Deactivating settlers, Help needed

Captain Nemo · April 20, 2000, 00:29

Yes, everyone needs help from time to time...

I have read or heard of scenario makers deactivating some of the human controlled settler unit's abilities, for example still allowing it to build roads but not to settle cities, through editing the option menu (The AI will still use the full range of abilities).

I have tried several approaches but have not succeeded. Any suggestions?

Thanks

Civfan · April 20, 2000, 00:43

in the game.txt you should be able to delete the build city function. I believe thats how it was done.

Xin Yu · April 20, 2000, 02:55

Hummmmm, what are you aiming at, Captain Nemo?

[This message has been edited by Xin Yu (edited April 20, 2000).]

Hendrik the Great · April 20, 2000, 08:17

I'm sorry to tell you but I don't think it can be done. I tried both the game.txt and the menu.txt and you will be able to remove the option of giving it a name. (When I did that it was funnily named Hills by the computer...)

However, it is not possible to remove the ability. I even put he changed files in the main directory and it was the same with the game.txt. When I put in the menu.txt Civ II crashed immediately.

When you remove the entire option for naming a city. The game automaticly uses the file in the main directory. As said changing that one too doesn't help either.

Btw, there is no option for founding cites ih the game.txt. I searched for it several times by hand and let the computer do some looking. Nothing. Just options for naming and renaming and the such.

There is one line in the menu.txt that says found city and also detemines the letter to use for that.
I haven't tried changing the letter to anothe. But I don't think it would help to solve the problem. Perhaps use a letter no one usually has on their keyboards and seee what happens...

Playing around with the menu.txt is not recommandable. It will crash the moment you remove a line or even just the letter that determines the letter one has to push for it.
You should be able to rename the orders there though(like "build" to "construct" i.e.) without trouble.

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[This message has been edited by Hendrik the Great (edited April 20, 2000).]

April 20, 2000, 10:22

I had been looking for this, too, with no success. I had wanted to have engineers and settlers having separate functions, but couldn't get it to happen. You may just have to tell the player not to found cities until a certain event happens or something.

Paul Hanson · April 20, 2000, 11:27

I tried this a few months ago. It`s impossible as far as I know. IT`d be handy if someone found a way to do it though...

Xin Yu · April 20, 2000, 14:28

Phew!

Xin Yu · April 20, 2000, 15:12

Cities cannot be built next to each other. You can use this to ban the engineers from building cities on certain area. As far as RF is concerned, put fortified positions next to cities and have their host city to be the cities next to them.

Have an allied civ put a size 1 city somewhere(representing impassible area) will prevent you from building cities next to it.

St Leo · April 20, 2000, 16:14

The AI algorithm doesn't build cities on terrains that are normally hostile, like the Glacier slot.

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St. Leo
http://ziggurat.sidgames.com/
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Hendrik the Great · April 20, 2000, 17:22

Excelent idea! It does indeed work. I think Mercator did this in his "Orbis Terrae" scenario. It works well with the glacier and tundra slot. Perhaps swamp and jungle as well.

If you want the AI to found cities somewhere then simply put plains or best grassland there. But I guess you knew that...

Stefan Härtel · April 20, 2000, 17:38

AI settlers build cities only on empty terrain squares, which means they won't settle on irrigated terrains, roads, airbases or fortresses (which is stupid).

I don't know how to prevent the human player from building cities. Xin Yu's idea makes sense, but this propably won't work correctly.
The only possibility I would see would be to try creating some sort of a "second ocean", though this should be fairly impossible. You could try putting polluted squares on ocean squares you put where you don't want cities to be built, and put in immobile naval units, or unattractive land squares like glaciers so the units can still pass. Looks odd on the radar map, but I don't think that will matter too much.
Maybe I can think of something if you can tell me what scenario this is supposed to be for. Red Front 1.5?

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[This message has been edited by Stefan Härtel (edited April 20, 2000).]
[This message has been edited by Stefan Härtel (edited April 20, 2000).]

Captain Nemo · April 20, 2000, 21:33

This looks like a problem... I had been able to remove even the options from the menu but the "B" command still works. BTW when you remove the text in the labels file the "stack" just becomes offset and the following text in sequence is used. But the game crashes when looking for the last entries in the file if the total length of the file has been shortened...
I wanted to prevent the human player from building cities so the AI tricks won't work (Anyway I would just prevent the AI from having settlers).
What happens when you reach the 255 max cities? If 255 has been reached and a city No. 255 exists will it prevent building more cities even if some cities have been destroyed? Could I build a bunch of invisible neutral cities until the count is reached and locate them in a corner of the map? Can a city exist on an ocean square?
I also wanted to remove other capabilities though not as critical (J, I, M, E etc...)

The key is that I want the units to act as military units but eat 2 food per turn. I hate having "House Rules". In this case I could remove Cst, Rad and RR, prebuilt X invisible neutral cities (=Total 255)out in the ocean and make the road/irrigation/mining time factor horribly long...

This is NOT Red Front version 1.941 although that will be coming in the future. This is something else...

Michael Daumen · April 20, 2000, 21:35

I think the decision to build a city also takes rivers into account. In Great Game testing I frequently saw cities built on plains-with-river squares.

Could the text change be in labels.txt? That's where the list of unit orders is, no?
[This message has been edited by Michael Daumen (edited April 20, 2000).]

PolarisGL · April 20, 2000, 22:16

Captain Nemo:

Ok, here is an idea. You go into the rules.txt and make it so roads have no affect, as in they don't do anything. You then edit the graphics to all "pink" in a graphics editor, so roads won't show. Then, whoever wastes time on building them would be labeled one who didn't read the readme.

For the AI, use railroads because the AI will always build railroads over roads when they get the chance.

This is an idea, I have not personally done it yet, but I hope it helps you.
[This message has been edited by PolarisGL (edited April 21, 2000).]

techumseh · April 20, 2000, 22:59

I think St. Leo has it. When building your map, substitute tundra for grassland and glacier for plains. Then change the images and edit the rules text to give them the same factors as grass and plains. You lose the use of 2 terrain types (grass and plains), although they can still be used where you want the AI to build cities or under and adjacent to existing cities.

WarVoid · April 21, 2000, 00:07

In the menu.txt file.
Change the trigger letter.
Old - &Build New City|b
Change To Example - B&uild New City|u
The AI dosen't recognize the new letter for commands and dosen't found new cities.
I tried this once before and I think it worked. Have'nt really needed to make this kinda change before.

DarthVeda · April 21, 2000, 00:24

Nemo: You don't want to allow the AI to have engineers in a scenario with 255 cities already in place.

Otherwise whenever the AI tries to found a new city, the player will get bombed with messages about 40 times each turn. Trust me, you can make the AI "9" in perfectionism, but they will still insist on founding a billion cities.

"Too many cities" or something like that. I've seen it before.

It simply prevents the appearance of a new city and the settler/engineer sits around until toyed with again (the AI tends to be a determined little bugger).

Side Note

In Kyokoujitsu (Rising Sun), the only power that will have engineers will be the Japanese, because japanese soldiers will act as settlers, eating food and taking population with them.

The way I plan on having no cities allowed to build is to build 255 cities spread acrost the four maps. Whenever the player founds a new city, they will be given something to the equivalent of "Sorry, you may not found new cities in this scenario."

So unless the AI should somehow coerce a japanese unit out of japanese hands, it shouldn't be a problem.

Also, I've almost finished map 1 of 4, I'll upload it sometime tomorrow so people can have a peek.
[This message has been edited by DarthVeda (edited April 21, 2000).]

Captain Nemo · April 21, 2000, 00:40

I guess my post wasn't clear:
The AI has NO settlers and NO engineers.
The human player has Settlers and engineers and I want to prevent the HUMAN player from building new cities because the scenario lasts 2 months... not enough time to build a city + it damages the strategy.

DarthVeda · April 21, 2000, 00:54

Nemo, don't freak out.

I thought I was being clear from both sides.

If you pre-build 255 in the scenario, and it starts with 255 cities, no more can be built!

The settler will simply refuse with a message "Max 255 cities" or something.

Hendrik the Great · April 21, 2000, 04:39

I just tried changing the letter. I replaced b with y and it had no effect whatsoever.

I also placed it into the main directory and Civ crashed when starting.

Would have been nice...

PolarisGL · April 21, 2000, 09:50

Nemo: Apologies. I read your post in a hurry, and I thought you said everything but building cities.

And I think you will believe me when I say I do not have enough time to visit these forums. If you didn't notice, I spelled "here" as "hear" while posting in a hurry.

Something is wrong with the world when I do something like that.

Michael Daumen · April 21, 2000, 10:57

What about deleting that line from the orders altogether?

Nemo, will you have settlers at the start and want to restrict making new ones? You could make them hard to build and require them to have 5 food upkeep per turn - making any existing settlers more valuable as workers than colonists. What about a house rule as well (I agree they are copouts but if the problem is human only it will work)?

DarthVeda · April 21, 2000, 11:28

Now if you mean keeping the HUMAN player from building cities but allowing the AI to build cities, there is NO WAY to do that without keeping engineers from Humans altogether or setting down a house rule.

Sorry, didn't read that right the last time

Hendrik the Great · April 21, 2000, 11:40

If you delete the line and leave it empty the game will use the menu.txt from the main directory.
If you then place the changed menu.txt also into the main directory the game will crash
(and if you have a lot of bad luck the computer will too).

------------------
Mathias' Civ II Page
http://members.xoom.com/thalys/index.html

St Leo · April 21, 2000, 11:52

The key is that I want the units to act as military units but eat 2 food per turn. I hate having "House Rules". In this case I could remove Cst, Rad and RR, prebuilt X invisible neutral cities (=Total 255)out in the ocean and make the road/irrigation/mining time factor horribly long...

Just a clarification on what Mr. Nemo wants.

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St. Leo
http://ziggurat.sidgames.com/
http://www.sidgames.com/forums/

Xin Yu · April 21, 2000, 13:51

How about this:
A special type of land which produces 0 food.
Settlers eat two foods and cannot add to city after size 1.
This way any city built in the middle of this type of land will be disbanded in one turn.
On other land squares place cities close to each other enough so no new cities can be built either.
No food caravans.

Captain Nemo · April 22, 2000, 17:00

OK I'll give you a little more insight:
Human motorized units (Tanks, trucks, mobile infantry) will be settlers... Food will be renamed "fuel" and replaced with a Jerry-can symbol. The whole idea being to use "Fuel trucks" (Food caravans) to bring fuel forward to your motorized forces... The city inhabitants will be reprogrammed to eat 0 food so city growth will not be affected. Only special terrain (Fuel depots) in the back of the Human's country will produce Fuel.
This makes the "settlers" ability to do anything but fight a real nuisance. I can disable everything except building roads and building/joining cities. (I don't allow irrigation, farming or mining, I don't give the "Rad", "Cst" or "RR" advances to the human player).
I saw somewhere that destroying a city by transforming the terrain to ocean (Via events) removes it from the game but not from the City list so it still counts towards the 255 max.. Can anyone confirm this?

Miner · April 23, 2000, 13:06

Just thinking out loud but what if...

You cannot build a city next to another city right? So what if some clever sod finds the hex value for this (like stopping cities building ships by hex editing, discussed on another thread) and makes all squares 'next to a city'.

(PS just an idea and I can't actually do this myself so I invite someone else to do this)