TETurkhan Test of Time (Map & Mod)

[Taurendil]

Hey TET,

For starters: thanks a lot for the new version. We all greatly appreciate all the work you put into this.

The game i am currently playing is in version 1.9, monarch difficulty, as the Egyptians. If anything i comment on has been fixed/changed in version 1.92, ignore it.

The first thing probably has nothing to do with your mod. It looks like it could be a civ bug. When i killed the last defender in Mecca, it generated my first great leader . However, after winning my war chariot retreated, and Ramses was standing in the middle of Mecca, which was still in Arab control. Since the town was effectively undefended, i could just walk into it to conquer, but it was still a funny sight. I added a screenshot of this.

Since I am unable to build settlers, and i haven't seen any other civs build new cities, i assume nobody is supposed to, at least until industrialisation iirc. After pounding the Arabs down to 1 city though, i discovered otherwise. They were left with just Mogadishu after i extorted their last 2 cities in peace negotiations. Soon after this, new arab cities emerged on the african continent.

I've kept savegames of both these events, in case you want to check them out for yourself.

I haven't played these new versions long enough or often enough to make a well founded judgement about this, but i expect the more powerfull civs have become even more so. Since there are no settlers or wonders to build and waste hundreds of shields on, every AI starts amassing troups from turn 1. This means ofcourse that the large nations are soon unstopable. In my game, for example, the Indians crushed the entire persian empire before 1000 BC. And with just spearmen, archers and swordmen. I don't know if there is much you can do about that, but it strikes me as wrong.

Finally, i've noticed the 1 tile islands are still in. We've discussed this earlier if you remember. Suppose for example i would conquer carthage, there would be no way for me to get to Corsica or Sardinia before marines. In the meantime one of those would have become the carthagian capital, and start culture flipping my cities for thousands of years, with no way to stop them.

 

[TETurkhan]

Finally, i've noticed the 1 tile islands are still in. We've discussed this earlier if you remember. Suppose for example i would conquer carthage, there would be no way for me to get to Corsica or Sardinia before marines. In the meantime one of those would have become the carthagian capital, and start culture flipping my cities for thousands of years, with no way to stop them.

Yes I had totally forgotten this! Thanks for reminding me, I will address it right away – but I don’t quite care for adding a tile, instead perhaps I can give foot units “amphibious ability”?

expect the more powerfull civs have become even more so. Since there are no settlers or wonders to build and waste hundreds of shields on, every AI starts amassing troups from turn 1. This means ofcourse that the large nations are soon unstopable. In my game, for example, the Indians crushed the entire persian empire before 1000 BC.

Your observation is correct however if you look at the city version of the mod where two Civs are side by side you will notice there isn’t a huge variance in power between them. A few Civs such as Korea & the Mongols did however fall into the plight you described and most often died early on – but this is not the case anymore. Also there is a new concept that will be implemented for version 2.0 - new improvements, resources etc. They will be given to key Civs – namely the Colonizing powers of Europe at a specific times resulting in increased research rate, production, worker performance etc. These Civs will look small at the onset however though they will pack a punch that will be felt from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

Thanks for tips!

 

[Barak]

I have been playing version 1.7, and been enjoying myself immensly. After reading all the comments about 1.92, I am a little hesitant to install it on my computer. Is there a way to have both versions (1.7 and 1.92) on my machine so I can run games using both versions at different times? I am not quite as mod savvy as many of you.

Thanks again TET for a fantastic mod!

 

[BobTheTerrible]

Tet, if you gave foot units amphibious ability, then you'd have legions storming your cities by sea, etc. It could greatly unbalance the game.

How big of an update is 1.92 gonna be? The game I started is great and I don't want to have to quit and start over for a few minor changes.

 

[Benderino]

Originally posted by iamliberal

Benderino, I thought you can only name Elite troops that produce Leaders??

No, in PTW, they have an option to name all, its really fun. In just Civ 3, with one of the patches, then you could only name Elite units that produce leaders.

 

[TETurkhan]

This is a more complex problem than I had originally thought.

options are as follows:

1. add a tile to every single tile island
2. add a amphibious unit early on, that eventually upgrades to marines.

I am leaning towards the second, some kind of sailor unit? - input is welcome.

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If you are playing a game already and enjoying it keep playing of course however the results you get may not be so useful to me since many of the problems you encounter may already have been addressed in the new patch.

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renaming units, I played a regular PTW game and couldn't rename units

 

[BobTheTerrible]

There's a little button down where it has all of the unit commands. The button has an "abc" on it. You must have a unit selected that hasn't moved this turn to do this.

Anyway my game crashed so I'll start a new 1.92 one. You don't have it posted yet, do you?

 

[TETurkhan]

Does the units have to be elite in order to rename them?
I have tried to rename a unit in the mod or just regular PTW game but with no success...

 

[Bobisback]

TETurkhan why doesn't the warrior upgrade to the Legionary, I just started a game and built like 20+ warriors waiting tell I had Legionarys to upgarde the warriors and come to find out I can't upgrade warriors to Legionarys?

 

[TETurkhan]

Why can't you upgrade? Is it because there is no option to or due to the game crashing etc?

I configured warriors to be upgradable - however if you have conflicting patch you most likely will encounter problems. Download 1.92 - its ready for

 

[Benderino]

Originally posted by TETurkhan
Does the units have to be elite in order to rename them?
I have tried to rename a unit in the mod or just regular PTW game but with no success...

Oh. Well, that's odd. I too haven't been able to, but in any other PTW game I can. Its weird, cause your scenario wan't made before PTW, was it? So, it should come with it, or at least I'm sure it's possible. Technically, in PTW games, they don't ahve to be elite, they could be anything, even workers.

About your query in regards to those "early marines", I suggest you go with option 2 as well. Sailors would be neat, and there were marines used during the time of frigates (in the American Revolution the Brits had marines). The Genoese were famous for their sailors. I think thkat it would be a good investment, or you could just give everyone Beserks

 

[iamliberal]

I prefer some sort of early marine units because adding another land square to each island would not work.... all you'd have to do to protect a 2 square island is move a military unit to the open land square and one guarding the city. then it's the same problem as a one square island.

 

[BobTheTerrible]

Tet, before you said to test, send an email when we're done. Well games for me take a really long time, but I can give you updates as I'm playing. Is this ok or do you want the whole game report? Also I usually play on Emperor, but I will make an exception if you want and go up to Deity.

 

[D. Minky]

Everyone -- to rename units you need to go to the preferences and enable "Show Advanced Unit Actions" I believe. For some reason, this does nothing in Tet's mod, but it works in ordinary PTW.

Tet -- I think one type of early marine unit would be good, but nothing too powerful -- remember that the Vikings get their berserker which is a powerful marine unit, and you don't want it to be overshadowed by other units.

Here's something I noticed in my 1.90 game (still DLing 1.92). I played as England, and while Rome did a hell of a job conquering Europe and taking cities, other civs were not taking cities. Scandinavia leveled Russia but did not take any of their cities, despite the fact that Scandinavia really needed to expand southwards into Europe. Instead they just leveled them. Same with much of the other civs. Every now and then a city was captured (I'm assuming the AI doesn't keep a city if it is too close to another city), for instance India was carved up by China, Persia, Mongolia, and Korea, and many of the cities were taken, not destroyed. Yet for some reason none of the Russian cities were captured at all. Is there a civ-specific reason for this, or was this perhaps just the AI making its own decisions?

I'm really impressed with the way tech has been going. It's not been traded obscenely so far. Eqypt quickly reached the middle ages (around 1000 BC), but did not share her tech with anyone else, and the second civ to reach the middle ages was Persia, but only after she captured the Great Library for herself. I think this is interesting, but at the same time makes Alexandria the key city to get, even if for only one turn! ;-)

I did notice that while I was able to build settlers (pioneers, actually, being England), none of the other civs were doing so. As I said, Russia was leveled, as was most of Germany, and a lot of empty terrain was created, and it was no challenge for me to colonize it. Even waiting for London to build 6 pioneers (a very long time) proved no hassle, as nobody bothered to settle the area. While I do think it's a good idea to make the AI build less settlers (so as to not drive themselves into the poor house) it seems like something that a wiley human can take advantage of to beat the AI.

 

[Bobisback]

Originally posted by TETurkhan
Why can't you upgrade? Is it because there is no option to or due to the game crashing etc?

I configured warriors to be upgradable - however if you have conflicting patch you most likely will encounter problems. Download 1.92 - its ready for

I have version 1.92 and the option is not there but I can build it in the cities.

 

[mungman]

Yeah, I'm using 1.92. I even checked in the editor and it doesn't allow contact trading until Nationalism, so I knowit's not that. I'm playing as the Germans on Monarch level. It wasn't that I was allowed to trade the techs, I wasn't given that option, but somehow the AI is still trading techs because by turn 4 I had contact with everyone but Japan and the Songhai.

 

[TETurkhan]

Even if the AI traded contacts before the discovery of Nationalism you shouldn't be able to... I can understand you making contact with all Civs surrounding your territory however to make contact with all 31 Civs is very unusual. Send me a copy of your save game and I will look into it for you

 

[iamliberal]

So, I finally started a game in 1.92 I'm playing at Emperor because I usually play Monarchy and don't feel like Deity. Hopefully, my input will still be helpful. Most importantly, I'm having a challenging adn FUN game!

I'm playing Egypt (first time not playing a European civ in a TET game). I really like a lot of the changes, especially the preplaced great wonders! I'm enjoying only having contact with my neighborhors, and seeing them/us all fight each other instead of Carthage declaring war on China!
However, I'm finding not being able to manage Right of Passage Agreements (or even war alliances because Wrtitng took us soooo long to develop) rather diminishes the quality, importance, and excitement of diplomacy. I'm not sure how to fix it because I understand why you made the changes, but maybe someone has a creative idea?

I have 2 recommendations:

I think Egypt should be able to build a few settlers (or are they called pioneers now?).... there's lots of open land and doesn't make sense not be able to at least build ONE or TWO more cities.

Also, I recommend pulling the reigns in on Songhai a little bit. In my game, they are POWERFUL. THey have a lot of cities and are just as advanced as the scientfic leads, Persia and Greece. In real life, it seems like the West Africans should not be very advanced or threatening, a rather disorganized civilization. I think the Impi units should either have good offense or good defense, but not both. Or perhaps leave them the way they are, but make them cost like 4 times as much. LIke more thant 16 or 20 Impi showed up at my doorstep (Egypt) very early.

Happy Civing everyone!

 

[Nil]

Originally posted by Taurendil
The first thing probably has nothing to do with your mod. It looks like it could be a civ bug. When i killed the last defender in Mecca, it generated my first great leader . However, after winning my war chariot retreated, and Ramses was standing in the middle of Mecca, which was still in Arab control. Since the town was effectively undefended, i could just walk into it to conquer, but it was still a funny sight. I added a screenshot of this.

Is the addition of the nationality in the city name a Tet mod change in 1.92, or is this an option that is always available in Civ III/PTW? This is something I really "need", as there are about 3 civs with only the slightest difference in color in one of my games.

 

[Bobisback]

Originally posted by Taurendil
The first thing probably has nothing to do with your mod. It looks like it could be a civ bug. When i killed the last defender in Mecca, it generated my first great leader . However, after winning my war chariot retreated, and Ramses was standing in the middle of Mecca, which was still in Arab control. Since the town was effectively undefended, i could just walk into it to conquer, but it was still a funny sight. I added a screenshot of this.

The same thing just happened to me.