Medieval Millennium release thread

[Knighttime]

Medieval Millennium is an adaptation of Civilization II: Test of Time, based on Western Europe during the one-thousand-year period from A.D. 500 to A.D. 1500. It requires the Test of Time Patch Project (TOTPP) version 0.15.1 and takes advantage of many features that this enables. This is a single-player-only scenario (one human player vs. AI nations).

It is available for download here: https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/medieval-millennium.28568/
For installation instructions, please see the Readme.txt file included in the download.

In a technical sense, this is a complex modpack in which all units, improvements, wonders, advances, etc., have been altered to fit the medieval theme. There is no .SCN file, and every game begins on a new randomly-generated map (utilizing the new "Play a mod" menu option added via TOTPP). A game last 500 turns, at two years per turn, and you can win either by conquest or by "voyage".

On the other hand, this has many features more commonly found in a scenario, the primary one being extensive use of events to dramatically alter the gameplay experience. This allows the controlled introduction of new factors and gameplay elements at appropriate times, not directly caused by in-game actions. The experience of playing probably aligns very closely with what players have come to expect from an in-depth scenario.

In short, this is something of a unique hybrid. Perhaps the best summary is to say that this is the original base game of Civ II, completely reimagined, with the power of Lua programming behind it.

The intent is not to recreate the strictly historical sequence of events during these years, or to allow you to replay and reenact events exactly as they occurred, but rather to provide a thematically "medieval" experience or context. Every attempt has been made to provide an immersive experience that balances authenticity with enjoyable gameplay. This is far more than a graphical overlay or a new skin on familiar game mechanics — you'll encounter many detailed and nuanced changes to all aspects of the game.

Full documentation is available both in PDF format and within the Civilopedia.

A few example screenshots:

Vikings have landed near Salerno! The monks near the city are in trouble, and the Knight probably won't arrive in time to save them.


The Kingdom of Castile and Leon, in A.D. 1100.


New diplomacy screen, featuring a meeting with Enrico Dandolo of Venice.

I hope you enjoy Medieval Millennium! Happy Civing!

Knighttime

 

[tootall_2012]

Hi Knighttime,

Congratulations on your release. Having had the pleasure to play test your mod, I know how much thought, dedication and effort you put into it. It’s clearly been a labour of love on your part and it shows in all the minute and glorious details!

To all the Civilization players out there who’ve always enjoyed the more empire based aspect of the game, i.e. starting with one settler and a warrior, sending out your scouts to discover the world around you and striving to build a mighty nation, this mod should be for you.

But be forewarned, this isn’t your standard Empire based version of the platform, as Knighttime has introduced, thanks to lua, an entire range of new features that bring the game to another level. You will be confronted with a whole new series of options and challenges you've never quite had to deal with before.

As such, there is a learning curve and for my part I recommend you at least take a look at the pdf guides he carefully prepared to get a grasp on many of the new features and concepts he implemented.

 

[JPetroski]

I have to say this is one of the most innovative creations I've ever played. @Knighttime has basically redone the game. I'd call on @Buck2005 and his friends to check this one out as it's a "scenario/modpack" that I think they'd truly enjoy. Knighttime has created a great empire builder that will reinvigorate the base game and leave you all itching for "one more turn."

He's also added several great features via lua. A few of my favorites:

-He's perfected getting the AI to use "ranged attack" units;
-He's added a mechanism to the tiles where they'll dry up/become less fertile if they're used too often;
-He's added disease and plague into the game - something that could be tweaked as a "natural disaster" in other scenarios;
-He's tweaked the WoW and even base improvements - using lua, they now do so much more than in the base game (for example, some improvements can be built multiple times, truly turning certain cities into powerhouses).
-He's taken the strategic bombing mechanism he built for OTR and has recalibrated it for this scenario. Now, certain improvements can be destroyed from outside of cities (AI and your own).

Every last inch of this thing has been handcrafted to create a truly medieval, unique experience, it's basically like playing a whole new game, yet fairly familiar too with the Civ 2 engine.

I was absolutely blown away the first time I saw this and I know everyone else will enjoy it. My only suggestion is that you make a second copy of your test of time folder and install it in that so that nothing can go wrong with your "base" folder (I'm sure nothing would, but just for safety's sake since many are designers here with hours of work on their own projects in their own folders).

I am looking forward to releasing a video on this one soon raving about it. Well done @Knighttime

If I could give everyone one hint in spoilers:

Spoiler :

Build cavalry to hunt down and kill enemy siege engineers far from your cities before they can build powerful siege towers, or you'll have headaches dealing with them later!

 

[Prof. Garfield]

@Knighttime

This looks really good! Haven't had a chance to install yet, but I have been looking through the documentation. I noticed that you have an internet music player as part of the package. Some time ago, I wrote a custom music package (see link in my signature), which would allow you to supply custom music for the scenario (which would stop for negotiations, etc., since it is actual in game music). I understand if you don't want to use it (for example, copyright concerns, size of download, use of file overwrites), but if the reason is technical, I'd be glad to help. FYI, the sample I provided is set up so that someone without the custom music package can still use the game seamlessly.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

I've had a chance to play about 60 turns, and the game is excellent! You put a lot of great work into this, and it isn't obvious at all what the best strategy is.

 

[Knighttime]

@tootall_2012 and @JPetroski, thank you both very much for your kind words. I truly appreciated having both of you review this in advance of the release and share your thoughts and reactions. Tootall_2012 deserves special credit for playing through multiple complete test games, identifying bugs in the event code, and providing very useful input regarding game mechanisms that needed further attention as well as strategic balance.

@Prof. Garfield, glad to hear you're beginning to explore this and that you like what you've seen so far. Thanks for your positive response, and I hope you continue to enjoy it!

I hadn't looked at your Custom Music Patch before, so thanks for mentioning it. It seems like it would indeed work well to support custom music files that ship with a scenario. In this case, I decided not to go that route, for two of the reasons you mentioned: first and foremost being copyright, with download size as an additional consideration. So my music player is really just a giant playlist, which sidesteps those problems but makes it dependent on external sources for maintaining content. I'm sure the error rate will increase over time as selections gradually become unavailable, but that's the trade-off I guess.

 

[Fairline]

This looks very exciting - DLing to try.

Congrats on the release

 

[Prof. Garfield]

In this case, I decided not to go that route, for two of the reasons you mentioned: first and foremost being copyright, with download size as an additional consideration.

A quick search for "royalty free medieval music" led me to this site, which looks to have at least a few tracks that would be suitable. With a bit of effort, I'm sure you could find 13 creative commons licensed pieces for this project. Of course, it is ultimately your decision, so I won't bring it up again, unless you ask.

 

[JPetroski]

Also the folks I use for music for openings like in Caesar allow free use of their work as long as credit is provided. They have a number of medieval themes

 

[JPetroski]

I've updated the main civfanatics page with a teaser for your modpack and a link to this page for more information. I need to find time to make a video but I've been dragging out of bed each morning and just haven't been able to get to it yet.

 

[Civinator]

Knighttime and the testers of this mod, when having a first look into your mod, I am overwhelmed by your incredible magnificient work ! There is such a love to the detail even when reading the documentation or looking at the great reworked dlls. I am excited about the upcoming lua events.

Congrats on the release!






Until now I think for starting this wonderful mod it´s enough to delete the suffix mm from the files in the mod folder, to rename the dll files in the ToT mainfolder that should be changed to mk-original.dll (or something like that) and to add the new dll files to the mainfolder. ToTPP recognizes this mod without any problems.

Spoiler :

 

[civ2units]

This looks very impressive, Knighttime. Very good work.
I will try a game.

 

[Knighttime]

Hi @Fairline, @Civinator, @civ2units -- thanks very much, all of you! I hope you enjoy playing.

Until now I think for starting this wonderful mod it´s enough to delete the suffix mm from the files in the mod folder, to rename the dll files in the ToT mainfolder that should be changed to mk-original.dll (or something like that) and to add the new dll files to the mainfolder. ToTPP recognizes this mod without any problems.

I'm not sure I followed this exactly... are you talking about steps to manually install the mod without running MM_install.bat? It sounds like you have it working, but I really would recommend that most users run the batch installation script that I provided -- that should be much simpler, and will guarantee that all the required files get put in place. (As JPetroski said above, you could make a copy of your entire TOT directory first, and then install Medieval Millennium into that copy, if you prefer.)

Then anytime you want to play a different scenario or mod, just run MM_uninstall.bat and proceed. You can run MM_install.bat again later and pick up Medieval Millennium right where you left off in your last saved game -- the uninstall script doesn't delete any of your saves, it simply puts the contents of the main TOT folder and the Original folder back to what they were before MM was installed, so that base games or other scenarios don't "see" the Medieval Millennium customizations.

 

[Civinator]

I'm not sure I followed this exactly... are you talking about steps to manually install the mod without running MM_install.bat?

Yes, the bat-file didn´t work and for switching between the original dll files, the dll files of my SciFi mod and the medieval dll files I had only to rename them (so the graphics in your Medieval mod are by far the best).

Spoiler :

 

[Knighttime]

OK, thanks. I'd be happy to update the batch file if I can understand how/why it doesn't work, but I'd need more information to do that.

For anyone who wants or needs to install this manually, the files that need to be copied are those in the InstallToParent folder (they go in the main TOT directory) and those in the InstallToOriginal folder (they go in the Original directory, which is right below the main TOT directory and at the same level as the Medieval Millennium scenario directory). All of them will overwrite existing files in those locations, so be sure to back up or rename the existing ones first. (That's what the script does.) JPetroski's idea of copying your entire TOT directory and installing Medieval Millennium there might be especially useful in this case, since going back and forth would require considerably more effort. With a full TOT installation all to itself, you could leave MM installed permanently in that location.

 

[Civinator]

OK, thanks. I'd be happy to update the batch file if I can understand how/why it doesn't work, but I'd need more information to do that.

I attache a screenshot when starting the bat-file (unfortunately in German language). Additionally I want to keep the nice violet dialog file in my Original folder even when playing your great mod.

Spoiler :

 

[Knighttime]

I attached a screenshot when starting the bat-file (unfortunately in German language). Additionally I want to keep the nice violet dialog file in my Original folder even when playing your great mod.

Well, Google Translate tells me that "Zugriff verweigert" means "Access denied". Since you saw this error for all file types (not just .dll, but also .txt and .bmp) then my guess is that your Windows account did not have permission to write to the TOT installation directory. One possible reason might be if you installed the game beneath one of the Windows "official" locations such as C:\Program Files or C:\Program Files (x86) -- is that possibly true? (They may have other names in a German installation of course.) My recommendation is always to install Civ2 to a completely independent path such as C:\Games\Civ2ToT. If that's not your issue, then there seems to be some other type of permission problem. Unfortunately that may be specific to your system, and I don't think it's something I can address in my script.

I could improve the script to make it easier to exclude individual files such as Dialog.bmp though, since that type of style preference doesn't affect game behavior. I'll try to add that enhancement in an upcoming release.

 

[Fairline]

Had a session with this yesterday and it's very impressive - it is a very detailed and innovative modpack with a real feel for the medieval period

Is it possible to play on pre-existing maps of Europe with the correct civ starting locations? I've been playing on the randomly generated maps and assume there's no option to use anything else? I suppose I'd need to make a scenario in order to do this, right?

Also, I was tinkering with the units for my own copy and was trying to work out what the symbols refer to after the name of some units (eg Crossbowman –+); forgive me if I've missed something that explains this in your documentation.

 

[Civinator]

One possible reason might be if you installed the game beneath one of the Windows "official" locations such as C:\Program Files or C:\Program Files (x86) -- is that possibly true? (They may have other names in a German installation of course.) My recommendation is always to install Civ2 to a completely independent path such as C:\Games\Civ2ToT. If that's not your issue, then there seems to be some other type of permission problem. Unfortunately that may be specific to your system, and I don't think it's something I can address in my script.

I could improve the script to make it easier to exclude individual files such as Dialog.bmp though, since that type of style preference doesn't affect game behavior. I'll try to add that enhancement in an upcoming release.

Yes, your guess is completly true. My Civ 2ToT on my Win10 64 bit pc is installed in the Program Files (x86) folder and I don´t have any bigger problems with that installation, as I have drawn a link to the virtualstore of my pc.

Knighttime, until now I can run your wonderful work without any problems with the small adjustments I have done for replacing the (for me) not working bat file and I´m glad about your focus in creating a marvellous single player mod. A fix of the bat file for me is not needed.

Is it possible to play on pre-existing maps of Europe with the correct civ starting locations? I've been playing on the randomly generated maps and assume there's no option to use anything else? I suppose I'd need to make a scenario in order to do this, right?

Until now I have the impression, that the starting date, that is set in the first lines of a 'mod-rules-file' is only working correctly, when the mod is played with randomly generated maps. When the player uses premade maps (at least in my case) the mod starts for a small fraction of a second with the new preset date, but than swaps back to the old BC/AD date settings in Civ 2 (in the case of the Medieval Mod from 500 AD to 4000 BC and in the case of my spacemod from 2250 AD to 4000 Startime). Otherwise I think mods can be played with preset maps (and in the case of my space mod even with two preset maps) but my space mod has no fixed starting locations for the civs. The only limitation for the civs in my space mod (starting at map 1 or map 2) are working in my mod.

 

[JPetroski]

I was under the impression this cannot be played with a pre-made map. It's the feature most on my wishlist for a later expansion