CCM2 Epic Mod

[Tigris of Gaul]

Thank you

 

[Elephantium]

Civinator, I have a CCM game in progress now. Will I be able to keep playing it after I install the update next week? I'm about halfway through conquering my landmass, around 1600 AD. I was planning on trying a space race, so running that in parallel with the next CCM - succession game might be awkward.

Thanks again for this awesome mod

 

[Civinator]

Elephantium, you cannot continue to play your game with the old version of CCM2 when you have installed the new version. As you can see in the screenshots below, the slots for some buildings had to be rewritten for some new buildings appearing in the update of CCM2.

The techtrees in era 2 and 3 are now updated to the version that I always have intended for CCM2, but for the Christmas release there was not enough time to change all those existing techtrees (that´s also the reason, why until now I didn´t post any screenshot about the CCM2 techtrees in the CCM2 thread). The new techtrees in my eyes make the game with CCM2 even more interesting and also allow to add about 70 new ships of the 'Age of Steam' (some of them not yet released to the public). These ships will also be used in the upcoming scenario 'CCM2 Age of Discovery' and now they can be used in normal CCM2, too.

Elephantium, thank you very much to you and all other participants of the CCM2 succession games for the detailed informations about your games with CCM2, as these informations contribute to improve CCM2 even more.

As a conclusion of your last succession game, in the update of CCM2, the production of settlers by great wonders of era 1 is speeded up by 1/3. To enforce the contact to civs on other continents, the autoproduction of pirate ships will be moved to a start in era 1 and the whole system of pirate ships will be reworked (this is currently in work). There will be simple pirateships in era 1 (like normal galleys) that can be updated to the normal pirate ships of Civ 3 in era 2 and later to pirate frigates and US Civil War raider ships in era 2 and finally to normal submarines in era 3. The 'desert units' receive also a rework. There is no more mining of grasland and forests and the worker job 'plant forests' was moved to appear even later in the techtree to avoid that the AI is filling the whole map with forests.

The most time consuming present work is the update of the civilopedia.

 

[Elephantium]

Eh, not surprising. I want to finish my current game, but I'm also excited for the new version and the next succession game!

I am having trouble with research speed in my solo-game. I'm near Turn 200; I've researched Jurisprudence but not Physics, Free Artistry, or Medicine. I think the estimate was 6 turns for Physics, 7 for the other two, and 11 for Economics (what I'm researching now, hoping to trade with the AI). I've been rush-building Academies and Libraries; Universities are starting to come online.

I've also completely taken over 4 of my nearest rivals.

But, there are about 60 technologies left to research. Even at 5 turns per tech, that's 300 more turns = end of game.

True, I'm running a Monarchy, so research isn't as good as it could be under Republic, but still -- is it intended that you shouldn't be able to win by space race as a monarchy, due to the turn limit?

 

[Civinator]

True, I'm running a Monarchy, so research isn't as good as it could be under Republic, but still -- is it intended that you shouldn't be able to win by space race as a monarchy, due to the turn limit?

Yes, it is intended to give the player who is always in Monarchy/Communism (Facism) a 'stony way' to reach the last techs in the techtree, as to play all the game in Monarchy/Communism (or Fascism) is the easiest way to win the game considering the advantages with barracks for that government in CCM. Commerce and research in Democracy are even better than in Republic and war weariness is also low (as it is in Republic). I don´t understand, why you don´t switch governments more frequently. In my eyes it can be a good tactics, if you have a lot of graneries and later hospitals in your cities, as the loss in population by switching governments is rapidly nullified and Anarchy for all civs in CCM is only two turns. Additionally in CCM civs with government Republic or Democracy can stand wars much longer then in standard C3C, as there are also additional buildings in CCM2 that can reduce war weariness (GW National Monument, SW Ministery of Defense, improvements Radiotower, War Memorial and -new in the update- Telegraph station). An interesting variation in government Republic can be to build the GW The Alamo, giving a War Memorial to every city on the continent.

 

[Elephantium]

Well, I'm warring a lot. It seemed fitting as the Mongols

Succession game experience shows that short wars in WW-prone govts don't work very well -- you need to do a LOT of fighting to take 1-2 cities, then if you sign peace to avoid WW, you have to wade through large stacks again 20 turns later in order to take the next few towns. I do think it would work better for defensive wars, but the succession games are more aggressive.

I'll try switching to Republic early in my next game and revolt to Monarchy only if I have problems with WW -- that might make the crucial difference.

 

[Elephantium]

 

[Civinator]

Such a situation as shown in the screenshot above happens, when the game doesn´t find enough place on the map to create sufficient starting locations in the minimal distance between civs that is set in the editor.

Elephantium, at what map size and what number of civs are you playing this game? Are there any special settings for the map like desert or tundra world or archipelago?


Edit:

Well, I'm warring a lot. It seemed fitting as the Mongols

Reflecting about it, I found the following solution for your ancient warfare :

View attachment 495380 (from the Civ 2 Scenario League)

 

[Elephantium]

I used the largest map size, random settings otherwise. Looks like an archipelago map.

 

[Civinator]

Thank you very much for the save file. I will have a look on it.

 

[Civinator]

Elephantium, as I have installed the new update version of CCM2 on my pc, I forgot, that I have the same problem now with opening your save file, that you will have when playing your old CCM2 Mongol game and a succession game with the updated version of CCM2:

I cannot open your save file without bigger changes in the configuration of my current updated CCM2 files. These changes back would slow down the progress in finishing the update of CCM2 and embark the danger, that there will be a bad mixture of those versions that leads to errors. So I don´t do this now.

I wanted to have the look into your save file, so there can be written a warning, not to use such a configuration of the map or to reduce the number of civs on a map with those settings. May be when your game progresses, you can give a better description about the settings of the map, the number of civs and the number of civs that had such a crowded start, so such a warning can be written.

 

[Elephantium]

These were the settings (from Play Last World in the menu):

largest map size
80% water, continents
arid, cool, 3BY
max number of civs

I can post the map seed, too, but I have my Mongols game open right now.

I also noticed that "Play Last World" put me in the same starting spot -- pretty much right in the center of the map.

 

[Civinator]

Elephantium, thank you very much for that information. The map seed is not needed. Important would be the number of civs, that have such a crowded start, as this should be the number of civs that should be reduced from the 31 civs when starting on a 80% water tundra (or desert) map (at least 4).

On such maps the number of landtiles to settle (and therefore the starting locations) are massively reduced, as on tundra (or desert) -, coastal-, sea- and ocean tiles in CCM2 settling is not allowed and therefore such culminations of starting locations can happen.

 

[Elephantium]

Oh. I clicked Random for settings and didn't adjust the number of civs. That probably explains it.

Other highlights include:

Greece started on a small island (only has two cities now).
Germany started on tiny 5-tile island.
Australia started on a 1-tile island!

N-NE of my start is a 6-tile island, mostly tundra.
N of that is a big empty island. Some tundra, mostly hills. You could probably fit a dozen cities on that island.

 

[Civinator]

The poor starting locations of some civs are logically, as the game first uses the places in the correct distance suited for starting locations and when there are no more correct starting locations, it does the crowded placing you have shown in your screenshot for the remaining civs, that didn´t receive a proper starting location.

So in generally it can be said: Setting maps cummulative to archipelago or 80% water and tundra or desert climate should be avoided. Best is to give the civs plenty of land to settle down.

... and here is the civilopedia entry of one of the new steam ships in CCM2:

 

[tjs282]

So in generally it can be said: Setting maps cummulative to archipelago or 80% water and tundra or desert climate should be avoided. Best is to give the civs plenty of land to settle down.

I would suggest also, playing 4- or even better 5-BYO worlds, since those have more fragmented terrain — which in turn means potentially more widespread starting spots.

Spoiler My CCM1.8 Romans game :

...is still in progress (I kind of lost interest in it once I hit the runaway-Civ stage, but it's not technically won yet), also on a Randomly-rolled CCM-Huge map which (based on its appearance) I assume to be a 3-BYO (large chunks of same-type terrain), cold (lots of Tundra), wet (lots of Forest/Jungle), 80% Continents, or possibly Archi (1 supercontinent, 5 smaller Continents, plus a few relatively tiny islands).

And there were/are similar 'problems' as in Tusker's game: crowded starts (I didn't use Antal's patch, so no Capitals ended up directly adjacent to each other, but Carthage and Istanbul were both founded CxC from Rome), large swathes of non-Settle-able terrain, and several 1-2 city Civs (including Britain!) stranded on the tiny islands with nowhere to go...

 

[Elephantium]

Tricky. I like to use the random settings buttons.

Maybe I should start rolling dice for each setting, then I can reroll if I get 3+ of: arch/80% water/arid/cold/3BYO

 

[Civinator]

I would suggest also, playing 4- or even better 5-BYO worlds, since those have more fragmented terrain — which in turn means potentially more widespread starting spots.

Yes, I frequently use this setting, too.

And here are the high quality attack graphics of some not yet posted new landunits, that CCM2 is allowed to have in its update:

New Tiger I:

New Jagdpanther:

New M13/40:

 

[Wolfshade]

Posting very rarely nowadays and having little of free time (house renovation takes A LOT of attention and efforts), but.

Civinator, would like to say a huge THANK YOU for your mod which is definitely a pleasure to play. Even if Civ5+6 are around the Civ3 CCM2 is a great game to play with clear rules (maybe they a bit simple - and it doesn't mean "bad").
My only game in the CCM2 was by Russia (random choice) in Monarch level (won by Space Race). Very challenging to play (more than in CCM1) that's why victory became so sweet.

Very-very happy to see some new stuff will be added and especially German armour. Once I played CCM1 as Germany (won by conquest) and these mechs really helped.
Thank you!

Eagerly waiting for the CCM adapted to the World Map. I like random maps and World Map just gives a special feel. That's why I like the MEM so much too.
Once again, thank you for your work!

 

[Civinator]

Wolfshade, thank you very much for your kind words about CCM2.

Those units posted above, have only completely new graphics. The units themselves (with the old graphics) were still in CCM2. For the update Takeo fixed and optimized many other graphics of existing units in CCM2. I soon will post more about this (and some additional information about the CCM2 update).

The worldmap still needs a lot of time. The first version seems to be the 'Age of Discovery scenario', starting in 1480 AD. Especially many of the new added ships in the update will be used in that scenario, too.