Cradle 1.34a

[hexagonian]

I'm not going to say this is the final update this time, but here it is.

Cradle 1.34a addresses the issues discussed in the Cradle Strat thread started by Vel. Many thanks to Vel and Ogie for a comprehensive breakdown of my Mod.

It contains the following...

1. Great Library fixes regarding Ocean Faring and Spies/Revolutionaries.
2. Dromons no longer have transport ability.
3. Enable Advance for Longship is Ocean Faring instead of Hull Making.
4. Advanced Farms produce 20 Food on Plains instead of 15 Food.
5. (+5) Production for Advanced Farms and Hydroponic Farms
6. Increased Research Cost for Republic and Caliphate governments.
7. Merchant Specialist available at Trade Guilds instead of Bureaucracy, Scientist Specialist (from 30 to 20 science) available at Industrial Revolution instead of Philosophy. Farmer and Laborer Specialists reduced from 30 to 25 food/production.
8. Message fix for Bloodbath.
9. Removed Enslave option for Captured city (buggy and unbalancing)
10. Disabled Partisan.slc file (buggy - it causes AI Militias to move)
11. PW and Gold bonus reduced from 75 to 25 per pop. (PW) and 100 to 25 per pop. (Gold) from City Capture. Secondary PW and Gold bonus is 1/200 of Total AI fund.
12. Updates to GoodMod, Soundfix, Settler Disband, Commerce Bonus, and Air Unit SLICs
13. Changed stats for Modern ground units (see pdf chart)

I did not include City Expansion, as Pedrunn never got back to me concerning the alterations, and there is a known conflict betweeen City Expansion and GoodMod.

I do eventually plan on having a final update, which will include Visible Wonders and Leonardo's graphics package, but I'm also wondering if the interest is there anymore for Cradle. Things seemed to have died down.

Life goes on...

Link up here

[child of Thor]

Hey Hex - I know what i'm doing tonight!
And I think Craddle will always be my Fav Mod - it was the first one that really caught my interest and lifted CTP2 into that hallowed realm of best games!
Thanks very much for all the work you did to put it together and thanks to all who had anything to do with it.

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by hexagonian
1. Great Library fixes regarding Ocean Faring and Spies/Revolutionaries.

If I remember correctly there were some other things not correct in the Great Library like misleading links.

Originally posted by hexagonian
9. Removed Enslave option for Captured city (buggy and unbalancing)

That was a nice feature but as long as I can't come up with a sollution it is better to disable it.

Originally posted by hexagonian
11. PW and Gold bonus reduced from 75 to 25 per pop. (PW) and 100 to 25 per pop. (Gold) from City Capture.

Actual this is not a bonus for a captured city. It is the bonus of the city if you caused a bloodbath, you take the gold of the killed citiziens and the PW comes from the building material that you gain if you pull down the houses of the killed citiziens, you can use the stones than for your forts.

Originally posted by hexagonian
Secondary PW and Gold bonus is 1/200 of Total AI fund.

Actual I don't like this solution but again my time is to rare to find a better sollution.

Originally posted by hexagonian
I did not include City Expansion, as Pedrunn never got back to me concerning the alterations, and there is a known conflict betweeen City Expansion and GoodMod.

Actual it is only a small fix that needs to be done in Pedrun's code and can be easily copied from my code.

Originally posted by hexagonian
I do eventually plan on having a final update

The only thing you shouldn't do is to call it final.

-Martin

[Pedrunn]

I did not include City Expansion, as Pedrunn never got back to me concerning the alterations, and there is a known conflict betweeen City Expansion and GoodMod.

Actual it is only a small fix that needs to be done in Pedrun's code and can be easily copied from my code.

Actually i do have a version of the code with which sahll fix this imcompatibility. But it has been weeks since the last time i launch CTP2
Every weekend i say i will do it but there is always something to stop me. I will try this weekend (if you still believe me ).

[Wittlich]

Interest has been diverted, for the moment, away from CTP2 because of the release of Civ3PTW, but not to worry. After the excitement dies down from PTW, the CTP2 forum will crank back up again.

Oh, and thanks for the latest Cradle update!

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

Originally posted by hexagonian
.. but I'm also wondering if the interest is there anymore for Cradle. Things seemed to have died down.

Link up here

yep there is!!!!!!!!!!!!!

still playing 1.33a most of my freetime, (and some of the time i should be in university as well ), though my fav savgame still stalls at the same turn. (mentioned that somewhere in the 1.33a thread)

i'd really love to see cityenslavement back as well as the city expansion, as far as i see it, the only problem with ce is during the goods generation before the first turn, where it should be shut off, then enabled again and slic reloaded during the first turn. will this work with 1.34a as well? if yes, i'd just do so, regardless if its "officially" supported.

oh yes and a thousand thanks to hex as well as all others who participated!

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Zaphod Beeblebrox
i'd really love to see cityenslavement back as well as the city expansion, as far as i see it, the only problem with ce is during the goods generation before the first turn, where it should be shut off, then enabled again and slic reloaded during the first turn. will this work with 1.34a as well? if yes, i'd just do so, regardless if its "officially" supported.

You won't have a problem during the good generation, hexagonian removed the script of the city expansion he removed also all the extra tile improvements of the city expansion set from the tileimp.txt that means savegames of Cradle 1.33a should be incompartible with Cradle 1.34a.

-Martin

[stankarp]

I'm still playing

[Adriano]

Originally posted by hexagonian


I do eventually plan on having a final update, which will include Visible Wonders and Leonardo's graphics package, but I'm also wondering if the interest is there anymore for Cradle. Things seemed to have died down.

Life goes on...

Link up here

I checked daily your website for the updates........
Cradle+goodmod+leonardo+cityexp+visiblewond should be my CTPIII!.
Do Believe lots of people waiting for it.
I really appreciate the UNITS-ADVANCES- Sheets......wonderful and useful.

[Amesjustin]

Please continue to release and update the Cradle - I hadn't played this game in a year and a half until I saw this Mod last week and it has renewed my interest! As a VFP/VB/C# developer, let me know if you need any assistance - I have some ideas....

[hexagonian]

Glad to see the interest is there...

What will help me in making updates are reports of player successes and failures - what is working and what is not, because most of the updates are focused on balancing the game.

Some bugs I have not been able to track down, like the histograph issue.

This last update is due to the reports from Vel and Ogie about gameplay issues and what were exploitable features (the PW windfall is a perfect example).

I did fire up a 1.34 game this week and was taking a serious beating on Gigantic/Very Hard - my last game was a 1.3 game and it was nothing like the current setup - I was always behind but I was able to at least fend off the AI - (I cannot for the life of me figure out why the AI is performing so well either as opposed to a 1.3 game.) I was running into Legions at turn 200 and that had never been the case in a 1.3 game.

It could be that Martin's BetterAI code is providing the kick - this is good, but may require toning down some of the other AI boosts that are in place in Cradle - and the boosts are significant on the highest levels - more so than I thought.

There were reports that AI was extremely far ahead in the Tornament game too, so seeing it for myself was the clincher.

Anyhow, with the current 1.33 or 1.34 setup - what level are players using, and what successes and failures are there? Is it too hard - too easy after a certain point???

[Dale]

Hex:

Dropped in to let you know I should have the "Dark Ages" ready soon (what we were talking about on email). Including a way to tell what Govt the player and AI is in so we can control it.

[stankarp]

Still Playing, 1.33, gigantic, 10 opponents on impossible. It seems the AI must get a periodic boost of gold, pw and advances, cant figure any other way it can get so far ahead so quickly.

You have to have bonuses like city enslavement or you have no hope, the AI eventually just gangs up on you and you gradually get worn away. With CE, advances from city capture, PW and gold bonus from city capture, you can at least catch up.

CE is, I agree, a little too powerful. It allows me to win the wonder races easily, and eventually about turn 200 I am pulling away slowly. I end up with some huge cities that are really good for building wonders and beating the AI.

Good fun though, I have wiped 3 major civs, about 10 minor ones and currently have the Romans squirming in one armpit and the Harrappans squealing in my opposite fist. I'll teach them for breaking cease fires

[Immortal Wombat]

Including a way to tell what Govt the player and AI is in so we can control it.

?

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Dale
Including a way to tell what Govt the player and AI is in so we can control it.

Yeah the sollution here is interesting, I know that I can use the String compare function to compare strings but so far I wasn't able to convert the government type in String form into a version that the string compare function accepts.

-Martin

[Peter Triggs]

I never had any luck with that string compare function. What strings have you got it to compare?

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Peter Triggs
I never had any luck with that string compare function. What strings have you got it to compare?

Unfortunatly I only was able to compare what is equal obviously. Something like this:

StringCompare("Democracy", "Democracy");

Here is another example from info_str.txt:

IA_BREAK_NO_PIRACY "{player[0].sir_cap}, are you sure you wish for us to pirate this trade route? We agreed to respect this nation's routes."

It doesn't accept IA_BREAK_NO_PIRACY but it does accept the stuff within the "". The variable in this string above is {player[0].sir_cap}. So I hope that something like this would work:

StringCompare("{player[0].govttype}", "{player[1].govttype}");

Could work as the string is within the "" and the variable is within the {}, if {player[0].govttype} will be finally the same like in the GL and all the message boxes then this should do what we want.

-Martin

[Adriano]

I'm enjoing the game.
Thanks to Martin The goodmod adds great value.

The first bug:
Although Pyramids wonder was built yet by a civ, several turn later a message informed me about another civ was building pyramids.

The second bug:
I was in very late about techs discovering so i contacted another civ to try change chariot tech for money.
Although the civ agreed to it ( and so my cash lost 2000 ) I did'nt find the tech in my discovered techs window!!!.

I replied the negotiation with the same result.......


Cradle 1.34a Hard level 8 civs ultra g. map Italian version.
Bloodlust option barbarian max level.

[Peter Triggs]

Just noticed your reply, Martin. As I recall, that's my experience with it too. It would return true for

StringCompare("Democracy", "Democracy");-

but anything else I tried gave, I think, an error.

Adriano,

I don't think either of those have to do with Cradle, I suspect the second is a rare game bug. But Hex will know.

[hexagonian]

Originally posted by Adriano
I'm enjoing the game.
Thanks to Martin The goodmod adds great value.
The first bug:
Although Pyramids wonder was built yet by a civ, several turn later a message informed me about another civ was building pyramids.

Could you check and see if the wonder is actually completed by looking at the window with the powergraph? (I have yet to see this occur.) The only thing that I can imagine is that the city that built the wonder somehow got destroyed. (but this is only a guess)

Originally posted by Adriano
The second bug:
I was in very late about techs discovering so i contacted another civ to try change chariot tech for money.
Although the civ agreed to it ( and so my cash lost 2000 ) I did'nt find the tech in my discovered techs window!!!.

I replied the negotiation with the same result.......

I'm going to forward this to Dale, who set up the diplomacy in Cradle. Maybe he can track this one down. I haven't run into this either because I have been trading techs for techs - I never used cash to buy it.

How did you go about this? Did you demand a tech and the AI countered with a cash demand?

[Dale]

Peter:

I get errors to with trying to compare variables. That's why I decided to look at it from a different way using units to find out government. Did you see my thread on the solution to finding out a Govt?

Martin:

StringCompare("{player[0].govttype}", "{player[1].govttype}");

Doesn't work. Always comes back as false. I tried that early on and was able to prove it.

Hex:

It's always worked for me, so I'd need more info.

[Martin Gühmann]

[SIZE=1]Originally posted by Dale

]
I get errors to with trying to compare variables. That's why I decided to look at it from a different way using units to find out government. Did you see my thread on the solution to finding out a Govt?[/QUOTE]

I read your sollution, too. In my opinion it is far away from being perfect, you can't use it in the default game. Therefore I looked on the StringCompare function in the mean time I tried my idea, unfortunatly I got the same result as you.

-Martin

[Peter Triggs]

Dale

I saw your other thread. It's very ingenious and it looks like that's the way to go.

It would be nice to work out this StringCompare function, though, cause I'm sure it would be useful for other things. (Mind you, I can't think of any off of the top of my head.)

[Adriano]

Originally posted by hexagonian


How did you go about this? Did you demand a tech and the AI countered with a cash demand?

No I didn't. I directly asked for chariot tech offering 2000 .........
Anyway I hadn't any tech to propose for the negotiation..........

[child of Thor]

I played for about 9hrs the other day.
Medium level(for a change)
bandit level barbs(also for a change!)

I ended up stuck in the middle of three civs, so my border limits were reached fairly soon with 7 cities.
Even on this level i was way behind on tech, right upto the point my neighbours decided to not like me very much(about 1250bc). I managed to get embassies in a couple of different civs and was always at least 10-12 techs behind the most primitive of them. So i'm not sure that has changed so much?

I was attacked alot more in my cities which was great, except i was no match with my backwards tech!!! So i sort of gave up around 800bc after loseing a couple of my cities,wondering how the harder levels would play

I wonder how much my starting location had to do with my general lack of progress? Still this seemed strange for a lower difficulty setting than i usually use?

The diplomacy still tends to lead to most if not all other civs eventualy hateing you - which makes it hard to actually be diplomatic! Which of course leads to more war. What are others feelings on this?

Overall i did notice a change for the better in the way it played, and i was really put under pressure by a better armed AI. I'll have to try another game for comparison

[Turambar]

There's a 1.34b out CoT where the AI tech lead is reduced but they are more aggressive when it comes to war.

Haven't had a chance to play it myself yet though.

[child of Thor]

Hey yeah! your right - i thought i was missing something.

[hexagonian]

Well I can say that in my current 1.34b game, the tech gap is smaller, so that adjustment I made seems to be working. But I'm still not happy with the way that the barbs are able to get footholds in AI civs. (The Apolytonite civ is systematically losing its cities to them.)

[Adriano]

Hex,I wasn't able to install 1.34b version.
The message is: CRA_MESSAGEICON.TXT NOT FOUND IN ASSET TREE;
COULD NOT OPEN IT!
MISSING NUMBER OF FILENAMES.

I've Italian version so every time I have to copy English folder gamedata in Italian gamedata....
I've no problem with 1.34a....

Anything about it??

[Turambar]

I had the same problem.

Make a copy of the MESSAGEICON.TXT file in the Ctp2_data/default/gamedata directory and rename it CRA_MESSAGEICON.TXT and it should work.