08-12-2000 00:40									#1
	Adding New Advances Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

This is a request for help with part of CtP that, at least so far, hasn't been mentioned much in the Forums. I've been working on extensively modifying the Tech Tree in CtPII for the Ancient-Renaissance-Modern eras. My major focus is to slow down the advent of the Renaissance era with gunpowder and open ocean sailing/exploration, and add enough new advances to accomodate a bunch of new Ancient/Renaissance units (Legion, Spearman, Trireme, Noble, Hose Archer, Man-at-Arms, etc) Adding new Advances, at least up to about 110 total, has been no problem. Likewise Great Library files, changes to requirements for units, wonders, Public Works, city improvements, governments, etc.
My nagging problems concerning Advance changes are:
1. The cost factor which is included in all the Advances. How is it calculated? I have been 'guestimating' costs for new Advances based on their relative place in the tree, but I'd really like to know if there is something more precise, and where to find it.
2. How can you ensure that certain advances are considered first for Starting Advances in scenarios and regular games? I have added a couple of Very Early Advances that allow early PW like Cattle as an alternative to Agriculture and Archer and Warrior as equally possible starting units, based on different advances. How can I make certain that at least one of the unit-requirement advances is always included in the starting line-up for a civ, and is there some way to ensure that most of the time a civ does not start with both Domestication (PW=cattle) and Agriculture (PW= Farms), so that early civilizations can be kept nicely divergent from the start of a regular (4000BC) game?

	08-12-2000 01:13									#2
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DiffDB.txt has a list of the possible starting advances that are 'free'. If you don't put either one in that list, civs won't get them both at start. Similarly, if you give the probability that an advance is available as 100%, then computer civs will always start with that advance.

However, since CtP2 treats alll AI players the same way there is no way to have some computer civs be guaranteed to start with one advance, and others with a different advance.