The China and India maps were made by me, the Europe map by Savant (with some assistance by me). All three were made using the Old World .bmp map I've made and then the BMP2CTP2 map converter. So the dimensions, coastlines and such are about as accurate as can be.

By the way, Markos I tried sending them to you, but a) my mail got bounced back and b) I don't have those little forms you like people to fill out first.

Description: Official and Unofficial maps on Impossible difficulty level

Included maps:

- Samurai
The map from the Samurai scenario, with random civs on impossible difficulty level

- 6 Continents
A (not official) random map that looked nice to me...

- Small and Agressive
Command the Greeks against 7 agrresive civilizations on a small map

- The Craddle of Civilization
The Mediterranean Sea, made by hexagonian. Civs: Greece, Rome, Egypt, Persia, Assyria, Phoenicia, Israel, Zulu

Download from: http://apolyton.net/ctp2/downloads/maps/Impossible.zip

Notes:

1) It's far from complete, i'm posting this basically to show that you CAN offer a selection of civs in the start(see the Craddle map)

Description: Official and Unofficial maps on Impossible difficulty level

Included maps:

- Samurai
The map from the Samurai scenario, with random civs on impossible difficulty level

- 6 Continents
A (not official) random map that looked nice to me...

- Small and Agressive
Command the Greeks against 7 agrresive civilizations on a small map

- The Craddle of Civilization
The Mediterranean Sea, made by hexagonian. Civs: Greece, Rome, Egypt, Persia, Assyria, Phoenicia, Israel, Zulu

Download from: http://apolyton.net/ctp2/downloads/maps/Impossible.zip

Notes:

1) It's far from complete, i'm posting this basically to show that you CAN offer a selection of civs in the start(see the Craddle map)

Description: Official and Unofficial maps on Impossible difficulty level

Included maps:

- Samurai
The map from the Samurai scenario, with random civs on impossible difficulty level

- 6 Continents
A (not official) random map that looked nice to me...

- Small and Agressive
Command the Greeks against 7 agrresive civilizations on a small map

- The Craddle of Civilization
The Mediterranean Sea, made by hexagonian. Civs: Greece, Rome, Egypt, Persia, Assyria, Phoenicia, Israel, Zulu

Download from: http://apolyton.net/ctp2/downloads/maps/Impossible.zip

Notes:

1) It's far from complete, i'm posting this basically to show that you CAN offer a selection of civs in the start(see the Craddle map)

It seems as though every game can only 'dish out' a finite challenge, so while a beginning or intermediate player can get a good game, with generous helpings of each of the above 'acts', an experienced player who knows and exploits the limitations of the game engine cuts the middle act short. Then its only a question of mopping up. That becomes tedious awefully quickly.

I was thinking about this problem towards the end of the CtP1 product cycle, and looking forward to being able to maybe accomplish something in CtP2 towards this end.

It seems as though, by all accounts, the AI is defending well, but generally attacking badly. This could be due to the fact that these players are getting the AI onto its back foot, which as you can see in the AI files, minimizes its offensive capability.

Something needs to be changed in the game dynamic, and its unlikely that any game design company will do this, because they are in the business of catering to the lowest common denominator. Difficulty levels should sort this out, but never do, since they are just 'resource modifiers or multipliers' for the AI and player. If a player can achieve a greater critical mass than is necessary to overpower one single region then thats all that is necessary.

In short, a human has a critical military advantage; Divide and Conquer. A human doesn't wage wars on all fronts, but power projects in a narrow sense. The AI of the computer also 'power projects' since single targeted city attacks 'work'. What the computer does BADLY is defend against power projection. It doesn't predict troop movements or see paterns. It doesn't understand interdiction or any grand strategy at all.

What to do? Keep the status quo? In my opinion, no, at least in a mod for those that choose to have a challenge.

There are some specifics that may be helpful in resolving these game play issues;

1) Eliminate the game engine exploits. The key exploit in Civ games has been and is still ICS. If you're not sure what ICS, please search for ICS... I won't repeat whats been said here a hundred times before.

CtP2 is interesting in that it uses a different dynamic of resource gathering for cities. Essentially you gain a percentage of resources within a ring until you get to a new critical size, then you start getting increasing resources within that ring.

The reasoning behind this new model was a move away from micromanagement towards abstraction, that I am all in favor of; it allows the player to deal with the empire level stuff, yet still allows for a degree of micromanagement by city and tile improvement placement.

The ICS problem still exists because 10 size 1 cities are more beneficial than 1 size 10 city. This is easy to solve by changing the properties of improvements upwards in general, making it ultimately detrimental to keep cities small. Bigger cities should be just plain better.

There should be some amount of struggle to get them going and growing, so building that settler at size 2 will drop you back another 20 or 30 turns.

Unmodified cities in deserts or tundra should either starve or grow so weakly without serious tile improvement placement.

The PW/Tile Improvement scheme of CtP is a great component of an ICS solution.

2) The rich get richer.

This topic was started by myself in the following topic Wonders o' the world... the root of all evil? and continued to some degree in a Civ3 General discusion.

I won't repeat this topic over and over, except to say that Feats of Wonder are more of the same with regard to the rich getting richer.

I'd advocate keeping FOW's, but limiting Wonders to one per Civ, per age. That would seem to be a happy medium.

3) AI Fudging=GOOD & AI Cheating=BAD

There were two main ways Civ2 made up for the weaknesses of a finite state AI. First were the player limitations and decreased starting resources. Secondly and to me most annoying, was the way the AI players cheat; ignoring game mechanics blatantly. These are well known by now, and have been documented.

I am not opposed to playing withly handicapped rules versus the AI, but there is a critical point; the point at which reality is stretched, that the game starts to be flawed.

CtP1 was a positive step in this regard; the AI didn't cheat but had increased resources and multipliers for food and science and so on. Since they are 'hidden' they do not offend the senses in the same way.

The level at which the AI fudges will need to be adjusted based on what other changes are made.

I think that perhaps the most important will be the production bonuses; EVEN IF the AI can stay in the game, keep offensive it's USELESS UNLESS it be given the units to put in the stack, by appropriate bonuses. I believe that this can only make for a more satisfying tactical and strategic experience.

4) Guns vs. Butter

It seems too cheap for the player to build and maintain large armies in CtP1&2. Since ultimately military strength was for the majority of history the key to power and sucess, its key that the human should not be able to easily get into a lead this way.

For the reasons I mentioned above, having twelve good units, and 'enough mobile defenders' is enough to conquer the world in CtP2. Building (and perhaps more so keeping) large armies should ultimately be more difficult for the human player.

There should be a clear choice between serious defense spending and a productive society.

5) Defenders should have a serious advantage.

In the Medmod, it was plain difficult to take a town defended in strength by the AI . You were going to take losses, inevevitably. This felt *VERY* right, particularly the counter bombarding and so on. I have a memory of some of the tactical situations that 'turned the tide', in a way that I never did in Civ2. Thats the mood that you want to capture in a civ game.

I think its clear, that the advantage should be with the defenders and to this end, the defensive bonuses should be 'beefed up', along with introducing more rounded unit choices, that the AI can use too.

It seems as though every game can only 'dish out' a finite challenge, so while a beginning or intermediate player can get a good game, with generous helpings of each of the above 'acts', an experienced player who knows and exploits the limitations of the game engine cuts the middle act short. Then its only a question of mopping up. That becomes tedious awefully quickly.

I was thinking about this problem towards the end of the CtP1 product cycle, and looking forward to being able to maybe accomplish something in CtP2 towards this end.

It seems as though, by all accounts, the AI is defending well, but generally attacking badly. This could be due to the fact that these players are getting the AI onto its back foot, which as you can see in the AI files, minimizes its offensive capability.

Something needs to be changed in the game dynamic, and its unlikely that any game design company will do this, because they are in the business of catering to the lowest common denominator. Difficulty levels should sort this out, but never do, since they are just 'resource modifiers or multipliers' for the AI and player. If a player can achieve a greater critical mass than is necessary to overpower one single region then thats all that is necessary.

In short, a human has a critical military advantage; Divide and Conquer. A human doesn't wage wars on all fronts, but power projects in a narrow sense. The AI of the computer also 'power projects' since single targeted city attacks 'work'. What the computer does BADLY is defend against power projection. It doesn't predict troop movements or see paterns. It doesn't understand interdiction or any grand strategy at all.

What to do? Keep the status quo? In my opinion, no, at least in a mod for those that choose to have a challenge.

There are some specifics that may be helpful in resolving these game play issues;

1) Eliminate the game engine exploits. The key exploit in Civ games has been and is still ICS. If you're not sure what ICS, please search for ICS... I won't repeat whats been said here a hundred times before.

CtP2 is interesting in that it uses a different dynamic of resource gathering for cities. Essentially you gain a percentage of resources within a ring until you get to a new critical size, then you start getting increasing resources within that ring.

The reasoning behind this new model was a move away from micromanagement towards abstraction, that I am all in favor of; it allows the player to deal with the empire level stuff, yet still allows for a degree of micromanagement by city and tile improvement placement.

The ICS problem still exists because 10 size 1 cities are more beneficial than 1 size 10 city. This is easy to solve by changing the properties of improvements upwards in general, making it ultimately detrimental to keep cities small. Bigger cities should be just plain better.

There should be some amount of struggle to get them going and growing, so building that settler at size 2 will drop you back another 20 or 30 turns.

Unmodified cities in deserts or tundra should either starve or grow so weakly without serious tile improvement placement.

The PW/Tile Improvement scheme of CtP is a great component of an ICS solution.

2) The rich get richer.

This topic was started by myself in the following topic Wonders o' the world... the root of all evil? and continued to some degree in a Civ3 General discusion.

I won't repeat this topic over and over, except to say that Feats of Wonder are more of the same with regard to the rich getting richer.

I'd advocate keeping FOW's, but limiting Wonders to one per Civ, per age. That would seem to be a happy medium.

3) AI Fudging=GOOD & AI Cheating=BAD

There were two main ways Civ2 made up for the weaknesses of a finite state AI. First were the player limitations and decreased starting resources. Secondly and to me most annoying, was the way the AI players cheat; ignoring game mechanics blatantly. These are well known by now, and have been documented.

I am not opposed to playing withly handicapped rules versus the AI, but there is a critical point; the point at which reality is stretched, that the game starts to be flawed.

CtP1 was a positive step in this regard; the AI didn't cheat but had increased resources and multipliers for food and science and so on. Since they are 'hidden' they do not offend the senses in the same way.

The level at which the AI fudges will need to be adjusted based on what other changes are made.

I think that perhaps the most important will be the production bonuses; EVEN IF the AI can stay in the game, keep offensive it's USELESS UNLESS it be given the units to put in the stack, by appropriate bonuses. I believe that this can only make for a more satisfying tactical and strategic experience.

4) Guns vs. Butter

It seems too cheap for the player to build and maintain large armies in CtP1&2. Since ultimately military strength was for the majority of history the key to power and sucess, its key that the human should not be able to easily get into a lead this way.

For the reasons I mentioned above, having twelve good units, and 'enough mobile defenders' is enough to conquer the world in CtP2. Building (and perhaps more so keeping) large armies should ultimately be more difficult for the human player.

There should be a clear choice between serious defense spending and a productive society.

5) Defenders should have a serious advantage.

In the Medmod, it was plain difficult to take a town defended in strength by the AI . You were going to take losses, inevevitably. This felt *VERY* right, particularly the counter bombarding and so on. I have a memory of some of the tactical situations that 'turned the tide', in a way that I never did in Civ2. Thats the mood that you want to capture in a civ game.

I think its clear, that the advantage should be with the defenders and to this end, the defensive bonuses should be 'beefed up', along with introducing more rounded unit choices, that the AI can use too.

It seems as though every game can only 'dish out' a finite challenge, so while a beginning or intermediate player can get a good game, with generous helpings of each of the above 'acts', an experienced player who knows and exploits the limitations of the game engine cuts the middle act short. Then its only a question of mopping up. That becomes tedious awefully quickly.

I was thinking about this problem towards the end of the CtP1 product cycle, and looking forward to being able to maybe accomplish something in CtP2 towards this end.

It seems as though, by all accounts, the AI is defending well, but generally attacking badly. This could be due to the fact that these players are getting the AI onto its back foot, which as you can see in the AI files, minimizes its offensive capability.

Something needs to be changed in the game dynamic, and its unlikely that any game design company will do this, because they are in the business of catering to the lowest common denominator. Difficulty levels should sort this out, but never do, since they are just 'resource modifiers or multipliers' for the AI and player. If a player can achieve a greater critical mass than is necessary to overpower one single region then thats all that is necessary.

In short, a human has a critical military advantage; Divide and Conquer. A human doesn't wage wars on all fronts, but power projects in a narrow sense. The AI of the computer also 'power projects' since single targeted city attacks 'work'. What the computer does BADLY is defend against power projection. It doesn't predict troop movements or see paterns. It doesn't understand interdiction or any grand strategy at all.

What to do? Keep the status quo? In my opinion, no, at least in a mod for those that choose to have a challenge.

There are some specifics that may be helpful in resolving these game play issues;

1) Eliminate the game engine exploits. The key exploit in Civ games has been and is still ICS. If you're not sure what ICS, please search for ICS... I won't repeat whats been said here a hundred times before.

CtP2 is interesting in that it uses a different dynamic of resource gathering for cities. Essentially you gain a percentage of resources within a ring until you get to a new critical size, then you start getting increasing resources within that ring.

The reasoning behind this new model was a move away from micromanagement towards abstraction, that I am all in favor of; it allows the player to deal with the empire level stuff, yet still allows for a degree of micromanagement by city and tile improvement placement.

The ICS problem still exists because 10 size 1 cities are more beneficial than 1 size 10 city. This is easy to solve by changing the properties of improvements upwards in general, making it ultimately detrimental to keep cities small. Bigger cities should be just plain better.

There should be some amount of struggle to get them going and growing, so building that settler at size 2 will drop you back another 20 or 30 turns.

Unmodified cities in deserts or tundra should either starve or grow so weakly without serious tile improvement placement.

The PW/Tile Improvement scheme of CtP is a great component of an ICS solution.

2) The rich get richer.

This topic was started by myself in the following topic Wonders o' the world... the root of all evil? and continued to some degree in a Civ3 General discusion.

I won't repeat this topic over and over, except to say that Feats of Wonder are more of the same with regard to the rich getting richer.

I'd advocate keeping FOW's, but limiting Wonders to one per Civ, per age. That would seem to be a happy medium.

3) AI Fudging=GOOD & AI Cheating=BAD

There were two main ways Civ2 made up for the weaknesses of a finite state AI. First were the player limitations and decreased starting resources. Secondly and to me most annoying, was the way the AI players cheat; ignoring game mechanics blatantly. These are well known by now, and have been documented.

I am not opposed to playing withly handicapped rules versus the AI, but there is a critical point; the point at which reality is stretched, that the game starts to be flawed.

CtP1 was a positive step in this regard; the AI didn't cheat but had increased resources and multipliers for food and science and so on. Since they are 'hidden' they do not offend the senses in the same way.

The level at which the AI fudges will need to be adjusted based on what other changes are made.

I think that perhaps the most important will be the production bonuses; EVEN IF the AI can stay in the game, keep offensive it's USELESS UNLESS it be given the units to put in the stack, by appropriate bonuses. I believe that this can only make for a more satisfying tactical and strategic experience.

4) Guns vs. Butter

It seems too cheap for the player to build and maintain large armies in CtP1&2. Since ultimately military strength was for the majority of history the key to power and sucess, its key that the human should not be able to easily get into a lead this way.

For the reasons I mentioned above, having twelve good units, and 'enough mobile defenders' is enough to conquer the world in CtP2. Building (and perhaps more so keeping) large armies should ultimately be more difficult for the human player.

There should be a clear choice between serious defense spending and a productive society.

5) Defenders should have a serious advantage.

In the Medmod, it was plain difficult to take a town defended in strength by the AI . You were going to take losses, inevevitably. This felt *VERY* right, particularly the counter bombarding and so on. I have a memory of some of the tactical situations that 'turned the tide', in a way that I never did in Civ2. Thats the mood that you want to capture in a civ game.

I think its clear, that the advantage should be with the defenders and to this end, the defensive bonuses should be 'beefed up', along with introducing more rounded unit choices, that the AI can use too.

It seems as though every game can only 'dish out' a finite challenge, so while a beginning or intermediate player can get a good game, with generous helpings of each of the above 'acts', an experienced player who knows and exploits the limitations of the game engine cuts the middle act short. Then its only a question of mopping up. That becomes tedious awefully quickly.

I was thinking about this problem towards the end of the CtP1 product cycle, and looking forward to being able to maybe accomplish something in CtP2 towards this end.

It seems as though, by all accounts, the AI is defending well, but generally attacking badly. This could be due to the fact that these players are getting the AI onto its back foot, which as you can see in the AI files, minimizes its offensive capability.

Something needs to be changed in the game dynamic, and its unlikely that any game design company will do this, because they are in the business of catering to the lowest common denominator. Difficulty levels should sort this out, but never do, since they are just 'resource modifiers or multipliers' for the AI and player. If a player can achieve a greater critical mass than is necessary to overpower one single region then thats all that is necessary.

In short, a human has a critical military advantage; Divide and Conquer. A human doesn't wage wars on all fronts, but power projects in a narrow sense. The AI of the computer also 'power projects' since single targeted city attacks 'work'. What the computer does BADLY is defend against power projection. It doesn't predict troop movements or see paterns. It doesn't understand interdiction or any grand strategy at all.

What to do? Keep the status quo? In my opinion, no, at least in a mod for those that choose to have a challenge.

There are some specifics that may be helpful in resolving these game play issues;

1) Eliminate the game engine exploits. The key exploit in Civ games has been and is still ICS. If you're not sure what ICS, please search for ICS... I won't repeat whats been said here a hundred times before.

CtP2 is interesting in that it uses a different dynamic of resource gathering for cities. Essentially you gain a percentage of resources within a ring until you get to a new critical size, then you start getting increasing resources within that ring.

The reasoning behind this new model was a move away from micromanagement towards abstraction, that I am all in favor of; it allows the player to deal with the empire level stuff, yet still allows for a degree of micromanagement by city and tile improvement placement.

The ICS problem still exists because 10 size 1 cities are more beneficial than 1 size 10 city. This is easy to solve by changing the properties of improvements upwards in general, making it ultimately detrimental to keep cities small. Bigger cities should be just plain better.

There should be some amount of struggle to get them going and growing, so building that settler at size 2 will drop you back another 20 or 30 turns.

Unmodified cities in deserts or tundra should either starve or grow so weakly without serious tile improvement placement.

The PW/Tile Improvement scheme of CtP is a great component of an ICS solution.

2) The rich get richer.

This topic was started by myself in the following topic Wonders o' the world... the root of all evil? and continued to some degree in a Civ3 General discusion.

I won't repeat this topic over and over, except to say that Feats of Wonder are more of the same with regard to the rich getting richer.

I'd advocate keeping FOW's, but limiting Wonders to one per Civ, per age. That would seem to be a happy medium.

3) AI Fudging=GOOD & AI Cheating=BAD

There were two main ways Civ2 made up for the weaknesses of a finite state AI. First were the player limitations and decreased starting resources. Secondly and to me most annoying, was the way the AI players cheat; ignoring game mechanics blatantly. These are well known by now, and have been documented.

I am not opposed to playing withly handicapped rules versus the AI, but there is a critical point; the point at which reality is stretched, that the game starts to be flawed.

CtP1 was a positive step in this regard; the AI didn't cheat but had increased resources and multipliers for food and science and so on. Since they are 'hidden' they do not offend the senses in the same way.

The level at which the AI fudges will need to be adjusted based on what other changes are made.

I think that perhaps the most important will be the production bonuses; EVEN IF the AI can stay in the game, keep offensive it's USELESS UNLESS it be given the units to put in the stack, by appropriate bonuses. I believe that this can only make for a more satisfying tactical and strategic experience.

4) Guns vs. Butter

It seems too cheap for the player to build and maintain large armies in CtP1&2. Since ultimately military strength was for the majority of history the key to power and sucess, its key that the human should not be able to easily get into a lead this way.

For the reasons I mentioned above, having twelve good units, and 'enough mobile defenders' is enough to conquer the world in CtP2. Building (and perhaps more so keeping) large armies should ultimately be more difficult for the human player.

There should be a clear choice between serious defense spending and a productive society.

5) Defenders should have a serious advantage.

In the Medmod, it was plain difficult to take a town defended in strength by the AI . You were going to take losses, inevevitably. This felt *VERY* right, particularly the counter bombarding and so on. I have a memory of some of the tactical situations that 'turned the tide', in a way that I never did in Civ2. Thats the mood that you want to capture in a civ game.

I think its clear, that the advantage should be with the defenders and to this end, the defensive bonuses should be 'beefed up', along with introducing more rounded unit choices, that the AI can use too.

First, I have implemented the version of Harlan Thompson's Graphics mod that was in the Med mod I. Below is the jest of that mod's effects. A more complete readme, with instructions on how to make your own leader pics and a few other things, will be included in the "Med readmes" folder.

"This modpack enhances the graphics for CTP. It also improves the civilizations in a
number of ways.
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
1)adds twenty city names for each civ,
2)replaces the leader pictures for all civs with actual famous leader pics,
3)replaces 6 civs with new ones and adds three extra civs.
There are no longer both male and female names for each civ. Each civ usually only has a male name, but in some instances it has only a female one and no male one. For instance, the Austrians with Maria Theresa. This was done to prevent the absurdity of having a picture of say, Cleopatra, but the name given in text as Ramses.

The civs in the first column have been replaced by the second, with the last 3 added to the total:

Original--------New

Nicaraguans----Swedes
Nigerians------Austrians
Irish ---------Arabs
Cubans --------Byzantines
Jamaicans------Italians
Welsh----------Celts
---------------Aztecs
---------------Bantu
---------------Slavs"

I have gone through the terrain, tile improvement and government files so far, and updated the buildings page of the Med charts spreadsheet to show all the new improvements and their settings. I am going to wait until I play the game some before making any changes to building settings, though I am afraid the upkeep for TVs is all screwed up.
Here is the readme for these two sections of the mod:

Terrain & Tile Improvement Readme for the Medieval Pack II
By Wes Whitaker

Originally, ocean types were generally better than land types in overall value, which didn't seem right to me. Therefore, I have strengthened some of the land types, and weakened some of the ocean ones. A list of terrain types and their values is given in the Med chart's terrain sheet.

 Placing Forests costs 400, instead of 800.
 The defensive bonus of Hills has been raised from 50% to 75%. This puts them between Forests/Jungles and Mountains, which seems more realistic, imo.
 Kelp and Reefs can have food improvements.
 Drilling Platforms now increase production, not commerce, adding 20 production and 5 gold at a cost of 1,200. (The same cost and effect as advanced mines on Hills.) They may be built on Shallow Water, Kelp, Tundra and Swamp tiles.
 Ports can only be built on beach tiles.
 Fortifications give a +100% defense bonus.
 Listening posts cost 500.
 Airbases cost 600, and take 3 turns to complete.
 Undersea tunnels costs 800 for shallow-water types, 1,200 for Deep Water, and 1,600 for Volcanoes and Rifts, due to the seismic instability of these last two terrains.
 Tunnels cannot be built over Trenches.

I am leaving alone the cost of food, production, commerce and movement improvements until I play the game some, and get feedback from people. (I thought putting drilling rigs on tundra and swamps was a moment of inspiration.)

Here is a paste of the new terrain values from the Terrain sheet of the Med charts:

Terrain Food-Prod-Gold
Grassland 15----5---5
Plains ---10---10---5
Forest---- 5---15---5
Jungle--- 10---10---5
Desert---- 0---10---5
Swamp--- 5----5---5
Hill---------5---10---5
Sand Dune--0---10---5
Polar Hill---0---10---5
Mountain---0---15---5
Brown Mtn--0---15---5
Polar Mtn--0---15---5
Tundra-----5----5---0
Glacier----0----0---0

Beach-----10---0---10
Shallow---10---0---10
Shelf-----10---5---10
Trench-----5--10---10
Kelp------15---0---10
Reef------10---5---10
Deep Water10---0---10
Volcano---10--20---10
Rift-------5--20----5

Special1--15---5----5
Special2------------5

(God, I hate trying to post charts.)

The biggest changes were to Forests, which only gave 5 production before (who decided that?), and to deserts, which I gave 10 production to (hey, if plains give 10...).
I eliminated the production from most sea terrains, and adding some gold to other types, since sea-faring nations were traditionally big traders as well.
The new function of Drilling Rigs will help balance out the terrain in the later stages of the game, but something had to be done with the original setup.
I mean, the AIs were founding cities on solid Glacier continents, and making large, productive cities simply becuase Beaches were the best un-improved terrain type in the game. It was ridiculus. They can still have large cities, I suppose, but now they will have to buy most anything they have in them.

For Governements:
1)I set turns-to-readiness for all govt's to the Med mod I settings.
2)City limit for Monarchy reduced to 15.

I want to play the game, and get some feedback before making major changes to gov'ts right now.
Notes: People have complained about Fascism coming so early in the game. Well, it is much less powerful than it was in Ctp1, so it fits in with its current place in that regard. I figure I will insert CD's Fundamentalism gov't form into the game, and perhaps my Constitutional Monarchy, and move Fascism back to its historical place, with settings similar to what it had in Ctp1.

Also, when I change strategies.txt to get the AIs to building more roads, I will probably raise the distance unhappiness modifiers like CD did as well, but keep the max unhappiness settings at their current lowered rate. This way if you discover a distant city from a ruin or something, it won't riot and be distroyed on the first turn, which often happened in ctp1.

The next thing I will probably do is go through the strategies.txt, and alter some of the AI settings in it. The main thing I am going to do there is re-write the unit types defined in the game to match what I did with the Med mod I, since their are simply not enough categories once you get into the modern eras.

By the time I get this done, we should have some concensous on what units to have in the game, and I will start into all of that.
Next will be adding enough advances necessary to handle the units, and any wonders that we decide to add.
Finally, we will get into slic functions, which will hopefully be a lot of fun. The four I know I want right now are:
1)Med mod I's militia triggers,
2)Wonder-enabled special units,
3)Gedrin's new Refugee trigger, which takes a portion of the population from a conquered city and spreads it among the remaining cities of the original owner, and
4)a yet-to-be-made unit repair trigger, which will sutract shields from your public works pile to pay for healing units to full strength in cities. If you can't pay for them, your units don't heal any more than they would out in the field. This will have a major impact on waging war, and go a long way towards making the game more realistic.
The current practice of getting free repairs for spending the night in town sounds like something out of Dungeons and Dragons, and should have been addressed years ago.

Btw, I need to come up with a name for this version of the mod, and you can help! Since I am a fan of both Babylon 5 and Star Trek, I am thinking about two possible names.
1)The Med mod II: In the Beginning
Since we are starting from the beginning of the game, and this is the first version for Ctp2.
2)The Med mod II: The Next Generation
Since Ctp2 is the next generation of the Ctp series, and this mod will be the next generation of the Med mod series.

quote: Originally posted by TheLimey on 11-26-2000 01:41 PM It seems as though, by all accounts, the AI is defending well, but generally attacking badly.

another question is: should each ai act as if it against everyone else(including the other ai's), or should all ai's be against you "underneath"?

quote: The ICS problem still exists because 10 size 1 cities are more beneficial than 1 size 10 city.

quote: Originally posted by TheLimey on 11-26-2000 01:41 PM It seems as though, by all accounts, the AI is defending well, but generally attacking badly.

another question is: should each ai act as if it against everyone else(including the other ai's), or should all ai's be against you "underneath"?

quote: The ICS problem still exists because 10 size 1 cities are more beneficial than 1 size 10 city.

quote: Originally posted by TheLimey on 11-26-2000 01:41 PM It seems as though, by all accounts, the AI is defending well, but generally attacking badly.

another question is: should each ai act as if it against everyone else(including the other ai's), or should all ai's be against you "underneath"?

quote: The ICS problem still exists because 10 size 1 cities are more beneficial than 1 size 10 city.

quote: Originally posted by TheLimey on 11-26-2000 01:41 PM It seems as though, by all accounts, the AI is defending well, but generally attacking badly.

another question is: should each ai act as if it against everyone else(including the other ai's), or should all ai's be against you "underneath"?

quote: The ICS problem still exists because 10 size 1 cities are more beneficial than 1 size 10 city.

If so, I dig it, but I would have added more trade commodities to it. Are they random? I started as the Native Americans, killed off the Mexicans and the Americans and am doing ok, but all I have is tea in the rockies, a couple hardwoods towards florida and emeralds somewhere else... need oil in Texas, man!!! Lots 'o oil!!! (or whatever commo works for that)

If so, I dig it, but I would have added more trade commodities to it. Are they random? I started as the Native Americans, killed off the Mexicans and the Americans and am doing ok, but all I have is tea in the rockies, a couple hardwoods towards florida and emeralds somewhere else... need oil in Texas, man!!! Lots 'o oil!!! (or whatever commo works for that)

You know if I spend enough time learning CtP2, by the time I am done, all the map work will be done.

On a more serious side, which of the Start Location options did you use on the cradle map. It would help in finding out what works and what doesn't work when creating map scenarios.