Civ 3 mod for CtP 2?

[Solver]

Locutus, Dale, WesW and the others.

I got Civ 3, and love the game, the two patches basically fixed my complaints with it. However, recently I've got a very strong wish to play CtP again. I don't think that CtP is any "better" or "worse" than Civ 3, there are things that make those different games, pretty much - PW, stealth units, future, completely different combat system.

Of the two CtPs, I generally prefer CtP 2 - a cleaner interface, a bit less bugs, and more balanced. Of course, I can only play the game with one of the mods here at Apolyton.

But now, that I played anohter bit of CtP, I really missed some of Civ 3 stuff - as much as I miss the unconventional units in Civ 3. Namely, I miss culture and strategic resources.

I have not taken the time to learn SLIC, though, I can program and it shouldn't be too hard. What I want to say is that I don't know how much is it possible to do through SLIC, but I'm almost completely sure that culture can be implemented there - give certain buildings certain points, and have them accumulate, and so on.

A question to you SLIC masters, is it theoretically possible to implement something similar to luxury and/or strategic resources in Civ 3 into CtP 2 using SLIC? I hope some of the ideas are possible, but here I got strong doubts.

So, is anyone more or less interested in adding a Civ 3 mod to CtP 2?

[Immortal Wombat]

Its been discussed. The major problem is getting the AI up to Civ3 standard.

[Pedrunn]

This was tried befor you just need to find someone experienced and interested on actually make all the modwork (Quite a lot). Not to mention convert the civ3 flcs (we got those already) to sprite. All text files and slic work.
And yet being tied to civ3 standard not being able to implement new ideas(modders are usuall too creative to be so tied).

Originally posted by Solver
A question to you SLIC masters, is it theoretically possible to implement something similar to luxury and/or strategic resources in Civ 3 into CtP 2 using SLIC? I hope some of the ideas are possible, but here I got strong doubts.

This is my dream. I will make some reseach on it.
Yet, if any slicer become intersted i am voluntary to the texts work

[Solver]

Wombat, it's not my belief that the AI can be made that high and that it's actually necessary, for Civ 3 is different somewhat. What we would need is getting the AI some routines to actually give Shrines, Academies and such higher BUILD_VALUE so that the AI would build it even if there's no immediate need for those facilities.

Now, I do hope that this thread will bring some modders to the place. Pedrunn, why do you see is at we have to convert those flics? It's not that Civ 3 units need to be there, moreover, they are pretty diferently presented, for CtP series units are bigger and maybe a more detailed animation - not as smooth, though.

As for strategic resources, this is where I can see trouble, for actually we then have to define certain tiles, randomly determined, and give them flags: LUXURY_RESOURCE_INCENSE or STRATEGIC_RESOURCE_OIL, but there also needs to be a graphic representation of those. Hm.

I plan to get back to CtP stuff shortly, and it would be good to see the Civ 3 mod, I guess it could addict more people to CtP 2. There are quite a few people (damn, take a look at Civ 3 general section) that are quite unhappy with Civ 3, mainly due to the combat system, but like, however, the concepts of natural resources and culture... a perfect choice then would be CtP 2.

Theoretically, there's another thing that it would be nice to have in CtP 2, but I know that isn't possible, no matter how good you know SLIC... I mean many-to-one and one-to-many proposals, like i give you 250 gold, this tech and my map for this tech. But once again, that is not something that could be made.

Finally, I disagree with this:

(modders are usuall too creative to be so tied).

Modders also want to improve the game, and, putting some ideas from Civ 3 into CtP 2 would certainly benefit the gameplay.

[Immortal Wombat]

Now, I do hope that this thread will bring some modders to the place

Some more, you mean

Strategic resources is implementable, Peter and I looked into it in detail a while ago, and decided if the AI can be taught to need and use them, it can be done.
Culture is more difficult. The theory can be done, sure. Add up the buildings, keep a running total. In practice, there would be no way to see the results of the culture, and no way to see what is happening with any of the cities. A whole new interface and access to it is beyond our abilities.

[Pedrunn]

Originally posted by Immortal Wombat
Strategic resources is implementable, Peter and I looked into it in detail a while ago, and decided if the AI can be taught to need and use them, it can be done.

I always thought it could be possible.
But how it will work on?
I always thought it was better the fact of having just a trade route of a certain good a prereq to build a unit/building better than really giving values to it (Eg 5 tons of wood for ships of lines, 7 tons of iron for troopships, etc).
And as i see this is the only way to implement into CTP2. But will became less complex and easier t the AI.
Peter could you give some info about implementing Strategic resources. I do whatever it takes to implement it.

[Immortal Wombat]

But how it will work?

As in Civ3. If you have the right good, you can build the units. If not, you can't.
The trade would probably have to be done through messageboxes, because there is very little SLIC access to the current trade system.

[Pedrunn]

But how will be possible to find and buy a certain good? Since it ctp2 we can only sell.

[Peter Triggs]

I'm not sure that it's possible to implement Strategic resources in CTP2 but I think it is. However, it would take a lot of work.

First of all, we gotta get clear on what we're trying to do. As I recall, it was going to work like this:

There is a set of strategic resources {bronze, iron, rubber, oil, ...}. These resources limit the type of unit the player can build, e.g., you can't build tanks until you have iron, rubber, and oil.

The resources become visible on the map when you get certain advances, e.g., when the player obtains ADVANCE_IRON_WORKING he'll be able to see some iron deposits in his city's radii. It would also be nice to seed some iron deposits around the whole map that will only become visible when they enter a unit's vision range, but I'm not sure if this will work out.

One problem is that if these things show up as trade goods, I think they'll automatically turn up in the trade system. But it's not just preferable but IMO necessary to incorporate them into the diplomacy system. (You have surplus iron and those pesky Sumerians don't; offer them some iron provided they sign a peace treaty. Stuff like that.) The trade system is basically unexposed and there are very few SLIC functions that deal with trade. Maybe Martin knows how to add these special resource icons without having them show up in the trade system.

But anyway, that's about as far as we got: as I recall, we had some code that would make some resources become visible when the player obtained the relevent advance. If you want to proceed, the question is "What do you do with the resources once you've discovered them?" Remember this was before Civ3 was released, later there were complaints about how strategic resources had been implemented there, so we don't have to copy them.

As Wombat said, the thing that put the project on the shelf was the fact that we couldn't get the AI to deal with these resources: at the time we didn't know how to do AI-AI diplomacy. We can do this now but it's difficult. And whenever you put a system into the game that allows a Human player to make choices, things get complicated. So although I think it is possible to use the diplomacy system to let players trade strategic resources, writing the response logic would probably require an incredible amount of programming.

[Solver]

Still, though, can we try to figure something out?

I'm not sure yet whether there really is a way to hide certain resources... I believe this is what we need to do first, diplomacy then. Also, strategic resources should be a bit more rare than trade goods, I think. Yes, by the way, is there a SLIC function to see whether city x has a road connection to city y? This is needed to keep the resource distribution as in Civ 3, so that roads would be given again more importance.

[Peter Triggs]

Yes, by the way, is there a SLIC function to see whether city x has a road connection to city y?

Nope, and I think it would be very CPU intensive to implement this Civ3 feature. (BTW, I think they got it from Imperialism2, another innovative but unsuccessful game.)

[Solver]

Odd... I don't think the strategic resource system slows Civ 3 down much.

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Solver
Odd... I don't think the strategic resource system slows Civ 3 down much.

You're kidding right? Ever tried running Civ3 on a P200? It doesn't run, it crawls... CtP2 runs smoothly on a P133... I'm sure this is more than just strategic resources but it helps...

[Solver]

I must disagree here. I've been running CtP on a 166 machine... 5-7 minutes between turns. I got a two years old machine at home, and Civ 3 runs extremely well at it - no slowdowns. I play with 8 civs, though, 16 civs was terrible. CtP 2 runs very fast, too, though.

[centrifuge]

From my experience, CTP2 and Civ3 run at about the same speed, as long as it isn't a huge map with 16 civs, those turns just take far to long on Civ3, I have yet to try CTP2 with more than 8 civs, so I can't make a direct comparison. I think that it is an excellent Idea to try to incorporate some(not all) of Civ3's attributes into CTP2

[centrifuge]

The two things that I would most like to see for CTP2 is a diplomacy system similar to Civ3, and the strategic resources... We should be able to trade more than one thing at a time(ie. give me 10 gold per turn and an advance, and I won't pummel you) and it would also be nice to have a clearer idea of what the AI will and will not accept in a trade(trade advisor). As far as strategic resources, this is probably the best feature of Civ3, it just makes sense. If you don't have oil, you either have to find some, or trade for some or else you can't make that tank.

[Ekmek]

Don't let this die!

I helped put the Civ3 flics in, I hope we can see these in CTP2.

The only other thing is the resources. really if we can building units based on resources, civ3 would be pointless to play.

I see that the CTP2 terrain graphics are a little weak. Anyone know where better graphics are? If not, I'll do some work once I get my stuf set up (been without it for 2 months) and provide terrain TIFs from Civ3, AoK, and galactic battlegrounds.

[Solver]

Thanks for your support.

I wouldn't consider CtP 2 terrain graphics too weak, though.

I've downloaded a few SLIC documentation pieces and am now learning it... not too hard, knowing C already. From what I've seen, it's nothing too hard to keep a culture counter in the memory for each player.

The implementation of strategic resources, though, doesn't seem like an easy task to do.

[Locutus]

Strategic resources:
I agree, we definitely need a similar system in CtP2. Very, very cool and important system IMHO. The only reason why I haven't done any work in this area yet so far is because I thought others were working on it. IMHO the highest priority should be to make units depend on trade goods somehow (not too hard) and to find a way to tie the diplomacy/trade system into this (a bit harder). Making goods invisible and making stuff depend on roads and all that stuff is IMHO of secondary importance. The general principle should work first and our version doesn't necessarily have to be exactly identical to Civ3's version...

Culture:
It's easily doable but the problem is UI: how do you let the player know how he's doing culturally? Statistics should be available both empire-wide and on a city-by-city basis...

[Pedrunn]

Originally posted by Locutus
Culture:
It's easily doable but the problem is UI: how do you let the player know how he's doing culturally? Statistics should be available both empire-wide and on a city-by-city basis...

I gave a look in the UI some day ago. Specially the city manager screen. Trying to decrease the number of tabs. One for status and specialist, other for units and a third to inventory+Production (Just an idea though). I did change some stuff but to accomplish my idea would need a lot of effort and i am full with the space scenario and the Absolute State v2.0 mod. And i am positively sure that i can easily add another box in the status to add to the happiness and pollution ones a new one about culture. I may take a further look if its possible to write as the game goes by seeing how does the game writes in the others two.

[Pedrunn]

Originally posted by Locutus
Culture:
It's easily doable but the problem is UI: how do you let the player know how he's doing culturally? Statistics should be available both empire-wide and on a city-by-city basis...

I gave a look in the UI some day ago. Specially the city manager screen. Trying to decrease the number of tabs. One for status and specialist, other for units and a third to inventory+Production (Just an idea though). I did change some stuff but to accomplish my idea would need a lot of effort and i am full with the space scenario and the Absolute State v2.0 mod. And i am positively sure that i can easily add another box in the status to add to the happiness and pollution ones a new one about culture. I may take a further look if its possible to write as the game goes by seeing how does the game writes in the others two.

PS: I Want Strategic Resources

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Pedrunn
I may take a further look if its possible to write as the game goes by seeing how does the game writes in the others two.

That's exactly where the problem is. Adding a new column probably isn't too hard, but I think the filling of the columns is hard-coded and out of our reach

[Ekmek]

in CTP2 you can trade units right? (I don't have my stuff up or I'd check). but could it be that we create commodity units that require resources and trade those units? and place a high value so the AI will trade. Then those commodity units are needed to make certain units.

on second thought, that might be too cumbersome...

maybe there is a way to link through asking for units or colonies (size 0 cities) and make the possesion only last for a number of turns?

just throwing out possibilities

[Solver]

Locutus, I've thought it over and decided that it's pretty easy to store the total culture value of a civ, and for each city. As for UI, the easiest thing to do is making each turn a Messagebox event without the Show(); action, so that it only saves in the message history, and have that messagebox tell your culture value.

As for specific cities, there might be a workaround, like getting the Messagebox for a city showing cities culture show up whenever a certain even is done... dont know what, though, havent still looked at the events (I started learning SLIC 2 days ago!). Is there any event that's easy for the player to trigger, while still not costing anything. And of course, that would trigger for a city?

[Locutus]

That's a very 'hacky' solution, but it would be interesting to see how it would work out. I'll have a look at the event list myself to see if there's a suitable event for cities. I'm not sure if it works correctly, but I *think* there should be a CityClicked event somewhere...

[Solver]

I had exactly the same thought when I wrote that . I'll be happy to offer some of my code, if I can, if we are to make something. As for the CityClicked, hm... if I was to get a messagebox telling me citie's culture each time I click a city (which I, of course, do many times I turn), it would get me rather crazy I assume.

As for the strategic resources. Is there a way to add new goods to the game? If yes, we could add a couple of them without screwing the old ones... would be better, IMO.

[Immortal Wombat]

Is there a way to add new goods to the game?

Of course. This isn't Civ2 you know

[Solver]

Man I wish I knew more SLIC... I know the darn language, don't just know the events .

I suppose that we should leave the current trade goods of CtP 2 as they are, and just create new ones for strategic resources. Exception: Oil, this clearly needs to be a strategic resource, we could replace it with, say, Amber, or whatever else.

What do you think the strategic resource system would be like? Sure, the original idea remains, if you don't have the resource, you don't have the ability to build a unit. But, how shall we define the 'Have resource' thing? I don't quite like it if one strategic resource would feed the entire civ... too easy. While the Civ 3 way of road connections isn't too easy to implement.

I think that we surely should have all the strategic resources that Civ 3 has, with their abilities (Iron for Swordsmen, etc). However, I would also like to see a few more due to the fact that CtP 2 is also in future... like the Plasma resource for Fusion Tanks, and something like that.

[J Bytheway]

Originally posted by Solver
What do you think the strategic resource system would be like? Sure, the original idea remains, if you don't have the resource, you don't have the ability to build a unit. But, how shall we define the 'Have resource' thing? I don't quite like it if one strategic resource would feed the entire civ... too easy. While the Civ 3 way of road connections isn't too easy to implement.

The obvious way to start would be to simply limit the distace from the city with the resource where you could use it (obviously dependant on map size and the improvements in the city - airport, etc). You might want to do something special with harbours, but I'm not sure what.

I would also like to see a few more due to the fact that CtP 2 is also in future... like the Plasma resource for Fusion Tanks, and something like that.

The nearest place you're going to find any plasma is the Sun (or possibly a high temperature research lab...).

[Pedrunn]

Originally posted by Locutus
That's exactly where the problem is. Adding a new column probably isn't too hard, but I think the filling of the columns is hard-coded and out of our reach

I think I Beat you this time, Locutus.

I have an theory on how to implement a culture counter in the UI.

As i said i did looked for an way to implement this counter. I i think we can do it.

As you said i couldnt find a way to write inside a box like i told (Although i did make one). So i decide to make a simpler feature a one line only counter like the crime in the status tab in the city manager. And this is a first look of it (need some align but no prob).



The number was chosen ramdomly by me and this is where we should focus on. How to change it.

How to make the number change as the culture changes?

To make this modification in the game i needed add the following code in the right place in the right file (citywindow.ldl) plus a few others changes in the happiness and pollution box.

 	# Culture data
	Culture:CTP2_STATIC_BASE {
		int xpix 60
		int ypix 210	
		int widthpix 190
		int heightpix 18
		string text "str_ldl_Culture" //
		string pattern "uptg04e.tga"
	}

In the ldl_str.txt,

str_ldl_Culture 	"Culture: 41"

So the only thing we have to do is to edit the entry ldl_str.txt to to show us the culture within a city.

Eg.
In a code as you see i cant slic but i know how it works, I can understand them and even make small modifications still try not to laugh so hard,
if player has a shrine x=1, else x=0 (Shrine give 1 cuture point)
if player has a basilica y=3, else y=0 (Basilica give 3 cuture point)
message(1, str_ldl_Culture)
....
Culturepoints = x+y+....

and have the line in the ldl_str.txt,

str_ldl_Culture 	"Culture: {Culturepoints}"

What you thought it was the hardest is solved Locutus.
Now lets start a new thread about the CultureMod?

PS: Would also be nice to have a total culture points of all cities in the Empire Manager. Just need to find the correct file/place