What mods should I use, and is it possible to use several mods simultaniously? Help!

Jrat · January 16, 2002, 03:21

Hi, I'm new here, and, after trying out Civ III, and getting fed up with it, I brought it back, and got CTP II. Now, I'm wondering which mods I should use, if any, and, if it is possible to use several mods at once. I am new to mod packs, and would also appreciate a little help on instalation as well... Thanks!

Oerdin · January 16, 2002, 03:32

Yes, using the mod swapper you can use several mods similtaniously. As for which mods are best... well that's kind of like saying which care is best. It depends on what you are after.

Jrat · January 16, 2002, 05:09

Knowing that I can use several Mods at the same time, I'll see what I can do now. Thanks!

hexagonian · January 16, 2002, 11:08

Here's a wrapup of the three main Mods, so you know what to expect...Link up below

MOD WRAPUP

Small note of clarification...

When you have the Mods on your system, you can switch from Mod to Mod for different games, but once a game is created in a Mod, you cannot convert that game to another Mod setup.

All need the official Activision patch and Modswapper to operate.

Jrat · January 17, 2002, 00:17

Let me confirm this. It IS possible to play with several mods, within one game. If so, I'll install all of the three mods available. However, if I can only play one at a time, I'll probably go with medmod, as it looks to be the most well rounded.

Locutus · January 17, 2002, 02:50

Let me try to set this straight: when you install the mods and modswapper and installl them correctly, you no longer start up the game with ctp.exe but you start it up with modswapper. When you do this modswapper will show a screen with all the mods installed and you can select one to play with (FE MedMod) and start the game (from within modswapper). Once the game has loaded you can either start a new game with the mod (the MedMod) you selected or load a savegame that you also started with this same mod some previous time. However, you cannot play with a savegame that was started with a different mod (FE Cradle), the game would simply crash. The next time you decide to play CtP2, you once again start up with modswapper but might select a different mod to play with (FE Cradle). Then too you can start a new game with this mod (Cradle) or load old savegames, but you cannot load the savegame of the game that you played the previous time (the MedMod game).

So you *can* have more than 1 mod installed at the same time and play with all of them but you *cannot* play with several mods in the same game, you would have to quit and restart CtP2 for that and start a new game/load a different savegame.

I hope that clears up all the confusion... (I personally recommend downloading all three mods, or at least both MedMod and Cradle)

Jrat · January 17, 2002, 03:18

Thanks... When I installed the Apolyton Mod to my CTP II folder, I was forced to over-write some files. So how do I install more than one mod, if each one deletes various parts of other mods? Am I doing something wrong?

Locutus · January 17, 2002, 05:41

Hmmm, I always manually install mods (extract the files to a different folder and manually move them to the CtP folders, while already making some changes along the way) so I'm not quite sure about this but I don't think anything important is overwritten, at least not with Cradle or MedMod. Others can tell that better than me though, I'm sure...

Jrat · January 17, 2002, 12:40

Well, as I said before, I was using the "Apolyton" mod. I am hoping that which was deleted is not pertinant to the origional game... Maybe It over wrote the same files that were there before, I don't know. Anyhow, I'll keep trying!

Martin Gühmann · January 17, 2002, 13:15

So far as I know, there are two files that can overwrite Apolyton Pack. The first one is the scenarioeditor.ldl in your ..\ctp2_data\english\uidata\layouts folder. The different between this version and the original version is that you can create cities of a maximum size of 999 instead of 200. I don't know if this file is also in Cradle or MedPack. But if yes also these mod will ask you if this file can be overwritten.

Another file that could be overwritten if you have installed MedPack2 is the computer.tga in your ..\ctp2_data\default\graphics\pictures folder. Wes' version contains the graphics for the computer advance. The Apol' version contains the image for the computer age (name from Harlan's image pack) or rather known in the English version as info age.
But it is no problem if this one picture replaces the other picture. Only the wrong graphic is shown in the Great Library that does not cause a crash, it is just a optical problem.

Both files comes from CityMod2, I did not know that Wes used the same name for one of his *.tga's. Because of that problem I released CityMod2.1. That's the main difference between the two version plus some small fixes.

Another point is if you have Cradle installed than all the Citysprites will be overwritten, but that is no problem as these files are just copies from the ones on my harddrive.

You can keep in mind if a file has the same date, the size and the same name as an already existing file than these files are identical.

-Martin

Leonidas · February 22, 2002, 13:31

Martin:

Just curious. Is your CityMod 2.1 already in Cradle 1.2?

If not, can it be installed in my current version of Cradle without messing things up?

Thanks

Locutus · February 22, 2002, 13:57

Quote:

Originally posted by Leonidas
Just curious. Is your CityMod 2.1 already in Cradle 1.2?

It's in both Cradle and MedMod (the most recognizable characteristic of it is the Pyramid city-style of the Egyptian (and other) civs).

Leonidas · February 22, 2002, 14:28

Thanks,

I didn't see it in the readme anywhere. . .

I like the new buildings.

I hope you guys keep working on this game. . .

Martin Gühmann · February 23, 2002, 09:34

It is not only in Cradle, but also in MedPack2 and we shouldn't forget Locutus that it is in ApolytonPack, too. And finally of course there is no setup of GoodMod without the new citystyles. So it is in all mods.

Maybe I should tell Dave that he should mention it in his readme.

-Martin

Leonidas · February 23, 2002, 12:36

I first noticed the new city styles in Medpack. It's good to hear they made it into all of the modpacks. They are some of the finest city graphics I have seen in civ-style games. They are very authentic looking.

Just one question:

Is it possible to play any of the scenarios using any of the modpacks (such as Apolyton Pack?). It would be great to take advantage of some of the improvements (especially the AI) when playing the Alexander scenario, for instance. . .

If none of the main modpacks can be used, are there any small, individual improvements (such as Frenzy and/or CityMod) that could be usd when playing a scenario?

Locutus · February 23, 2002, 18:30

No, the scenarios only work with the original game. You could no doubt make manual improvements by copy-pasting parts of other mods into the scenario files but then you would actually be modding the scenario, I don't think that's what you're aiming for (although that's not even all that hard to do, if you're willing to invest some time in learning it).

Immortal Wombat · February 23, 2002, 19:00

Quote:

Originally posted by Locutus
No, the scenarios only work with the original game.

Although I did make a MedMod version of my OCC scenario, but as that was pretty well impossible anyway, not many people looked at it.

Tut, Locutus.

I don't know how up to date it is, or if it works still, but try it.

Locutus · February 23, 2002, 19:18

Quote:

Originally posted by Immortal Wombat
Tut, Locutus.

I assumed Leonidas was referring the the scenarios that came with the original game. If you look at custom scenarios, it varies of course, depending on whatever the scenario maker designs his stuff for. I've seen scenarios based on MedMod, Cradle and Apolyton (some, like your OCC, may even work on several mods), but I get a lot of early alphas and stuff over email (an advantage of having the reputation of a SLIC guru

), I have no idea how much of that was actually released publicly.