Whats new?

[Pedrunn]

Hi every one. I am back after these two months without a PC . It is cool to see that even after these months stopped i keep the score of 1.44 posts a day
Good too see too that the community did recovery from that bad time we had a couple months ago. Is Civ3 causing a bad time for CTP2?
It is amazing how fast Civ3 arrived here in Brazil . I have already seen in the stories here in my city. I thought it would take a couple more months to get here as usual.

So, whats in the modmaking community. I want to know what have i miss.
Is the player1 diplomod ready?
Or others AI's modifications?
Is there a newest version of the CityMod or th GoodMod?
What about the Natural Disaters code?
Any big modification or code in the current mods?
Hex, Did you included new tile imps in craddle? How?
Anything else ?

Tell me everything!!!!

[Immortal Wombat]

Originally posted by Pedrunn
Hi every one. I am back after these two months without a PC .

Welcome back

Is Civ3 causing a bad time for CTP2?

Not really actually, there were enough people sufficiently disenchanted with Civ3 that there is about the same number of people here as before. The low patch was just before the release.

Is the player1 diplomod ready?

v2.1, but not final. Player1 has left for civ3 though, so Peter Triggs is working on it.

Or others AI's modifications?

Not yet...

Is there a newest version of the CityMod or th GoodMod?

NAFAIK

What about the Natural Disaters code?

A small add-on that gives visible hurricanes, but not perfect by any means.

Any big modification or code in the current mods?

No.

[Pedrunn]

Originally posted by Immortal Wombat
A small add-on that gives visible hurricanes, but not perfect by any means.
No.

How unperfect is it? id you test it already? Does it give any problem? Can you attach it?

[Immortal Wombat]

Originally posted by Pedrunn


How unperfect is it? id you test it already? Does it give any problem? Can you attach it?

It works, the hurricanes appear, but the barbarians seem to be able to control the units, so you end up with a forty-movement super-unit that piles through any army it can reach, but never attacks a city. And then runs out of fuel. Its attatched in a thread entitled. "For the Big Mc: Hurricanes". See what you think.

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Pedrunn
Is there a newest version of the CityMod or th GoodMod?

Not yet, as started my university studies here in Berlin, I have much less time as in the past. But I hope I can finish GoodMod v0.98 at Christmas. On Friday I was able to incoorperate the improtant stuff of player1 strategies.txt into my one, I only need to reassemble my file.

-Martin

[Peter Triggs]

Hi, Pedrunn

Good to see you back!

Tell me everything!!!!

I'm still plugging away on a new version of Diplomod. One thing I've implemented is a system so that you can establish an embassy via the Diplomatic screen. As soon as you get Bureaucracy (Dynasty in Cradle) you can try to establish an embassy in the territory of every other civ with which you've made contact. Likewise, you can offer them the opportunity of establishing an embassy in your territory. AIcivs will make these requests/offers to each other and to a human (depending on how much they like him).

Another quite big change is that most treaties (ceasefire, peace, trade, research, military, alliances) will have either fixed terms of 30 or 60 turns, or go on forever as at present. Hexagonian suggested this to me and I think it's an excellent idea. The thing is that at present if two players agree to a treaty it automatically goes on forever; the only way of breaking it is to go to war. But consider, for example, the following:

         TREATY_RESEARCH_PACT  Whenever two AIcivs are both behind a human in knowledge and he is #1, one will 
         offer a medium length RESEARCH_PACT to the other. The chance that the AIciv will make the offer depends on 
         the difficulty level the human player has chosen:

                    Difficulty Level     % of Human's Knowledge rank that both AIcivs must be lower than
                       easy               50%   
                       medium             60%
                       hard               70%
                       very hard          80%
                       impossible         90%

         (These %'s  may need tweaking)

By the time the term of the treaty runs out, the game situation may have changed. So this system is in effect a built in feedback mechanism that will re-evaluate the current game situation before any two AI civs renew a treaty. The same applies to the conditions under which an AIciv will offer a Human a treaty or accept one from him.

The details of getting this to work are mind-numbingly tedious; but I think I'm getting towards the end of the debugging stage so it shouldn't be too long now.

[Pedrunn]

One thing I've implemented is a system so that you can establish an embassy via the Diplomatic screen.

Terrific idea. Much more realistic. Is it already included in the Diplomod or Will it be in the future diplomod versions?
Cant wait to try it.

Another quite big change is that most treaties (ceasefire, peace, trade, research, military, alliances) will have either fixed terms of 30 or 60 turns, or go on forever as at present.

Great idea too!
Did you guys get AI-AI treaties working?

[The Big Mc]

hi the big mc here

I tested the hurricane mod it works good if you have my latest code which gets rid of barbarian cites by selling them it prevents the barbarians from keeping it safe.

or you could mod it to a new player.

it's good to have a few more people in here anyway.

[hexagonian]

Pedrunn,
Welcome back to our little enclave.

Peter
You know I am looking forward to this!!! I hadn't heard of any updates from you lately. Any luck on the Frenzy rewrite?

This got me to thinking that Frenzy or a modified Frenzy may be a way to overcome the AI unit logjam problem that had stalled the 'Alexander' rewrite.

Care to take a look at that Locutus? (Harlan said that you were looking into the problem...)

[player1]

Originally posted by Peter Triggs
Hi, Pedrunn

Good to see you back!



I'm still plugging away on a new version of Diplomod. One thing I've implemented is a system so that you can establish an embassy via the Diplomatic screen. As soon as you get Bureaucracy (Dynasty in Cradle) you can try to establish an embassy in the territory of every other civ with which you've made contact. Likewise, you can offer them the opportunity of establishing an embassy in your territory. AIcivs will make these requests/offers to each other and to a human (depending on how much they like him).

Another quite big change is that most treaties (ceasefire, peace, trade, research, military, alliances) will have either fixed terms of 30 or 60 turns, or go on forever as at present. Hexagonian suggested this to me and I think it's an excellent idea. The thing is that at present if two players agree to a treaty it automatically goes on forever; the only way of breaking it is to go to war. But consider, for example, the following:

Code:

TREATY_RESEARCH_PACT Whenever two AIcivs are both behind a human in knowledge and he is #1, one will offer a medium length RESEARCH_PACT to the other. The chance that the AIciv will make the offer depends on the difficulty level the human player has chosen: Difficulty Level % of Human's Knowledge rank that both AIcivs must be lower than easy 50% medium 60% hard 70% very hard 80% impossible 90% (These %'s may need tweaking)

By the time the term of the treaty runs out, the game situation may have changed. So this system is in effect a built in feedback mechanism that will re-evaluate the current game situation before any two AI civs renew a treaty. The same applies to the conditions under which an AIciv will offer a Human a treaty or accept one from him.

The details of getting this to work are mind-numbingly tedious; but I think I'm getting towards the end of the debugging stage so it shouldn't be too long now.

Hey Peter, although I left CTP2 moding, I am still interesting in seeing all what you have done. So post some update at IMP. Diplomod page.

One thing to know is that after putting some of your code in Diplomod, some EXSISTING lines will become OBSOLETE (Like War Over script part, done by myself).

So don't forget te remove them when you are ready.

Also you sould give update of it directly at IMP. DIPL. page.
When it is redy I'll edit first page of thread and POST new VERSION.

Since current one is 1.2,
and your chages look drastic I suggest it to be known as IMPORVED DIPLOMOD v2.0

[Locutus]

Welcome back, Pedrunn! Good to see you again I don't have much to report myself as I've sort-of been away as well. I have very ambitions plans for the future though: watch this space

Originally posted by hexagonian
This got me to thinking that Frenzy or a modified Frenzy may be a way to overcome the AI unit logjam problem that had stalled the 'Alexander' rewrite.

Care to take a look at that Locutus? (Harlan said that you were looking into the problem...)

Sure, that's one of the things that's very high on my to-do list, but I don't think I know what you're talking about: what about this this modified Frenzy? What is it and how does it help solve the stacking-problem? Details, details

Peter,
That stuff sounds VERY impressive. Can't wait to see it in action...

[hexagonian]

Locutus

As I understand, the problem, as it stands now, is that the cities are too-well defended and troops cannot move through them - and the combo of roads/choke points/different terrain movement values will hinder movement due to limitations in the AI programming.

So here is a suggestion...
1. Eliminate most of the roads on the map, except through mountains, so mounted forces can move through them. The implication is that all terrain has roads already in place. You can also keep a couple of key roads that were there from a historical standpoint for a visual on the map (the roads would not have any effect on movement).

If there were any key roads in the scenario, you could have them get a movement bonus, but I would suggest giving them a commerce/food/production bonus to stress their value instead.

Or build them on every city tile. Visually ugly though..

Either way, remove the ability to build roads for everyone.

Make road movement through a mountain one tile with a road in place for all units. You can even take it a step further to alleviate the problem by making the majority of tiles the same movement - but you can use certain types of tiles (swamp, desert hills, brown mountains) to designate some areas that were impassible or difficult to cross.

2. The basis of Frenzy is to pull troops together and move them toward a target. The downside is that Frenzy can overrirde the garrison command, leaving some cities undefended.

You can look at the basic principle of Frenzy to help in troop movement. The code may have to be altered though, but I think in principle, it may be a viable solution. At least it could be something to look into.

Peter mentioned that Frenzy will move troops that have recently fortified, which may be useful info to exploit from an AI standpoint.

It is also possible to set up a basic garrison in cities with your militia code (this would leave those cities defended). You could also set up a large multiple-unit garrison in some key cities. This would offset the negative effects of Frenzy

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by player1
Since current one is 1.2,
and your chages look drastic I suggest it to be known as IMPORVED DIPLOMOD v2.0

I think Diplomod v4.0 would be a better. I guess Dale made already Diplomod v2.0, therefore it would be just confusing if we would call it Improved Diplomod v2.0. I know people will just use the short name and this would be Diplomod 2.0.

-Martin

[Immortal Wombat]

IIRC, Dale's latest version of Diplomod was v3.6.
Just go on from v4.0 I say.

[player1]

Then Diplomod v4.0 will be!

[player1]

At least when is becomes finished by Peter Triggis.

[Dale]

Hey guys. Good to see people are still giving CTP2 some time. Good luck on the Diplomod too. I'd help, but with my Alt-Civ starting to take a solid form I really don't have any time left.

But I'll keep my eyes on this space to see how things progress.

[Immortal Wombat]

Originally posted by Dale
Hey guys. Good to see people are still giving CTP2 some time. Good luck on the Diplomod too. I'd help, but with my Alt-Civ starting to take a solid form I really don't have any time left.

But I'll keep my eyes on this space to see how things progress.

And likewise in reverse no doubt. I've been following your Alt-Civ thread with a gret deal of interest

[Dale]

IW:

[OT]

I should have demo 1.1 up in the next few hours. I'll attach it to the demo 1 thread. All unit movement is now working correctly. You can have two units per square (I included a box to show the units on a tile) and movement rates are implemented. Put an icon on each unit to show if movement is still available (MV icon). What I'm working on right now is starting a "scenario" text file so I can load units, cities, scenario settings etc. I just want the units to load at this point. This'll make the game so far completely MODable, even the graphics.

[/OT]

[Immortal Wombat]

Originally posted by Dale
IW:

[OT]

I should have demo 1.1 up in the next few hours. I'll attach it to the demo 1 thread. All unit movement is now working correctly. You can have two units per square (I included a box to show the units on a tile) and movement rates are implemented. Put an icon on each unit to show if movement is still available (MV icon). What I'm working on right now is starting a "scenario" text file so I can load units, cities, scenario settings etc. I just want the units to load at this point. This'll make the game so far completely MODable, even the graphics.

Wow, downloading

[/OT]

[Locutus]

hex,
Thanks for the info and ideas. Although the solutions you proposed IMHO aren't entirely satisfactory for various reasons (although I'd probably have to discuss that with Harlan), it at the very least got me thinking in a different direction.

At this point I think that - for the Alex scenario - the best option would probably be to just make *all* roads 2 tiles wide (and if that's visually ugly make the second 'lane' invisible). I briefly tried that last night and it seemed to work fairly well, wasn't nearly as ugly as I thought it would be either. Some extra SLIC code could then prevent units from fortifying on the second lane - that would probably solve the problem quite well with a minimum amount of work involved.

For regular (non-Alex) games I could write up some SLIC code that automatically creates roads around a city (in a not-too-ugly way). Since choke-points away from cities are, at least in my experience, fairly rare in regular games I think that would largely solve the problem for those games as well (although the amount of coding required would probably be fairly considerable, esp. if you want to avoid creating more roads than strictly necessary). I guess I ought to contact Harlan about this, at least see if he still cares about this (he seems pretty hooked on Civ3)...

I think adding a modified Frenzy code in both Alex and the regular game is a great idea, provided you can keep cities properly garrissoned (which at least in Alex is not hard to do). Harlan complained about passive AI in the past: if this is combined with custom-code I'm still to write (if I ever get around to it) for the Generals and Darius (and the Persian/Phoenician navy) it will greatly enhance the whole experience of the scenario: you'll actually fight an aggressive opponent rather than a mostly passive one.

[Pedrunn]

Originally posted by Locutus
At this point I think that - for the Alex scenario - the best option would probably be to just make *all* roads 2 tiles wide

I think adding a modified Frenzy code in both Alex and the regular game is a great idea

Wider roads? Modified Frenzy?
Can someone help me find the track? i have no idea you guys are talking about?

Peter, do you have any idea when we can have the Diplomod to set embassies through diplomatic screen. I really loved that idea. ( if it is already done i would prefer a version 3.7 with this option before all the changes you plan to make to 4.0)