22-01-2003 04:03									#1
	What mod(s)? Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

What mod should we use for our DG-Game? Here are the options I found in the directory and had at least three stars. And to make it clear: Technically we are playing here a single player game.


1. Apolyton Pack
Directory Summery:
various authors have created this file.
The Apolyton Pack is an effort to combine the best player-created files. AP contains the following: Celestial Dawn's Mod v4.2 and the graphics for it, Harlan's Graphic Mod v1.0, TP's PowerSlics v2.00, Slax's Colors00.txt, Zaz's World maps and Uppsala's Mediterranean map. AP uses the scenario pack feature of the 1.2 patch, which means that no default files are overwritten, and installation and uninstallation are pretty easy. Some problems do exist, but there ways to overcome them.
Full readme.


2. Apolyton Pack + Awesome Aips 1.0 (Pack)
Directory Summery:
This mod contains altered aip and fli files for the Apolyton Pack. The changes to AI behavior are too numerous to mention here, but *are* detailed in the readme . There also versions for a setup with no mods, as well as for CD's mod. 1.2 Pathc required.


3. Apolyton Pack + New Trade Goods v1.4 (Apolyton Pack)
Directory Summery:
A great piece of work(again) from Nordicus. Too much stuff to put in here, check the readme first.


4. Apolyton Pack + New Trade Goods v1.4 (Apolyton Pack) + Awesome Aips 1.0 (Pack)
Directory Summery: As Nordicus is one of the authors of the Awesome Aips and of the alternative trade goods I presume options 1 -3 can be combined.


5. Celestial Dawn's Mod v4.22
Directory Summery:
Also named the "Play CTP as it should be" Mod. Lots of lots of small but significant changes.
Main goals:
i. addressing gameplay imbalances; and
ii. extending the scope and depth of gameplay.
Changes from v3
i) a modified Trade system designed to encourage Trade;
ii) a revamp of Governments in order to allow for more interesting choices between them;
iii) the improvement of Science buildings to make the Science v Gold decision more valid;
iv) the primacy of Air Power to make the Modern Age more interesting; and
v) Great Library updates for all the changes and entries for all the new units and advances.
Without doubt a file you must try. See also the 4.2 faq . 1.2 Patch fully compliant


6. Celestial Dawn's Mod v4.22 + Awesome Aips 1.0 (CD's mod)
Directory Summery:
his mod contains altered aip and fli files for Celestial Dawn's mod. The changes to AI behavior are too numerous to mention here, but *are* detailed in the readme. There also versions for a setup with no mods, as well as for the Apolyton Pack. 1.2 Patch required.


7. New Trade Goods v1.4 (Non-CD Version) (Looks like the stand alone version, unfortunatly I didn't find the CD-Version)
Directory Summery:
A great piece of work(again) from Nordicus. Too much stuff to put in here, check the readme first


8. Harlan's Graphic Mod 1.0
Directory Summery:
This mod combines and replaces Harlan's previous Leader and City mods. Harlan describes: "This modpack adds two city styles of Pyramid and Castle to the three existing land city styles of Roman, Arab and Asian. In addition, it adds a style for completely new age, the Industrial Age for all five city styles. So there are a total of 34 new graphics for cities.
This modpack also adds twenty city names for each civ, replaces the leader pictures for all civs with actual famous leader pics, replaces 8 civs with new ones and adds three extra civs."
See the full readme . You can get it two parts too


9. Medieval Mod 4
Directory Summery:
Many many many changes, a MUST download.

The description here is a little bit short, but I think this shouldn't be a problem as a lot of people already know about this mod. I think it is better to download the version of Wes' homepage as it looks that the version in the directory is a little bit outdated. (Version 4.0 instead of Version 4.13 like on his homepage.)


10. Awesome Aips 1.0 (Original)(Looks like the stand alone version of the Awesome Aips)
Directory Summery:
This mod contains altered aip and fli files for a setup with no modified game files. The changes to AI behavior are too numerous to mention here, but *are* detailed in the readme. There also versions for CD's mod, as well as for the Apolyton Pack. 1.2 Patch required.


I think there is no need for explaining the following options.

11. No mods
12. Abstain


Of course not necessary to say that we all play with the Hack Patch.

-Martin

	22-01-2003 05:15									#2
	Full PM-box? Change here!

I vote for No Mods. I suggest we just make the Computer Players (a/i's) stronger by initially giving them many settlers each, (2 to 5), and/or much gold, while we start with just 1 settler and 100 gold [standard]. In this way we won't have to rely on mods to make the a/i stronger. Also, we stay within the standards so that we all remain on the same CtP track. I think this is important because if any of our DG players ever want to later apply what they learn in multiplayer games, those games are all played with no-mods (as far as I know).

	22-01-2003 05:40									#3
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I vote for AIPs. We atleast need to improve the AI. I will usually play by giving the AI more gold and settlers, it doesnt help much. The only thing the AI can do to me then is be futher ahead in tech. Which this makes launching a strike difficult and usually allows them a chance at alien life, nothing more.

	22-01-2003 06:20									#4
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AIPs.

Same reasons as Nimrod.

	22-01-2003 19:54									#5
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No MOD

Same as quinns

	22-01-2003 22:25									#6
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quote: Originally posted by quinns I vote for No Mods. I suggest we just make the Computer Players (a/i's) stronger by initially giving them many settlers each, (2 to 5), and/or much gold, while we start with just 1 settler and 100 gold [standard]. In this way we won't have to rely on mods to make the a/i stronger. Also, we stay within the standards so that we all remain on the same CtP track. I think this is important because if any of our DG players ever want to later apply what they learn in multiplayer games, those games are all played with no-mods (as far as I know).

OK again DG is playing a Single Player (SP not MP) game, were a comunity plays the game, they the cumunity decides on the actions that are taken in the game and one person that is the elected presidents plays the game actual. So tell me how can we give the AIs more settlers then we have and more gold then we have without modifying any game file in a single player game.

Another thing is that if we give the AIs just more settlers and more money then thave a start advance that the AIs loose over the time. So in the end it doesn't matter if we give the AIs some goodies for the start.

The other thing is that we don't give the AI it least the awesome Aips then it is dumb. There is no sense in it to play against a dumb AI and hope to be able to use some tactics you learned here later in MP games against smart human opponents. Probably the Aips won't turn the AI into an human brain but it is an improvement that we should miss at least. And as the whole thing should be as difficuilt as possible we need a smarter AI than we can find in the original game.

On the one hand I think we need at least the Awesome Aips. On the other hand I like to get to know Medmod and as I heard positive things about it my vote goes to Medmod. It already includes the Aips and Nordicus' trade goods (also the graphics needs a little bit of improvement but that shouldn't be a problem as the good graphics I made for CTP2 are also compartible with CTP1).

-Martin

	23-01-2003 00:08									#7
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quote: Originally posted by Martin Gühmann OK again DG is playing a Single Player (SP not MP) game, were a comunity plays the game, they the cumunity decides on the actions that are taken in the game and one person that is the elected presidents plays the game actual. So tell me how can we give the AIs more settlers then we have and more gold then we have without modifying any game file in a single player game.

This can be done when the game is created by launching the editor instead of launching the game. With this we could give the Artifical Ignorance more settlers, gold, PWs, and even spread them over more land.

quote: Originally posted by Martin Gühmann Another thing is that if we give the AIs just more settlers and more money then thave a start advance that the AIs loose over the time. So in the end it doesn't matter if we give the AIs some goodies for the start.

Right, it wont help the AI attack, but it will make attacking them and alien life more difficult do to their tech lead this will give them early on.

quote: Originally posted by Martin Gühmann The other thing is that we don't give the AI it least the awesome Aips then it is dumb. There is no sense in it to play against a dumb AI and hope to be able to use some tactics you learned here later in MP games against smart human opponents. Probably the Aips won't turn the AI into an human brain but it is an improvement that we should miss at least. And as the whole thing should be as difficuilt as possible we need a smarter AI than we can find in the original game.

AI=Artifical Ignorance

quote: Originally posted by Martin Gühmann On the one hand I think we need at least the Awesome Aips. On the other hand I like to get to know Medmod and as I heard positive things about it my vote goes to Medmod. It already includes the Aips and Nordicus' trade goods (also the graphics needs a little bit of improvement but that shouldn't be a problem as the good graphics I made for CTP2 are also compartible with CTP1). -Martin

Personally I would like to use MedMod too. But as Quinns pointed out in another thread, people are not familur with it. Which should make AIPs a nessecity.

	23-01-2003 00:42									#8
	Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

quote: Originally posted by Nimrod This can be done when the game is created by launching the editor instead of launching the game. With this we could give the Artifical Ignorance more settlers, gold, PWs, and even spread them over more land.

Actual I don't like to use the cheat editor, it will give additional information about the map to the creator of the game, and that shouldn't be done of course everyone can check the map by using the cheat editor but I think no one should do it. Adding settlers, gold and PW for the AI can be done by editing the DiffDB.txt, so here is actual no need to do it. But editing the DiffDB.txt is also some kind of mod.

quote: Originally posted by Nimrod Personally I would like to use MedMod too. But as Quinns pointed out in another thread, people are not familur with it. Which should make AIPs a nessecity.

Actual I never played Medmod for CTP1, so I have to get familiar with, too.

-Martin

	23-01-2003 00:53									#9
	Got spare money?

Thanks for explaining, Nimrod.

I wouldn't mind using the Med Mod if the majority is there, but won't all the citizens have to install Med Mod on their machines? It took me awhile to install it without getting errors. A lot of manual copying of files to specific directories that aren't exactly defined. I would imagine other citizens will have the same trouble that I had. In addition, as Birdman pointed out earlier, the MedMod (with aips) is not really much competition for the veteran players either. So I still think the granting of settlers and gold to the computer players is the way to go. The computer player will be "dumb" no matter what we do.

	23-01-2003 01:16									#10
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

As long as you don't want to become our president, you don't need to install Medmod. But of course it would be better so that you can check the savegames.

Giving to the AIs more settlers PW and gold for the start is just an issure of editing the DiffDB.txt, that Dale already did with the CTP2 version so that the neighbour AI in the CTP2 DG game already has six cities after turn 14.

For installing Medmod the *zip files from Wes' homepage contains the path information so it should just be a matter of unzipping the files into your main CTP1 directory. Of course make shure that the use path information is used option is enabled in your unzip program otherwise you will end up with manual copying the files.

-Martin

	23-01-2003 01:17									#11
	Remove this text

quote: Originally posted by quinns Thanks for explaining, Nimrod. I wouldn't mind using the Med Mod if the majority is there, but won't all the citizens have to install Med Mod on their machines?

No, just the Presidents *have to*. For Ministers it could be very useful but it's not strictly necessary. And of course, anyone who wants to inspect the savegames for himself will have to as well...

	23-01-2003 02:17									#12
	Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

My biggest fear with medmod used to be installing it Quinns. I was afraid that if I placed the ctp_data folder over top the orginial ctp_data folder, it would erase everything except what was in the medmod ctp_data folder, rendering my game usless unless I reinstalled the whole game So I would install all of medmod manually. I know how much of a hassle that is

But now I know better

Now what I do is after Ive downloaded the 3 zip files, I will make a back up of my ctp_data file, the only one that will be over-written, or make an entire copy of ctp, if I have the hard drive space. Then I open the zips and place their contents into my ctp directory like Martin said. There is the ctp_data folder and the rest will go into your scenario folder. This also seems to make medmod much more stable. You will also want to make sure you have the 1.21 hack installed. Otherwise you will have an error message anytime you or the AI does anything.

	23-01-2003 02:24									#13
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Another thing, when going to play a medmod game, start a new game as normal, but dont forget to select it from the scenarios before you launch the game Ive been there before

And regarding its AI. No it is not human, however, I have yet to offer it a decent challenge on diety.

	23-01-2003 04:57									#14
	Inflate your Upload Space

I concur with Nimrod

	23-01-2003 12:12									#15
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

quote: Originally posted by Nimrod My biggest fear with medmod used to be installing it Quinns. I was afraid that if I placed the ctp_data folder over top the orginial ctp_data folder, it would erase everything except what was in the medmod ctp_data folder, rendering my game usless unless I reinstalled the whole game So I would install all of medmod manually. I know how much of a hassle that is But now I know better Now what I do is after Ive downloaded the 3 zip files, I will make a back up of my ctp_data file, the only one that will be over-written, or make an entire copy of ctp, if I have the hard drive space. Then I open the zips and place their contents into my ctp directory like Martin said. There is the ctp_data folder and the rest will go into your scenario folder. This also seems to make medmod much more stable. You will also want to make sure you have the 1.21 hack installed. Otherwise you will have an error message anytime you or the AI does anything.

Chickens

There is ONLY one file, of which the MedMod pack dosn't hold an original copy. That it the const.txt file. You have to back that file up manually before copying.

Else you do not have to worry - just copy the whole unpacked MedMod scenario into your default game structure.

The AIP files (the folders aidata and AIPs) will be overwrited. The const.txt file will be overwrited - BUT the default AI-files can all be found in the scenario folder
... scenarios\MedPack4\Med readmes\original aidata.zip file.

AND REMEMBER TO GET THE CORRECT GOVERN.TXT FILE ALSO. PLACE THE FILE IN THE ...... SCENARIOS\MEDPACK4\DEFAULT\GAMEDATA folder.

	24-01-2003 00:54									#16
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quote: Originally posted by TheBirdMan There is ONLY one file, of which the MedMod pack dosn't hold an original copy. That it the const.txt file. You have to back that file up manually before copying.

It includes the original of this too - it's in the file Original aidata.zip.

	26-01-2003 02:17									#17
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We are right now 27 citiziens, but only 12 citiziens voted so far. So vote if you haven't yet. Your vote counts. Vote for your favourite mod. Vote.

-Martin

	29-01-2003 21:33									#18
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

from the looks of this discussion, the poll says 5 for medmod, i choose no mods but oh well,

as long as were all fine with medmod,

vote or post it dont matter much to me, as long as we get a decision made

	30-01-2003 18:25									#19
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Looks like it will be close but the people see sence they vote for med mod.

	13-02-2003 19:19									#20
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I'm in the middle of playing a single player Med Mod 4 game at Deity level with 8 civs. At turn 150 I am nearly double the power graph all the other civilizations. Because the science ability and trade is so bad in Med Mod 4, I am stuck on the Republic and I can no longer expand. I have 25 cities (max at Republic) and I have built everything possible (including academies) in every city. Now my military is causing some unhappiness so I cut back on that. My civilization is number one in all areas (cities, science, production, military, population), except now I have to just wait and wait and wait and WAIT until I can change governments by going throught the long, long, laborious tech tree so I can expand my civilization. It is really not a very interesting MOD now that I have played it. I don't mean to rain on the efforts of those who made this mod, and I know many of you enjoy playing Med Mod. But if we are going through all this work for all of us to enjoy this democracy game, I would hope to get a game that will not bog down like Med Mod does.

I only make these remarks, not to brag , but to emphasize that I strongly recommend not using Med Mod for our game. It is slow and tedious in my opinion. I am campaigning for those of you who have not voted yet to vote for NO MODS.

	13-02-2003 19:32									#21
	Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

I'm in the middle of playing a single player Med Mod 4 game at Deity level with 8 civs. At turn 150 I am nearly double the power graph all the other civilizations. Because the science ability and trade is so bad in Med Mod 4, I am stuck on the Republic and I can no longer expand. I have 25 cities (max at Republic) and I have built everything possible (including academies) in every city. Now my military is causing some unhappiness so I cut back on that. My civilization is number one in all areas (cities, science, production, military, population), except now I have to just wait and wait and wait and WAIT until I can change governments by going throught the long, long, laborious tech tree so I can expand my civilization. It is really not a very interesting MOD now that I have played it. I don't mean to rain on the efforts of those who made this mod, and I know many of you enjoy playing Med Mod. But if we are going through all this work for all of us to enjoy this democracy game, I would hope to get a game that will not bog down like Med Mod does.

I only make these remarks, not to brag , but to emphasize that I strongly recommend not using Med Mod for our game. It is slow and tedious in my opinion. I am campaigning for those of you who have not voted yet to vote for NO MODS.

	13-02-2003 21:38									#22
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

Why no mods? At least we should improve the AI and add some flavour like new city styles, so I think if you want an improved game but not too many changes then you have to go for Apolyton Pack.

-Martin

	13-02-2003 22:46									#23
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reading what quinns posted, i agree with him medmod is not the way to go, I think we should just improve the ai and leave it at that.

	13-02-2003 22:56									#24
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I agree with Miggio. We can give the a/i extra settlers and gold (4 settlers and 10,000 gold?? ) but no other modding. What do you think? City styles? I think that would be okay as long as no one has to load any special files on to their system to load the game turns played by the President.

Last edited by quinns on 13-02-2003 at 23:08

	14-02-2003 03:33									#25
	Remove this text

Just more more gold and more settlers does not make make the AI smarter and is not a real improve, in that case we will also end as the biggest civ very soon, it just takes a little bit longer, but it is not an improve in quality, so at least we need the awesome aips.

-Martin

	14-02-2003 03:37									#26
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Does the Med Mod 4 have the awesome aips in it?

	14-02-2003 05:50									#27
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quote: Originally posted by quinns Does the Med Mod 4 have the awesome aips in it?

It includes awesome aips. So possible we won't gain too much here but we should make it as difficuilt as possible. And that means adding awesome aips at least. For the idea of giving some extra gold and extra settlers for the AIs I think we should it do, too. But I am rather for giving it via the DiffDB.txt and not via the cheat editor.

Another factor you have to consider with the AI performance is that it is probably not good at oversea conquest so also the land mass plays a difference.

-Martin

	14-02-2003 06:33									#28
	Got spare money?

AI sucks @

Sea invasions - exception - the AI did invade and took a couple cities before I could kick them off my island. This was done with MedMod.

More gold & settlers
This does nothing for the AI. The most outragious start I gave the AI was 500,000 gold and 7 settlers. They beat me to ALP. Whoopy-d-do.

Question for Quinns
What is the land/ocean and island/continent setting for your game?

My issues with MedMod
On diety I usually have one civ ahead of me with little or no chance to catch up, they are too technologically advanced. This is on atleast 50/50 L/O & I/C. The max # of cities is set a little low, however using the large civs scenario setting does make it more balanced. I continue to have trouble getting Con. Monarchy in my games. I enjoy the new units, tech tree, city improvments, and wonders. As an early unit, horse archers kick a$$. Bombarding can backfire! I have made the mistake of bombarding with a SOL only to lose my ships on my turn due to the backfire from the heavy cruiser I was attacking.

Conclusion
I voted for AIPS because the AI DOES need improving. I would have voted for MedMod, but poeple are not familur with it, may install it wrong(may cause problems with turn sharing), or may become too unstable in the later stages(related to the method of install, maybe).

	14-02-2003 08:38									#29
	Put an end to popups!

I voted for AIPs but I'm going to change to No Mods.

We're playing CtPDG.

	14-02-2003 08:51									#30
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quote: Originally posted by Nimrod Question for Quinns What is the land/ocean and island/continent setting for your game?

50/50 and 50/50

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Alright, Frozzy. Good.