TETurkhan Test of Time (Map & Mod)

[mungman]

.Tet:Sorry didn't see your other post. To answer your earlier question, the contact thing happens with every game, I've even started another one as England and it still occurs.

 

[TETurkhan]

Mungman - That is indeed very strange. I played Germans and it didn't happen to me. Do you have the latest patch - though even before that patch I never experienced what you are going through. Sorry so far no answer...

D.Minky - I know it can be hard but remember some Civs are suppose to be very hard to play. If you want things more even for each civ try the world version with out cities. Personally, I love Deity mod and love playing the hardest Civ - I save money, offer bribes do anything and everything to win. Sometimes I get crushed but thats the fun part - strange aren't I?

 

[Kosheen]

Originally posted by TETurkhan
D.Minky - I know it can be hard but remember some Civs are suppose to be very hard to play. If you want things more even for each civ try the world version with out cities. Personally, I love Deity mod and love playing the hardest Civ - I save money, offer bribes do anything and everything to win. Sometimes I get crushed but thats the fun part - strange aren't I? [/B]

I totally agree with this now . First I was gonna do another moan thread about the Roman Legionaries being too strong and too cheap to build (3.3.1 for 10 shields which defies belief!) but now I see where you are coming from TeT.

I play diety too, infact although I dont wanna start one of these diety arguments I think everyone should. I mean lets face, the only major advantage the AI has on diety is in the expansion stage early on where it would expand at a 4:1 ratio to yourself. This is more why it flys ahead in techs rather than the free techs it receives every now and again.

In this mod the whole expansion element of the game is removed. Therefore for the vast part of the game, its putting your military strategy and tactics versus the AI's and lets face it, the AI is pathetic when it comes down to that.

I like the idea now that, if for example you wanna go the Romans then you can go them and relive history as the Roman Empire where it conquered most of Europe with its Elite Legionaries and the idea that some civs are much harder than others. It makes the replay factor extremely high when you can play it as a different civ and have a completely different game.
Fair enough it doesnt make the for the best game if you go the Romans but then thats your choice. They were powerful!! But what it does cater for is for those who dont go any of these civs.

Im currently England (far from the best civ, ok I start with three wonders but I only have 3 cities, and I need to build naval vessels on top of military to wage war, plus curruption is a massive problem with overseas cities I take). Playing on diety, I have conquered the British Isles, Spain and the North African tip of the Carthigian Empire. Rome has conquered France & Germany all with its Legionaries. We are the two big nations in western Europe but I am nothing compared to them in military might. I occassionally see a stack of 40ish legionaries going for a sunday stroll through my land. Its scary!! They are annoyed with me for no other reason than the fact that I exist but I am kissing ass at the moment to avoid any war! When war eventually breaks out I will receive a pounding (there's no doubt about that!) but then thats history.

D. Minky

About the AI stockpilling spearmen in its cities because it has nothing else to build, I came across this problem too. But it wasnt really a problem, once my battered army returned to England from Spain defeated and discraced, I had to think . Remember what I mentioned earlier

the vast part of the game, its putting your military strategy and tactics versus the AI's

Introducing ... the catapult!!!!

Went back down to Spain, landed with 20 catapults, 6 spearmen and about 10 swordsmen on forests and hills around their northmost costal city (Compostella). First I cut of the remaining road routes in and out of the city with bombard (the 2 on grassland since I didnt wanna put my units there, negligable defence value on Grassland). Then I turned my attention to the city and 'gave them a volley!'. Took out the Barracks (no more 1 turn recharge!), Temple and then Harbour all in the first attack.

AI's turn
Tries to reinforce Compostella by bringing units from Madrid and Barcelona. Then only way in and out of Compostella was by a piece of grassland with no road . About a dozen units landed there.
My turn
Those dozen units are massacred, 20 catapults pounded them and the swordsmen went in for the kill!!
AI's turn
Try to get more units into Compostella
My turn
Massacred them
AI's turn
Have no more reinforcements, must build more
My Turn
We have camptured Compostella and we have a GL.

Now that wasnt entirely accurate but its a adaquete summary. Once I took Compostella, there was only little Spanish reistance left, its forces were obliterated in trying to reinforce save Compostella and we just moved on to the 'next' city. Basically what I'm trying to say here is improvise!! If you dont have mathematics, cut off his roads, pigs, cows etc, just focus on making the enemy weak. Leave bait, like a worker for him to attack 3 squares away then, ambush their units. Move your own units over forests and wait till theirs are over grassland and then go in for the kill. You'll begin amassing Elite swordsmen. These (when fully charged) attack the cities. The thing I think thats required in this mod is patience. Im into my 5th day or something like that now and I've only just entered the middle ages and become a Republican government.

TeT I'm making notes of what I research and when but Ill post a full review when the game is finished (lose!) rather than to stagger my input.

Peace

Kosh

 

[TETurkhan]

Kosheen - You hit it right on with that post I know many think some aspects of the city version are exaggerated but its necessary... the key is to maintain balance between “encouraging” the recreation of history and yet still enabling the player to have a game that doesn’t always play the same…

Templar Knights, Muslim Holy Warriors, Mongol Horseman, Roman Legionaries – such units will bring death, destruction and doom if you happen to oppose them.

Sounds like you are having a good game there – my games also take days but usually they are worth it.

 

[D. Minky]

Ah Tet, you are right. I guess I just wanted it to be easier for me to take cities, but if it were easy for the Celts to conquer, they would have ruled Europe instead of the Romans. ;-) I definitely agree that Deity is really the most fun level to play on. It's always fun to try to change history, so I will have to just try even harder.

 

[Mopheo]

I had an error when extracting 1.66 update. I used WinRar. The the file is 55234 KB. There was about 1/10th left on the bar.
The error was:

CRC failed in CIV3PTW\Scenarios\TETurkhan\Art\Civilopedia\Icons\Units\P38Lightninglarge.pcx
Unexpected end of archive

Any ideas? I'm redownloading

 

[D. Minky]

Here's an interesting note for my previous Hawch'a argument.

It seems that bombardment units *can* kill other units! I have no idea how, as in all of my previous games I have never once killed a unit by bombarding it! Even with jet planes and cruise missiles. However, in my current game I have catapulted two units already to death. One archer and one spearman. Both of them took 4 catapults to do. So maybe the hwach'a is underpowered (compared to other special units), but not totally useless for a golden age!

 

[Sangria]

What happen to the Time Scale i 1.92?
I checked it out in the editor. The first 50 turns is 100 years each, the next 50 turns are 50 years each. That makes 7500 years in 100 turns. And the folowing setting really look strange.

I changed them back to the settings of 1.90.


I played Spain on emperor level (world map, no cities).
Built 3 towns. Got iron working by trading (very expensive). When I had 10 swordsmen I begun to expand. Conquered all the civs along the coast to the east. When I got chivalry I also reached Jerusalem and got contro, over the Holy Grail so I can build the templar knight.
They are awfully powerful units. They can attack twice each turn (not even cavalry can do that) and are very cheap to build. Most cities build one in one turn while other units takes many turns to build. With them I conquered the world halfway into Africa and all the way to the coast of Pacific Ocean and won a cultural victory after 70 hours and 1 minute and 43 seconds.
I met no serious threat.


Templar knights are too cheap compared to their power.

Computer players in Europe don't understand how to play when there is no free land to build towns on. They build lots of settlers and send then deep into Siberia and Africa. When I later arrived in those areas those towns all had been captured or destroyed by the civs that started in those areas.
My strategy: Don'ät waste expensicve settlers building hard-toi-defend towns far away from the main empire. Rather build tropps to conquer those civs that does so and thereby weakingen there main empire (Celts, France etc).
IF there are any way to make the cimputer players handle this situation better that would be nice.

The civs staring in areas with much forest (Russia, Scandinavians, Poland etc) don't understand that they have to build many workers and cut downs the trees to make room for city growth.

I really like like the reduced movent rates on road because it gives the feeling of the real distances, and the slowed down tech rate (no more tanks in year 1200 etc).

Keep up the good work TET!

 

[iamliberal]

Hey TET, I just want to let you know that I'm in the middle of one of the most fun CIV games I've played in a long long time!! I'm still playing Egypt (Emperor, 1.92). I think the adjustments from 1.7 are extraoridnary! THe balance is much much better, and things are progressing at about the right timeframe. My game has been really challenging and has taken all my skill to pull ahead. The only thing to still adjust, in my humble opinion is that Mutual Protection Pact we talked about earlier.

One thing I'm amazed is how well the AI is actually playing. They're making mass attacks, attacking each other on 2 fronts, and even ONCE IN AWHILE actually making smart alliances. It's nice not to see loads of settlers wandeing around, nor capitol cities enlessly building settlers.

I don't know what you did in 1.92 to fix this, but it's running very very fast on my machine now. While 1.7 took 5 or 10 inutes between each turn around 1000c, my current game is 120bc, we're about to enter middle ages (I'm workign on monarchy, already have currency and construction by great library), I have large cities (conquered Arabia, a couple of Greek and carthaginian cities), and there's only like 1 minute between each turn. I spend more time watching battles (which I know I could shut off in prefs) and selecting "OK" to who declares war on whom messages than I do waiting for the computer to calculate stuff. Again GREAT JOB TET!

 

[iamliberal]

OK, so I know this isn't a MOD problem, but man, diplocmacy sure needs some work in Civ 3 huh?! Isn't it silly that if Greece bribes Egypt to attack Russia, then why should Egypt's reputation (aka trade trustworthiness) with Greece be harmed?? In my current game, the very civs who should be pleased as hellw ith me (indeed, they're polite towards me) refuse to tade with me, which I can only presume is a result of my canceling peace 3 times in the entire game. You'd think my 'allies' would at least think I'm a SUPERB civ to trade with?! I have stacks of luxuries that I'd be happy to throw at them for a pittance, but nooo they wont'. Hrmph! OK, anyway, just wondering if anyone gets annoyed at this?

Good night!

 

[Kosheen]

Game will end at 1440 AD

 

[Kosheen]

Originally posted by D. Minky
Here's an interesting note for my previous Hawch'a argument.

It seems that bombardment units *can* kill other units! I have no idea how, as in all of my previous games I have never once killed a unit by bombarding it! Even with jet planes and cruise missiles. However, in my current game I have catapulted two units already to death. One archer and one spearman. Both of them took 4 catapults to do. So maybe the hwach'a is underpowered (compared to other special units), but not totally useless for a golden age!

My catapult has been promoted to elite!!!!!

 

[iamliberal]

Kosheen, what are you talking about a mandatory retirement in 1440???

 

[Kosheen]

It just popped up, but im passed it now and it lets me carry on (although no more score counting but thats no big deal for testing).

I dont recall changing anything in the start settings. Anyway using 1.90 so it may be fixed for 1.92 :/

 

[TETurkhan]

Version 1.93 http://www.civfanatics.net/~teturkhan/downloads/tet1.93-BIX.exe.


Hwa-cha - Siege units including Hwa-cha all have lethal bombard attribute, meaning they can kill units.

Game will end at 1440 AD – this is very strange indeed… and has never occurred in any of my testing. I know though that 1.90 through 1.92 had major time scale flaw which now has been fixed for 1.93 – for those of you that are testing using 1.90, 1.91 or 1.92 be advised to switch to 1.93 (if you don't want to download the entire file again click the link at the top of this post).

Sangria You are right – thanks! The bug you picked up is the reason for 1.93

Amphibious Units – definitely will be included for version 2.0 – this should address the single island invulnerability problem.

 

[reedtwostep]

tet...

what game specs should i play on?
specifically, what would you reccomend? deity with what victory conditions? and should i play with accelerated production or not? im guessing no, but dont want to start a game and then find out i could have half way into it.

thanks for all the countless hours youve put into this mod, it really shows! its GREAT work!

 

[reedtwostep]

just one more thing...

after playing for a bit i got to thinking... if certain wonders are going to be specifically allocated to their actual owners to begin the game, it would be a great way to give advantage and disadvantage (as seen already) and those civs that maybe dont have their own pre-made wonder, maybe could have a civ specific palace with its own different cultural measurement... thus helping that civ out... or hurting it in the long run...

an idea at least

 

[TETurkhan]

reedtwostep: New improvements will be added in version 2.0 to assist European Civs in particular – in order to help Western Europe’s rise to power during the age of exploration and industrialization times.

IDEAL GAME SETTINGS

Player Setup

• First I should mention that I use to recommend Regicide mod but not any longer. If you do select this the game will crash or freeze for insane length of time.
• All default settings except turn off respawn AI players IF you are playing the World Map with Cities version. If you are playing random map then I would say choose whatever your preference is.
• Deity

Preferences

• Select “Color Blind Help” – it helps distinguish between the many different colors that look very similar to one another.
• Select “Show Advanced Unit Action Buttons” – it gives you many more options in controlling your units.
• Depending on the speed of your computer you may want to turn off a number of animations. If this does not work good enough then I would even turn off some of your unit moves – but don’t turn off your enemy moves

 

[Kez]

Hi Tet

When I played yesterday it came to big sea battle where i used a few Privateers. At the end of the battle I had an idea which will maybe add another historic point to your great mod . Privateers where used by many nations to capture other ships without risking a war (because no nations officialy has Privateers with the other nations, but the goods they capture has to be shared with the King or Queen . So if it is somehow possible I suggest that for every ship you kill using a Privateer one should recive some gold depending on the size of the ship you attack. Let's say for a Galley e.g 3 to 4 gold for a Treasure Junk 20-50 gold and so on.
For a Frigate which was later on in history used to hunt the Privateers and Pirates and to protect the slower and lesser armed ships one should not get an money. For Caravels and Galleons something between 10-20 gold. These are only suggestions, please feel free to change everything .

 

[iamliberal]

I wonder why I'm not getting emails telling me there have been responses in this thread anymore??

TET, what changes did you make to 1.93?? I assume that downloading 1.93 will only affect future games, not my current game that I've been playing with 1.92?