Caesar's Gallic Wars

[techumseh]

Very interesting indeed. Thanks for making the video. One question though. Why did the slinger disappear?

 

[JPetroski]

It didn't it just was covered up by 3 stones/fell to the bottom as it no longer had any mp.

 

[Civinator]

This is fantastic! Thank you very much for creating this video and to Grisnach for having this great idea!

One question: Could such an unit creation also be done to the unit, that is attacked? The background for my question is the use of animated units in Civ 2 ToT. If using animated units in combat, only the attacking unit is animated while the attacked unit only stands beside the attacker without doing anything until the combat is resolved. What´s about giving the attacked unit the combat animation of that unit as the default animation until the combat is resolved? Now in combat both units could have proper combat animations.

Btw.: May be the problem of the disapearing attacker could be solved the same way by giving the attacker not the graphics of stones or arrows during the combat, but the graphics of the attacking unit (slinger or archer).

Am I allowed to draw a link to your video at civforum.de to inform the German civers about all the great things that here are happening?

 

[JPetroski]

I'm not sure about what you asked - I'd leave that to Grishnach or TNO to answer, but as for the 'disappearing' unit, what is happening is it is running out of MP, and therefore is no longer selected/activated. So it's not an animation issue. The stones are a second unit (as are the arrows, boulders, etc.)

You are more than welcome to link anything you would like - the more the merrier

 

[Civinator]

I'm not sure about what you asked - I'd leave that to Grishnach or TNO to answer, but as for the 'disappearing' unit, what is happening is it is running out of MP, and therefore is no longer selected/activated. So it's not an animation issue. The stones are a second unit (as are the arrows, boulders, etc.)

a) For your video:If the second unit in the stack is looking like the first unit, the player has the impression, that the unit is not disappearing. The other side of the medal is, that this methode would use a lot of unit slots as you would have to use two units for each unit with ranged attack..

b) If the attacked unit, when using animated units, receives a second unit at the top of its stack during combat, that has the attack animation of that unit as its default animation, the player has the impression, that the attacked unit is fighting back. When the attacked unit looses the fight, if stack kills are enabled, both attacked units are removed. If stack kills are disabled, there must be found a way to remove both units of the attacked stack.

If the attacked unit wins the fight, there must be found a way, that the winning unit with the attack animation in the defending stack is eliminated.

You are more than welcome to link anything you would like - the more the merrier

Thank you very much.

Edit: You can find that article with your linked video here.

 

[JPetroski]

If I'm understanding you correctly, you suggest in "A" having arrows simply look like the archer? I think the way we have it set up is preferable. You'll be able to see the underlying unit once you expend the ammo, anyway - I just didn't do that in this video. The ammo is an air unit that has limited range and is destroyed when attacking so it really shouldn't be an issue.

We aren't using animated units -- ToTPP restores the single attack animation from MGE. That is the animation you are seeing. I understand from prior conversations with you that you really like animated units but I'll respectfully point out that we have thousands of gorgeous static units available and a bare handful of animated ones, which tend to look worse (in my opinion at least) than the static ones Fairline and company have drawn. I don't really see animated units catching on though if you like them you're always welcome to swap them in to any scenario you like.

 

[CurtSibling]

Great work, @JPetroski !

I think the arrows temporarily obscuring the unit underneath will not really be a problem in game, if that is what @Civinator means.

I see this as a great foundation for many scenarios, in terms of recruiting and artillery, and people will hopefully be adapting the concept for their own work.

 

[CurtSibling]

Btw.: May be the problem of the disapearing attacker could be solved the same way by giving the attacker not the graphics of stones or arrows during the combat, but the graphics of the attacking unit (slinger or archer).

You do realise that this is merely the way CIV2 cycles through units, right? The active unit is always on top. In a stack, you press "W" until you get the unit you wish.

Basic CIV controls, man!

 

[JPetroski]

Great work, @JPetroski !

Thanks but the credit belongs to @Grishnach and @TheNamelessOne
I am but a simple dreamer. They are the ones that put it into action!

 

[CurtSibling]

Thanks but the credit belongs to @Grishnach and @TheNamelessOne
I am but a simple dreamer. They are the ones that put it into action!

Of course! I was referring to your Youtube vid...I think more CIV2 creators should put their work onto this medium.

 

[McMonkey]

Quick question. If you press k to create a missile then realise you are out of range can the firing unit move with the missiles it has created (IE with carrier flag) or do they have to use the missile immediately? I guess if they were set as a carrier then they could spend turns building up a stockpile of ammo which wouldn't fit with the concept of limiting the number of missiles by the number of available movement points. Just curious if the carrier flag can be applied to ground units.

I absolutely love the recruiter terrain/recruiter idea. So useful. Will really allow region specific units. Thinking about my ideas for updating Techumseh's American Civil War scenario and the concept of Railheads. Instead of that concept (or in addition to it), certain crucial locations would have this terrain, making control of them vital for producing units near the frontlines. So many interesting possibilities!

Keep up the good work guys. I know I keep on saying it, but this really does feel like a new chapter in the evolution of Civ2. I think back a few years and it really did seem like the game was drawing it's dying breaths and would become a relic that people would occasionally go back to for nostalgia purposes. Right now it feels vibrant and new again and the ToTPP/Lua innovations seem to have inspired the graphics designers and scenario builders to redouble their efforts.

 

[JPetroski]

Right now I'm not allowing the units to carry air because a feature hasn't been implemented where ground units can carry air and move yet. TNO has mentioned he's working on that though. So it could be possible in the future. I've considered letting the siege artillery do this because they sit in one place. It depends on if you want to force the player to build a large amount of artillery, or wait multiple turns to initiate an attack.

I'm with you on the nostalgia purposes... Honestly even with the additional features ToTPP offered several months ago, I almost felt like I was just creating a few scenarios for myself or to put a cap on a career. Now that @TheNamelessOne returned and fixed the bugs in 1.14, and lua is practical, it really does seem like being a pioneer again.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and invoke @DanQ , but what's going on here is something special and I think it would be worthy of a polycast/front page news... It would be great to send out the bat signal to all the old Civ2 players who still lurk in other regions of this website, and we might inspire a new generation as well. Throwback Thursday, anyone? (Dan if you do look at this thread please see the video above/check out the ToTPP threads in the general Civ2 section).

 

[CurtSibling]

Can the recruit "K" function work even in a city? Hope so!

An Axis civ in a WW2 scen could draw up Finnish or Romanian troops from Helsinki or Bucharest...

 

[Grishnach]

Can the recruit "K" function work even in a city? Hope so!

An Axis civ in a WW2 scen could draw up Finnish or Romanian troops from Helsinki or Bucharest...

Sure, no problem
Would need a slightly different code like the one we use here (and where it is very easy to add additional recruitment troops), but other than that ...
(one just has to check whether the recruiter is in a tile where city.id==X is also present)

 

[Civinator]

We aren't using animated units -- ToTPP restores the single attack animation from MGE. That is the animation you are seeing.

Yes, I´m aware of this and it was a great progress, that TNO made the MGE combat animations available for Civ 2 ToT, too.

I understand from prior conversations with you that you really like animated units but I'll respectfully point out that we have thousands of gorgeous static units available and a bare handful of animated ones, which tend to look worse (in my opinion at least) than the static ones Fairline and company have drawn. I don't really see animated units catching on though if you like them you're always welcome to swap them in to any scenario you like.

I completely agree, that these static unit graphics are marvellous and better looking than a view on a static image of the animated units - but in my eyes this is the wrong comparison. The real beauty of the animated units is, that a marching archer in the game looks much better when moving than a static unit, that is 'teleporting' over the map (or if two batteling swordsmen do a real swordfight, what at present isn´t possible with Civ 2 ToT).

And you are also right that there are next to no animated units in qualified quality available. At least I´m only aware about the animated units I have done very long ago. I stopped the production of animated units exactly for that combat animation problem. In combat it is looking silly if one unit has a complete fighting animation and the other unit does nothing. On the other side, I think that TNO´s explanation, that only the attacking unit can be animated, is wrong. If I remember well, I created a version of the KV-2 tank where I put the attack animation images of that unit into the slots of the default animations and the tank did fire when beeing attacked. But that tank did fire all the way, even when not in a battle. I think the defending unit uses the default animations.

I´m dreaming of a Civ version that is better than Civ 3 and doesn´t use a 3D engine. ToTPP and even your pioneering work with lua are an immense progress in that dream, but also animated units are a necessairy part of that dream. Of course I understand everybody, who says 'dream on, this is not the reality'. On the other side, what would these civers have been saying some years ago, if anybody would have spoken about the great options that now are possible by TOTPP?

 

[Fairline]

wow, these advances are incredible JP. Great work by Grishnach and yourself

PS I've lost a battle to my inner pedant: it's Balearic not baelaric. Sorry, couldn't help myself there

 

[JPetroski]

PS I've lost a battle to my inner pedant: it's Balearic not baelaric. Sorry, couldn't help myself there

By all means please point out anything like this. I am prone to making these mistakes.

Another great thing about lua being integer based vs. text based is that making a change to the spelling late in the game doesn't necessitate digging through an entire events file

 

[Northerner]

Is there any kind of “perishes after X turns” flag?

Suppose a player were to leave an archer in some city for a few turns, and fill it up with arrows, and thus eventually make the city close to unsiegable, at least to the AI.

 

[Patine]

Is there any kind of “perishes after X turns” flag?

Suppose a player were to leave an archer in some city for a few turns, and fill it up with arrows, and thus eventually make the city close to unsiegable, at least to the AI.

Actually, that would be a great mechanic for my Fall of Rome idea, as I have a number of "leader" type units, but, as the scenario spans well over a century of time, even if said leaders don't die in combat, they'll eventually retire or die of old age.

 

[JPetroski]

You can remove units I believe, but figuring out how to remove arrows in particular spots after particular turns might be more hassle than it is worth.

It might make more sense to give ammo a small cost as a deterrent.

Regardless of what you do, people will always find a way to game the system. I'm not concerned about them doing this in singe player but it is something to consider in multiplayer.