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Starfighter08
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Switzerland
Nov 2000
time: 05:14
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I don't remember exactly wich gov'ts Civs ruled by populist zealots use but I've made a quite disturbing observation. Theocracies are supposed to turn into fundamentalism once that civ discovers it. Problem is that staying with theocracy while the other civs move on to abs. mon. and republic causes the theos to stay back in science. I have two such civs in the game I'm currently playing and they are just push overs now. Couldn't they too use abs. mon. or so as intermezzo until they research fundamentalism?
Btw am I the only one who thinks that stormtrooper is a too powerful unit?
I'd be glad to hear your opinions on these subjects.
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Frog_Gamer
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Lisboa
May 2001
time: 08:14
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Wes,
1) I'll try and count the exact science output before and after the Lyceum, but I think you are right the game does not remove the advantage.
2) I have come up with something along the same problem: namely when you get industrial revolution and can now built Factories, all your mills are eliminated at the moment the advance is achieved and not when the factory is built as it should be!!! The consequence is a big drop in production at the moment when you start building expensive stuff. Furthermore its not logical nor history based. I have yet to come across a business man who starts by stopping his source of income, before going into a major investment! It doesn't make sense. I have had, to a lesser degree, the same problem when switching to nuclear or robotic plants (i forget which one), but the advanced mines tend to compensate that effect a little.
3) I have now played about 3 games with a carefull watch on the 1800/1820 issue. I confirm for sure that in the last 3 games the trigger took effect when passing from 1816 to 1820. I had made an eroneous report previously.
4) I have being playing the Cradle by Hexagonian, and have come to the conclusion that he has done an excellent job on aggressive AI and its more than just "Frenzy". I have had 2 games now with constant and heavy harassement from the raging hordes and my closest Civ. This really changes everything as you are so busy trying to cope that you don't have the ability (production) to develop as one would want, hence the challenge. Could you see what he has done to his goals and strategies to make the civ much more agressive? I believe that where the secret lies!
5) When playing MM2 (during which I have lost of fun  ) I have found that once I get passed the other civs on the tech tree, thats it, there fried! They never seem to catch up again. Now during my last game with cradle, 2 of the civs did catch up , hence it made me wonder how come? Probably and this is only a guess, I saw some code in the diffDb that would imply that AI gets lower costs if he is behind (both in science and production). Well it works in cradle, but doesn't work in the standard package sold by activision, nor does it seem to work in MM2. Why?
6) Finally last nigth, I was finishing an MM2 game, on very-hard, 8 civs, raging hordes, large map and I got the negative population count in 4 of my conquered cities (out of a total of 6 conquests), 1 which recovered after a long time, two I finally disbanded I was so annoid and rebuilt from scratch, and one which I kept to monitor it. Let me explain that the negative pop is not on the figure seen by the city icon but the large number when you open city management window. For example a size 13 city, could show something like 131 500. The growth value is then added someway to increase this figure until you reach above 140 000 and then you get a size 14 city. OK, well, when you conquer a city I have had cases (don't quote the figures) when the pop outside was 16, and inside the city management window -199 572 (for example!). Hence the city has to grow all the back to 0, then increase to 16 before the numbers match again as they do in normal cities. This take quite a large amount of turns, hence the city does not progres in production, nor science, nor anything, but It works at whatever the outside number is set (ie 16 in present example). So I tried all 3 ways to cope with this. The most profitable in the earlier game is to destroy the city (that is done quickly by giving it to an AI and reconquering every turn) and start from scratch, of course at the end of the game, you take an opposit tack and do nothing (just make it produce whatever it can ie 16 versus your other cities at 30+). I tried to have a look at the pop reducing (partisans) slick code, but from what I see this cannot be the cause unless it uses a bugged activision command (of many).
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WesW
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Florence, Al., USA
Jan 1970
time: 23:14
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Star, I have made the Abs. Mon. insertion you suggested. I resisted doing it earlier, since you usually get Abs. Mon. not long after Theocracy, but if it makes that much difference then I will make the change.
I am going to have Dale send me the diplomod fix and the Leaders code and include it with the growth code that hopefully Solver will get to me in the next few days and bundle this into a version 1.1 of the Medpack, which I hope will finish off the first public release. Then I will put the city expansion code and the other stuff like the pirate code into a v2.0 Crusade! beta.
Frogger, you are mixed up about the Mill. It goes obsolete when you discover Oil Refining. I made it obsolete with the advance discovery so that players would be forced to construct new, more expensive buildings as the game went along. I would rather there have been a way to have the old buildings' upkeep increase along with the city population, and the growing effect of the building, but there was no way other than what I did with the granary and food silo.
As far as your comparisions with the Cradle mod, you should ask David what he did to get the results you are experiencing. It may be that he has hit upon something that I missed.
I am sorry you are seeing the population bug you describe. I have never ran across it. Does it seem to only happen in the last half of the game, or when cities get above a certain size?
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hexagonian
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Gnawing on your mind...
Jun 1999
time: 23:14
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Wes,
What I did with the strategies.txt file was basically use the priority numbers that BlueO set up as my starting point - though I also went in and made some adjustments of my own. I had read your ongoing discussion with Richard (several times in fact) to try to get a handle on how those numbers all worked together (same with you - I was a little dizzy afterwards) Even before incorporating Frenzy, I noticed that the AI was more aggressive than in the default game. I put Frenzy in because the in the last version, BlueO had also tied the hate levels into advances (at least he claimed this). So I have a low level Frenzy for the duration of the game. (Frenzy basically is supposed to help the AI build stacks and move them - strategies.txt and goals.txt gets them to attack.
The game you read about in my thread is the best game I have ever played
Raging Hordes
9 civs
Large map
Uniform terrain
Land/Continent Based/Wet
(This includes CTP1 MedMod - which I thoroughly enjoyed BTW - I know that I am biased though) mainly because the AI made concerted efforts to take cities and would sneak attack me from time to time. I have seen in other Cradle games that the AI will also make a progression of attacks - in an earlier game the Japanese proceeded to march through the heart of my empire and take large cities. I was able to retake them, but the damage had been done especially when your city improvements are decimated with Dale's coding.
Granted, there is still room for improvement - and I do not think that a truly revolutionary AI is yet possible in any turn-based game - one that can take an overview and make a long term plan to attack a human player in an unpredictable fashion. If the AI used the advantages that I have built into it, I would be deadmeat early on... And I play a cetain way - other players may have a different style which may work well with Cradle, making it easy for them.
I believe that the success that I have had though, is a combination of several things - those settings in strategies.txt, along with the settings in Goals.txt. The Barbarian settings in risks.txt are very important too, because they can keep the human off-balance. I was very concerned about the Barbarians overrrunning the AI, but that does not seem to be the case. At turn 600, the Barbs had 4 cities on the map - 2 were from a single civ and the others were from single civs. However, I do not know if the cities were lost from revolts or actual conquering.
And I have boosed the AI in the didffDB.txt file too. There is no way I can confirm whether the production/gold/science boosts are working through the cheat mode though, but the AI is staying very competitive in those areas.
There are some adjustments in const.txt too. I like the fact that my units cannot heal out in the field - though your approach puts a different spin and solution on that issue.
A lot depends on how a player starts too - get a settler from a goody hut early on and the game becomes easier - same with a two-tile vision unit - (all of my early units have a 1 tile vision - so exploration is slower and actually can protect the AI in the early game).
The best thing to do is to look at my numbers in all of these files
Risks.txt
DiffDB.txt
Goals.txt
Const.txt
strategies.txt
comparing them with your setup and then run some playtests with them. You are welcome to do so - a lot of the work I have done has been as a result of people posting suggestions and also what you had done in CTP MedMod and CTP2 MedMod2.
I also refer you to my readme file, which spells out why I made the decisions that I did in my Modwork.
The most current Cradle has the POW code, the UnitUpdater code, and Diplo 3.6 - (I haven't tested these codes in a play situation (although others may have since I have posted them for download), but they have been tested in the cheat mode to see if they cause the game to crash. I was happy with the way Diplo 3.5 worked too - I tend to try not to cut deals with the AI unless I am truly desperate.
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StarGazer
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San Francisco
Jun 2001
time: 21:14
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Wes, I don't know your reasons for changing the end date from the orginal game's 2300 A.D. to 2200 A.D., since your Miscellaneous MM2 Readme file simply says, "The game now ends in 2200 A.D." However, I would like to know how I can change it back to 2300 A.D.. I need the extra 100 turns, since I'd like to try for the Science ending.
After about 40 hours of play, I'm still playing my very first game of CTP (CTP2 MM2), so I'm still "in learning mode" as far as the game is concerned. I have it set at medium level, huge world, 5 civs total, next-to-easiest barbarians. Each civ is on a separate island-continent.
Although we are now at 2084 A.D., I still have about 25 to 30 Advances to get even though my civ is a Virtual Democracy of 30+ cities and still building and has Science set at 100%. It'll take me at least 100 years to get all those Advances. I'm so far ahead of the four other civs that I don't even think about them much anymore. My entire focus in this game is on economic and scientific development. Didn't want to be concerned about military matters until I had played the game all the way through for the first time and had a better understanding of the game in general, i.e., what each Advance does, what the Wonders do, etc.
I realize now that I should have switched as soon as possible to City State, with its 75% Science rate, instead of remaining in Monarchy, with its 60% rate. I stayed in Monarchy (and later Absolute Monarchy) because of its higher production rate and because I was wary of attacks by the AI civs and barbarians and wanted a stronger military presence. It was the barbarians who attacked the most, always with the newest military units, but they were much less of a problem than I had feared.
At the Medium Level setting, the AI civs are incredibly passive militarily, I've learned. None of my fears were really justified (I have Castles, Bastions, Battlements, and in each city at least three military units one of which is always the most modern). Far too much defensive strength, I now realize. A needless expense.
Anyway, I think that the Science ending is a real challenge, so I'm going to keep trying for it. But I need the extra 100 turns (a 2300 A.D. end limit). So what do I need to do to set the game to end at 2300 A.D.? Thanks!
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Starfighter08
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Switzerland
Nov 2000
time: 05:14
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Yea. I wasn't able to succeed in the science victory too. I've traded and stolen many advances but wasn't able to research the era 8 advances before the game ended. So I tried to cut research point costs of era 6 and 7 advances by 1/4 and era 8 by 1/3. I think this was also necessary to stay on the timeline, because there are many more advances to research in said eras than in the prior ones. I'm around 1900 and so far all is well. Guess I shall see whether that was a good idea.
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StarGazer
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San Francisco
Jun 2001
time: 21:14
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Last edited by StarGazer on 15-07-2001 at 21:13
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StarGazer
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San Francisco
Jun 2001
time: 21:14
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.
Last edited by StarGazer on 15-07-2001 at 21:15
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WesW
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Florence, Al., USA
Jan 1970
time: 23:14
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That sounds good, Wouter. I am still waiting on Dale to get me the diplomod fix and the photograph files. I altered the wonders yesterday to get rid of the building bug.
Stonehenge no longer goes obsolete.
The Great Wall has its original property of reducing unit upkeep by 25% as well as portecting against barbarians.
The Lyceum, Drug Rebab Act and Chichen Itza have the same effect as the buildings they used to give, and they still go obsolete with the same advances.
I do not think that the game will be changed much by these alterations, and they eliminate the bug, so I feel pretty good about them.
For those of you who have played the mod through to the end, are you still falling behind the timeline even with the new government settings and reduced advance costs?
I feel pretty confident that the timeline holds until 1900, so if you are falling behind proir to that it is because of not trading enough tech or not building enough commerce or science improvements.
If you are still falling behind after the Industrial age, I will reduce the cost of advances further.
Advances should come about every 3 to 4 turns in the modern, information and genetic ages. I have allotted the last 80 turns of the game, the diamond age, to finishing up the game and discovering the future advances.
Btw, Joseph Hildreth became the second person to send in a donation last week. Joseph, I could have sworn I had your email address, but I don't so I will say thank you here in the thread. The picture you sent of yourself was nice, too. I also liked the team pics and collectors items on the wall behind you. It would appear we have some other things in common besides strategy games.
Last edited by WesW on 16-07-2001 at 09:35
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StarGazer
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San Francisco
Jun 2001
time: 21:14
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Am now in 2215 A.D. Had to extend the time limit from 2200 to 2300 A.D. Am playing at Medium Level, 5 civs., Huge map, 2nd-to-weakest Barbarians. I now have 47 cities under a Virtual Democracy, at "North Pole, South Pole, East, West, and Center in an attempt to space things out correctly so as to be able to position the obelisks to cover the required 60% of the map. Have had Science set at maximum throughout the entire game. Now have about 60% of my advanced cities turning out Infrastructure so that I can mine, mine, mine both land and sea as well as improve the terrain everywhere -- for a grand last push. Have just started working for the Gaia Controller Advance; will take me 8 turns to get it. I still have 10 Advances left to get (seven of them military), but at least with the Gaia Controller Advance in hand, I can begin the final "count down."
Gaining the Science Victory is really going to be touch and go. I feel like I've been pushing and pushing and pushing throughout this entire game. I really started slowing down after entering the Modern Age (1904 A.D. in this game). Just look at all those Advances (from the Modern Age on) on the MM2 Advances Chart. WOW! Thank the gods I haven't had to fight any battles!
What is more, since I didn't build any Nuclear Plants (because I didn't want any meltdowns), when Robotic Plants became available, I found that I had no factories or oil refineries (they had disappeared from the City Inventories) and was relying solely on the mines that I had built, so production went into a real slump for about 20 to 30 years until I got the robotic plants built. I'm beginning to appreciate the "staggering effect" of your City Improvements, WES. Dunno whether Nuclear Plants should be included in that kind of effect, though, since there is such controversy about building them. Would prefer them as an OPTION. Maybe give the gamer the option of either building Nuclear Plants or keeping Factories going, with their 30% increase in production.
I also didn't realize that I needed Incubation Centers (and Body Exchange) in order to get the Arcologies City Improvement, so I had gone directly for the Fusion Power Advance (since the MM2 Advances Chart implies that Fusion is needed for Arcologies). So that misunderstanding (not knowing the difference between Arcologies as an ADVANCE and Arcologies as a CITY IMPROVEMENT) stagnated the growth of my ten 40+ pop. cities for about 20 years while I began zooming hell-bent for the Human Cloning Advance.
Even with Science set at maximum for each type of government (Tyranny, Monarchy, Absolute Monarchy, Democracy, and Virtual Democracy), it takes pretty long to get an Advance (three turns for the easiest; eight turns for the hardest). Since entering the Modern Age (1904 A.D.) I have had two Science specialists set in every city except the newest ones (which gives me a bonus of about 100 Science per city). Any more would interfere too much with the efficiency of the city, I think. I have had a money deficit throughout almost all of the game, according to the Empire Manager anyway. Nevertheless, if the deficit reads no higher than "minus 1000 or so," I'm OK and operate at a profit. I don't understand that, but funds do come in, from about 500 to 2000 GP per turn. Production has been constant at 20% throughout the game. For the most part, I left the sliders set at what the MM2 design recommends for each type of government.
Well, this first CTP game has been a learning experience -- and a lot of fun!
I doubt that I would ever be able to win the Science Victory, however, at a level higher than Medium or with an End Game time limit as early as 2200 A.D.
Nevertheless, the next game I will try at the next higher level and will switch to City Republic as soon as possible (in order to get its 75% Science effect) instead of staying with Monarchy and Absolute Monarchy.
Hope this info helps somewhat, WES.
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Der PH
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Aachen, Germany, Old Europe, Axis of Evil
Jul 2001
time: 06:14
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Hi everybody!
Some days ago I downloaded MM2 and last weekend I tried it out.
Before my complaints, I have to say: That's really great stuff! Until now I reached the industrial aera and enjoyed the game very much.
Now my little complaints:
1st) Why did you take the ability to bombard other sea units from warships like the ship of the line and the ironclad? In the original game I liked the situations when hostile warships met, bombarded each other and both withdrew damaged but alive. In MM2 one of the opponents will inevitably be destroyed (unless the attacker retreats, which the computer never does).
2nd) Why did you include the ability to counterbombard? I think, when a superior army arrives at a hostile city or fortification, the defenders should at least have the possibility to fire their guns without getting them destroyed at the first shot. I liked the long sieges in the original game, when the opponents fired at each other every turn and the defender of a city had a chance to reduce a superior attacking army.
So, that's it. It's only my opinion and I don't know if anybody agrees, but I wanted to give you some feedback, which you can possibly take into account for future versions of the mod. All in all MM2 is really great, especially the elite units (I got the zulus). Keep up the good work!
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Arathur
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I'm still getting the following error "guXXX.spr not found in asset tree" (XXX being a random number). It occurs after I've been in a Medmod II game for about 5 minutes or so. If I try to move a unit, or build a city the error occurs and the game crashes. I've been trying to play Medmod II for the last month and a half, and no luck. I've tried reinstalling, changing directories, re-downloading Medmod II files...............somebody please help me out....... thanx.
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First off - this is great stuff. I've had the Japanese and Mongols walking around my territory with big stacks, taking cities and forcing me to take them back. The Russians have been absorbing everything on the northern continent. Jesus, this thing is a challenge now. I'm almost afraid to add the strategies.txt from the cradle mod.
Second - I'm still having problems with both getting advances in the information age as well as paying upkeep fees. I've gone in and reduced several upkeep fees (most notoriously, the nano-assembly plant and the robotic plant). I'm also trimming down the advance costs on my copy.
Third - I recommend setting the factory and the oil refinery to both expire at nano-assembly. I've had summer jobs at both factories (assembling computers) and robotic plants (monitoring the robots that mass produce PCBs). Trust me, the factory won't go out of style until nano-assembly. Plus, with the factory and refineries still good when you achieve robotics, the robotic plant is quicker to build.
Thanks to all those who put MM2 together.
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JamesJKirk
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Dixon, CA USA
Jan 1970
time: 21:14
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I'm at about 1951 in my current (and first) MM2 game. I'm at Very Hard, on a Gigantic Map and with 16 civs, I'm in a Republic, and my science is maxxed at 85%
I ran into the problem of the techs coming too fast early on (I had musketeers somewhere between 900 and 1200 I believe) But by the 1800s-1850s the tree had corrected itself. For most of the duration of the game, I've been well ahead in techThe problem with the modern age is just that there's a glut of advances in the modern age. Cutting down the cost would help, as would eliminating some redundant ones, Mass Media and Radio, as well as Jet Propulsion and Supersonic Flight come to mind. In my game I got Mobile Warfare in 1949, and have still not discovered Electrification.
In regards to the Rifleman sprite, and something I noticed myself. I think you should just use the CTP2 Infantryman sprite for the rifleman and get rid of the Grenadier, since it comes almost immediately after the Musketeer and just adds 5 attack and defence and another movement point. It makes building Musketeers useless unless you're in a big hurry.
Also I think maybe the hydroponic farms come a little too earlier, I can have to technology to make them now, but I don't since my cities are all growing fast enough, and I think I might have been able to research the tech for those before I could get hospitals, and all my major cities were just about maxxed out in pop at that point.
I think you should definitely try to emulated what's been done for the AI in the Cradle mod (but w/o Frenzy). The AI just keeps their stacks around their cities, even when at war with a neighboring civ, even if they lost a city to a neighboring civ. I've only lost one city the whole game, and that was just because I left it weakly defended to help out an assault. I recaptured it almost immediately. Although I did have some revolutions in recently conquered cities, which I enjoyed (but I'm sure it helped that I was in a republic with about 35 cities and few happiness improvements.) Also, didn't I hear something about the "break agreements" negotiation working? or was I hallucinating? hmm. Anyway, it's annoying bringing in someone you've a military pact with to fight against someone, then ending the war, and having to quit the military pact or alliance because they demand you go back to war, even though they never sent troops anywhere near the enemy! sorry for the rant.
Anyway, Wes and everyone, the Med Mod is great, it has made CTP2 worth playing, and I definitely look forward to seeing where it goes from here!
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I've got a question. I built tv stations all over my empire and every city I built them in went suddenly to zero science output. Checking a hunch, I sold them all, and immediately my science went up tp around three hunderd in each of those cities. Here's the question: is building upkeep subtracted directly out of the commerce each city generates before science and gold is calculated? If so, the high upkeep costs on industrial age buildings and beyond might explain the lag on advancement.
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WesW
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Florence, Al., USA
Jan 1970
time: 23:14
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Cube, I changed the happiness improvements to stay active the entire game because you will need all of them to combat population pollution unhappiness when your cities get large in the latter stages of the game.
You also reminded me to contact Harlan again about getting me his buiding pics.
James, see Mister Pleasant's post immediately before your own as far as the aggressiveness of the AIs. I think that you either had non-militaristic neighbors, or else you kept your cities so well defended that the AIs could never get a strong enough stack to take one of them, and probably both were present to keep them from attacking. I hope that Dale's personality-switching code will spice up the peaceful games like yours which can be boring at times.
Also, you might want to use the Large civs version for your settings. It has lower science coefficients so that you do not get ahead of the timeline with your larger empires.
Look at the Medcharts for the Musketeer and Grenadier, and you will notice the Grenadiers cost twice as much to maintain as Mouseketeers (Annette was cheap I hear).
As far as the Cradle changes, I would like for everyone to keep using my files until we get Dale's personality-changing code introduced. I think that it will make the game spicey enough for most anyone.
Arathur, you most likely have a problem with your system. Try re-booting and running some diagnostics. Also check out Tim's readme if you are using win2k.
PH, 1) was made so that Submarines could be more of a factor in the game. I covered that in the readmes, though I guess I did not spell it out in so many words.
2) If you think about it, the side which initiates the bombardment does get in the first shot. The other side just gets to respond automatically.
I have re-named the Arcologies advance Mega-construction, to avoid confusion in the future.
I am going to go in and reduce the cost of the post-Industrial age advances by about 33% to 50%, and see if this does not solve the timeline problem once and for all.
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Starfighter08
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Switzerland
Nov 2000
time: 05:14
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quote:
Originally posted by WesW
I am going to go in and reduce the cost of the post-Industrial age advances by about 33% to 50%, and see if this does not solve the timeline problem once and for all. |
I tried the same but only 25% for era 6 and 7, 33% for era 8 and it did only delay the problem a bit. I think 33 to 50% should do the job.
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Cube
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El Paso, Tx
Nov 2000
time: 22:14
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I noticed In my current game(hard, large map, 3rd hardest barbarians, 5 other civs) that the idealogically agressive academic personality only builds cities on their current continent and don't expand to other continents. They have 6, 8, and 8 cities, while i have 17 and my other 2 civs have 18 and 16 cities. I opened the cheat window and saw that they didn't have any ships in their military, and they weren't building any either. I was thinking that this might be a bug in strategies.txt or buildingbuildlist.txt. I also have one of the science civs that isn't building farms, they just build mines and nets, and they have mines in non hill terrains like grassland or plains which would be better for farms. Speaking of hills, Wes why did you change the remove advance for hills to nano machines, what is the point of that. Couldn't you just add the happiness from theater and arena to their obsoleting improvements.
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11-07-2001 12:35
(See below WARNING). So basically, I should be able to get the latest diplomacy update to Wes start of next week with the increasing city-sprawl. I'm going to do the city-sprawl differently to BlueO's MOD in that each extra city tile is a tile improv instead of a good. Stay tuned for that. 
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