City spacings - Page 2

Tamerlin · January 2, 2003, 09:06

Quote:

Originally posted by HuangShang
WaW might have it...

I don't know but the problem is WaW and Cradle are using a very different technological tree. I have looked at the Upadter.slc file and I have seen that new advances are triggering the possibility to upgrade units. I suppose that to adapt the Updater to the SAP2 you have to replace the advances and the units in the Cradle Updater.slc with those from the SAP2 game. It seems simple, too simple actually. There must be other files to change which must include the SAP2 main slic file.

Moreover, I don't know if the code in the second part of the Update.slc must be changed as I know nothing about Slic programming.

I guess the work is not as easy as it seems, if it were someone would have already adapted the Updater.slc for the SAP2.

Maquiladora · January 2, 2003, 09:27

Actually its easy enough just edit the arrays in the CRA_updater.slc with the advances,units and update costs from SAP, then copy it to your default/gamedata folder, rename it APOL_updater.slc and include it in APOL_main.slc. Thats all i did and it worked.

Wasnt updater.slc planned for SAP anyway, because the strings are already in APOL_main_str.txt or is it just leftover?

Maquiladora · January 2, 2003, 09:31

Quote:

Originally posted by Sagacious Dolphin
Why bother removing old units. They hardly eat into your production, plus I find them useful for probing enemy defences.

Same for me, its not uncommon for my cities to still be defended by 2 warriors in the modern age. I just use mobile forces on railroads or roads to defend all my cities, its alot cheaper on production than defending every city with the best available units.

Tamerlin · January 2, 2003, 11:11

Quote:

Originally posted by Maquiladora
Actually its easy enough just edit the arrays in the CRA_updater.slc with the advances,units and update costs from SAP, then copy it to your default/gamedata folder, rename it APOL_updater.slc and include it in APOL_main.slc. Thats all i did and it worked.

Wasnt updater.slc planned for SAP anyway, because the strings are already in APOL_main_str.txt or is it just leftover?

Thanks for your answer Maquiladora, is the modded APOL_updater.slc available somewhere on Apolyton? I have tried to find something in the CtP2 directory this night without success.

If the file is not available on Apolyton it would be a good idea to release it through the CtP2 directory as it is a major improvement of the game.

Yolky · January 2, 2003, 17:08

I usually try 5 or 6 but once there is no room to expand I just conquer the enemy, wich pisses me off because they have lousy spacing and its hard to get rid of them because I don't want to raze them but hate that they just have two spaces between cities.

Davor

Martin Gühmann · January 2, 2003, 17:15

Davor what mod are you using, to me it sound like MedPack2 that has a extremly small AI city spacing.

-martin

hexagonian · January 3, 2003, 11:09

// minimum distance between settled cities
// (eg. new cities must be founded atleast 2 cells from nearest cities collection border)
MinSettleDistance 3 //from 4 april 2002

In strategies.txt, the default spacing is 4. I reduced it in Cradle to 3 to try to coax a few more cities out of the AI. You may want to try to boost it to a higher number.

Yolky · January 3, 2003, 17:50

I am using the Apoltyon mod the way it should be.

is there anthour mod that I could use to fix this? i installed the Apoltyon mode cause it didn't change much tech or what not to the origianl rules.

can't spell today hehe

Davor

Martin Gühmann · January 3, 2003, 19:02

Well Davor you could download GoodMod. GoodMod is a AddOn mod for ApolytonPack or MedPack2 or CityMod2 at least you need one of these mods to be able to play GoodMod. GoodMod offers a whole bunch of new goods, give to the good tiles a terrain bonus, and some more at least more up to date slic features as APolytonPack. So download GoodMod and you can also play: GoodMod for Apolyton Pack V2.0! Ultra-gigantic map.

As this name promisse you don't get radical changes only additions to the game and improvements.

If you don't want to download a whole mod then just go to the APOL_strategies.txt in your ..\ctp2_data\default\gamedata\ folder. And open this file with any text editor of your choice and find these lines:

Code:

////////////////////////////////////////
//
// Expansion Attribute Strategies
//
////////////////////////////////////////

STRATEGY_SETTLE_COMPACT {

    // Number of special units that should be built
    SettlerUnitsCount   6

    GoalElement { Goal GOAL_SETTLE_LAND         Priority   900000  MaxEval  25  MaxExec  15 }
    GoalElement { Goal GOAL_SETTLE_SEA          Priority   900000  MaxEval  25  MaxExec  15 }

    // minimum distance between settled cities
	// (eg. new cities must be founded atleast 2 cells from nearest cities collection border)
    MinSettleDistance   4
}

STRATEGY_SETTLE_LARGE {

    // Number of special units that should be built
    SettlerUnitsCount   6
    SeaTransportUnitsCount 6

    GoalElement { Goal GOAL_SETTLE_LAND         Priority   900000  MaxEval  25  MaxExec  15 }
    GoalElement { Goal GOAL_SETTLE_SEA          Priority   900000  MaxEval  25  MaxExec  15 }

    // minimum distance between settled cities
	// (eg. new cities must be founded atleast 2 cells from nearest cities collection border)
    MinSettleDistance   4
}

Change there the line: MinSettleDistance 4
To: MinSettleDistance 5
In the STRATEGY_SETTLE_COMPACT in order to restore the original setting for this strategy. If you want also to restore the original settings for the STRATEGY_SETTLE_LARGE entry then set the MinSettleDistance there to 7. In GoodMod I kept Wes' 4 for the STRATEGY_SETTLE_COMPACT and changed Wes' 4 in the STRATEGY_SETTLE_LARGE to a 6, because I felt the city spacing in the original game of some AIs was to far, they had gaps in their empire that was not good, therefore I lowered it a little bit, but did not made both strategies equal as I still want to see AIs with the different city spacing behaviour. The result of the settings in GoodMod is that some AIs will space their cities like all AIs do in ApolytonPack and other AIs have a larger city spacing. If you want to edit those values in GoodMod then you have to edit the file GM1-strategies.txt.

-Martin

Yolky · January 3, 2003, 20:01

Thanks Martin I will keep this in mind. I really like the game I am into right now and will try what you suggested after I completed this game. I don't play as much as I would like and once Moo3 comes out I will be playing it.

Thanks again for your help

Davor

LDiCesare · January 6, 2003, 13:02

Voted 6 but that is really an average. I used to do 8 as an average,building some forts in the holes left between cities. The main goal was to grab as much territory as possible with as little cities as possible becaue I'd always hit the max number of cities per government limit. On smaller maps or with Cradle, I build nearer (4 to 6) because there are too many barbarians to my taste.

It depends a lot on the size of the map, however, and the presence of neighbours and barbarians near or far.

Gilgamensch · January 22, 2003, 06:49

I normally try to get them apart, so too have all the space to expand. The only thing, what I sometimes do, is having small ones in between, like for strategic reason, 'military-camp' something like that.

So as average it makes for me 6 tiles.

About the expansion:
If using a lot of babarians, you can get even early huge cities, meaning the city might expand twice. Then not having enough room for the workers is waste of 'slaves'. In other words using the old CIV-strategie isn't so good, as you might waste extra production/research/food.

Tamerlin · January 22, 2003, 07:10

Is it an example of the french contrariness or the french cartesian mind? We are almost the only ones having voted for 8 spaces between cities. Even LDiCesare who has voted 6 was actually thinking about 8...

I think we can propose an honorary french citizenship to the third voter.

Gilgamensch · January 22, 2003, 08:50

Tamerlin,

don't forget, that most of the other's here are from overcrowded countries. Take our dutch frinds here, they so used to bunch themselves, that they don't know better

Unless you are from Paris

The main reason why I am not bunching the cities together is that you are too restricted for the max. number of cities. (unmodified game). But as you need a lot of territory, you have to spread. (I am more of a builder and late game 'warmonger')

For late games it is nice to have the unit finished in 1 latest 2 turns. That is nice!!!!!!!!

Tamerlin · January 22, 2003, 09:08

Quote:

Originally posted by Gilgamensch
The main reason why I am not bunching the cities together is that you are too restricted for the max. number of cities. (unmodified game). But as you need a lot of territory, you have to spread. (I am more of a builder and late game 'warmonger')

For late games it is nice to have the unit finished in 1 latest 2 turns. That is nice!!!!!!!!

I agree with you, this is also the reason why I prefer 8 spaces. But the opinion of the others is far from being wrong as 6 spaces allow you to develop your empire more rapidly without sacrificing too much space which is very important in the first part of the game as the benefits are exponential.

Gilgamensch · January 22, 2003, 09:16

some remarks for the bigger distance:

More fields were barbs can originate (can be good or bad)
Longer ways for units. (again can work in both ways)

I like to go for the 8 tiles, but often I have to 'sacrify' for faster development. Also in hill/mountain I place them closer together, they won't grow anyway...........

Maquiladora · January 22, 2003, 09:20

Anything above 2 expansions (4 spaces between each city) is not worth the extra land imo. Ive completed a Gaia victory with only 10 cities before from start to finish (unmodded game) so you dont need all that extra land if your playing the AI, ive tried it with only 20 in SAP, which is (so far) impossible.

Gilgamensch · January 22, 2003, 09:35

Maq,

are you talking about the victory via the controller? You have to cover 66% of the earth to win? How did you manage? What was the map-size?

Maquiladora · January 22, 2003, 09:36

I just placed forts all over in neutral terrain and placed my obelisks there

Gilgamensch · January 22, 2003, 09:50

What did you do with the captures cities? Removed from the face of earth?

Must have been quite a while to build all the fort's

Maquiladora · January 22, 2003, 09:56

If i conqered a city on a turn i told myself that i HAD to give it away to one of my allies before the end of the turn, because it would count as 11 cities and contribute to my science, therefore cheating.

Well i built all the forts quite near the end when i had loads of PW, it was a stroke of luck there was enough space to place all the forts between the AI's, but it was a gigantic map so... in fact i still have the save somewhere, ill see if i can find it.

Gilgamensch · January 22, 2003, 10:28

Would like to see it......

But about the forts:

You only expand the radius, if they are being buil within your old border, so how did you manage it timewise?

J Bytheway · January 22, 2003, 10:32

I was under the impression that forts could be built in any square you could see, except those in enemy territory.

Tamerlin · January 22, 2003, 10:56

Quote:

Originally posted by Gilgamensch
You only expand the radius, if they are being buil within your old border, so how did you manage it timewise?

You need a bit of foresight, you build a fort and then another one as soon as your territory expands thanks to the fort you have previously built. This is also a way to connect various parts of your empire with roads.

Maquiladora · January 22, 2003, 11:54

Actually forts can be placed anywhere on the map you can see that dont have fog of war and are neutral territory. I had the GlobeSat wonder so i could see the whole planet, thus place forts anywhere that wasnt owned.

Locutus · January 22, 2003, 12:37

Quote:

Originally posted by Gilgamensch
don't forget, that most of the other's here are from overcrowded countries. Take our dutch frinds here, they so used to bunch themselves, that they don't know better

Actually, I live in the country side, very low population density around here

TheArsenal · January 22, 2003, 13:55

My first two cities are usually reasonably close for defense reasons, 4-6 spaces, if possible. But after that, I find that my other early cities I am thinking less about spacing and am looking for optimum terrain, to expand borders rapidly, and to prevent the AI from expanding by placing cities at choke points such as peninsulas if possible. After that, I "fill in" the borders with cities and forts to establish the road system. Sometimes this strategy works for me, sometimes it doesn't.

Maquiladora · January 23, 2003, 11:20

Found it

HuangShang · January 23, 2003, 21:34

what is it?

Maquiladora · January 23, 2003, 22:30

Its a science victory with only 10 cities.

It kinda points out (in the unmodded and SAP game anyway) that you dont need all the borders and its ok to overlap on the 3rd border bump (pop 19+), because the buildings and tile imps make up for the loss in resources easily. Also building cities closer together is better for defence as someone mentioned earlier in the thread.