Cradle 1.2 - Page 4

player1 · November 21, 2001, 11:54

WRONG,
CTP2 AI select targets depending of FORCE MATCHING of his units and DEFENDER units.
So, he KNOWS your defense.

In my expirience, it happend to me that computer attacks my weaker inner city instead of a border one (since he know that it is ligher defended).

hexagonian · November 21, 2001, 12:41

Well, here's the quote that I read...

Quote:

Originally posted by CyberGnu
Umm, I think Soren said the complete opposite. He confirmed that the computer knows where your units are at all times, but it is intended.

He also claimed the the AI in CTP2 doesn't know where your units are, with the result of an overly passive AI, incapable of waging offesnive warfare.

I wish there was a middle ground... I'm OK with the computer knowing where every unit is, say, four tiles from his border. It's when they launch a amphibious attack out of nowhere on the one undefended city in your heartland it pisses me off.

So it is probably true that the CTP2 AI can determine the makeup of your forces when it is next to them, but it does not know where those forces are located - the point being that stealth units are truly stealth units in CTP2 - and the CTP2 AI still operates under the fog of war while the civ3 AI does not - which would still be a very powerful cheat.

I stand by my comments.

player1 · November 22, 2001, 03:35

First S. J. didn't program CTP2.

Second, "maybe" AI just knows defense in cities (I AM COMPLETLY POSITIVE ABOUT THIS),
but not of units wandering around in fog of war.

In any other way AI would not even move units out of cities.

I say this because I actully KNOW how CTP2 AI works.

Look that old thread with some AI guy from Activison (Amzel or something)

player1 · November 22, 2001, 03:44

The only problem with force matching is that it doesn't take into accout FP.
So if you increase Force Match values., units will attacky to rarely (especial those with high FP), but if you lower it to much then those low FP units will go to beserk.
Main reason of bad tactical AI is actually BORROWED AI from CTP1, where units didn't have FP.
So they taked it, but didn't took FP in consideration.
That's also a reson, why AI is active in ancient age, but pretty passive in rennesance & modern age.

Maybe if you could make a new force matching values for every age?

...

Nah, to much SLICing & playtesting.

player1 · November 22, 2001, 03:55

Then there is also a so called Loctus-Alexander bug.

Where AI stacked units try to go through other city with units but fail,
because they all are to large for city (more then 12).
Still, AI keeps trying indefinetly (instead of going aroud), so his units get stucked near cities, chokepoints & other fortified stacks.
This is usually happening when AI built enough roads & railroads.

This is BUG, which nobody (yet) know how to FIX.
It greatly decreases AI performance.

hexagonian · November 26, 2001, 16:41

I'm guessing that Soren had a close look at the files of a competitor though...

Below is a small update to the buildings.txt file. Not critical by any stretch of the imagination - merely another fine-tune.

This file boosts the benefits of all gold-producing buildings and gives a slight reduction to maintenance costs for all buildings in the game.

player1 · November 26, 2001, 18:00

Quote:

Originally posted by hexagonian
I'm guessing that Soren had a close look at the files of a competitor though...

Probably not much closer then we had.

Any other way would mean that he has a source code, wich would be a law violation.

Still, many thing can be learned from text files.

Like I learned.

Changmai Beagle · December 5, 2001, 01:28

Thanks very much for the Cradle mod. I am using (and appreciating) it. The goody hut problem is causing me some grief. Is this something that anyone is working on? Or perhaps it's just not fixable..........

With some people coming back to CTP2, it'd be nice if someone came up with a workaround so everyone could get the full enjoyment of this mod.

hexagonian · December 5, 2001, 09:45

Quote:

Originally posted by Changmai Beagle
Thanks very much for the Cradle mod. I am using (and appreciating) it. The goody hut problem is causing me some grief. Is this something that anyone is working on? Or perhaps it's just not fixable..........

With some people coming back to CTP2, it'd be nice if someone came up with a workaround so everyone could get the full enjoyment of this mod.

If you are referring to the long wait times when you find a military unit in a hut, I do not think that issue can be resolved. Locutus worked on the SLIC coding that causes that problem (it is part of the militia code) and was not able to do anything about it after a lot of attempts.

The easiest way is to remove the chance of getting a military unit from a goody hut, but I like getting those units, so I put up with the wait. And the AI will empty out the huts over time, so by the time you hit turn 100 or so, it does not happen all that much.

If you want to change this, go into risks.txt and change the chances to get a unit to 0.00 on all the file entries.

Still, it's not as bad as the civ3 late game wait periods...

ENGINEER · December 6, 2001, 21:17

I agree about the late game waits in Civ 3, it takes forever sometimes

hexagonian · December 10, 2001, 13:49

Here's a couple of small updates.

The first is player1's revision to Diplomod. This has not been tested though.It is available at
The Land of Hexagonia
located under the SLIC options section.

Please make a backup of the existing CRA_diplomod.slc file in case you want to switch back.

The second file is an update to the Units.txt file that will enable pillaging/piracy for all ancient sea units. Attached below, and also available as part of the updates at my site (though the file below is only the Units.txt file)...

Changmai Beagle · December 10, 2001, 19:03

I can't seem to get slaves with Chariots (even with both chariot and slave techs). I'm playing Cradle with the AI enhancement package.

hexagonian · December 11, 2001, 10:30

In earlier editions of Cradle, most of the Ancient units had the enslave ability - with the end result that every battle created a slave. It did reflect historical realism, but also led to some balance issues.

The military enslave ability has been limited to the Slavemaster, the Ancient Leaders, and 2 of the gov. specific units (Pezheteroi and Praetorians). This was done because creating slaves was becoming too easy. And it allows a player a little more freedom in choosing not to slave, which will make the game even tougher.

However, if you want to give that ability to any unit, go into units.txt and add the line

VictoryEnslavement

to the unit entry. Its' an easy fix.

Boney · December 14, 2001, 04:29

Cradle is a great Mod, enjoying immensely. One prob, game crashes when I try to save, invalid page. But the autosave works, is there anything that can be done?

hexagonian · December 14, 2001, 10:29

Hmmmm, haven't run into that problem yet - and I do not know how it can be fixed. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Finally, my thread has been topped!!!

(What did I do to deserve this...Thanks to whoever is administering this Forum)

Now if I could get Cradle posted onsite, that would make my day.

hexagonian · December 14, 2001, 13:35

Since there has been some additional traffic here, I will post the readmes/charts for Cradle.

The Cradle Mod is large (approximately 12 MB, and this does not include Modswapper and Patch), but the attached Readme files will allow a player to get a general overview before going to the trouble of downloading.

The Mod is located at my site - a link is below too.

Martin Gühmann · December 14, 2001, 15:00

Quote:

Originally posted by hexagonian
Now if I could get Cradle posted onsite, that would make my day.

I guess MarkG would be very happy to have 12 MB on his e-mail account.

At least this worked with CityMod2. A small additional hint that the add a file page doesn't work (I got an internal server error as I tried it, today), and you made it very hard to overlook your submission although you didn't went the official way over that non working form. And maybe you should start then somewhere an complaint thread about that issure or send an e-mail to DanQ.

-Martin

Locutus · December 14, 2001, 22:27

Quote:

Originally posted by hexagonian
Finally, my thread has been topped!!!

(What did I do to deserve this...Thanks to whoever is administering this Forum)

What did you do? Well, apart from making the best available mod for CtP2 (though MedMod isn't far behind), I suppose not much

Well, officially Markos is administering this forum but in practice I'm calling the shots (well, yesterday anyway)...

Quote:

Now if I could get Cradle posted onsite, that would make my day.

Don't worry, we're working on it... (that is, Markos is doing all the work (for now) and I keep harassing him with PMs, emails, ICQ messages, etc to make sure he continues to do so

)

Lou Wigman · December 17, 2001, 19:13

Having just played that abomination civ3 for a week or so I decided to try the cradle MOD. What can I say? This is absolutely brilliant. I am sitting here in a daze after playing all day and into the night till 3am for the past week or so. Its a long, long time since a game has so enthralled me that I would do that! My hats off to all of you involved in this venture.

Suffering as I am from a severe case of lack of sleep I am in no condition to give any coherent analysis of the MOD. Let me ask, however, if SLIC code can be used to incorporate some of the undoubted good ideas in civ3. For example, is it possible to use the 'goods' to implement a strategic resource type of concept. Is it possible to use capture city as a trigger for a 'nationality' type unhappiness (some of this already occurs). This must sound a bit archaic but just where are the functions that CPT2 uses in SLIC defined. You got me very interested now.

CONGRATULATIONS!!!. This MOD is definitely worth more money than I paid!

Immortal Wombat · December 17, 2001, 19:23

Quote:

Originally posted by Lou Wigman
For example, is it possible to use the 'goods' to implement a strategic resource type of concept. Is it possible to use capture city as a trigger for a 'nationality' type unhappiness (some of this already occurs).

The resources thing is being considered, it takes a lot of AI work, so its touch-and-go. See the Civ3 mod thread for more details.

Quote:

This must sound a bit archaic but just where are the functions that CPT2 uses in SLIC defined. You got me very interested now.

Try http://apolyton.net/ctp2/modification for the SLIC stuff. And there is another thread floating downwards with a few SLIC guides and links to others in.

hexagonian · December 20, 2001, 14:11

I will be on vacation starting Friday, Dec 21 through Wednesday, Jan 2, so I will not be online all that much during that time. If you have any questions/problems with 'Cradle', post them here anyhow and one of the regulars around here will probably be able to help you.

I have provided an update with some more fixes at my site. I have also updated the main Cradle download to have all of the changes made up to this point. Of note is...

- A fix to all the Diplomatic/Spy units that gives them the correct elite status (before, those units actually had a greatly reduced success rate at Elite status - now they have a (+10%) chance).

- The Ancient Spy unit can also attempt to Assassinate a ruler.

There is a readme that provides all of the Special Unit abilities and success rates.

- Balancing between Republic/Oligarchy
Minor boost to Republic's Production and Food Rate and a minor reduction in Oligarchy Food Rate

The Raptor · January 9, 2002, 18:26

I just download Cradle, and also sent it to a friend of mine. It feels like someone actually finished what Activision started. In two days, we've put a combined 50 hours. Just wanted to point out that several commodities don't show up by their given name, only ocean_commidity_one or some such.

Shadow · January 13, 2002, 06:19

OK, I've read about 75% of this thread, but just couldn't wait any longer! Cradle Mod is being downloaded as I type. I'm so hangin' out for more of a challenge, as the impossible setting was getting a tad boring...

So to say I'm excited is a bit of an understatement. I just hope it works!!!

Anyway, I'm about to unzip it all and give it a testrun, so I'll post how it goes.

Cheers, Shadow.

Shadow · January 13, 2002, 06:30

It's installed fine and ModSwapper is up.

But...

Here's the options ModSwapper gives me :

-Cradle of Civilisation 1.2
-Cradle Ultra Gigantic Maps
-Cradle Deity Slayer (AI SLIC boosts)
-Cradle Seafarers Version 1
-Cradle Preference of Hextapul
-Cradle More Peaceful AI

I've got a fair idea of what a couple do, but others have me stumped. Can anyone give me any info on the options listed???

Also, say I pick the second option and go with Ultra Gigantic Maps, does that mean that I can't take advantage of whatever coding may be tweaked the Seafareres mod, or the Deity Slayer
mod?

Is there a preference among people for a certain option when starting a new game?

OK, I'm done with the questions.

[gets down from soap box]

Shadow

Shadow · January 13, 2002, 06:53

Well, the fancy list and bunch of questions in my last post is neither here nor there, considering that I can no longer launch CTP II at all.

Even after a reboot, every option in the modswapper list (including non-cradle options) leads to an illegal operation before anything even starts.

This is the error I get:

---------------------------------------------

CTP2 caused an invalid page fault in
module CTP2.EXE at 015f:00608899.
Registers:
EAX=00000000 CS=015f EIP=00608899 EFLGS=00010206
EBX=00d4fd8c SS=0167 ESP=00d4fd68 EBP=00d4fd9c
ECX=00efce70 DS=0167 ESI=00efce70 FS=109f
EDX=bffc9490 ES=0167 EDI=007a9698 GS=0000
Bytes at CS:EIP:
8b 80 a4 00 00 00 50 8b 08 ff 51 08 8b 8e d0 00
Stack dump:
00000000 00407405 00000000 8163e8b4
00000000 00d4f5e8 78037ce8 00d4fd70
00d4fb98 00d4fe28 0078d3fc 007a9698
ffffffff 00d4fe38 0078d8fc 00400000

---------------------------------------------

Here're the changes I've made (in order) to CTP II since installation:

- Activision Patch
- Apolyton Pack
- ModSwapper
- CityMod
- GoodMod
- Cradle (downloaded from Hexagonians site at 131030UTC)

Cradle was installed exactly as per instructions also downloaded from Hexagonians site.

I've got no idea, other than to start all over...

Any clues people?

Shadow

P.S. I guess this could be something relatively simple to fix, and although I'm not a complete dunce when it comes to coding, I'm no genius either. So any help is appreciated.

Shadow · January 13, 2002, 19:31

After many, many re-installations, CTP II finally works again. So, please ignore the ravings in my last post.

Actually, I might just delete it if that's possible...

All mods including Cradle installed ok and the first game with 14 civs on the biggest map is under way. I picked the "Deity Slayer" option in ModSwapper and all is well so far with only about 12 turns played (just to test).

My only constructive comment is that perhaps some of the better known civs should have stayed. I'm gunna miss a lot of the more familiar (todays) city names. Anyway, I'll do a search to see if there's any way to alter civ and city names.

Cheers,
Shadow

hexagonian · January 13, 2002, 19:37

You may have to uninstall CTP2 and try again. I know that the files on my site (12_19) work, as I did an install with them last December - and there hasn't been any reports of a corrupted file from anyone else - and I have not updated the zipped files since then.

Possibly try this before the uninstall...Grab the 12_19 Update file and unzip it over the existing files.

And did you grab the updated Wombat disaster SLIC file that had been recently posted - if so, use the default file instead as there was a report of SLIC errors when using that file - at least I want to confirm that the problem was because of a player making an edit in the file.

I hate when this happens, because I do not have your computer in front of me to see if the files were all installed correctly.

As a sidenote, the playing options are all variations of Cradle 1.2 - and there is are a lot of file combinations to use. At this point, the hardest setup is the AI setup. If you want to play with oversized maps with the AI boosts, you have to create a new gamefile.txt with the files that will correspond with what you want to do.

The 'Preferences of Hextapul' is my personal combo.

One thing I will say, I recently tried the SeaFarer's Edition and was not happy with the results, so that setup is still very experimental.

Good Luck

hexagonian · January 13, 2002, 19:57

There's a set of folders within Cradle with the original civs in the folders

ctp2_data\default\gamedata\CRA_playing options\orig civs

and

ctp2_data\english\gamedata\CRA_original civs

Switch out the files in those folders with the existing files

hexagonian · January 17, 2002, 15:02

With the discussion on another thread concerning the later game influx of gold, I have gone ahead and set up a revised zipped file below. Please note that this file will create a new Cradle Setup in Modswapper, called

CRADLE 1.3 Beta

This file is a modification of the DeitySlayer's version of Cradle. This setup will eventually include Peter Triggs update for Diplomacy, when it is finished.

The revisions are as follows

Buildings
Agora - 10% from 15% Gold
Airport - 15% from 20% Gold
Bank - 10% from 15% Gold
Brokerage - 10% from 15% Gold
City Clock - 10% from 15% Gold
Craft Guild - No Gold from 1 per citizen
Marketplace - 1 per citizen from 3 per citizen
Television - 3 per citizen from 5 per citizen

Theatre - +1 Happiness from +2 Happiness

Governments
-1 Martial Law Units for all Governments
Slight Increase in Distance Unhappiness
+50% Rush Buy Modifiers for Tribunal Empire and all governments past TE

SLIC
Revised Disaster SLIC code - 20% Pop loss from 33%
Increase in Unit Update costs - +50% - Medieval/Early Modern - +75% Late Modern+

I think this should make the game tougher so if you are not having enough difficulty in Cradle, give this one a shot. Any input is welcome too.

Lou Wigman · January 18, 2002, 19:10

This may have been mentioned before. If it has I apologise. Unit recovery is very slow (10% per turn from memory). However a unit placed in a fort will recover in 1 turn.

On a separate note. Unit maintenance is based on production points. Perhaps a gold cost could also be introduced. At its most basic 1 gold per turn per unit?