have removed that ability from Partisans. I also reduced the cost of inciting revolutions by 30%.
To reply to the withdraw question- I *think* that there is a setting which keeps AIs from settling inside your borders. This means that if settlers are crossing into your territory, they are trying to get to the other side and settle there. I want to keep the exception for civilians, for the reasons Dale mentioned.

Air units:
I ran some tests, and saw that aircraft were too vulnerable to bombardment, so I have doubled their hitpoints. This may mean that dogfights will take a while, but I don't know of any other way to balance things.

Sea units:
I noticed that the flanking ability did not work right, so I removed it from ships. They should bombard correctly now.

Trade:
I have reduced the rate that goods' values decrease when you discover more of them on the map. I also doubled the coefficient of distance for trade. This should make longer routes more profitable. If they are too profitable, let me know. This should stop the way that your trade routes lose value as you explore the map.

Gedrin's Refugee trigger is in the update.

Governments:
I have made several changes to the governments. I have decreased city limits, but I also decreased the penalty for exceeding those limits. Distance penalties have been raised, making roads more important.
I raised the max science setting by 5% for ancient govs, and 10% for modern and future govs. I also decreased the production coefficient for all govs by about 10%.
This will put more science into the game and take away some production. I think this will go a long way towards balancing the game, since people have consistently reported falling behind in science and having nothing to build at times.
Here is an excerpt from the Main readme which I wrote to explain my reasons for the city changes:

"Explanation: In all previous civ games, the key to winning has been expansion. If you could create a larger empire than your neighbors, you could then out-pace them in science and productivity. I have made changes to the governments with the aim of making this tactic much harder. Historically, the greater the empire, the faster it collapsed, and it is my aim to have the game reflect this tendency. If you want to conquer the world, you will have to wait until you have the most advanced governments, then strike fast to accomplish the feat before revolts thwart your ambition."

The mod, and therefore the game, keeps getting better. If there are some gameplay options, or unconventional attacks, that you want to use but don't for some reason, report them, along with the reason (e.g.: too expensive, the success rate is too low, etc.).

Also, notice the reports that come in from people. Some say the AIs are too passive, some say they are too aggressive. One guy will say one thing, and another the exact opposite, whether they are referring to behavior or gold or production, etc. To me, this means that the game is well balanced, and that it has a high replay value. When everyone has the same complaint, like with science slowing down in the Industrial age, that is the sign that something is not right.
I am not saying that you should not report what you experience, but don't jump to the conclusion that the game is bad simply because people report difficulties mastering it.
What we all want, I believe, is an enjoyable game that is very hard to win, but fair in its rules and settings.