The only feature of the modpack not included in this beta is the new advances. This means that the units may seem clumped together, and the timeline will probably pass too slowly, due to the new trade goods.
Our play-testing needs to find out if the units stats are properly balanced, how well the new Wonders enhance the game, and whether everything works or not.
Please post any questions and/or comments about the mod here.
The site, and modpack, logo is of Neuschwanstein castle in Bavaria.

Introduction to the Medieval Pack 3.0
By Wes Whitaker

The Medieval Pack 3.0 contains a number of individual mods, which are fully integrated to provide a one-step installation process. This modpack combines those mods found in the Apolyton Pack with the Medieval mod 3.0, a customized version of Nordicus' New Trade goods mod, and three SLIC triggers from the SLIC group.

The Medieval mod 3.0 contains 4 new units and 7 new Wonders, as well as numerous smaller changes, and a totally reorganized readme structure to explain them. The SLIC triggers are explained in the Med 3 readme, while the new goods and their effects are listed in the Terrain sheet of the new Med charts spreadsheet.

I have devoted many hours of time to the new readme structure, in order to make it as concise and informative as possible. Users start with the Read 1st text, which briefly explains the reorganization, and tells you which files need to be read before you begin using the mod, and in what order to read them.
I have constructed spreadsheets which list individual unit and terrain stats, and an advances chart which is modeled on the one which accompianied the game. These are provided for users to print out for reference while playing the game. These files are best seen in the original Word and Excel formats that they were created in, but excellent HTML versions of them are provided for users who do not have access to these programs.
These charts allowed me to use the readmes for descriptions of general changes to the various parts of the game, to point out specific changes to unit abilities and Wonder effects, and to list odd changes that did not fit into any of the charts. The net effect of this is that the combined length of the new, recommended Pack readmes is less than half of that of CD's 4.2 readme. I believe that this new approach does an excellent job of providing the user with all the info one needs to understand the modpack, without being overwhelmed with details.

This modpack contains the efforts of many people, without whom it could not have been made. These people, and their specific contributions, are listed at the start of the Med 3 readme. Please take the time to read this, and acknowledge those people either in the Apolyton forums, or through personal emails. I know that your kind words would be appreciated.

This concludes your introduction to the Medieval Pack 3.0. I hope you enjoy.

I am about at turn 140 or so, and I am dead last in *every* category!

It's clear already that the SLIC triggers cause you to change your build queues.
Btw, the militia units *do* exert martial law in my game. Anyone have any comments on this?
The goods changes seem to be an enormous help to the AIs.
Establishing diplomtic relations seems to be more crucial than ever, for purposes of tech trading. I fell behind in this, and now I can't catch up. The AIs continue to trade amonst themselves, and I am left out of the loop. It is also clear that there is plenty of room for adding new advances. The AIs are close to a 1000 yrs ahead of where they should be tech-wise.

In my unit changes for this edition, I reduced the bombard values of the naval units. However, the AI still sends its ships over to bombard my cities, even though it does almost no damage, and loses the ship to my counter-bombarding artillery.
I will try taking away the bombard land ability of pre-industrial age ships, and see how that works.
The AIs need to build land units, and launch ampihbious invasions. Have any of you noticed if the AI is doing that any more than they used to?

Btw, I built the Cohort, and it seems to make a big difference in battle. The AIs have had no problem gobbling up all the Wonders, including the new ones, so I am pleased with that. When the new advances are in to slow the timeline down, it should allow them more time to build units and city improvements.

Every one of the AI's PW% is set to 20, which made me *very* happy. Their wgf sliders are either set to the defaults, or they are giving max wages so they can increase prod. and/or cut rations. In spite of paying their people all they can, all the civs are strong in science. (I am tied for 4th right now on the advances chart, as far as I can tell.) Happiness is not a problem for anyone, either.
Worker placement for all the AIs seems set to max production, but a check of the civ screen shows that they are all storing between one-third and one-half of their food intake, which is much better than I ever recall seeing it. This is at 1140 AD, and some of the AI cities are size 8 and 9- remarkable.
Unit costs are lower than I have ever seen them, too. From 16 to 20% at full readiness. The expected percentage under the previous Med mods was 10% higher. In spite of the way the AIs are flying through the tech chart, they are all pretty much filling out their primary units lists, and getting some of the core units as well. I can't wait to see what they do when we add the new advances to slow the timeline down. Again, very exciting.

The only thing I saw that concerned me any was that there are so many different goods now, the AIs are not able to get multiples of more than two or three. Only one civ had more than two of any one good, and they are through most of the city founding stage.

For those of you how haven't gotten this mod yet; what are you waiting on?!
For those of you who do decide to get it, I would like for you to take about 10 to 15 minutes every 100 turns or so, open up the cheat mode, and check out how the AIs are doing. Specifically, check these things:

1)How are the wgf sliders set? What are they maximizing and cutting?
2)Check out the two or three biggest cities for each civ, note their size, and see if they have to use entertainers.
3)Open the screens tab, and see about what percentage the civ is storing of its food.
4)In the units screen, what production percentage is going to unit support at full readiness?

Oh well, back to the mod...
I have a whole list of small changes, based on the effects of the reduced unit costs and SLIC triggers.
1)The militias are exerting martial law, which we didn't expect, but I find that I really like it, so I am leaving it in.
2)I made historical and gameplay gls for the ironclad, which I had forgotten to make earlier.
3)I would like to give militias their own special tga, so you could always tell which one they are when looking at the units tab.
4)I noticed that there seemed to be too many nobles and dips roaming around, and I found that the aips allowed the AIs to build 2 of these units at a time. I set this to 1.
5)I also reduced the priority of the scout troops core, since those units should not be needed.
6)I reduced that production cost of militia units to 5. This may not do anything, but when the units were killed, half their production cost may have been recouped, so I went ahead and made this change.
7)I made Archers obsolete with Engineering, when the Siege Engine becomes available. This may help the AIs update their units faster.
8)I increased the number of units allowed outside your cities by 5 to 10 for each government. With the increased numbers of units being built, it is necessary to station more of them as border guards. This allows you to do so without the war discontent becoming such a big problem.

By the way - in your last release. Did you include some of the old stuff (Nordicus' Wastlands) or did I make some "mixing" by mistake? Personaly I like the Wastlands.

And one more thing: Be carefull for the Eglitarian Act. One big nation had this wonder for some time, when suddendly it got half the cities from the one with the AI-entity (when that one revolted). And short after itself turned into riots and revolt due to citylimit of it's government.

Well, it might be the way I install all mods - I don't use senarios. I simply copy all changes to their default folders.

But it's fun anyway.

And now to something quite different:

Timeline: Renaissance already in year 740, just as you already know.

Wonders: For the first time since AAIPs, I got first to a wonder. This was "Solomons Temple". I nearly got another: "Great Library", but-but-but. No, MISSED!

I don't even try to go for the wonders "first in the AIP list". The AI are just to quick - everytime.

However, i notice that Cavalry is not 3 0 2 4 which gives it the same attack and defense as knights but with faster movement. Was this intentional?

I thought the same thing and had a post half done before realizing WHY Wes called it 2.1.

I agree with you, it is actually V3.1Beta (but don't tell Wes ).

One thing that you probably know already: When you disband a city the militia unit remains in that square and tied to that square. A minor issue really but an effective cheat if you just want to put a line of phalanxes (ancient maginot line?) along a border...

Another thing you probably know: All of the new wonders trigger the AI wonder movie. Personally, I'd rather not have a movie at all for the new wonders than have the wrong one.

Any way to change the message box for discovering advances via the Great Library so that it says something other than you have downloaded it off the internet?

Also, although I understand your upgrading of swamp-land value to match grasslands is there anyway to keep the movement restrictions of original swamp land? It just doesn't feel right when my horse archers go charging through the swamps at a gallop...

Finally, (and this is very minor) if you are going to have the Slavs as a nation your should replace the Hungarians with the Magyar, who are the dominant ethnic group in Hungary (with Slavs making up the next major ethnic group).

It is for the V3 mod, not the V2 mod. (And I might add, precisely explains why it should be V3.x). Of course, my rambling about version numbers didn't have anything to do with that confusion, did it?

But don't (V3.x) let me influence (V3.x) you Wes (V3.x). Just because (V3.x)I want to (V3.x) rename YOUR (V3.x) mod, isn't a (V3.x)good enough (V3.x)reason. No pressure (V3.x)here, just (V3.x)take your (V3.x)time and think (V3.x)about this. (Watch the swinging chain, your getting sleepy now.....)

Boy, somebody sure has to much time on their hands today, don't they?

Ajbera, the Med mod 2.1, which is what is listed in the downloads section here, is where I inserted the Arquebusier files in place of the original Musketeer ones.
If you download this mod, then you will need to delete these files when you get the Med mod 3. An easy way to do this would be to just delete the entire Medieval scenario. This would get rid of the old, unneeded readmes as well. I think I will put this suggestion into the file description when I upload the new graphics.

Lord Jack, you bring up some good points. It's stuff like this that play-testing is for, so don't anyone think that something is too unimportant to mention. After we put this many hours into something (probably a few hundred for all of us combined), I know that I for one would like for it to be as near to perfect as possible.

About the militia left after disbanding, I don't know what to do. I think Locutus, who made the triggers, has looked at this already. I guess we will have to leave this up to the honor of the players. Btw, you can add such a line directly by using the cheat menu. The militias are the last units in the list.

I will look back into the Wondermovie. This goes back to trying to fix the Modern mod, when I put them back in to see if it was the mysterious problem.
I will have a look at the internet message as well.

Are there many people who are a little disconcerted about the "Tropical grasslands" movement? I remember at least one other person mentioning this as well. It's easily changed in the terrain text.

as most browsers will just bring it up, you'll need to go to file and click on save as to save it. All ideas, questions and problems welcome but please read the readme file first. Thanks to all those who have put work into the Trade Goods and Medieval Mods especially Pintello, Nordicus and WesW.

There are about thirty new advances, spanning from the start of the game until the Industrial Revolution, plus the new Repeating Rifles advance in column 10.

In addition, what does everyone think about a new improvement, the Forge, which would be an ancient age Mill, available with Iron Working?
With the new trade goods, some cities will have production outputs large enough to make this improvement desirable in the early game.
NOTE: Is it possible to make improvements obsolete?

I prefer either "Plato's Academy" (in which case you should change the "Academy" Improvement to "School" or something similar) or "Aristotle's Lyceum". Maybe (?) "Socrates' Wisdom"? The latter I would call "Newton's Principia".

I'd also hesitate to increase production with Newton; his work was really the beginning of non-applied science. DaVinci would probably be more what you're looking for, I'd think.

Everything looks cool on your new chart, although of course I would prefer some more variation with the religions...but that requires some extensive graphics work. I also notice that Symphony seems to be a dead end. Perhaps you could add a Wonder there to make a reason to aquire it, such as "Beethoven's Fifth Symphony"? Perhaps you might need to change the name of the Advance then. An Improvement like Opera House (adds to happiness) might also be neat there.

You know, Activision needs to hire you....

Will you be including The Patent Office as a wonder that increases production or science in the Industrail Age?

I looked at your new advances chart, they look good. Being someone with a BS in Mathematics, it is nice to see math finally getting its due in a Civ game.

Wes, about the Patent Office, I didn't remember what it was suppose to do, I wasn't trying to suggest a change, I was just wondering if it was going to be in this mod. Sorry if you got a different impression.

I like your current new Wonders. The additional ones you suggested are also nice. I don't think there will be a problem with concurrent Wonders with the same effect either. After all, with the new changes it is so hard to get any of the Wonders, I seriously doubt that a player will be able to get both Wonders with the same effect, unless it is an AI. At least in my games, the AIs seem to be better in Production and Science and I have yet to figure out a strategy for overcoming that limitation. I am still working on it and as an eternal optimist, I am still hopeful that such a strategy is possible.

The mod keeps getting nearer to completion as well. Someone asked a few days ago when it would ready for public release. I am sorry about not answering right away, I got distracted during my next post and forgot to answer that question. Anyway, it will most likely be sometime in May.

I have added the advances to the text files, and started a game, which seems to be running fine. I haven't posted anything new at my site because I am waiting and/or working on a few things from both the text and graphics portions of the mod. I hope to have the new advances added to the Aips, and a few other things finished by the end of the weekend.
With the help of Peter Tiggs' paper explaining the flis, I have made some changes to how the AIs place their cities, and the early indications are that they have made a significant impact. Before, placement was fairly good, for an AI, but now it may be quite a good bit better. This will be something for us to keep an eye on.

I hope to get together with everyone I know here who might can help with the fuzzy logic code, and put our heads together to find answers to some fundamental AI problems that have dogged us since our AAip work. If we can solve even one of them, it will be a big boost to the game.

I look forward to testing your new FLI enhancements. They sound like they may be very interesting indeed. You may finally force me to give up and move down to king level with that one.

I still have to incorporate all these new things into the aips, and re-do the readmes. By the time I get this done, the remaining graphics from Morgoth, and the last trigger from Locutus should be in, so what may be the final beta should be up in the next week or so.

alertbox '116InternetDiscovery' {
if (HasAdvance(g.player, ID_ADVANCE_COMPUTER)) {Text(ID_INTERNET_DISCOVERY);}
else {Text(ID_GREAT_LIBRARY_DISCOVERY);}
Button(ID_BUTTON_CLOSE) {
Kill();
}
Button(ID_BUTTON_LIBRARY) {
Kill();
LibraryAdvance(discovery.type);
}
UseDirector();
}

(Replace the original in ps_scr.slc and add a text for GREAT_LIBRARY_DISCOVERY)

If you have discovered Computers it will give the Internet message; otherwise it will give the Great Library message.

Anyone keeping up with how many changes are in this mod? I lost count at about, oh, 500 or so.

quote: Originally posted by WesW on 04-14-2000 10:33 PM Locutus sent in the last trigger today, the one which allots additional militias based upon city size. (Is that guy a machine, or what? )

Actually, I'm a human-machine hybrid

Locutus

I must say though, with my large cities having several garrison/militia units defending them I don't feel a real need for defending it with other units (apart from frontline and other key-cities of course). Maybe the AI-files should be adapted to make sure the AI doesn't over-defends it's cities now? All these units mean support-costs will rise considerably and keep the AI from building offensive armies and wonders & improvements and such.

MadWoodster,

If you mean you want some code that warns you when your treasury gets below a certain amount, sure that's possible. (Doesn't that exist already?) But if you want something that warns you when you end your turn if you will have to lower your wages the next turn, that probably not possible.

Anyone know where the text is that adds costs to advances based upon how many previous advances you have discovered? I need to find this and lower it.

I added all the new stuff to the aips, and tailored them to the respective personality types somewhat.
Clerics will go for Theocracy, as usual. I also have them going for the sea advances, the better to spread their religion. They will go for defensive infantry, and the Hagia Sophia.
Slavers will go for sea advances and defensive infantry as well, and the Emancipation Proc.
Warriors will go for offensive infantry and mounted units, and the Cohort and Sphinx-type Wonders.
Scientists will go for Theology, with its Academy and defensive infantry, then go for other defensive inf. and the University. They will go for Plato's Academy and Galileo's Telescope.

I got the non-HTML readmes finished tonight (they didn't take nearly as long as I had feared). I also made some changes to which advances increase and decrease pollution, based upon info in the "bugs" thread here. This change should get rid of the Gaia Theory bug that eliminates pollution when the advance is discovered.

I forgot- Yes, Morgoth, I used your militia pic, and it works great. The white background makes it very easy to spot.