23-11-1999 00:04									#1
	New units Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

Nordicus, Wes
Rather than continue the AI and diplomacy note I thought I'd start a new one here for units.

Nordicus - I think earlier on in the above mentioned thread it talked about spies and secret agents. I'd suggest the unit I'm creating is called a spy and the existing one is a secret agent - and well done you got the time period exactly right.


As well as the spy I've got the models ready to make an Egyptian spearman, A cog and about half way there with a carthaginian style noble cavalry. I've just been busy on other things but shoul churn out the sprites for these in the next couple of weeks or so.

Reason why I based the spy on a 17th century type figure was because I wanted to create an early muskateer (matchlock armed as in 30 years war/English civil war period) and can reuse most of the model.

	23-11-1999 06:52									#2
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Thanks for the support, Tom.
When do you think you will have the new spy ready?
See the Interceptor & Cleric poll thread over in the General section for more info on how I plan to use the unit.
------------------
"Remember Salzburg!" -Austrian Premiere

An email from Timothy Pintello:
"Could someone other than Nordicus e-mail me any files that he has attached to his e-mails? I am able to get the text of Nordicus's messages, but not anything that he attaches to them."

My reply:
"Don't worry, Tim, Nordicus's messages don't have any meaning attached to them."
[This message has been edited by WesW (edited November 22, 1999).]

	23-11-1999 14:45									#3
	Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

Morgoth:
Geez, how many Toms do we have working on mods and such??? My name's Tom, yours is too, TP's is...who else? There's one more, I think....

Yeah, no, I think the names are good--I got confused (pretty common), thinking that the Spy spy will be called a "Spy," where the new one (which is now the old one or older one) will be called a "Secret Agent." That seemed a bit off to me.
It's the other way around--good. Sounds good.

I like some of your ideas there, too.

For a while now I've been thinking of a new settler unit, a modern one (well, actually, two--one something like the Civ2 Engineer, for the modern+ era, and one, I dunno, from the 12th or 13th centuries), but I don't want to flood you with ideas
I just hate looking at Phantoms (or even interceptors) drifting over these units that look like hippies that just got out of the shower, wearing a dirty towel Well, you know what I mean. Even just a pair of pants would be nice, the poor things!
Any thoughts on that?

(BTW, have you checked out the thread on civ-specific units?)

N.

	24-11-1999 01:55									#4
	Support Apolyton

Nordicus, Wes
I've been following some of the threads but not in that much detail. Basically I've been trying to work (not got that far) on a scenario of my own. I've been trying to put together the framework for a longer game with more units discoveries etc. This will then let me start to focus on which units I need.

I've been drawing up a chart (using Word) whcih shows the discoveries and units. I think I'm pretty well there on most of the units I want (not making them just deciding what I 'may' want). However still trying to work out the other items eg building etc to have. If you're interested I could send you the charts and you could let me have any input. I'll probably add the new 'spy' into it.

I'm not a fan of wonders so I'm not sure whether I'll add them in or at least I might add them in but change their function ie They're really all tourist attractions so should help gold rather than make people happy for example (I'd love to know how 'happy' everyone was about building pyramids!) and the thought that you can build one only and noone else would build another doesn't really fit (but does support my tourist theory - everyone likes the originals best!).

Not sure I'll do any new settler type units yet. I know they don't make sense later on but if its just for 'looks' its not really worth the effort- on the other hand a little wagon train or something may be more applicable.

One thing I'd like to do in my scenario is upgrade buildings eg go from a money lender to a city bank and maybe to a corporate bank. This idea was mentioned in ealier threads and what I want is to upgrade the building so it has the advantages but you don't need to build a completely new building - Can this be done in Slic?

Wes - I'll try and finish off the spy this weekend and post. It's basically just a bit of fidling until I'm happy with the pose and then creating the sprite.By the way does anyone know how to automate anythign in Paintshop pro? The real tedious bit is creating the shadows. All I want to automate is calling up a file, selecting a predetermined colour, change that colour to black, slecting all the unselected bits and clearing that (making it white) and saving. Its just that for a basic set of movements and animations you do this a hundred or so times. Its only about 6-8 keystrokes total per file but it just takes time - and its boring!

	02-12-1999 17:41									#5
	Get a bigger avatar today!

I thought you away somewhere, Morgoth (I'm gonna call you that from now on if you don't mind, cuz when I call you Tom, it feels like I'm talking to myself, and I do that enough out loud ), because I missed your last post. I thought it was at 3 after my last one. I musta been on painkillers or something. Anyone, I exactly no time to comment right now, so this, so I don't forget again, is one helluva long *bump*

Later.

T.

	03-12-1999 01:38									#6
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Nordicus:
I agree with Morgoth that upgrading the settler just to make it look better is not really worth the effort. Wouldn't it be a good idea to put some extra functionality to this new unit, like if it founds a city, the size of this city would three instead of one?

This way cities that are founded later on, would have a better change to actually grow out and become large and important. In my games, the newer cities are almost automatically the smallest, where in reality newer cities can rapidly grow out to be enourmas (USA, Australia, Latin-America, etc.)

	03-12-1999 02:03									#7
	Remove this text

A more realistic solution would be for the tile improvements to become more efficient for advanced cultures.

So while stone-age and industrial-age cities both start at size 1, the industrial cities will grow much faster because they receive more food from their farmlands.

In fact, it should be straightforward to create more efficient versions of each tile improvement for each "age" in the game. I think that would achieve your goals while making the game more true to historical reality.

	03-12-1999 23:22									#8
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

I don't *think* you can change the size of the city the settlers found. Does SMAC have this option? I can't remember.
TP allowed you to move settlers into small cities and add themselves to its population in his mod. I think this would most closely fit the growth of the American cities.

As for tile improvements, this is what the advanced forms are for- to increase productivity of the squares. They cost more, but that's life for you.

	04-12-1999 00:02									#9
	Put an end to popups!

Sure you can. Try this SLIC code:

trigger 'GrowCities' when (city.built)
{
AddPops(city,3);
}


This would get triggered anytime a city is built and would add 3 to its population.

------------------
"Barbarism is the natural state of mankind... Civilization is unnatural. It is a whim of circumstance. And barbarism must always triumph."

	06-12-1999 23:47									#10
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

Locutus:
I was thinking of Civ2's "engineer" unit for doing more stuff--like Ray has in slic there (hey, thanks), but realism is important to me too. Anyway, I'll maybe think about it later--renaming the "settler" unit something else ("hippy in a bath towel"? ), and a "settler" for maybe the 1300s or 1400s to maybe 1900, then perhaps use the "engineer" after.

	07-12-1999 00:01									#11
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

Nordicus
Just to let you know. I posted the spy sprite to Wes today. Only done the movement bits and the other files (TGA,AVI) so far. Should be able to add the death and fight scenes later this week so by next weekend I should have it completed and will also post it to Markos/Dan.

	08-12-1999 00:49									#12
	Inflate your Upload Space

RayK, could you, or anyone else that cares to, follow up on having cities start with more than one pop?
Find out how to have this kick in when a certain date, turn, or advance is reached?

Also, find out if you can have cities begin with improvements in them, especially happiness and/or growth improvements.

This would be especially useful with sea and space cities, and may solve some problems with growth and development that have been discussed in the Interceptors poll, among other places.

	08-12-1999 09:51									#13
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

Morgoth, sounds good, man.

If we need a wav file for him, lemme know, I have a bunch, I'm sure something will do.

quote: trigger 'GrowCities' when (city.built) { AddPops(city,3); } This would get triggered anytime a city is built and would add 3 to its population.

Well, this may work, but it doesn't specify what unit it is that's puting down a city....

	08-12-1999 11:40									#14
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

But you wouldn't want it by unit would you? Don't you want 3 added to every city whether it is land, sea or space once the time (date, round or advance) is reached?

	09-12-1999 12:02									#15
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

Well, if we *could* specify the unit, it would certainly give us more options. If not, then have the effect kick in for all cities founded after a certain point.

	09-12-1999 20:48									#16
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

Would that mean that if I had an old settler sitting around after I discovered the tech to build engineers (or whatever), and used it to build a city, it would only be pop 1? Not sure I like that...

I'd at least like the option to disband the settler in a city and reclaim the pop point, and then rebuild a new engineer.

wheathin
[This message has been edited by wheathin (edited December 09, 1999).]

	10-12-1999 00:19									#17
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

Maybe it's possible to automatically disband all settlers and add the pop points to the nearest city or replace them by engineers or whatever. This would solve your issue. It's still a question if that's a good solution. Personally I'd just keep those settlers for what they are and accept my loss of the smaller cities (don't build too many settlers if you're close to inventing engineers )

	10-12-1999 14:09									#18
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

What do you think if this new settler - engineer - could plant some good too ?

	10-12-1999 21:40									#19
	Inflate your Upload Space

I'm not so sure. How close together could the good be planted? Would it cost money to plant?

The problem is that then the human player plants goods in every square around a city, and gets thousands of free gold, while the AI remains blissfully cleuless.

Wheathin

	11-12-1999 17:32									#20
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

For a scenario, I write a trigger who add one good for each new cities build, so AI players add the good too when the build a city.
My question is:
Is-it possible to know in SLIC which unit build a city ?
[This message has been edited by slamp (edited December 11, 1999).]

	15-12-1999 21:04									#21
	Support Apolyton

Not sure...
One would definitely need to find a way for settlers to be "replaced" by engineers, or else don't have them disbanded, just have them excluded from build lists when the advance enables engineers....But how does one make settlers obsolete without condemning all remaining ones to immediate death?
Civ2's way was cool--they all turn into engineers, with the L. Workshop wonder. I wonder what code did that...and if that can be done thru Slic...?

	15-12-1999 21:35									#22
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

Obsolete units don't disappear. At least, my phalanxes are always still around in the modern era if I don't disband them. So you should just obsolete settlers with the advance that allows engineers.

	16-12-1999 02:12									#23
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

Nordicus:
Good idea to replace settlers with engineers, hadn't thought of that yet. I think it should be possible, here's a quick idea of how it might be done (don't have the time to work it out in detail, but it's a good starting point - I'll try and fill in the details later. Update: details filled in):

trigger 'ReplaceSettlers' when (HasAdvance(g.player, "ADVANCE_INDUSTRIAL_REVOLUTION")) {
    i = i + 1;
    SetUnitByIndex(1, g.player, i);
    if (unit.type == UnitType("UNIT_SETTLER")) {
       KillUnit(unit);
       CreatUnit(g.player, UnitType("UNIT_ENGINEER"), unit.location, 0);
    }
    if (i == player.totalunits) {
       DisableTrigger('ReplaceSettlers');
    }
}

Should work like this although I haven't tested it yet.

Locutus

[This message has been edited by Locutus (edited December 16, 1999).]

	16-12-1999 09:22									#24
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Paul:
Yes, good point--I think it was a momentary lapse of reason: had government changes in mind, yunno, like when you switch out of Monarchy and all your Clerics croak? (This happens in everyone's game, I hope!)


Lucutus:
(Did you guys get a new Borg Queen yet? )
Hey, looks good--my files are too whacked right now to test that, but it definitely appears to have potential.

What advance do you (and to anyone) think would be appropriate for an engineer unit? I had Industrial Revolution in mind...what do you all think?

	17-12-1999 02:08									#25
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

Okay people, I updated the trigger above, it should work like this although I haven't tested it yet (will do that tonight or tomorrow). I used Nordicus's suggestion of Industrial Revolution as the required advance, but this could obviously be changed.

Nordicus:
IMHO the advance that should enable the engineer is dependant on its extra capabilities apart from building cities. If it will make a city autogrow to e.g. size 3, then Industrial Revolution is what I have in mind as well. During the period of the Industrial Revolutian (in reality that is) a large movement from the countryside to the city took place. Small villages rapidly grew out into large cities. So the engineer would really fit in here, as it rapidly creates large cities.
Would you give it some terraforming or similar (e.g. trade goods creating) capabilities, than Explosives might be better in place. This because terraforming or smoothening terrain for installations or whatever will require explosive materials.
A third option, that has been mentioned in the "How can I create a city with a granary"-thread, is to auto-build units and, if possible, buildings. I'm not sure about what advance would fit best here, but maybe Mass Production is an idea? After all, you are building large amounts of units/buildings in a very short time.

Well, thats enough for know, see ya

Locutus
[This message has been edited by Locutus (edited December 16, 1999).]

	19-12-1999 21:53									#26
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

Hey, sounds good--lemme know how the test goes. We seem to be on the same page here--precisely what I thought regarding the Industrial Rev.
Explosives...that was Civ2's enabling advance...yeah, now I remember (been a while!). I don't think any special qualities like that are necessary...the bigger city size should do, hey?
If there would be another unit, part three of the settler, for still more modern times (our current era perhaps, if...), then something like what you're suggesting would make sense (a "terraformer"?). But for now, I think this is fine.

(PS: did ya get that Nordicus Giganticus working ok?)

(PPS: Nevermind: you just emailed about that.)
[This message has been edited by Nordicus (edited December 19, 1999).]

	20-12-1999 16:42									#27
	Suffering from ads?

You could make the size of the city built dependent on other factors too:
Whether the individual has certain tech advances, for example (if just explosives, city size=2, if mass production then 3, etc)
This could also be linked in to the year, if you wanted to maintain the realism of the timeline (although I don't like the idea much - why penalise yourself for being more advanced in the same year than you usually are?).

On a related point, would the AI also be able to take advantage of this - ie would the SLIC trigger when the AI build cities (haven't got around to reading any of the SLIC documentation yet - saved it all to disk, planning to use it as an escape from realtives over Christmas! ).

Finally, how long does SLIC code take to process in-game? What I'm thinking is that if you tried (sorry, when you succeeded ) to implement the advance-dependent city size and ready-built improvements, it would take a fair bit of nesting - would this cause any problems?

	20-12-1999 18:14									#28
	Increase Your PM Length

*Ahem* It wasn't so impotrant I needed to post it twice.... :/
[This message has been edited by DanMc (edited December 20, 1999).]

	22-12-1999 19:01									#29
	Tired of ads?

DanMc:

SLIC applies to human players as well as to AI-players, there's no difference at all. You can however, if you would like to, make a trigger that uses the IsHumanPlayer()-function to make a trigger apply to humans (or AI-players) only.
About the speed, right now the trigger is problably going to take up more time than necessary, because it is tested for every turn (g.player-triggers are evaluated every turn - all g.something-triggers are). I will make it more efficient once I get this thing to work properly. (I ran into some trouble and Nordicus send me a great map that's keeping me occupied - I'll mail you about it later, Nordicus) I don't think it will take up too much time as long as one doesn't make a lot of triggers like this.

Locutus

	01-01-2000 23:19									#30
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

Can anyone help me out here? I've tested the function I mentioned above, but it didn't work as well as I had expected (so far business as usual). I made a few changes and now I have this function:

code:

TypeLocation settlerlocation;
TypeUnit settlerunit;

trigger 'Locutus_ReplaceSettlers' when (HasAdvance(g.player,
                              ID_ADVANCE_INDUSTRIAL_REVOLUTION) ) {
	i = 0;
	while (i < player.totalunits) {
		SetUnitByIndex(1, g.player, i);
		if (unit.type == UnitType("UNIT_SETTLER")) {
			settlerunit = unit.1;
			settlerlocation = unit.location;
			KillUnit(settlerunit);
			CreateUnit(g.player, UnitType("UNIT_MACHINE_GUNNER"), settlerlocation, 0);
		}
		i = i + 1;
	}
}