Apolyton University Mod (Thread II) - Page 5

Dominae · August 12, 2003, 01:21

Which gets me thinking: we've got some work to do once Conquests comes out! Maybe you'll join us again for a bit, alexman? Not that anything has been done in your absence.

Dominae

vmxa1 · August 12, 2003, 03:36

Talk about a presence.

Theseus · August 12, 2003, 21:20

Awesome. Tremendous. Brilliant.

Let's take this further... does anyone disagree that this is the best mod we know of? Shouldn;t Firaxis highlight / acknowledge that in some way? Shouldn't the release of C3C offer an opportunity to re-invigorate the AU Mod?

Jeff Foley... comment please?

Rhothaerill · August 12, 2003, 21:42

Missed this thread earlier. Wow! Talk about some great advertising for Apolyton University and Apolyton in general if the AU mod makes it into C3C!

If it does...news article NM!!

Oh, and it's definitely the best mod around Theseus. It'll be interesting to revamp the mod for Conquests.

sabrewolf · August 14, 2003, 13:15

i havn't played the mod too often yet, but until now i was frustrated, that half of the exploits don't work anymore (e.g. mathematics & polytheism research monopoly, etc.). i guess these small things don't only make the game a tad more realistic, but make each game about a half a level more difficult...

Tassadar500 · August 14, 2003, 14:17

Was it sent?

Turrosh Mak · August 19, 2003, 23:37

Hi,

I went to download the AU Mod for plain Civ3 (not PtW) and the zip contained bix ver 1.16 instead of the expected bic ver 1.06.

Am I doing something wrong or is there a mistake in the download section?

alexman · August 19, 2003, 23:44

You can find v1.06 in the first post of the original AU mod thread.

However, be forwarned that we stopped developing the mod for vanilla Civ3 as soon as PTW came out, so the latest tweaks are absent from v1.06.

vmxa1 · August 20, 2003, 02:19

alexman I could not find the logs for your run at Gotm21, are they not posted? (sorry for the OT) BTW heck of a job.

Turrosh Mak · August 24, 2003, 17:26

I hate the frequency with which global warming appears in the game, so I moved mass transit from Ecology to Motorized transport to see if it would make a difference. Modern mass transit made its debut in the early 1900s when alternating current made electric trains possible, so I felt justified making this move.

I have just finished playing a game with this change and it made a huge difference in the number of squares that suffered from global warming. I'd say it reduced the appearance by a good 2/3's.

I hope that this change will be included in future AU mods.

Yahweh Sabaoth · August 25, 2003, 10:21

I"d have to say that though that would make the game easier, and hence, less "hardcore," it would be more realistic. But perhaps the cost of mass transit could be increased.

Totally OT: why the hell aren't superhighways in this game? That was one of the great improvements in Civ2, and superhighways are (very unfortunately) found in nearly every major city on planet Earth.

Turrosh Mak · August 28, 2003, 13:33

Hi,

I'm working on upgrading the AU mod 1.06 for vanilla Civ, but a couple of changes escape me.

Is there a way to improve elephant movement jungles? The only movement option I see is "treat all terrain as road"

Do bombers,stealth bombers, and cruise missiles have lethal sea bombardment in AU Mod 1.17?

alexman · August 28, 2003, 13:47

Good idea to update the vanilla Civ3 version.

Unfortunately, there is no way to make elephants ignore the movement cost for jungles. This feature was added to the editor in PTW.

Bombers and Stealth bombers do not have lethal sea bombard in the AU mod. Cruise missiles can of course kill naval units, but this ability is given by the "Cruise Missile" flag. No need to set the "Lethal sea bombard" explicitly.

Tassadar500 · August 28, 2003, 14:50

Turrosh Mak I don't mean to sound like a grouch here but I think before you update the Vanilla Civ3 AU mod you need to ask around for everyone's opinon on things unless it's just for your use.

alexman · August 29, 2003, 00:03

I don't see any harm in updating the vanilla Civ3 version, as long as it is as close as possible to the latest PTW version of the mod.

Turrosh Mak · August 29, 2003, 02:09

I think NM is worried that I might trot it out without peer review, or abuse the good name of Apolyton University. Don't worry, that won't happen.

I am going through the mod notes from AU 1.17 for PTW line by line.

I'm making good progress again. I had to start over when I buggered the Air Unit revamps.

BTW, did anyone ever notice that the original rule set has the Samurai unit upgrade to war elephants (which is impossible due to nationality constraints)? Shouldn't this be cavalry?

sabrewolf · August 29, 2003, 03:56

no, that's ok... the same thing happened (iirc) between the legions and the immortals.

it's the way do define the upgrade path using just one dimension... nationality is ignored there.

Konquest02 · August 29, 2003, 08:25

yeah, it's ok. If you open your basic civ3.bic file, you'll see that all UUs upgrade to something rather strange. But it works well.

Since Japan can't build War Elephants, the game looks for the next unit in the upgrade path and finally gets to Cavalry... That way, the upgrade path is the same for all civs.

Turrosh Mak · August 31, 2003, 06:10

I need some clarification of the following changes in AU 1.17 (for PtW) in order to update the mod for vanilla civ3

What is the "percentage of optimal cities" for chieftain level?

Is the "secret police" building supposed to have the "construct veteran land units" flag toggled?

Is communism supposed to have twice the assimilation rate of democracy (8% vs 4%)? And the same worker speed?

Are the resistance modifiers for communism supposed to be -10, -10, -10, -5, -10, 0?

Nor Me · August 31, 2003, 08:59

Quote:

Originally posted by Turrosh Mak
What is the "percentage of optimal cities" for chieftain level?

90. It's on the difficulty level screen. For the levels chieftain to diety, it's 90,63,60,57,53,47.

This is an AI cheat as the AI plays on chieftain but it does really need it.

Quote:

Is the "secret police" building supposed to have the "construct veteran land units" flag toggled?

Yes. This is a hack so the AI will build it more often. It shouldn't have too much of an effect otherwise.

Quote:

Is communism supposed to have twice the assimilation rate of democracy (8% vs 4%)? And the same worker speed?

Are the resistance modifiers for communism supposed to be -10, -10, -10, -5, -10, 0?

Yes. Communism needed improving and the big change to the worker speed is in keeping with the Communist ethos.

All these work without PTW.

alexman · September 23, 2003, 14:30

Hey, it appears that the AU Mod made it in the "Best of the Net" CD that they are giving away if you preorder C3C.

Yay!

Rhothaerill · September 23, 2003, 14:35

Woo hoo!! One more bit of good advertising for Apolyton and the AU.

SorvinoBackhand · September 29, 2003, 16:50

I am curious to try the AU mod, but have never installed one before. It does not say in the 'read me' what I am to do with the bix file. How do I install this please?

Dominae · September 29, 2003, 16:55

Sorvino, just place the file inside your "Scenarios" folder. Then, when you want to start a random map game with the AU mod, go to Scenarios (instead of "New Game") and select the AU mod.

Dominae

Cort Haus · October 6, 2003, 07:00

I haven't completed a game with it yet (started AUSG101), but from what I read I have just one beef with the AU mod. My friends the Iroqoius and the Chinese have been turned into nasty civs (that is to say, nasty by the generally reprehensible standards of the AI civs), but I don't see any civs with their aggression level reduced to balance it.

I recognise that this is supposed to encourage these potentially strong civs to attack AI neighbours and to become killer AI's, but it also makes the world an even more appropriate place for war-oriented playstyles by the human. There are already too many reasons for players to pick war over peace in Civ 3, and this seems to be yet another.

alexman · October 6, 2003, 10:01

Try to make friends with Babylon now.

Nor Me · October 6, 2003, 10:11

Cort Haus, I believe the Babylonians have had their aggression reduced. That appears to work too. From a good position they always seem to build now whereas before they occasionally committed suicide later on.
I've seen the Chinese gain from this change too. With militaristic and a good UU, they'd lose out to other civs if they were peaceful.

Why would more aggressive AI civs make building harder for the human? The AI doesn't offer any competion to a builder when they're fighting with each other even on Deity. I find that aggressive civs tend to declare war more randomly. Civs with low aggression will still declare war if they have a large advantage such as if a human player is relatively defenceless.

There are circumstances where a peaceful human player and some aggressive AIs can lead to a killer AI emerging because the AIs eliminate each other and this AI then threatens the human. Unfortunately, these are the circumstances when warfare is a better strategy for both the human and at lest one of the AIs.
You can hardly blame the AU Mod for encouraging a better AI strategy can you?

When that doesn't happen, a builder will gain from more aggressive AIs.

sabrewolf · October 6, 2003, 12:29

uhm... i'm just playing a modified game where i gave all civs maximal aggression (empreror, huge, continental, 60% water, 24 civs). but until now (most have entered medieval era) there has only been 1 war in which i wasn't involved: between two not-neighboring civs.

and no, it's not because they're still expanding, since there aren't any free tiles left...

Theseus · October 6, 2003, 13:17

sabrewolf, how balanced are the AI civs in terms of terrain quality, number of cities, tech, etc.?

There need to be imbalances for wars for break out (well, that's not the only reason, but a big contributor).

sabrewolf · October 6, 2003, 17:53

uhm... on my continent there is quite an imbalance, because several started in the jungle, while a few (persia, aztecs, japanese, and me as germans) have tasty cows, wines and wheat on nice and fertile grassland.
not many luxury resources, however most have iron and horses.

well, doesn't really matter, because i'm beelining to military tradition and will start allying just to get some units off my back