hexagonian
of the realm of Hexagonia
Hey I know this is a dead game, but if anyone is still playing, here are a couple of Mods to try.
CRADLE III and LORD OF THE RINGS CTP2 Mod Link...
Cradle Readme
A brief history…
Cradle started back in January, 2001. Until 2005, it had been considered to be the best and most innovative of the CTP2 Mods that deviated from the base game. From Cradle came Ages Of Man, which greatly expanded on the gameplay features and attention to detail that were begun in Cradle. AoM was ambitious, well-thought out, and pushed the CTP2 engine to a new limit.
Why Cradle II, and now, Cradle III…
I know…I could play AoM to get a more in-depth game. But AoM's main problem for me was a difference in foundational gaming philosophy. In short the primary focus in AoM was a focus on bloat. The game simply did not allow for a mid-sized empire to win. You had to expand your empire in number of cities to reach a points victory, as well as a powergraph victory. Want to do a Gaia Controller? You are looking at 1,000+ turns to reach that.
With the new features, AoM also suffered from added micromanagement, especially during the Dark Ages. And because of the damage that the Dark Ages could inflict, you were funneled into a select few overall strategies, in order to survive it all. Much of the difficulty in playing AoM was also structured on a variety of AI bonuses and cheats, as well as cheats based on attrition targeting the player (.i.e the Dark Ages and Plague years.) Cheats are fine and do help gameplay, but the goal I have always had was to limit them as much as possible.
In 2005, I gravitated towards civ4 because I felt it was the best meld of all the civ games...both civ/SMAC and the CTP series. And best of all, civ4 created a vast variety of macro strategies that could be followed by both large and smaller civs to win the game. I was playing it since it came out, and had uninstalled CTP2 several years ago. But during the summer of 2008, I decided to revisit CTP2, and started to kick around some ideas that I thought I could fold into Cradle. I went with Cradle instead of AoM because it was my Mod…and rather than get rid of AoM features I did not like, I would also adapt some of the features into Cradle that I did like from AoM, as well as features from other games. (or at least, try to adapt them...)
CRADLE II - Birth of an Empire
- My first goal was to implement a feature that would allow a mid-sized empire to win the game, while giving the player the ability to play that option with 'Bigger is BetterTM' (I've had victory with about 23-28 cities on gigantic maps while the Romans had 40+ cities) In fact, the game could be won with 15 cities. (The victory option actually simulates a cultural/colonial victory approach, and used the Solaris Project as the template)
- The primary focus of Cradle II is again on the Ancient/Medieval timeperiod. The game ends in 1400. (about 600 turns), although there is an option to play the full gamut.
- I activated all of the early game Wonders that I had deactivated when I created Cradle. Originally, Cradle was started as European/Middle East in flavor, so all of the Far East and MesoAmerican wonders were shut down, and were never reactivated when Cradle expanded.
UNITS
- Scout, an early/cheap unit whose only purpose is to explore. It does have stealth, so they can work as sentries later in the game.
- Raider, another stealth unit which simulates mobile horsemen who, although not powerful, have the ability to bombard to give the impression of hit/run tactics.
- A New Set of Wonder units - most Ancient and Medieval wonders now offer these as an added benefit.
- 8 Great House units - these are standalone Wonders that create powerful units that go outside the norm of regular military units with special abilities, and when you create them, you will also get an added normal military unit. Great House Leaders also can create plunder to boost production and/or new recruits, depending on the time in the game.
- Battle Upgrades to Elite/Hero/Great General was added.
- Naval Units now have at least 5 movement points. It allows for a much more enjoyable naval game. I know, the AI naval's ability is really bad...so when I do play, I do not simply overwhelm the AI with naval strength, but at least now, the naval game is quicker.
- Removed ZOC for all units.
CRADLE III - Phoenix
- Religion is now a robust element of the game. Players have 6 religions that they can establish, they can write holy texts and gain Patriarchs, and best of all, they can generate Religious Influence points that go towards a new endgame victory option. (Thanks Maq)
- A new Leadership and Training feature, which allows the player to further boost unit strength through the cost of gold. (again, thanks to Maq)
- Civ Traits, Golden Ages and Civ Dark Ages. Each civilzation gains a set of traits on the fifth turn. They also will get a Golden Age that roughly corresponds to their historical apex. Some civs will also experience a Dark Age. Civs are more powerful than others, so players can further adjust difficulty levels based on their civ choice.
TRAITS
- Arabian Traits are +10% Production, +2 Religious Influence per Turn, Veteran Cataphracts and Janissaries.
- Assyrian Traits are +30% Production, -1 Happiness, +15% Walled City Attack, and -50% PW Cost for Mine Shafts.
- Aztec Traits are +15% Production, -1 Happiness, and +5,000 Gold and +10,000 PW every 100 Turns.
- Babylonian Traits are +20% Production, and +1 Happiness.
- Byzantium Traits are +10% Production, +2 Happiness, +15% Walled City Attack, -50% PW Cost for Roads, and Veteran Legions, Cataphracts.
- Carthaginian Traits are +10% Production, +4 Boat Movement, -50% PW Cost for Trading Posts, Ports, Latifundias, and Veteran Elephant Warriors, Biremes, Triremes, Heptiremes and Dromons.
- Celt Traits are +5% Production, Instant Healing after Battles, and Veteran Man At Arms.
- Egyptian Traits are +10% Production, +3 Happiness, Size 2 Cities, -50% PW Costs for Farms, +2 Religious Influence per Turn, and Veteran Chariots.
- Etruscan Traits are +10% Production, -50% PW Costs for Roads, and Veteran Praetorians.
- Greek Traits are +20% Production, +2 Boat Movement, +1% Gold Interest per Turn, Instant Healing after Battles, -50% PW Costs for Ports, and Veteran Hoplites, Pezheterois, Biremes, Triremes.
- Han Traits are +20% Production, +2 Happiness, +15% Walled City Attack, +2 Religious Influence per Turn, and -50% PW Costs for Farms.
- Harrapan Traits are +10% Production, +2 Happiness, +2 PW Interest per Turn, and +2 Religious Influence per Turn.
- Hebrew Traits are +10% Production, +1% Gold Interest per Turn, +2 Religious Influence per Turn, and +3 Happiness.
- Hexagonian Traits are +5% Production and +1 Happiness.
- Hittite Traits are +25% Production, +15% Walled City Attack and -50% PW Costs for Mines.
- Incan Traits are +10% Production, +3 Happiness, +5000 Gold and 10,000 PW every 100 Turns, and -50% PW Costs for Roads, Mines and Mine Shafts.
- Kushian Traits are +2 Happiness and Veteran Chariots.
- Macedonian Traits are +10% Production, +2 Boat Movement, and Veteran Hoplites and Pezheterois.
- Mayan Traits are +3 Happiness.
- Minoan Traits are +3 Happiness, +4 Boat Movement, +1 Gold Interest per Turn, -50% PW Costs for Trading Posts, and Veteran Biremes and Triremes.
- Mongol Traits are +10 Production, +25% Walled City Attack, -50% PW Costs for Pastures, +5000 Gold every 100 Turns and Veteran Mounted Archers, Horesemen, Raiders and Cataphracts.
- Native American Traits are +3 Happiness, Instant Healing after Battle and Veteran Mounted Archers.
- Nubian Traits are +5% Production, +1% per Turn Gold Interest per Turn and Veteran Chariots.
- Persian Traits are +15% Production, +1 Happiness, +2 Religious Influence per Turn, Size 2 Cities, and Veteran Elephant Warriors.
- Phoenician Traits are +10% Production, +2 Happiness, +4 Boat Movement, +1% per Turn Gold Interest, -50% PW Costs for Trading Posts and Ports, and Veteran Biremes, Triremes, Heptiremes, Dromons.
- Romans Traits are +20% Production, +2% Per Turn PW Interest, -50% PW Cost for Roads and Latufundias, and Veteran Legions, Praetorians.
- Shang Traits are +1 Happiness, +15% Walled City Attack, and Starting Size 3 Cities for 150 Turns.
- Sumerian Traits are +2 Happiness, and Starting Size 3 Cities for 150 Turns.
- Turkish Traits are +5% Production, and Veteran Janissaries and Cataphracts.
- Viking Traits are +4 Boat Movement, +1% Gold Interest per Turn, and Veteran Man At Arms, Raiders.
- Yamato Traits are +20% Production, +1 Happiness, Instant Heal after Battle, and Veteran Warriors.
- Zulu Traits are +10% Production, Instant Heal after Battle, and Veteran Warriors.
CRADLE III – Phoenix (Government-Specific)
- All Ancient and Medieval Front-line Units are Government-specific. This means that a player has to carefully consider WHEN he switches government, instead of racing to a government simply to gain the higher city cap. Unit purchase decisions also become simply more than cranking out front-liners.
CRADLE III – Phoenix (Fast Advances)
- All Advance costs reduced by approx. 33%
CRADLE GRAPHICS UPDATE
- I added a new set of graphic tile improvements, and cleaned up the graphics for the Visible Wonders.
- Implemented the color coding system I had developed for the AOM units.
- I created wonder movies for all of my added wonders from Cradle 1.3, created a new intro video, and took the existing intro video and used it for the Birth of an Empire endgame option.
- All informational pictures have been cleaned up and improved, and now Cradle finally has a consistent picture style for all pictures.
PLAY SUGGESTIONS
- Gigantic maps, 16 civs, no city razing (keep all cities you take), no battle retreating. These are features that the AI does not use...why should you???
REQUIREMENTS
Call To Power II
Activision Patch
Modswapper Utility
Obviously, this does nor replace the juggernaut that is civ4. I actually am of the opinion that civ4 is a great game, but for those of you who have good memories of CTP2, this is worth a play.
And for those of you who do not care for CTP2, you never played any of the Mods.
CRADLE III and LORD OF THE RINGS CTP2 Mod Link...
Cradle Readme
A brief history…
Cradle started back in January, 2001. Until 2005, it had been considered to be the best and most innovative of the CTP2 Mods that deviated from the base game. From Cradle came Ages Of Man, which greatly expanded on the gameplay features and attention to detail that were begun in Cradle. AoM was ambitious, well-thought out, and pushed the CTP2 engine to a new limit.
Why Cradle II, and now, Cradle III…
I know…I could play AoM to get a more in-depth game. But AoM's main problem for me was a difference in foundational gaming philosophy. In short the primary focus in AoM was a focus on bloat. The game simply did not allow for a mid-sized empire to win. You had to expand your empire in number of cities to reach a points victory, as well as a powergraph victory. Want to do a Gaia Controller? You are looking at 1,000+ turns to reach that.
With the new features, AoM also suffered from added micromanagement, especially during the Dark Ages. And because of the damage that the Dark Ages could inflict, you were funneled into a select few overall strategies, in order to survive it all. Much of the difficulty in playing AoM was also structured on a variety of AI bonuses and cheats, as well as cheats based on attrition targeting the player (.i.e the Dark Ages and Plague years.) Cheats are fine and do help gameplay, but the goal I have always had was to limit them as much as possible.
In 2005, I gravitated towards civ4 because I felt it was the best meld of all the civ games...both civ/SMAC and the CTP series. And best of all, civ4 created a vast variety of macro strategies that could be followed by both large and smaller civs to win the game. I was playing it since it came out, and had uninstalled CTP2 several years ago. But during the summer of 2008, I decided to revisit CTP2, and started to kick around some ideas that I thought I could fold into Cradle. I went with Cradle instead of AoM because it was my Mod…and rather than get rid of AoM features I did not like, I would also adapt some of the features into Cradle that I did like from AoM, as well as features from other games. (or at least, try to adapt them...)
CRADLE II - Birth of an Empire
- My first goal was to implement a feature that would allow a mid-sized empire to win the game, while giving the player the ability to play that option with 'Bigger is BetterTM' (I've had victory with about 23-28 cities on gigantic maps while the Romans had 40+ cities) In fact, the game could be won with 15 cities. (The victory option actually simulates a cultural/colonial victory approach, and used the Solaris Project as the template)
- The primary focus of Cradle II is again on the Ancient/Medieval timeperiod. The game ends in 1400. (about 600 turns), although there is an option to play the full gamut.
- I activated all of the early game Wonders that I had deactivated when I created Cradle. Originally, Cradle was started as European/Middle East in flavor, so all of the Far East and MesoAmerican wonders were shut down, and were never reactivated when Cradle expanded.
UNITS
- Scout, an early/cheap unit whose only purpose is to explore. It does have stealth, so they can work as sentries later in the game.
- Raider, another stealth unit which simulates mobile horsemen who, although not powerful, have the ability to bombard to give the impression of hit/run tactics.
- A New Set of Wonder units - most Ancient and Medieval wonders now offer these as an added benefit.
- 8 Great House units - these are standalone Wonders that create powerful units that go outside the norm of regular military units with special abilities, and when you create them, you will also get an added normal military unit. Great House Leaders also can create plunder to boost production and/or new recruits, depending on the time in the game.
- Battle Upgrades to Elite/Hero/Great General was added.
- Naval Units now have at least 5 movement points. It allows for a much more enjoyable naval game. I know, the AI naval's ability is really bad...so when I do play, I do not simply overwhelm the AI with naval strength, but at least now, the naval game is quicker.
- Removed ZOC for all units.
CRADLE III - Phoenix
- Religion is now a robust element of the game. Players have 6 religions that they can establish, they can write holy texts and gain Patriarchs, and best of all, they can generate Religious Influence points that go towards a new endgame victory option. (Thanks Maq)
- A new Leadership and Training feature, which allows the player to further boost unit strength through the cost of gold. (again, thanks to Maq)
- Civ Traits, Golden Ages and Civ Dark Ages. Each civilzation gains a set of traits on the fifth turn. They also will get a Golden Age that roughly corresponds to their historical apex. Some civs will also experience a Dark Age. Civs are more powerful than others, so players can further adjust difficulty levels based on their civ choice.
TRAITS
- Arabian Traits are +10% Production, +2 Religious Influence per Turn, Veteran Cataphracts and Janissaries.
- Assyrian Traits are +30% Production, -1 Happiness, +15% Walled City Attack, and -50% PW Cost for Mine Shafts.
- Aztec Traits are +15% Production, -1 Happiness, and +5,000 Gold and +10,000 PW every 100 Turns.
- Babylonian Traits are +20% Production, and +1 Happiness.
- Byzantium Traits are +10% Production, +2 Happiness, +15% Walled City Attack, -50% PW Cost for Roads, and Veteran Legions, Cataphracts.
- Carthaginian Traits are +10% Production, +4 Boat Movement, -50% PW Cost for Trading Posts, Ports, Latifundias, and Veteran Elephant Warriors, Biremes, Triremes, Heptiremes and Dromons.
- Celt Traits are +5% Production, Instant Healing after Battles, and Veteran Man At Arms.
- Egyptian Traits are +10% Production, +3 Happiness, Size 2 Cities, -50% PW Costs for Farms, +2 Religious Influence per Turn, and Veteran Chariots.
- Etruscan Traits are +10% Production, -50% PW Costs for Roads, and Veteran Praetorians.
- Greek Traits are +20% Production, +2 Boat Movement, +1% Gold Interest per Turn, Instant Healing after Battles, -50% PW Costs for Ports, and Veteran Hoplites, Pezheterois, Biremes, Triremes.
- Han Traits are +20% Production, +2 Happiness, +15% Walled City Attack, +2 Religious Influence per Turn, and -50% PW Costs for Farms.
- Harrapan Traits are +10% Production, +2 Happiness, +2 PW Interest per Turn, and +2 Religious Influence per Turn.
- Hebrew Traits are +10% Production, +1% Gold Interest per Turn, +2 Religious Influence per Turn, and +3 Happiness.
- Hexagonian Traits are +5% Production and +1 Happiness.
- Hittite Traits are +25% Production, +15% Walled City Attack and -50% PW Costs for Mines.
- Incan Traits are +10% Production, +3 Happiness, +5000 Gold and 10,000 PW every 100 Turns, and -50% PW Costs for Roads, Mines and Mine Shafts.
- Kushian Traits are +2 Happiness and Veteran Chariots.
- Macedonian Traits are +10% Production, +2 Boat Movement, and Veteran Hoplites and Pezheterois.
- Mayan Traits are +3 Happiness.
- Minoan Traits are +3 Happiness, +4 Boat Movement, +1 Gold Interest per Turn, -50% PW Costs for Trading Posts, and Veteran Biremes and Triremes.
- Mongol Traits are +10 Production, +25% Walled City Attack, -50% PW Costs for Pastures, +5000 Gold every 100 Turns and Veteran Mounted Archers, Horesemen, Raiders and Cataphracts.
- Native American Traits are +3 Happiness, Instant Healing after Battle and Veteran Mounted Archers.
- Nubian Traits are +5% Production, +1% per Turn Gold Interest per Turn and Veteran Chariots.
- Persian Traits are +15% Production, +1 Happiness, +2 Religious Influence per Turn, Size 2 Cities, and Veteran Elephant Warriors.
- Phoenician Traits are +10% Production, +2 Happiness, +4 Boat Movement, +1% per Turn Gold Interest, -50% PW Costs for Trading Posts and Ports, and Veteran Biremes, Triremes, Heptiremes, Dromons.
- Romans Traits are +20% Production, +2% Per Turn PW Interest, -50% PW Cost for Roads and Latufundias, and Veteran Legions, Praetorians.
- Shang Traits are +1 Happiness, +15% Walled City Attack, and Starting Size 3 Cities for 150 Turns.
- Sumerian Traits are +2 Happiness, and Starting Size 3 Cities for 150 Turns.
- Turkish Traits are +5% Production, and Veteran Janissaries and Cataphracts.
- Viking Traits are +4 Boat Movement, +1% Gold Interest per Turn, and Veteran Man At Arms, Raiders.
- Yamato Traits are +20% Production, +1 Happiness, Instant Heal after Battle, and Veteran Warriors.
- Zulu Traits are +10% Production, Instant Heal after Battle, and Veteran Warriors.
CRADLE III – Phoenix (Government-Specific)
- All Ancient and Medieval Front-line Units are Government-specific. This means that a player has to carefully consider WHEN he switches government, instead of racing to a government simply to gain the higher city cap. Unit purchase decisions also become simply more than cranking out front-liners.
CRADLE III – Phoenix (Fast Advances)
- All Advance costs reduced by approx. 33%
CRADLE GRAPHICS UPDATE
- I added a new set of graphic tile improvements, and cleaned up the graphics for the Visible Wonders.
- Implemented the color coding system I had developed for the AOM units.
- I created wonder movies for all of my added wonders from Cradle 1.3, created a new intro video, and took the existing intro video and used it for the Birth of an Empire endgame option.
- All informational pictures have been cleaned up and improved, and now Cradle finally has a consistent picture style for all pictures.
PLAY SUGGESTIONS
- Gigantic maps, 16 civs, no city razing (keep all cities you take), no battle retreating. These are features that the AI does not use...why should you???
REQUIREMENTS
Call To Power II
Activision Patch
Modswapper Utility
Obviously, this does nor replace the juggernaut that is civ4. I actually am of the opinion that civ4 is a great game, but for those of you who have good memories of CTP2, this is worth a play.
And for those of you who do not care for CTP2, you never played any of the Mods.
