3rd Apolyton CtP2 SP Tournament: 1 August - 1 September 2002 - Page 3

TheArsenal · August 9, 2002, 11:40

Quote:

Originally posted by Maquiladora
I just got a somewhat strange occurance. I had 4 longships grouped and 2 units on each ship, when i tried to unload the ships onto a tile with 12 units already on it (dont ask me why) i moved the longships after emptying them and the troops were fortified on the water tile next to the 12 unit tile!!

I decided to move the longships back and put the troops back on, because i thought theyd die if i ended my turn.

I dont know if this is a CtP2 error, or Mod specific, so ill just mention it here.

This has happened to me twice in this game, and a few other time playing SAP. The units come off of the transport and automatically fortify themselves half on the beach, half in the water. You can move your ships away, they won't drown. (I should post a screen shot of this when I get home, I always save the game when this happens, just in case the game crashes). IIRC, this happens when I have unloaded 10 or 11 units on one tile, I have a fleet transports/longships/etc. with units still to be unloaded and I use the right click to try to unload one more onto the tile. They all unload, but as noted, sit in the water fortified.

HuangShang · August 9, 2002, 12:32

Oh...that's tight
if im attaking a city on a 2tile island i can get 5 12-stacks to give all the combo punch i need (see tactics database and post something too

)

TheArsenal · August 9, 2002, 12:43

Quote:

Originally posted by HuangShang
Oh...that's tight
if im attaking a city on a 2tile island i can get 5 12-stacks to give all the combo punch i need (see tactics database and post something too

)

Don't know if it can be used as a strategy. It's a glitch. It happens inconsistently or in a narrow set of circumstances that I can not determine. You can't make units unload in the water everytime - I've tried - just sometimes they do for some reason. Most of the time I am told "I can go no further" or whatever it is the longship captain says, and the units remain aboard.

HuangShang · August 9, 2002, 12:57

aaaauuuuuuuuuuuhhhhh
too bad

TheArsenal · August 10, 2002, 03:05

Seem to have run into a bit of a problem. Hopefully there is a solution. Between turns at year 2002 and 2003 the game crashes back to the desktop at the Arabian's turn (on the status bar). I've tried restarting the game, loading from within a new game, going back to an earlier turn and playing up to that point. Nothing.

Martin Gühmann · August 10, 2002, 07:20

Quote:

Originally posted by TheArsenal
Seem to have run into a bit of a problem. Hopefully there is a solution. Between turns at year 2002 and 2003 the game crashes back to the desktop at the Arabian's turn (on the status bar). I've tried restarting the game, loading from within a new game, going back to an earlier turn and playing up to that point. Nothing.

One question: Do you play with MaxPlayers higher then NumPlayers in your userprofile.txt, if yes you could try this: Reloadslic on the turn before the crash if you have an additional civ in the game on the next turn, if you now hit end turn again without reloading slic the game will crash again. I know that the problem lies in DiploMod, last tournerment game I disabled huge parts of this slic file to finish my game. The other solution in this case is to asign MaxPlayers the same number as NumPlayers, the result will be that you will get only new players into the game if already one has been removed. I did that in this tournerment.

-Martin

centrifuge · August 10, 2002, 13:42

Quote:

Originally posted by TheArsenal
Seem to have run into a bit of a problem. Hopefully there is a solution. Between turns at year 2002 and 2003 the game crashes back to the desktop at the Arabian's turn (on the status bar). I've tried restarting the game, loading from within a new game, going back to an earlier turn and playing up to that point. Nothing.

This also sounds like the problem that I was having last tournament before I added Martin's slic code that stopped the pillaging of neutral tile improvements. Martin, is this part of GoodMod?

Martin Gühmann · August 10, 2002, 14:58

Quote:

Originally posted by centrifuge
This also sounds like the problem that I was having last tournament before I added Martin's slic code that stopped the pillaging of neutral tile improvements. Martin, is this part of GoodMod?

Of course I wrote this piece of code extra for GoodMod, I used tile improvements to add a terrain bonus to the good tiles, in this case every civ including the Barbarians can pillage a lot of tile improvements owned by noone right from the beginning of the game.

-Martin

TheArsenal · August 10, 2002, 18:18

Quote:

Originally posted by Martin Gühmann

One question: Do you play with MaxPlayers higher then NumPlayers in your userprofile.txt, if yes you could try this: Reloadslic on the turn before the crash if you have an additional civ in the game on the next turn, if you now hit end turn again without reloading slic the game will crash again. I know that the problem lies in DiploMod, last tournerment game I disabled huge parts of this slic file to finish my game. The other solution in this case is to asign MaxPlayers the same number as NumPlayers, the result will be that you will get only new players into the game if already one has been removed. I did that in this tournerment.

-Martin

Not quite sure I follow, but my MaxPlayers in the userprofile.txt is set to 8 (default number if IIRC) and I'm playing with the 8 civs (minus the 2 I've destroyed) that are currently left in from this tournament savegame.

ETB · August 11, 2002, 13:06

Quote:

Originally posted by TheArsenal
Not quite sure I follow, but my MaxPlayers in the userprofile.txt is set to 8 (default number if IIRC) and I'm playing with the 8 civs (minus the 2 I've destroyed) that are currently left in from this tournament savegame.

My maxplayers is set to 0. I meant to ask about that because I did not get any new players in the last tournament, but I read about other people dealing with new civs. What should I set my maxplayers to for this tournament?

Martin Gühmann · August 11, 2002, 15:56

Quote:

Originally posted by ETB
My maxplayers is set to 0. I meant to ask about that because I did not get any new players in the last tournament, but I read about other people dealing with new civs. What should I set my maxplayers to for this tournament?

As I started the game MaxPlayers was set to 20 and NumPlayers was set to 11. Afterwards I got a crash in the middle of game, because a new civ was formed and more civs were in then as at the start of the game. Now I set NumPlayers in the userprofile.txt to 9 and MaxPlayers to 9, too. This way I won't get game crashes and I will see new civs if a civ has been destroyed or conquered before.

Quote:

Originally posted by TheArsenal
Not quite sure I follow, but my MaxPlayers in the userprofile.txt is set to 8 (default number if IIRC) and I'm playing with the 8 civs (minus the 2 I've destroyed) that are currently left in from this tournament savegame.

That doesn't sound like the problem I described above. So you could attach your game here so we can all have a look on it.

-Martin

TheArsenal · August 12, 2002, 00:00

As discussed the problem happens between this turn and next. Thanks for taking a look.

Martin Gühmann · August 12, 2002, 12:21

Quote:

Originally posted by TheArsenal
As discussed the problem happens between this turn and next. Thanks for taking a look.

OK I took a look into it. I disabled all the fan made slic no change. Then I played with the cheat editor: I wondered what would hapen if I take all the Phoenician cities. The result was no crash although I forgot one. So I wonder which city must be taken that the result will be no crash. Fortunatly it is the city Aradus. You have stationated some troops near the city Aradusbut this stack is too small to take the city and you can't reach the city, because of some stupid Phillipinos near the city. So you task is now to take this city until 2002 that should be possible if you play from an earlier turn, rush buy some cannons in Berytus, Baalbeck and Byblos to fill up the stack near Berytos to 12 units so you can conquer Aradus. You have enough gold to do it. You shouldn't be concerend about the Phoenicians they have only four cities not linked and they are under attack of other civs so they shouldn't be a problem.

-Martin

Phoenician

TheArsenal · August 12, 2002, 12:47

Ah ... a Phoenician traitor, I am in luck today.

Thanks, for the input and thanks for saving my game. It would have been a @#$# to lose the game after this long. Hopefully I saved a game fairly close to 2002 (I may have, I don't remember), otherwise it will cost me about 45 minutes of replaying, which - again - is far better to losing the game.

As you can tell, destroying the Phoenicians then moving onto those pesky Polynesians is the top of my priority. They are weak and I have been crushing them with ease. So rush buying to take out the Phoenicians in a less conservative manner shouldn't be a problem. I'm not a fan of rush buying, which is why I was moving troops over from the cities I took from the Dutch, but you have to do what you have to do.

Danke wieder.

Shadow · August 12, 2002, 19:08

Hey Loc (or anyone that knows),
Has anyone else put in their final games for scoring recently??? Can't wait to see how everybody does!

I've completely lost the plot with my game...

My intention to race to nuke technology and use scare tactics to force alliances has somewhat backfired...

Ah well, it's all good fun.

Shadow

Jesper Portus · August 13, 2002, 03:00

Quote:

Originally posted by Shadow
Don't ask a civ to hand over their last city... the game doesn't like it. Crashed to desktop on two attempts.

I did and the didn´t crash?!

Jesper Portus · August 13, 2002, 03:13

Quote:

Originally posted by Martin Gühmann
Locutus:

For the AI I wished I had seen more, too, especially in the beginning. The problem was here that the AI had less room for expasion, so it couldn't get big, but in the end I saw some AI wars.

And of course the invasion.
-Martin

I didn´t saw a good AI action, too. Maybe soon - I am 1000 BC. I don´t like games with a lot of water, because the AI is weaker than on big continents.

Ever tried a game with 8 AI Players an a small map without water?

In this tournement I trie to win by bloodlust in the last round to reach the magical score of 30.000 points ...

So long
Jesper Portus

Jesper Portus · August 13, 2002, 03:14

Eeerg!

Sorry for my bad english.

Future, past, presence...

JP

Locutus · August 13, 2002, 19:49

Quote:

Originally posted by Shadow
Hey Loc (or anyone that knows),
Has anyone else put in their final games for scoring recently??? Can't wait to see how everybody does!

Well, I don't see any new savegames, do you?

All savegames are to be submitted in this thread so...

Quote:

I've completely lost the plot with my game...

My intention to race to nuke technology and use scare tactics to force alliances has somewhat backfired...

Sounds interesting, can't wait to see your savegame

Jesper,
Yes, I figured that too (lot of water hurting the AI), but it always gives fun games so I thought it couldn't hurt for a change. Some future Tournament game will definitely be (almost) land-only as well...

Shadow · August 14, 2002, 05:29

Cheers Loc,
Thought the save-games had to be sent direct to you.

Jesper Portus · August 14, 2002, 06:41

Quote:

Originally posted by Locutus
Jesper,
Yes, I figured that too (lot of water hurting the AI), but it always gives fun games so I thought it couldn't hurt for a change. Some future Tournament game will definitely be (almost) land-only as well...

I like the changes and the testing of different mods. Thanks for that and all your engagement.

Yet I have conquerd all but the arabians and inodnesians. It is 1190 and now I built up my citys to improve my economic power. After that I will "buy" the rest of the world. Never tried spies before - so let´s test!

So long

Jesper

TheArsenal · August 14, 2002, 13:40

Quote:

Originally posted by Locutus
Jesper,
Yes, I figured that too (lot of water hurting the AI), but it always gives fun games so I thought it couldn't hurt for a change. Some future Tournament game will definitely be (almost) land-only as well...

I find I have the most fun when there are both large land masses containing a few civs on the same continent, and a large amount of water. That way both the land and water aspects are in play. Personally, I'm not a big fan of all land games, and have yet to finish one. But its all a matter of personal preference.

Hopefully I will be finished with this game tonight. It's been interesting. I have an Alliance with the Greeks and Indonesians. I destroyed everyone else but the Polynesians, and they are on their last 4 cities, and I have both a city and sizeable force on their continent. Unfortunately, a Greek one-tile island city revolted and became Americans, and they are unresponsive to diplomacy. So now I may have to smash them as well. We'll see.

HuangShang · August 14, 2002, 18:13

yeah... go island hopping

Shadow · August 14, 2002, 18:47

Greetings all!
After many hours crouched over the trusty computer I'm finally ready to submit my game.

A few things I'd like to say about the game...

Firstly about the competition:

I realised on completion of this game that it's only the second game I've ever actually properly completed, the first being total military domination and anihilation.
Why? I get bored quick I guess...
I suppose what kept me going was the fact that it was bigger than just my game, it was a competition, a bit of fun, and I wanted to be a part of it all and share the enjoyment with the others - you guys!

Secondly, about the game itself:

My basic gameplan was to win by diplomacy (never done that before), but to race to nuke technology and then use scare tactics to haul the other AI civs into an Alliance with me.

Did it work? HELL NO!!!

The barbs took a city at first, but took it back just as I was able to get off the island. Any bit of land I found that would sustain a city and wasn't taken up, I built on. The Phoenecians were then the first to attack me, and before long I took back the city, and continued trying to be allies with everyone.
The Phoenecians didn't stop there though, so when I reached nuke technology, I thought I'd give them a nice demonstration of what I'd just learnt... I was even nice enough to take the show right into their own cities... all of them in fact... that's just how nice I am!

With that civ out of the way, I went about some serious diplomacy and handing out extravegant gifts, but to no avail unfortunately. I found that the islands and water were quite a deterant to attacks, and only when I was on another civs continent did they attack, and attack they did! I wasn't about to put up with it though. Even after taking a city or two from each they weren't gunna be cool about things. Many time I tried putting diplomats on their shores, but they always took them out.
(I also noticed in the dying stages that all diplomatic relations phrases when checking 'intelligence' said 'bloodbath', never come across that before.)

So I was forced to give 'free' demonstations of how to part atoms in the majority of cities around the globe. A lot of the time I couldn't be bothered taking care of them, so I just razed them to the ground. At some point I destroyed the Emancipation Act Wonder, so instead of welcoming citizens I starting getting slaves... in 2200!

You'll see a lot of gaps all over the world where there's just no cities, but lots of PW things around. LOTS of bare land should another civ come along.
The only remaining civ other than me is the Dutch.

I even got a wakeup call from the Ethiopians... 4 fasciasts came out of nowhere and took a lightly defended city! No drama taking it back, conquered them easily.

So I did finish as I set out to, but it took a LOT longer than I thought it would. All in all an enjoyable game.

Thanks to Loc, the players, Apolyton, and anyone else that had a hand in setting this up.

Cheers,
Shadow

TheArsenal · August 14, 2002, 22:55

Okay, finished. Diplomatic Victory at the end of 2217 A.D., the save game is 2218 the turn after the endgame movie. Interesting game.

My intent was to win by conquering all civs, but I figured out early on that I wasn’t going to be able to pull that off because I spent too much of the early game too weak and too far behind on science. So I tried constant diplomacy on all the nations and divided them into civs that were predisposed to be friendly towards me (only two: the Greeks and the Indonesians) and those who required constantly paying large sums of money and giving up maps only to dislike me again after a few turns. Those who didn’t like me, I went to war with one by one. The Arabians gave me the most trouble because I stupidly underestimated their forces and they caught me by surprise. I was bogged down fighting them for far too long.

The Indians and the Dutch were the easiest to conquer.

HuangShang · August 15, 2002, 12:02

god i lost... it was end year and the greeks were still first and the Arabs(the original arabs) were still there along w/ the original indonesians

Edit ive already restarted from the begining

HuangShang · August 15, 2002, 12:09

Quote:

Originally posted by Shadow
I realised on completion of this game that it's only the second game I've ever actually properly completed, the first being total military domination and anihilation.
Why? I get bored quick I guess...

yeah im like that too...
that probably why i lost
if only there were as many good senarios as mods (or maybe i cant find all of them)

TheArsenal · August 15, 2002, 12:30

Oh, one other thing I figured out that cost me maybe ten to fifteen turns. Although they do not show up on the diplomacy screen, to achieve a Diplomatic Victory, any cities held by the Barbarians have to be captured/destroyed.

centrifuge · August 15, 2002, 13:24

I was reading through this thread again, and realized that I totally spaced posting my finished game

Anyway, here it is, diplomatic victory, 810 AD, score: 6370.

It was pretty fun going for the quick win, and it would have been a lot quicker if the Arabians weren't such warmongers! So I had to crush them

I mean afterall, they were getting in the way of my dream for world peace

On a side note, I'm kind of disheartened by all of this talk about restarting the tournament games from the beginning... It seems against the original spirit of the tournament IMHO.

For the attached game, just hit the end turn button, and accept Greece's tribute.

ETB · August 15, 2002, 14:15

I finally got to start my game. The Greeks were by far the fastest starter in the game as they built 9 out of the 10 first wonders! The Greeks held a commanding lead by the 20th Century. I let what I had previously read in this thread influence my start and I moved my settler for about 15 turns before building my first city. I usually build my first city within a few turns. I ended up cramming 6 cities on my island. I felt like an AI placing my cities so close together! Looking back, I could have done a better job of positioning the cities to get a seventh one on the island. Anyway, I will probably never wait so long to build my first city again!

The Dutch decided to attack me in the 17th Century, so I made them my first victim (sorry Locutus). Although they only had the three cities on their island, the Greeks had already taken Den Haag. So I was only able to take the other two cities. I have attached the message containing the elimination of the Dutch.

I formed an alliance with the Indians, who then dragged me into a war with the Phoenicians. Then the most-powerful Greeks and the second-most-powerful Arabs attacked me! I was quite busy with all of them through the 20th Century. It’s been great fun distributing my troops across the various islands, although they seem to be getting seasick! I have been playing too many land-based games lately – the Rulers-of-the-Seas is a great change of pace.

I used the mg_betterai file supplied by Martin earlier in this thread, but my troops still became restless for about a dozen turns in the early 20th Century. I actually didn’t notice it for a couple of turns with all the troop movement going on, but it finally hit me that none of my troops were staying in sentry or fortified positions. Personally, I suspect that they all had too much caffeine! Fortunately, the troops on my ships stayed on their ships…..

I am really pleased with GoodMod – I plan to use it from now on! I was reminded of Nordicus (and the old CtP1 days) when I started seeing Poppies, Salmon, and all these other goods. Martin, you have done an excellent job with GoodMod!