[MOD][WARLORDS] ViSa Modpack [Archive] - Page 4 - Civilization Fanatics' Forums

seady

Nov 04, 2006, 04:26 PM

having military academy having Education seems a little bizarre after all there were military academies even back in the days of the spartans. It seems Firaxis are getting further and further away from what really happened in history. Perhaps what we need is somethinf like a training camp for pre eductation - still useful but not as powerful - it can then be upgraded to a full military academy by a GG or cash

You have to remember, they are just approximating history. However, i have seen a mod on how to make buildings upgradeable; possibly TheLopez? I am not sure of the knock on effect for UU buildings though because you then have to make a UU for the upgrade if you want to preserve the flavour.

Personally i think UU buildings should either all obsolete or all remain relevant through upgrades, because it doesn't seem fair to have Conan's barracks usable for 5000+ years but a civ with UU castles doesn't get to use them for long in a normal game. That would be a lot of work however!!! :eek:

On a off topic note, i like speculating about realistic near future advances. What will happen to the US tanks if the oil runs out, or is just in enemy hands? Will they just use robotic drones instead?

Osama bin laden was in the sight of one of them once but they didn't get a 'kill' confirmation from above. How different history would have been if he had been eliminated.

I think his survival has led to north korea and Iran getting nuclear weapons, and i think a small scale nuclear event is inevitable. I think that's the real reason my Prime Minister is so keen on building nuclear reactors; to build bombs, to keep up with everyone else. :nuke:

seady

Nov 04, 2006, 04:33 PM

TAfirehawk

Nov 04, 2006, 05:16 PM

It looks like some interesting coding is going on here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=4723249#post4723249)

While the religion part may not be useful right now, i imagine the interface code would be re-usable for other things?

How quickly you forget we have the ONLY scrollable Civic Screen....and I am sure we can do the Religion screen when needed :)

seady

Nov 04, 2006, 05:18 PM

confirmed bug: razing is not an option, even when it's normally the only option. Which makes taking over the level 1 barbarian cities different.

Suggestion: (hard??) an overlay for the cities and settlers so when it's set to 3 you can see that you won't get an overlap OR some sort of check (can't do at the moment because of the fat "+" shape means staggering the cities can be the best option.

Hope you know what i mean because it's hard to describe without seeing it and i can't screenshot what i mean, could draw it if i had some grid paper and a pen and a ruler but then i'd need a scanner :)

TAfirehawk

Nov 04, 2006, 05:20 PM

seady

Nov 04, 2006, 05:24 PM

TAfirehawk

Nov 04, 2006, 05:26 PM

"Minimum Distance Between Cities = 5" is the closest i can get to what i mean but it's 5 diagonally and 6 vertically or horizontally.

p.s. is the stacking of specialists working?

p.p.s. would "Religion Natural Spread Number = 0" cause problems? A while ago i saw someone saying they hated the natural spread and wanted to disable it. I suggested this line but i never heard back if it was ok.

As noted in the readme.txt, there was a complaint about not getting the correct number of Super Specialists in the City Zoom display so I tweaked it....I might have forgotten to change the 3rd post in this thread tho :)

I don't know about the religion = 0....not sure why anybody would want it off ;)

EDIT
Well I thought the readme.txt noted the INI change to Super Specialist Mod....maybe I just noted it on the Issue Tracker....hard to keep so many bug reporting places updated :)

But it is in the INI settings to change many things....

EDIT2
Found it in the readme.txt at the end of the v1.5 notes :lol:

seady

Nov 04, 2006, 05:35 PM

CTD

last 2 autosaves attached. If i see these again, what files do you need to troubleshoot, or do you have enough already?

seady

Nov 04, 2006, 05:38 PM

I think they wanted to disable it to force their state religion to be the only one ,although i think theocracy would also do the same thing, but i never have used it. I like organised, or free religion towards the end of the game.

seady

Nov 04, 2006, 05:46 PM

I wonder if this is from plain Warlords because we sure didn't make any change to razing cities....

I'll post that in the patch section although i am not optimistic; the responses back last time were pretty discouraging

rockinroger

Nov 04, 2006, 05:48 PM

seady

Nov 04, 2006, 05:56 PM

Bug? Attila seems to be missing a quote ... here (http://www.thevine.net/~jeff/Wisdom.html)'s a few.

I like "If it were easy to be a Chieftain, everyone would be one." and "A nation of one ancestry and race is weak. We must hold strong our custom of welcoming all foreigners who seek to join our cause, treating them with dignity and respect and teaching them our language and customs." although the last one is probably too long. Very modern though, who would have thought it.

seady

Nov 04, 2006, 05:57 PM

btw i did have the random seed on reload on my CTD, am trying without that.

seady

Nov 04, 2006, 06:25 PM

CTD happened in a new game without random seed on reload. I had 3 radius selected, large map. Will try 2 radius.

Mithris

Nov 04, 2006, 06:32 PM

After I upgraded to version 2.00 (and the latest warlords) I don't see teh scoreboard anymore. Is this something on my end or did the patch break it? I can't remember if I can enable/disable it somehow.

seady

Nov 04, 2006, 06:43 PM

See this situation? I would have thought the city would be razed.

seady

Nov 04, 2006, 06:47 PM

Ok same sort of situation, but without visa, seems to work normally.

Alondin

Nov 04, 2006, 07:44 PM

Per someone's request, CTD on a standard (not huge) map.

Peter 6

Nov 04, 2006, 08:08 PM

i just downloaded and patche both warlords and Visa
and now it will not run

whenever i try to load the mod it just crashes........any ideas?

Zarox

Nov 04, 2006, 09:15 PM

I want to request Hitler, I think he would fit in with Stalin, Mao Zedong, Genghis Khan, etc..

I found two of them, dont know if they are the same
here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=182803&highlight=Stalin)
or
here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=187201)

but make sure there are animated leaders, not trying to demand anything, just a suggestion, to help complete history :)

TAfirehawk

Nov 04, 2006, 09:18 PM

i just downloaded and patche both warlords and Visa
and now it will not run

whenever i try to load the mod it just crashes........any ideas?

Reinstall...as that has helped all the others....

Don't know why....

TAfirehawk

Nov 04, 2006, 09:19 PM

Ok same sort of situation, but without visa, seems to work normally.

Might be due to the Always at War GIR part added....I don't like the way it is working and this wouldn't surprise me since it appears to be buggy....

TAfirehawk

Nov 04, 2006, 09:20 PM

TAfirehawk

Nov 04, 2006, 09:21 PM

Hey all, i can confirm that the military academy does work, but only with education. it gives you 6 macemen. not sure i agree with this, seems kind of late. wow that was weird i got a great general from a caraval attackin barb ship. Never seem that b4.

I turned on the Barb Navy...they just have to be made out of a city.

Next patch will have Barb Spearman and Barb Navy random spawns in Fog of War :eek:

Alondin

Nov 04, 2006, 09:28 PM

This one is on a small map. ;)

Random seed is NOT reset with reload.

In another week I will have it down to a 9x9 map...

This one actually failed first at 1360BC, but after reload got about 15 more
turns, then CTD netted a few more turns, less and less each time until this
one can't get past.

Alondin, Master of Breaking Stuff

seady

Nov 04, 2006, 10:11 PM

Might be due to the Always at War GIR part added....I don't like the way it is working and this wouldn't surprise me since it appears to be buggy....

My ini has "Always War = 0". Someone in ViSa could comment out "Always at War " code, recompile, and post the subsequent dll?

mrgenie

Nov 05, 2006, 12:21 AM

mrgenie

Nov 05, 2006, 12:24 AM

My ini has "Always War = 0". Someone in ViSa could comment out "Always at War " code, recompile, and post the subsequent dll?

the Always war is an code done by GIR, if you put this 0, the GIR code is not applied, standard Civ setting(done in the custom game where you can choose always war) is applied whatever you choose there, on/off

when you put this Always war in the ini as 1, the setting in the Setup screen is void, not looked at, well civ looks for it, but is overruled by GIR code...the difference between ingame always war and GIR always war...ingame always war= All AI versus Human, ....GUR Always war= EVeryone against Everyone

btw, recompiled the SDK and some pythons..now finally playing myself to see if i can reproduce the CTD...my guess is whatever is causing the CTD it's not an routine in the game, but a value stored in the savegame...so any fixes wont help on actual savegames..they still might go CTD..so im testing this from scratch now :)

civ4ludo

Nov 05, 2006, 02:09 AM

CTD's: could it be related to the WL 2.08 patch version type?

I got a CTD with this setup: WL - WL2.08 patch v. unofficial (no CD) - Visa 1.20 - Visa 2.00 installer

I disinstalled Visa 2.00 and reinstalled ViSa 2.00 (the big file that replaces 1.20)

Then I got another one with this new installation.

I wonder: may the problem arise from using the non-official 2.08 patch?
Do people getting CTD all NOT have the WL CD in the drive?

I wish it were that simple...

Dragonlord

Nov 05, 2006, 03:58 AM

I see I'm not the only one...

Got a CTD too.. :-( ... I'll attach a savegame. The CTD occurred on the AI's turn, wasn't anything I built, I'm assuming the AI builds something that causes the CTD

Settings (may be relevant from reading the last couple of pages):

City radius 3
Official patch
Random seed on (didn't have a fight though)

Hope you can find it soon, this Mod looks great!

mrgenie

Nov 05, 2006, 04:01 AM

I think i found the CTD issue...debugged the whole thing in assembler, must tell you, big debugging doing everything in assembler, but at least i see every single thing that happens on CTD...

anyway..im now trying a game with my"hopefully" fix...does anyone know around what turns this happens? i've heard 149, 147, 229?? are they all before 250? can i assume noone got turn 300?

HellBoyz77

Nov 05, 2006, 04:26 AM

TAfirehawk

Nov 05, 2006, 05:11 AM

lex_kravetski

Nov 05, 2006, 05:34 AM

It seems CTD happens because of bug with some xml-file string. To fix it you need to find all strings in all xml-files (not just Visa but Warlord Assets too) such as "BUILDING_STABLES" and replace it by the line "BUILDING_STABLE". It is needed to replace all things that include this string ("ART_DEF_BUILDING_STABLES" for example).

Pilotis

Nov 05, 2006, 05:35 AM

Well in my games turn 300 is just 20 turns from the end :)

My first ViSa v2.0 game got past 50%....rest can't get to 20% it seems.
Yep. Confirm "can't get to 20%". I started a 'marathon' game. Bust after less than 20 GT. (sorry it's an estimate).

civ4ludo

Nov 05, 2006, 05:37 AM

CTD's on turns 61 and 79 of an epic game

I'm in awe at someone who dwels with the Assembler god ;)

TAfirehawk

Nov 05, 2006, 05:43 AM

TAfirehawk

Nov 05, 2006, 05:45 AM

lex_kravetski

Nov 05, 2006, 05:53 AM

Nice thought, but there is no STABLES in any XML file anywhere....and searching blindly for one XML tag out of 1,000,000 will take years....

It's strange but I had this string. And it's fix CTD but several turns after that CTD appears.

You may try to turn on logging in ini file and see what happens. Now I has no idea, maybe it's several errors in xml files.

TAfirehawk

Nov 05, 2006, 06:06 AM

It's strange but I had this string. And it's fix CTD but several turns after that CTD appears.

You may try to turn on logging in ini file and see what happens. Now I has no idea, maybe it's several errors in xml files.

Not sure how you could get STABLES in an XML from Firaxis or ViSa...because it doesn't exist, at least not found with the search function in windows, which can miss things I suppose.

Please help us here, be specific on what you did....

EDIT
Stupid windows search....how dare I use wildcards to search....finds nothing but without wildcards it finds STABLES all over the place....grrrr....Bill Gates....grrrrr

TAfirehawk

Nov 05, 2006, 06:13 AM

It's strange but I had this string. And it's fix CTD but several turns after that CTD appears.

You may try to turn on logging in ini file and see what happens. Now I has no idea, maybe it's several errors in xml files.

Only thing with STABLES is Nubian and Scythian stables...and that is fine, no problems. At least nothing in ViSa files....

Rest are just text files which should cause no problems...very odd

civ4ludo

Nov 05, 2006, 06:29 AM

TAfirehawk

Nov 05, 2006, 06:47 AM

Blake's AI

You have probably seen this already:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=191685
where Blake improves on the AI stuff that got into patch 2.08.

Could you tell me whether this is compatible with ViSA. His suggestion is to put into custom assets. That should be ok, isn't it?

Have no idea but I don't see why it wouldn't be compatible...give it a try but for now the AI tweaks in v2.08 are enough...well if we could get past this CTD nightmare.

Although be aware that the ViSa Installer deletes the CustomAssets folder ;)

Axil

Nov 05, 2006, 06:49 AM

No CTDs in my games yet - using official patch - however i do have missing textures on the deer rider - was that supposed to have been fixed?

TAfirehawk

Nov 05, 2006, 06:50 AM

No CTDs in my games yet - using official patch - however i do have missing textures on the deer rider - was that supposed to have been fixed?

No, keldath has that fixed but all his fixes are mixed in with his Genetic Era version so we haven't released a bunch of his fixes yet.

Alondin

Nov 05, 2006, 07:13 AM

Some random thoughts.

I play with the Warlord CD in the drive.

All of my CTD's have been before turn 200 out of 825. Probably before 150.
EDIT: I mean 875 of course, not 825.

Size doesn't matter, blew up on huge, standard, and small maps at about
the same place.

Bill Gates was sent by aliens to human progress, and he has been wildly successful.

Alondin

TAfirehawk

Nov 05, 2006, 07:18 AM

Some random thoughts.

Bill Gates was sent by aliens to human progress, and he has been wildly successful.

Alondin

:lol: :lol: :lol:

Alondin

Nov 05, 2006, 08:12 AM

TAfirehawk

Nov 05, 2006, 08:31 AM

This CTD was done at fast speed (320 turns).

First failed on turn 40, restarted game and loaded save game,
next CTD was on turn 63 where it always fails, save game attached.

Alondin, Master of Breaking Stuff

PS - the Bug Report on VISA website is still broken, I assume your
service is down for the weekend again? Not authorized,
HTTP Error 403 Forbidden

I was able to clear the CTD on your first game from 1920 BC by deleting the Iroquois...then the Phoenician....then the Indian all seperately. This CTD is so hard to track down because those 3 civs could not be doing exactly the same thing at exactly the same time....and removing any one of those 3 civs clears the CTD :crazyeye:

Alondin

Nov 05, 2006, 08:37 AM

TAfirehawk

Nov 05, 2006, 08:40 AM

Firehawk,
How many turns after the CTD did you try?
In all my CTD's, the first time it happened was way before the game
posted, but reloading the save game got me some more turns.
I suspect that deleting a civilization just puts off the CTD for some more
turns, maybe it has to do with how much stuff is stored somewhere...
Clearing the cache sometimes got me a few more turns, sometimes not.

Alondin

Exactly...it is random on how far you get and on a different computer it changes the CTD point as well...

There is clearly a problem, but it is clearly not a single repeatable event that we see playing the game....but hopefully mrgenie can find a common point in the code...

TAfirehawk

Nov 05, 2006, 08:54 AM

Exactly...it is random on how far you get and on a different computer it changes the CTD point as well...

There is clearly a problem, but it is clearly not a single repeatable event that we see playing the game....but hopefully mrgenie can find a common point in the code...

I am starting to think this CTD is related to the AI changes in v2.08 and how they merge with ViSa....I delete ONE WORKER and it clears the CTD in Alondin's game, which I have tested at least 6-8 times that CTD's very consistent.

When mrgenie gets back, I will suggest pulling the AI changes in v2.08 and letting us test it out....and yes I am grasping for a needle in a haystack here ;)

TAfirehawk

Nov 05, 2006, 08:57 AM

I am starting to think this CTD is related to the AI changes in v2.08 and how they merge with ViSa....I delete ONE WORKER and it clears the CTD in Alondin's game, which I have tested at least 6-8 times that CTD's very consistent.

When mrgenie gets back, I will suggest pulling the AI changes in v2.08 and letting us test it out....and yes I am grasping for a needle in a haystack here ;)

Or we pull out the new resources in ViSa...

Where is that straw I am grasping for :crazyeye:

Xindaan

Nov 05, 2006, 09:35 AM

You will see an image of my problem ...

I suggested a rar empacking the folder ../VISA/.. and should unpacking manually ...

Because the exe patch nor the exe full 2.00 for warlords don't function :(Hi Lachlan,

I have noticed the installer having problems finding the right directory when your XP login contains "special characters". In my case, that's an "é" in the the XP login.

What worked for me: You should do is look in your (presumably french) equivalent "C:\documents and settings". Inside there, you'll find a directory with your normal login, and a second one with your normal login, except special characters being replaced by other special characters (in my case the "é" got replaced with a "left arrow" character). Within that new directory, you'll find the extracted files. Copying these in the correspondent subdirectory in the "real" (your username) directory, followed by a new start of the installation exe makes it work (the exe will just extract the files to the "wrong" directory again, but later looks for it in the real (your username) directory, finding them this time). After finishing installation, just make sure you delete all temporary files which did not get deleted.

Good luck!

PS to the mod makers: Great work, thanks! And I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you finding the CTD cause, I am currently grounded as well. :)

Elrikk

Nov 05, 2006, 10:06 AM

Not sure how you could get STABLES in an XML from Firaxis or ViSa...because it doesn't exist, at least not found with the search function in windows, which can miss things I suppose.

Please help us here, be specific on what you did....

EDIT
Stupid windows search....how dare I use wildcards to search....finds nothing but without wildcards it finds STABLES all over the place....grrrr....Bill Gates....grrrrr

. . . but isn't Bill the guy who implemented that "registery" thingy you are so fond off ? ;)

Elrikk

TAfirehawk

Nov 05, 2006, 10:21 AM

NEW SUBJECT...

We are looking to change from the VISA.INI way of changing the settings for ViSa to a Visual Basic interface before Civ loads.

Would you rather see something like this in-game (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=191799)?

V. Soma

Nov 05, 2006, 10:34 AM

chipper_30

Nov 05, 2006, 10:42 AM

Again, if you folks don't want to have to change/tweak this every week, then tell us the changes you are making....especially those changing the SDK.

Hi guys, just got back from a week-end at the gf's parents and I see the week-end has been busy here...;-)
I have only recently started to mess around with the SDK. My main goal was to change research was done by making it kind of "blind". It just happens that by the time I'm done, Warlords got a patch, then VISA goes to 2.00, so before I go and test everything, I thought it'd be better to move it to the new versions... However still no SDK on the website, is it because of the CTD everyone seems to have?

V. Soma

Nov 05, 2006, 11:09 AM

A frined of mine plays Visa 2.0 and has NO CTD :) (at turn 481)

noid

Nov 05, 2006, 11:57 AM

HellBoyz77

Nov 05, 2006, 12:45 PM

I tested the Visa 2.0 and i didnt get any CTDs (at least till 0 BC), but the game still freezes on me inbetween turns.. It starts bout 1600 BC and then occurs randomly with increased magnitude (the later the more waits and the longer they are) Its killing my game, 40s + waits inbetween turns i a real pain in the ass, not to mention it makes playing multiplayer impossible.. Does anyone have the same prob ??

P.S. Ive got my civ tuned for performance (no logs etc..), got a decent comp, and none of this happens in any other MOD.. PLEASE HELP !! :)

cheers

I've this problem also in 1.50 patch, i don't know if the problem occur also in the 2.0 because can't go further than 220 turn. Damn CTD!

HellBoyz77

Nov 05, 2006, 12:47 PM

Tunch Khan

Nov 05, 2006, 12:47 PM

I'm playing the latest version and I had repeated CTD's at year 940BC. Can't go further in that game.

saint1979

Nov 05, 2006, 01:02 PM

Well if you have no free space on your C Drive, then no different patch can help that....:crazyeye:

But i do got 6 GB space free on my D: drive. All my games and programs are installed on D, only Windows is installed on C:.

What do i need to do to extract your mod on my D: drive?

seady

Nov 05, 2006, 01:46 PM

seady

Nov 05, 2006, 01:47 PM

I noticed turning off the 3 square radius seemed to help

dawe1313

Nov 05, 2006, 01:59 PM

I tested the Visa 2.0 and i didnt get any CTDs (at least till 0 BC), but the game still freezes on me inbetween turns.. It starts bout 1600 BC and then occurs randomly with increased magnitude (the later the more waits and the longer they are) Its killing my game, 40s + waits inbetween turns i a real pain in the ass, not to mention it makes playing multiplayer impossible.. Does anyone have the same prob ??

P.S. Ive got my civ tuned for performance (no logs etc..), got a decent comp, and none of this happens in any other MOD.. PLEASE HELP !! :)

cheers

try doing a quicksave <SHIFT-F5> and then quickload <SHIFT-F8>. i've seen that cut down on memory used (Performance tab in Task Manager) as much as 70-80MB.

also, periodically exiting the game, deleting cache folder, reloading game, seems to improve performance.

both of these methods help, especially later on when there are many aircraft circling on intercept mode

mrgenie

Nov 05, 2006, 02:56 PM

I noticed turning off the 3 square radius seemed to help
you mean playing radius 2 improves performance or means = no CTD?

sorry was all day offline and not working on the code..i know how hard you guys want this to be fixed...but taking off all the codes one after the other untill i got to the bug isn't an easy thing :)

mrgenie

Nov 05, 2006, 03:10 PM

now this looks promising, disabled now 90% of ViSa codes, and got passed my static CTD turn...let's test another 100turns to be sure if this is it, then i can narrow down options, since the first 50% obviously didnt solve it...so must be something in the other 40%... at least it'll narrowing options :)

anyway, i think you can wait a little bit for i got this fixed...since CTD is annoying for all of you, and since im unfortunatly the only one who knows what I've done, im the only one able to track down codes i've changed...but i'm sure it'll be(as always) before friday patch to fix this :) i vow to fix things untill friday, else i stop modding! :P

mrgenie

Nov 05, 2006, 03:22 PM

Seady :) you are :goodjob:

HellBoyz77

Nov 05, 2006, 03:45 PM

you mean playing radius 2 improves performance or means = no CTD?

sorry was all day offline and not working on the code..i know how hard you guys want this to be fixed...but taking off all the codes one after the other untill i got to the bug isn't an easy thing :)

I can confirm that disabling 3 square city radius let me to pass the 219th turn, that was my best record, now i'm turn 234. Now i go further and tell you how it works.

mrgenie

Nov 05, 2006, 03:54 PM

I already found a MAJOT issue with the 3city radius...not sure if this is THE CTD, but damn sure this will cause CTD 100% of this routine is called in civ...because the loops out of the array..fixing this now...damn firaxis!!! they should comment their changes!!! i hate programmers not commenting things...first thing you learn at school when starting to program:"comment your codes so others understand you"

HellBoyz77

Nov 05, 2006, 04:10 PM

mrgenie

Nov 05, 2006, 04:18 PM

yeah, im passing all the bugged savegames now :) and played my own game where i went CTD for 68turns already :) will test this extensively of course....before i say it's fixed..but looks good so far...

nice sidenote, on the search for this issue, i fixed other pythons and SDK codes :) some things i fixed before the release of visa 2.00 should make visa run faster actually...i took out some obsolete loops from python routines.and reworked some SDK to fix even some firaxis issues, where they had 3 loops, where i did it all on 1 :) ....since the routine with these loops was called dozens times every turn by alot of python mods, game should run smootlier now...although it's hard to estimate the impact of it...i can't benchmark such things..

anyway...when i get to 400turns, i consider this fixed, since i got a CTD almost every 1-10turns after turn 150...and then I'll have to do the hell job of enabling all things i disabled the last 2 days for testing, and disable the logs ..made some nice python routines to log every begin turn, end turn, so i could trace things ..in the next patch, I'll add some logging options into the ini, default off...but next time, players can make logs, look for "wierd stuff" themselves, ...will be easier to track down errors

civ4ludo

Nov 05, 2006, 04:25 PM

mrgenie

Nov 05, 2006, 04:39 PM

Good!

The logging thing is important.

Also the VB code option instead of the current .ini setting, that TAfirehawk mentioned before, should help us in getting what we want, and knowing what we are choosing...

yeah, but hold on a second, since im the only one programming python/SDK on the team, and my day is only 24hours long, of which im also 24hours/day busy raising my son, you gotta wait a bit for that :) alot of mergings are also on the plan...which i promised keldath todo first after we got the mod working properly under the new warlords patch, ....adressing the G Era mod here...and it's ALOT of work to get this thing into our mod incorporated :) and then testing the whole thing...so...the Visual Basic on the ini will have a to wait a few....

at least the combats and combat odds are now done properly :)
I think on this patch, firaxis did a good job, better AI, better city planning for the AI, better combat routines, etc..and the AI is even so smart now to walk by my fortified plots(as a human player would)

HellBoyz77

Nov 05, 2006, 04:50 PM

anyway...when i get to 400turns, i consider this fixed, since i got a CTD almost every 1-10turns after turn 150...and then I'll have to do the hell job of enabling all things i disabled the last 2 days for testing, and disable the logs ..made some nice python routines to log every begin turn, end turn, so i could trace things ..in the next patch, I'll add some logging options into the ini, default off...but next time, players can make logs, look for "wierd stuff" themselves, ...will be easier to track down errors

Very good job mrgenie, i'm sorry that you are the only coder in the team, it's very hard to track alone a lot of things!

So far i reached turn 288 without problem, i really think that the problem is the 3 square radius (that i appreciate a lot, less city, less micromanagement, expecially in large/huge map)

Anyway, i wanna ask you what IDE you use for do the programming job? i've downloaded eclipse with a python and c/c++ plugin. I'm not a programmer, i've just done a one month training session in java. I looked something on python, and ive to adminit that is far simpler than java, seems very close to VB.

P.S.
If you need an italian translator for this mod i can do that.

mrgenie

Nov 05, 2006, 04:58 PM

i consider java alot simpler then python :) with java you know what you are doing, with python, you must know the c++ routines you are referring too...the thing of python is, you don't need to know what's done behind the scenes when you ..let's say getUnitPromotion...you request some value, then in python you tweak it, and then setUnitPromotion, and done...but you aren't actually programming here, you are just referring to something programmed in c++ in the SDK..so, yes, on a first hand python looks easier as language, untill you get to the point where you should understand what is goind on behind the scenes... anyway..im just using the codeblocks...i normally work on Visual Studio 2005, but that is obviously not compatible with Civ4..different compiler version doesnt work with this game...so, i sticked to codeblocks as advised here in the forums :) for python, i just use the official python program :) has some nice features in it ..i like to use just 1 program doing what i need...and not a PACKAGE of which i only need maybe 10%, and the other 90% are disturbing my HDD :) so i like to stick with small single programs...

btw, don't think coding is the only issue...we're a team and everybody is adding his shares to this mod..but the greatest job, are you! the players! we cant fix things, tweak, balance without the reports of you guys..i wish more people would comment the mod, give ideas, balancing stuff...weÄre a team of 4, we're unable todo what hundrets of players can do...test every single piece of the game and tweak it...so, i hope you all continue playing and report issues... as for the CTD, i add a special post after this, so it's good readable

mrgenie

Nov 05, 2006, 05:12 PM

CTD ISSUE

the issue has been found, and fixed. it will be included in the next friday patch.

untill then, here's a solution: "do NOT play with extended city radius enabled...

play a non Custom game or in your "Custom game" you must deselect the "Extended City Radius"

HellBoyz77

Nov 05, 2006, 05:16 PM

i consider java alot simpler then python :) with java you know what you are doing, with python, you must know the c++ routines you are referring too...the thing of python is, you don't need to know what's done behind the scenes when you ..let's say getUnitPromotion...you request some value, then in python you tweak it, and then setUnitPromotion, and done...but you aren't actually programming here, you are just referring to something programmed in c++ in the SDK..so, yes, on a first hand python looks easier as language, untill you get to the point where you should understand what is goind on behind the scenes

You are right. But for a lazy man right me, this is a wonderful thing! ;) However with this training session i understood (a little) the OOP logic, my problem is that without the right motivation i don't do a software, there's a lot around, and, more, i don't know well the syntax, all the classes that i can use, etc. But, maybe, for civilization i can have the right motivation to do something more deeper with programming.

anyway..im just using the codeblocks...i normally work on Visual Studio 2005, but that is obviously not compatible with Civ4..different compiler version doesnt work with this game...so, i sticked to codeblocks as advised here in the forums :) for python, i just use the official python program :) has some nice features in it ..i like to use just 1 program doing what i need...and not a PACKAGE of which i only need maybe 10%, and the other 90% are disturbing my HDD :) so i like to stick with small single programs...

Eheh. I installed Eclipse because i used it in training session, so is the only one that i know. And i've 500GB of capacity, let me use some of it! ;)

Anyway i will take a look at the forum thread regarding the modding, maybe i can understood something! :crazyeye:

I'm going to sleep, i will have to get up in five hours. Goodnight to you mrgenie

Axil

Nov 05, 2006, 06:03 PM

Well the cause of the CTD being the extended city radius - definitely makes sense as I haven't been seeing any CTD in any of my games but have not been using extended.

For the record I've just finished a game with Blakes new AI as posted on this thread by Civ4ludo, all I can say is Wow it really sets a challenge. I just won a narrow space race victory with all the civ's except one in the running - and that was on Warlord level. I was never fully ahead in either tech nor building wonders and for the first time ever there was a point in building the internet as I got 5 techs from it. I had America Spain Inca Australia Dutch and Portugal and each was doing their own thing. America went all out on getting engneers as kept rush building wonders and trying to get to non-gunpowder needing units as he had none on his part of the world and Portugale had 2 and was guarding them well. Spain and Inca were staying quiet but were building up in different ways - Inca was building a good defensive army whereas Spain when for commence and built both Smith's trading and the fish market before me. I stifle Holland pretty early in the game but was slowed down by them into a p[eace treaty. However I had blocked them in by this point. However I had to keep up with America's tech reasearch and had to neglect my military and almost can a cropper when portugal seeing a weaknes captured one of my cities though i did take it back and as soon i i started diverting my limited forces Holland attempted a breakout. Finally I managed to knockout Holland and forced Portugal to peace though I never managed to attack cities but just manage to stop them attacking mine - Portugal then still having a strong military attacked America who when an easier target and slowed them down to enable me to catach up tech wise.

I definitely recommend the new Blake AI - I had no clashes with Visa and other than seeing Portugal make the odd stupid decisions on it's attack of America (twice I saw them get the American city they were attacking down to a single axeman melee unit , though there were jets and boats there but not have enough troops to take the city) it presented a real challenge

maxbjr

Nov 05, 2006, 09:47 PM

Donkey Puncher

Nov 05, 2006, 09:54 PM

they have a full version on the visa mod web page 245mb i think works fine for me

TAfirehawk

Nov 05, 2006, 10:00 PM

yeah, but hold on a second, since im the only one programming python/SDK on the team, and my day is only 24hours long, of which im also 24hours/day busy raising my son, you gotta wait a bit for that :) alot of mergings are also on the plan...which i promised keldath todo first after we got the mod working properly under the new warlords patch, ....adressing the G Era mod here...and it's ALOT of work to get this thing into our mod incorporated :) and then testing the whole thing...so...the Visual Basic on the ini will have a to wait a few....

at least the combats and combat odds are now done properly :)
I think on this patch, firaxis did a good job, better AI, better city planning for the AI, better combat routines, etc..and the AI is even so smart now to walk by my fortified plots(as a human player would)

Well I didn't commit to anything and all I asked was which option was preferred so mrgenie had direction when he gets to it :)

Personally I like copying somebody else's work but at the same time we might have to set some things on civ load so the in-game option won't do everything....

TAfirehawk

Nov 05, 2006, 10:02 PM

Well I updated the warlords patch, then I downloaded the visa 2.00 patch. when i try to load the mod i get a CTD. I'm going to completely uninstall visa, any idea what i should do now. It doesn't crash ingame, I don't even get to the game, it crashed right before loading visa. the rest of warlords works fine

That is an install problem...which has happened alot and either do a second patch install or do the full v2.00 version and it should work.

TAfirehawk

Nov 05, 2006, 10:09 PM

TAfirehawk

Nov 05, 2006, 10:10 PM

TAfirehawk

Nov 05, 2006, 10:22 PM

I tested the Visa 2.0 and i didnt get any CTDs (at least till 0 BC), but the game still freezes on me inbetween turns.. It starts bout 1600 BC and then occurs randomly with increased magnitude (the later the more waits and the longer they are) Its killing my game, 40s + waits inbetween turns i a real pain in the ass, not to mention it makes playing multiplayer impossible.. Does anyone have the same prob ??

P.S. Ive got my civ tuned for performance (no logs etc..), got a decent comp, and none of this happens in any other MOD.. PLEASE HELP !! :)

cheers

Very few other mods are anywhere near the size and scope of this (TR and FfH not included) ViSa Modpack and while we are always making improvements, we are always adding things too.

My comp plays plain Warlords horribly slow with 18 civs and Huge map....so I either adjust my settings or wait 60+ seconds/turn and I am afraid that is about the best advice I can give at this point (until mrgenie makes this code fly along).

Alondin

Nov 05, 2006, 10:43 PM

Confirming that turning off the Extended City Radius seems to fix CTD.

I'm on turn 200 of 320 on a standard map, lots of problems with Thailand
(beating up on me, not in the programming! :lol: but no CTD's! Last time I played on fast speed got my first CTD at turn 40. However, I'm going to bed. ;)

Alondin, Master of Breaking Stuff

Forsaken

Nov 05, 2006, 11:54 PM

you guys are great i still say this should be considered an expantion and not a mod :)

mrgenie

Nov 06, 2006, 12:48 AM

Very few other mods are anywhere near the size and scope of this (TR and FfH not included) ViSa Modpack and while we are always making improvements, we are always adding things too.

My comp plays plain Warlords horribly slow with 18 civs and Huge map....so I either adjust my settings or wait 60+ seconds/turn and I am afraid that is about the best advice I can give at this point (until mrgenie makes this code fly along).

I Second firehawk on this totally, i normally play visa with 16-18civs, large map, and at 200turns(1200 end turn) the game is getting pretty slow already, waiting 5-10seconds a turn...im now playing with 8civs at turn 313(will stop at 400, just testing to be 100% sure the CTD is gone) and the end turns are like 1-2seconds(besides animated fightings take some time)so, i conclude also, maybe your system might be fast, warlords is just power consuming, it's a modern game on itself, eating alot of resources, memory and cpu, and visa just add's mabe 4times the original objects to the game(didnt count everything though) so, visa will eat memory, and visa will consume CPU...I'd say, can't drive a 6800kg big truck without a V12 8liter engine :)

seady

Nov 06, 2006, 01:22 AM

you mean playing radius 2 improves performance or means = no CTD?

sorry was all day offline and not working on the code..i know how hard you guys want this to be fixed...but taking off all the codes one after the other untill i got to the bug isn't an easy thing :)

When i play radius 2 i don't seem to get CTD, but i haven't had time to play all the way through .

Axil

Nov 06, 2006, 01:28 AM

mrgenie

Nov 06, 2006, 01:34 AM

I found NEW firaxian code in the SDK, they used an array there, initialized as [NUM_CITY_PLOTS] now this is defined as 21, when you use extended, you have 37city plots, secondly, it'll loop over the extended 37plots, although the array only has 21entries...so the moment eBuild is requested by the getImprovement or getYield, it works pretty good untill entry 21, after that, no programmer in the world knows what will happen, the result depends from computer to computer, same as in c++ float a = 8/9, this can result in
0.888888888888888888888888888888888 on one computer
or
0.888888888888888888888888888888889 on the other computer
or
0.88888888888888888888888 on a third computer where the accuracy is lower...so if you use this code as in
if ( a == 0.88888888888) it'll work on all 3 computers(if you round a to the same length)
write
if ( a == 0.888888888888888888888888888888888), 2nd and 3rd will say it isn't true, the first will say it is true, the code is the same, but the result varies on all 3computers..the array thing is different of course, but I'll hope above example makes at least clear, the same code on 3different computers doesn't mean the result is the same..depends on alot of things...that's what made this CTD so random..every comp looks at some point in the memory, and whatever it gets from there, will be used, and if it's not that what the following code needs, it can produce anything, hence CTD

add, the 3rd....if ( a == 0.888888888888888888888888888888888), might actually say it is or isn't true, depends if your code "Cuts" the 8888 after the accuracy or if it rounds..there's again a difference...depends on compiler, computer, etc..some codes are just thigns you shouldn't do...generally, noone uses a float in an "if" :) and even firaxis doesn't do so...but i just want to point out, results for the same code on several machines are not the same, every machine can have it's own result, so random CTD

V. Soma

Nov 06, 2006, 01:37 AM

As for Blake's AI:

Isn't it enough to put it, as he describes, into the
My Games/Warlords/Custom Assets/ folder
and then play Visa to run both?

Or does Visa call its own dll file only?

mrgenie

Nov 06, 2006, 01:40 AM

I think the extended time inbetween turns mayne to do with just one routine or calculations with one building/era/unit as on my games it tends to slow slow about the age of early flight and grenadiers/riflemen but nearly always speeds back up when in the modern age.

I'll be pleased if you could narrow this down very presizely, then i know which part of the code i have to look for....going over 50.000python lines and 1.000.000 SDK lines is nearly impossible if i don't know where to look for...but if you can narrow it down to a particular building, unit, i can trace all the codes considering this unit/units building/buildings, or civics, alot can be a prereq for a code to be executed...if I know where to look for, im pretty sure the fix will be in the next patch after you tell me the presize cause :)

V. Soma

Nov 06, 2006, 01:40 AM

Heh, to me that looks funnily annoying! :)

On the practical side: what's the solution?
To cut it down to a commonly accepted 0.9? :D

mrgenie

Nov 06, 2006, 01:42 AM

As for Blake's AI:

Isn't it enough to put it, as he describes, into the
My Games/Warlords/Custom Assets/ folder
and then play Visa to run both?

Or does Visa call its own dll file only?

if civ would use 2different dll's, you definatly would get alot of CTD's i'd say :) maybe civ has some build in routine in the SDK checking for such things, but the programmer who would be able to check 2different DLL's and just merge the codes in them, would be the best programmer in the world, and i doubt firaxis did that, it would mean, you just take 10mods, and copy everything in your mod dir, and 10dll, and the game would work..im pretty sure this is not going to work :)

V. Soma

Nov 06, 2006, 01:43 AM

mrgenie

Nov 06, 2006, 01:44 AM

Heh, to me that looks funnily annoying! :)

On the practical side: what's the solution?
To cut it down to a commonly accepted 0.9? :D
yeah, you must just manually round it :) but to be honest, i like to convert it to a longint first, and then do the IF...im just not feeling well with using floats in an if statement :)

mrgenie

Nov 06, 2006, 01:45 AM

I have found the same phenomenon with Rhye's civ...

I made once a curve graph of waiting times inbetween turns.
It showed that it rises until ca. 4/5 of the game, then in modern times it lessens...
did you ever made such a graph on warlords? maybe something in the original codes is causing this if it's also in other mods...

V. Soma

Nov 06, 2006, 01:53 AM

did you ever made such a graph on warlords? maybe something in the original codes is causing this if it's also in other mods...

I will make such a graph for you, this week, OK?

I am playing a normal Warlords game now. Standard map, 10 civs.
I am in ca. BC 1500.
From now on I will keep record of waiting times every 20 turns,
and also at start of a new era.

I have a strong suggest that the curve will be similar...

V. Soma

Nov 06, 2006, 01:57 AM

here is the Rhye's Civ graph: ehh, next post pls :)

side note to the graph in next post: the x-axises are confusing, I kno :) but the curve is still there

EDIT 2:
For the Warlords graph, x-axis will show number of turns...

V. Soma

Nov 06, 2006, 01:58 AM

Here is the Rhye's Civ graph, intention was to demonstrate the power of more RAM memory:

Dancing Hoskuld

Nov 06, 2006, 02:39 AM

Hi, I have read back a few pages but can't figure out what CTD stands for :crazyeye:

I am getting 6 angry citizen specialists in every city even when I only have one resident. They do not appear to have any effect on the game.

A minor query - why is the Great General the only one who cant build his special building until you have researched a tech? In this case Education.

V. Soma

Nov 06, 2006, 02:57 AM

Hi, I have read back a few pages but can't figure out what CTD stands for :crazyeye:

Crash To Desktop...

mrgenie

Nov 06, 2006, 02:58 AM

wow soma, your graph hsows 25% performance boost by just going from 1 to 2gigs ram=50dollar investment...i guess other apps on the PC using alot of ram will also experience this kind of performance boost...i knew back in the days of 128megs->256megs had a huge impact on performance, didnt think the impact would still be so huge these days...but obviously it's still a huge impact

CTD=Crash To Desktop, when you read the main website of our mod:
http://keldath.family-veldman.com you'll find yourself having a nice troubleshoot section also, explaining things nicely formatted into categories

the 6angry citizen when only 1 citzen in a city is new to me, im loading 100times a game to test codes im doing, so i play alot with 1 citzen, becuase i dont have the time to play more then 10turns normally, rarely 40turns...but i never saw that happen on my games! :)

the great general is done by firaxis, your question about this belongs to Alexman in the patch thread..he's the one who thinks this should be as it is..

personally, i don't care that much bout it anyway...it makes sence not to build this building in early games, we've tweaked this building a lot and you get special units(4) when you build it the first time..if you happen to be lucky, geat a GG in the early turns, you are way overpowering your opponents, which is very unbalancing to the game...building this building later balances the game alot!!! ...so you better keep it that way :)

dawe1313

Nov 06, 2006, 03:18 AM

As for Blake's AI:

Isn't it enough to put it, as he describes, into the
My Games/Warlords/Custom Assets/ folder
and then play Visa to run both?

Or does Visa call its own dll file only?

if i was reading alexman's post correctly, firaxis basically incorporated Blake's AI into the WL 2.08 patch, so now it's always there in WL or any mod

V. Soma

Nov 06, 2006, 03:20 AM

if i was reading alexman's post correctly, firaxis basically incorporated Blake's AI into the WL 2.08 patch, so now it's always there in WL or any mod

No, no!

Just read the "A better AI" thread on the Warlords general forum page here

mrgenie

Nov 06, 2006, 03:25 AM

we'll I've read through the thread...looks very promising what he did..and nope, i didn't look into the code itself yet, but filecomparison shows differences between the files from firaxis and the "A better AI SDK"

will have a look at it later, now im gone, searching for car's to buy :)
and later this evening I'll make a internal patch ready with fixes concerning the SDK and Pythons, which firehawk and roger must test...i think when it's ok on those computers also, we might release a patch before friday..so you guys have a working version with the extended option working properly :)
it will probably be SGC..but I'll test for that myself, but as far as i can see, all the fixes i've made shouldn't cause errors with the savegames..so whatever game you started with extended city radius, it should be playable with the patch then :) maybe you'd need to load a autosave of 5turns back or so...although i even doubt that..normal savegame should do it actually

noid

Nov 06, 2006, 04:25 AM

Very few other mods are anywhere near the size and scope of this (TR and FfH not included) ViSa Modpack and while we are always making improvements, we are always adding things too.

My comp plays plain Warlords horribly slow with 18 civs and Huge map....so I either adjust my settings or wait 60+ seconds/turn and I am afraid that is about the best advice I can give at this point (until mrgenie makes this code fly along).

but the thing is that adjusting settings doesnt do the trick !?!? :] I can play a standard size map, and ill expirence the same waits that i get in a large world ? It starts very early (most 80% of the world is still uncovered), and only happens in this mod, A friend of mine who i play MP with has a weaker comp them me, but playing the same turn i get a freeze he doesnt ? i tried instaling new drivers, moded drivers, and some more voodoo like tricks toi get Visa to run properly, but i had no luck.. The only thing i can think of that differs me from most of the Mod users might be that im running W2K3 Server.. In that case why does the vanilla game/other mods work just fine ?

Another thing i notcied is that moving large stack of workers makes the game freeze in a similar manner to what i get in between turns..

cheers

noid

Nov 06, 2006, 04:42 AM

I Second firehawk on this totally, i normally play visa with 16-18civs, large map, and at 200turns(1200 end turn) the game is getting pretty slow already, waiting 5-10seconds a turn...im now playing with 8civs at turn 313(will stop at 400, just testing to be 100% sure the CTD is gone) and the end turns are like 1-2seconds(besides animated fightings take some time)so, i conclude also, maybe your system might be fast, warlords is just power consuming, it's a modern game on itself, eating alot of resources, memory and cpu, and visa just add's mabe 4times the original objects to the game(didnt count everything though) so, visa will eat memory, and visa will consume CPU...I'd say, can't drive a 6800kg big truck without a V12 8liter engine :)

I know that CIV is a power consuming monster(thats one of the reasons i recently upgraded my rig..), but the only problem i get with it is using your mod :( (which i find to be one of the best). and belive me, those freezes that i get are not "natural" its more like waiting for the game to load in vanila civ, when te comp tended to just stop and do nothing for a while..

I found NEW firaxian code in the SDK, they used an array there, initialized as [NUM_CITY_PLOTS] now this is defined as 21, when you use extended, you have 37city plots, secondly, it'll loop over the extended 37plots, although the array only has 21entries...so the moment eBuild is requested by the getImprovement or getYield, it works pretty good untill entry 21, after that, no programmer in the world knows what will happen, the result depends from computer to computer, same as in c++ float a = 8/9, this can result in
0.888888888888888888888888888888888 on one computer
or
0.888888888888888888888888888888889 on the other computer
or
0.88888888888888888888888 on a third computer where the accuracy is lower...so if you use this code as in
if ( a == 0.88888888888) it'll work on all 3 computers(if you round a to the same length)
write
if ( a == 0.888888888888888888888888888888888), 2nd and 3rd will say it isn't true, the first will say it is true, the code is the same, but the result varies on all 3computers..the array thing is different of course, but I'll hope above example makes at least clear, the same code on 3different computers doesn't mean the result is the same..depends on alot of things...that's what made this CTD so random..every comp looks at some point in the memory, and whatever it gets from there, will be used, and if it's not that what the following code needs, it can produce anything, hence CTD

add, the 3rd....if ( a == 0.888888888888888888888888888888888), might actually say it is or isn't true, depends if your code "Cuts" the 8888 after the accuracy or if it rounds..there's again a difference...depends on compiler, computer, etc..some codes are just thigns you shouldn't do...generally, noone uses a float in an "if" and even firaxis doesn't do so...but i just want to point out, results for the same code on several machines are not the same, every machine can have it's own result, so random CTD

From your post above, considering that im one of the few ppl that have this problem, i would guess that there might be some part of the visa code that gives a different resault to me then to ppl that dont expirience the waits This might be causing it ? Just a wild guess..

cheers

V. Soma

Nov 06, 2006, 05:16 AM

but the thing is that adjusting settings doesnt do the trick !?!? :] I can play a standard size map, and ill expirence the same waits that i get in a large world ? It starts very early (most 80% of the world is still uncovered), and only happens in this mod, A friend of mine who i play MP with has a weaker comp them me, but playing the same turn i get a freeze he doesnt ? i tried instaling new drivers, moded drivers, and some more voodoo like tricks toi get Visa to run properly, but i had no luck.. The only thing i can think of that differs me from most of the Mod users might be that im running W2K3 Server.. In that case why does the vanilla game/other mods work just fine ?

Another thing i notcied is that moving large stack of workers makes the game freeze in a similar manner to what i get in between turns..

cheers

Have you tried TOTAL reinstall of civ plus Visa?

noid

Nov 06, 2006, 06:20 AM

Have you tried TOTAL reinstall of civ plus Visa?

Well, visa yes, the whole CIV game no, i figured that if i only get this in Visa, then CIV should be just fine.. But now you mention it, i think ill try on a clean CIV game .. thx

cheers

TAfirehawk

Nov 06, 2006, 06:43 AM

From your post above, considering that im one of the few ppl that have this problem, i would guess that there might be some part of the visa code that gives a different resault to me then to ppl that dont expirience the waits This might be causing it ? Just a wild guess..

cheers

You are far from one of the few people having the CTD problem....TONS of people are having it :)

We will be testing the fix later....and mrgenie says he has some speed improvements....and if somebody doesn't provide a close location of the slowdown you have, well out of 1,000,000 lines of code I am sure, as I said before, will take years to find.

TAfirehawk

Nov 06, 2006, 06:45 AM

As for Blake's AI:

Isn't it enough to put it, as he describes, into the
My Games/Warlords/Custom Assets/ folder
and then play Visa to run both?

Or does Visa call its own dll file only?

We could just let people put it in the Custom Assets folder as Blake says, but I think it is important enough to include in all of ViSa...not just people that install in a directory that we DELETE every patch :p

TAfirehawk

Nov 06, 2006, 06:48 AM

I am getting 6 angry citizen specialists in every city even when I only have one resident. They do not appear to have any effect on the game.

A minor query - why is the Great General the only one who cant build his special building until you have researched a tech? In this case Education.

I have never heard of getting more angry citizens that are more than city population....that is certainly crazy. And unless you have extremely poor city management, the only time alot of angry citizens happens is when conquering other cities.

Unless the complaints about the Military Academy go through the roof, it is staying at Education :)

And now that I think about it...the other GP buildings need to have tech pre-req like Education too....will investigate all the GP buildings :D

Dakduck

Nov 06, 2006, 06:56 AM

Hello guys,

I posted a few days ago about not being able to raze cities. I noticed someone else also posted about it. Is this part of the mod (which is the best I have played yet) or is it a bug. Makes the game damn interesting to have to keep what you capture but I sure miss razing sometimes. Maybe include the razing mod I have seen floating around, at least then razing takes awhile on large cities. Thanks for all the hard work, my brother and I burnt the whole weekend playing a hotseat game and have started another.

:goodjob:

TAfirehawk

Nov 06, 2006, 07:07 AM

raoul82

Nov 06, 2006, 07:26 AM

TAfirehawk

Nov 06, 2006, 07:30 AM

First of all, congrats for the wonderful mod!
I've noticed 2 small things, maybe not really bugs:
- Statue of Zeus cannot be built in capital city in my game (maybe too many wonders?)
- There is no Great Engineer "Hurry production" icon. Has it some prerequisite tech to be activated?
Moreover, I'd like to know if I can put new Blacke's AI in Custom Assects folder and play VISA without conflicts. Thanks for the assistance.

As per the ViSapedia, Statue of Zeus requires Polytheism and goes obsolete with Chemistry.

Great Engineer can only hurry a building...worked in my last game at least...

I believe it was Axil that played with Blake's new AI and it was fine so give it a try.

Dakduck

Nov 06, 2006, 07:32 AM

As reported earlier...but I haven't gotten it in the first post...it is a bug but a lower priority than the CTD problem.

I completely agreed the CTD should be the highest priority. The razing issue can be worked around and as I said it makes the game intersting.

TAfirehawk

Nov 06, 2006, 07:33 AM

ViSa Updates

Known Bugs
Memory Allocation Error on saving games (AutoSave or Manual) has been reported in multiple mods and multiple threads on CivFanatics. Our recommendation is to not play on any map size greater than LARGE. Other work-around is to change Graphics Settings to Low and disable all Effects. Any other setting changes to reduce save game file size will also help avoid this error. This appears to be a Firaxis save game issue, not any particular mod problem.

SmartMap can cause errors in the two new Civic Categories (Education and Health Care). The default civic in those two categories sometimes is not selected on game startup. This also can happen on a 'normal' map immediately after SmartMap is used. Our recommendation is to not play with SmartMap.

Languages besides English can cause errors throughout the game. Our recommendation is to play ViSa in English only.

ATI Video Cards can cause numerous problems with this mod and vanilla Civ as well. Our recommendation is for all ATI people to download the latest video drivers without Catalyst.

3 City Radius Option currently causes a CTD problem in v2.00 so DO NOT use this feature until we get a patch released.

ViSa Future Changes

ViSa Modpack Team List
Genetic Era for Warlords (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=184182)
Additional Civic Category
Inquisition Mod (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=187623)
Eusebius World Religions (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=179138)
New Netherlands Mod
Multi-Building Unit Requirement Mod (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=187624)
Building Heal Rate Mod (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=4531734)
Building Civic Prereqs Mod (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=186731)
Resource Tech Research Modifier Mod (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=180594)
Upgradeable Buildings Mod (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=186158)
Customizable Domestic Advisor Mod (http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=523)
Enhanced Warlord Unit
National Security Agency (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Agency) National Wonder to reduce Tech Leak
Blitz Game Speed (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=187312) - 200 turn game
Random Barb Spearman spawns
Random Barb Navy spawns

Player Request List
Mercenaries fixed
My Multiplayer Military Mod (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=186654)
MAD System fixed
Unit Balancing
SmartMap update/fix
Furious attitude of some leaders with no negative points
Secret Tech Mod (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=188831)
Manhattan Project to national wonder
Plant Forest (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=191279) worker ability at Paper
Mastery Victory (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=189388)
Revolution Mod (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=171127)
Armenia Civ (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=191304)
Blake's new AI (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=191685)
Fix Raze City option

Vanchelon

Nov 06, 2006, 07:57 AM

Edit: Redownloaded the installer just incase, to check if it made a difference. Didnt think it would since it passed the MD5 check last time aswell.
Anyway Im not sure if its the redownload that fixed my issue (most likely I guess) or that I unchecked the option to clear the cache or had 1.2 installed (both less likely).
Will keep this post just incase anyone gets a similar problem

Im having a problem running the install... (Tried both the Full installer and the 1.2 to 2.0 installer)

Near the end of the install, everytime, I get this "error" message from the installer:

"There is a problem with this Windows Installer package. A script required for this install to complete could not be run. Contact your support personnel or package vendor."

I checked windowsupdate just incase but cant find anything remotely related to the windows installer so...
Ive been looking through the thread but havent found anyone else with this specific problem.

Soo.. any ideas?

V. Soma

Nov 06, 2006, 08:05 AM

Dear Visa team!

A WONDER(FUL?) IDEA

I would like to propose an idea of my Hungarian friend Söör
(co-creator of Roads and Lands - a mod plan...)

Why not cut back the leader civs (snowball effect) a little bit?
Why not give wonder building a bit more decision-situation?

IDEA:

Let's make every coming wonder after a FINSHED and posessed wonder
cost gradually more than the basic value:

so

1. wonder needs 100% of original hammer cost
say the civ has the wonder under its belt, fine. :) then:

2. wonder (would) need 100 + x % of original hammer cost

3. wonder: 100 + 2x % and so on! :D

x might be as wished...
or even the + can be * of whatever

opinions? ;)

Kaiser Franz

Nov 06, 2006, 08:17 AM

V. Soma

Nov 06, 2006, 08:22 AM

Hey Kaiser! Welcome to the forum! :)

How about re-forming the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy? :D

Greetings!

Soma from Budapest

Axil

Nov 06, 2006, 08:29 AM

I'm using Blakes custom AI in custom assets with no problems at all - so maybe the ai could be an option in the visa installerif it's possible - should be as I've seen something very similar done for a very large and popular oblivion mod.

Slow down wise it doesn't appear to be a particular unit causing the slow down as it happens in exactly the same era no matter which civs are in use. I'm starting to wonder if it;s to do with worker AI as at that point the workers are pretty much flat out developing the land.

TAfirehawk

Nov 06, 2006, 08:42 AM

Good Morning and THANKS FOR A GREAT MOD !!! It's hard to imagine the amount of time you guys had to invest in this project.

I'm not very savy when it comes to programing so if my comments appear a bit ignorant - it's because I am - when it comes to most aspects of this "new fangled computer world" I'm 63 years old and haven't kept up with technology :)

I allways play as Austria - (place of my birth) and would really like Franz Joseph instead of Maria Teresa as the leader.
The Leopard2 is very large - how do I reduce the scale?
The APC button looks just like the Mech Inf. - any way to make it look different?
Mech Inf figures, in the field, now look just like regular infantry rather than a tracked unit - any way to fix that - it gets confusing.
Ticonderoga AA and Aegis Cruiser look identical - any way to fix that?
Is it possible to have the "production pop up window" not make a suggestion to construct a "wonder" if your civilization allready has it under construction in another city ?
I was never able to get "Military Hospital" as an option to build - any idea why?
Oh - and the final -- I started receiving "Memory Allocation Error" messages at turn 205 so I began saving every turn - it seems that about five or six turns went by before I received the same "memory error" and the game shut down - I reloaded the previous saved turn and could then play for or five more turns before the same error reappeared - any clue?

Once again -- thanks for all your hard work.

I can adjust the mesh size for the Leopard2...had to GREATLY reduce the city guard trebuchet earlier :)

Many buttons and art look the same because we have added 200+ units and either an appropriate graphic doesn't exist or a simple XML mistake...keldath has many fixes that should appear in 1-2 weeks with the Genetic Era.

Mech Inf should have a truck with them...so they are different but I agree with you, not by much...

The suggestion window is purely a Firaxis thing with their AI but it is weird because I have never seen it suggest something I am already building....what exactly was it?

Military Hospital is from a Great Doctor, which still don't spawn enough IMO.

We have notes and suggestions in the first post and on the ViSa website about the mem alloc fault.

Kaiser Franz

Nov 06, 2006, 08:42 AM

Hey Soma from Budapest :) -- I was just in your wonderfull city in September -- had a great time and even toured the "marcipan museum".

It would be great to play Austria as one Civ and have the Magyars as another Civ and be able to form a "Permanent Alliance" early on in the game. Up to now, I have never been able to form a permanent alliance -- allways "red and not available" <sigh>

TAfirehawk

Nov 06, 2006, 08:45 AM

TAfirehawk

Nov 06, 2006, 09:00 AM

I can adjust the mesh size for the Leopard2...had to GREATLY reduce the city guard trebuchet earlier :)

This will not be changed, the size is just fine compared to the regular tank it is just slightly larger, which is appropriate for a UU.

Kaiser Franz

Nov 06, 2006, 09:01 AM

Thanks for the quick response TAfirehawk -- I found the memory allocation comments in the "bug report" drop down -- and yes - I was playing on a huge world map -- I'll drop down to a "large" in the next game.

Now I just have to convince someone that knows what they are doing to make a world map - with all the civs I like and have them place the starting locations in accordance with historical civilization origination points. It's hard to focus when the computer puts the starting point for Gengis Kahn somewhere near Minniapolis and the Aztecs begin around Portland Oregon - I like realism :) and would like for the Austrians to start near Vienna and the Zulu's to begin in central South Africa - oh well - perhaps thats to hard to do when maps are being made.

Anyway - keep up the great work - you guys are doing a wonderful job in making Civ Warlords an all consuming passion for me -- much to my wife's chagrin :)

Kaiser Franz

Nov 06, 2006, 09:27 AM

Oh - incidentaly - one of the greatest features of the Visa Mod is the little buttons that tell me what the status is of each unit - skip, fort, sentry, and so on - and the ability to filter as well as arange them in the best way for viewing - that's a great feature and I really appreciate it.

HerrBazooka

Nov 06, 2006, 09:39 AM

I completely agreed the CTD should be the highest priority. The razing issue can be worked around and as I said it makes the game intersting.
That bug is in 1.50 too.

TAfirehawk

Nov 06, 2006, 09:45 AM

That bug is in 1.50 too.

Really? I don't think anybody reported not being able to Raze a city in v1.50....in fact I am 99% sure I was razing cities in v1.50 but will load it up and double check :)

TAfirehawk

Nov 06, 2006, 10:08 AM

That bug is in 1.50 too.

OK, now I am 100% sure....that is NOT a bug in v1.50

I had to flip back to Warlords v2.0 and ViSa v1.5 but I just loaded up a game and tested it without the WB even :) Raze was fine, but in v2.00 ViSa it is not working...yet...

noid

Nov 06, 2006, 10:28 AM

You are far from one of the few people having the CTD problem....TONS of people are having it :)

We will be testing the fix later....and mrgenie says he has some speed improvements....and if somebody doesn't provide a close location of the slowdown you have, well out of 1,000,000 lines of code I am sure, as I said before, will take years to find.

But my problem aint the CTD.. ive tested the wait time and its not 40s+ as i mentioned b4 but 90s+ :/. Ive returned to visa 1.4 to do some tesing with my savegame (it happens in all version but i dont have time to start a new game to reach the point in which i get those freezes). The first turn after load take 100s to get to the next, if i reload the game and end the turn it takes only 30s, but still the next one take about 100s as well.. Ill do some more test tomorrow and let you know what i came up with..

Does the SDK give you acces to the multiplayer part of the game ? Im intrested if the timeout limit can be increased ? The problem is then when i play MP and i get a freeze, the game drops the secound player after i think 120s, so if there is a gap greater then 120s between the times in which the game initilazes on both computer, you have to reconnect to the game, download a save etc.. It takes very long time to get back in the game.. I would be really great if you could increase this timeout limit..

Cheers

TAfirehawk

Nov 06, 2006, 10:33 AM

But my problem aint the CTD.. ive tested the wait time and its not 40s+ as i mentioned b4 but 90s+ :/. Ive returned to visa 1.4 to do some tesing with my savegame (it happens in all version but i dont have time to start a new game to reach the point in which i get those freezes). The first turn after load take 100s to get to the next, if i reload the game and end the turn it takes only 30s, but still the next one take about 100s as well.. Ill do some more test tomorrow and let you know what i came up with..

Does the SDK give you acces to the multiplayer part of the game ? Im intrested if the timeout limit can be increased ? The problem is then when i play MP and i get a freeze, the game drops the secound player after i think 120s, so if there is a gap greater then 120s between the times in which the game initilazes on both computer, you have to reconnect to the game, download a save etc.. It takes very long time to get back in the game.. I would be really great if you could increase this timeout limit..

Cheers

Oh, well you quoted a post about the CTD :lol:

I have played plain Warlords and other mods as well...and have seen no significant slow points in ViSa that are unique except the timeframe Axil talks about.

The wait times you talk about must be related to your hardware or software in some fashion as nobody else (or VERY few) has it to this extent.

BTW, we are always improving the code, but we add things at a high rate so don't expect things to get faster unless mrgenie stumbles onto something or we get a specific, detailed report on the cause of the slowdown.

noid

Nov 06, 2006, 11:06 AM

Oh, well you quoted a post about the CTD :lol:

I have played plain Warlords and other mods as well...and have seen no significant slow points in ViSa that are unique except the timeframe Axil talks about.

The wait times you talk about must be related to your hardware or software in some fashion as nobody else (or VERY few) has it to this extent.

BTW, we are always improving the code, but we add things at a high rate so don't expect things to get faster unless mrgenie stumbles onto something or we get a specific, detailed report on the cause of the slowdown.

Being in the minority suxx :P

I'll try to provide as much data as i can..

Hardware software problem seem reasonable but CIV + other mods plays just fine.. Anyways maybe those new logging feats you intend to implement will shed some more light on the subject.. For now, no more VISA for me :/

cheers

mrgenie

Nov 06, 2006, 11:28 AM

Being in the minority suxx :P

I'll try to provide as much data as i can..

Hardware software problem seem reasonable but CIV + other mods plays just fine.. Anyways maybe those new logging feats you intend to implement will shed some more light on the subject.. For now, no more VISA for me :/

cheers

NOID, what windows version are you playing, as for the installer bugs, the installer uses Microsoft Visual Basic Scripting, a service running on all WinXP computers, Win2000 SP 3 and later, and some other windows versions...if you use "server" versions, like 2003server, i dunno, check if you have Microsoft scripting service running, if not, then im sorry, and indeed the patch wont work, this patch is not meant for games running on servers...you should play on normal windows editions, home, coorporate etc..not on servers! :) why would anyone play a game on a server OS? :) anyway...im sure you can manually install the script host service..check it out at the MS pages :) that's all im saying about this, won't spend more words on it, because i wont do MS support, whcih even MS themself arent giving! :) if you install a server version, you should know what you are doing :) or at least, you are assumed to know what you are doing :P hehehe

P.S. i dont mean this as critics to anyone having problems with MS ...but i do mean this:"MS sucks on support!" therefore i won't give it either, im not their salesmen! :)

add
now i think about it, I'll make a non VB script to set regkeys properly, since i bet that's where people go into troubles

maxbjr

Nov 06, 2006, 12:24 PM

TAfirehawk, I figured out what I may have done wrong with the Visa 2.00 install. It seems that I installed the full version of Visa 2.00 over my 1.5 version. Would this cause a crash problem? In any event I'm going to do a clean install of Visa 2.0 tonight, hopefully that will work, I'll let you all know tonight.
On a side note, yes I get the "slow down" right around the riflemen phase and it speeds up at the modern era.

HerrBazooka

Nov 06, 2006, 12:33 PM

OK, now I am 100% sure....that is NOT a bug in v1.50

I had to flip back to Warlords v2.0 and ViSa v1.5 but I just loaded up a game and tested it without the WB even :) Raze was fine, but in v2.00 ViSa it is not working...yet...
Hawk I still play 1.50 and I had this bug yesterday. I think it only when you raze last city of someone.
EDIT: Here the save try to raze San Paolo.

noid

Nov 06, 2006, 12:36 PM

NOID, what windows version are you playing, as for the installer bugs, the installer uses Microsoft Visual Basic Scripting, a service running on all WinXP computers, Win2000 SP 3 and later, and some other windows versions...if you use "server" versions, like 2003server, i dunno, check if you have Microsoft scripting service running, if not, then im sorry, and indeed the patch wont work, this patch is not meant for games running on servers...you should play on normal windows editions, home, coorporate etc..not on servers! :) why would anyone play a game on a server OS? :) anyway...im sure you can manually install the script host service..check it out at the MS pages :) that's all im saying about this, won't spend more words on it, because i wont do MS support, whcih even MS themself arent giving! :) if you install a server version, you should know what you are doing :) or at least, you are assumed to know what you are doing :P hehehe

P.S. i dont mean this as critics to anyone having problems with MS ...but i do mean this:"MS sucks on support!" therefore i won't give it either, im not their salesmen! :)

add
now i think about it, I'll make a non VB script to set regkeys properly, since i bet that's where people go into troubles

But im not having any trouble with the instaler nor the patch or CTD :P everything apart from the abnormal waits inbetween turns is OK :)

As to using W2K3, its more stable then xp and there are more resource management options..

MrGenie can you pliss have a look at post #890

cheers

V. Soma

Nov 06, 2006, 12:58 PM

Umm, I know it is rude to repeat my own post, but discussion is so hefty here about the CTD and the like,
I feel my question is lost in the midst of all this, so I repeat anyway:

Dear Visa team!

A WONDER(FUL?) IDEA

I would like to propose an idea of my Hungarian friend Söör
(co-creator of Roads and Lands - a mod plan...)

Why not cut back the leader civs (snowball effect) a little bit?
Why not give wonder building a bit more decision-situation?

IDEA:

Let's make every coming wonder after a FINSHED and posessed wonder
cost gradually more than the basic value:

so

1. wonder needs 100% of original hammer cost
say the civ has the wonder under its belt, fine. :) then:

2. wonder (would) need 100 + x % of original hammer cost

3. wonder: 100 + 2x % and so on! :D

x might be as wished...
or even the + can be * of whatever

opinions? ;)

So, opinions? ;)

chipper_30

Nov 06, 2006, 01:28 PM

Umm, I know it is rude to repeat my own post, but discussion is so hefty here about the CTD and the like,
I feel my question is lost in the midst of all this, so I repeat anyway:

So, opinions? ;)

I like it :goodjob:
It's worth a try anyway... and I beleive the AI does look at the cost of a production before doing it so I think it shouldn't bring too much of a balance issue...

TAfirehawk

Nov 06, 2006, 02:14 PM

Hawk I still play 1.50 and I had this bug yesterday. I think it only when you raze last city of someone.
EDIT: Here the save try to raze San Paolo.

That is a function of Firaxis....always been that way in Civ IV as far as I know...certainly not a bug.

CivFanCCS

Nov 06, 2006, 03:09 PM

I have an idea for civ, as I am currently working on a diplo mod, that maybe you guys could implement. I think it would add vast strategy to the game of civ IV if you could start with a leader, say Stalin. But every 30 - 40 turns depending on game speed , stalin dies and a new leader heads your civilization and awards new bonuses.. maybe depending on what type of great people you are producing or if you are at was maybe an agressive leader, peace maybe a production or cultural leader... would make it so players would play out the leader style that they have, and not have just 1 the whole game... maybe for diplo instead of Stalin poping up , maybe just picture of russia because u might not have stalin.. let me know what u think

CivFanCCS

TAfirehawk

Nov 06, 2006, 03:12 PM

Hawkeye Pierce

Nov 06, 2006, 03:25 PM

Love the mod. Just wondered if you'd seen the NYC World Trade Center graphics and if you any plans to include it. They look awesome, have a .bik movie and whichever way you look at it, the towers ought to be in the game. Maybe with bonuses along similar lines to the Roman Roads?

Axil

Nov 06, 2006, 03:42 PM

One of the things I really miss is the ability of spys and to create rebellions in cities and accquire techs. It would be great if the KGB and normal spies had the ability to increase the likeliness of a city culture flipping to another civ (i.e. using propaganda to undermine a city's loyalty to it's ruling civ) or have a chance to obtain a number of tech points from a city and then the higher the amount stolen from a civ the harder it would get.

HitAnyKey

Nov 06, 2006, 04:21 PM

ATI Video Cards can cause numerous problems with this mod and vanilla Civ as well. Our recommendation is for all ATI people to download the latest video drivers without Catalyst.
I've been having some trouble with the mod, and that's because when I went to the ATI website to update my driver the only thing I could find for doing an update was to install the Catalyst Control Center.

Can someone point me to how to get the most current Driver without actually installing the Catalyst as you have mentioned?

I've been searching all over their website and can't find any section that just has the drivers.
I have the Radeon X300

HerrBazooka

Nov 06, 2006, 11:29 PM

That is a function of Firaxis....always been that way in Civ IV as far as I know...certainly not a bug.
Oopsie then.

DaveShack

Nov 07, 2006, 01:09 AM

civ4ludo

Nov 07, 2006, 01:26 AM

A few cosmetic requests based on existing features in other mods

I came to this ViSa mod as an extention of playing Sevomod+Gir+UU on vanilla civ. It is to be hoped that once Sevo gets his WL-version, that and ViSa could be merged together.
Right now, I miss a few little things here and there. I'm sure you don't mind this listing:

1.- 5% increments/decrements (instead of 10%) for science/culture/gold rates
2.- F1 empire status - a more detailed screen
3.- F4 foreign relations - to see immediately what everybody has on offer (resources and techs) and what they don't want to exchange, how much money is available [ FFH2 has the same system as Sevo, basically ]

V. Soma

Nov 07, 2006, 01:47 AM

Blake has new version of his AI: 11-07

V. Soma

Nov 07, 2006, 01:49 AM

Er, I am still waiting for comments on on my post #897
But if silence remains - I will learn my lesson ;)

Axil

Nov 07, 2006, 02:10 AM

mrgenie

Nov 07, 2006, 05:19 AM

I've been having some trouble with the mod, and that's because when I went to the ATI website to update my driver the only thing I could find for doing an update was to install the Catalyst Control Center.

Can someone point me to how to get the most current Driver without actually installing the Catalyst as you have mentioned?

I've been searching all over their website and can't find any section that just has the drivers.
I have the Radeon X300

if you check the main website of the visamod, you'll find links in the troubleshoot section

A few cosmetic requests based on existing features in other mods

I came to this ViSa mod as an extention of playing Sevomod+Gir+UU on vanilla civ. It is to be hoped that once Sevo gets his WL-version, that and ViSa could be merged together.
Right now, I miss a few little things here and there. I'm sure you don't mind this listing:

1.- 5% increments/decrements (instead of 10%) for science/culture/gold rates
2.- F1 empire status - a more detailed screen
3.- F4 foreign relations - to see immediately what everybody has on offer (resources and techs) and what they don't want to exchange, how much money is available [ FFH2 has the same system as Sevo, basically ]

our mod is completely different from Sevos...and the parts we took from him(with his agreement) are reworked completely...but this issues you suggest are planned for visa already anyway

Alondin

Nov 07, 2006, 05:20 AM

V.Soma,
Well since no one else is responding, I have to say that as a compulsive Wonder builder I don't like having them cost incrementally more;
HOWEVER, when I sometimes get behind the AI's it would be nice to have a greater chance of building something. But overall making this change wouldn't make my priority list....

Alondin the Self Centered

PS - is someone ever going to fix the Bug Report?

V. Soma

Nov 07, 2006, 06:05 AM

Axil

Nov 07, 2006, 06:25 AM

I must admit I prefer the wonders as they are rather than incrementable cost.

BTW I'm still having a lot of fun with Blakes new AI as I'm seeing things that I've never seen the AI do before. Normally AI didn't used to go to war but in my war on 5-6 city island nations France and Poland had a religous war (France founded Judaism and Poland Hinduism) around 1200-1500. Finally the countries stalemated and declared peace but as soon as Poland developed Grenadiers there when for another holy war this time against my dominant Buddism ( i was the military weaker compared to France).This has essentially created a global conflict as I had defensive pacts with the two other main buddisn nations with Sycthian remaining neutral ( well backward) and France looking for boths sides to weaken each other before no doubt trying to steal territory) As the moment it's a war mainly at sea with both Poland's and my ships of the Line fighting for dominance in the dividing ocean after I managed to stop him establishing a foot hold on my continent (though I've just develoed the battleship ;) so he's in for a shock).

V. Soma

Nov 07, 2006, 06:36 AM

OK, I still would like to see more opinions, maybe I will open a poll :)

chipper_30

Nov 07, 2006, 06:59 AM

It seems my last post wasn't seen so as I said, I think this idea of increase in the cost of wonders is interesting. Even if it doesn't stop the best civs to get the wonders, it would slow them a bit, and would bring more balance into the game...
In any case it is always possible to make it an option and have a couple of games with it to feel the changes.

Btw, I have made some changes on VISA 1.50. They were for my personal use as I'm sure some would not agree with them, but if anyone's interested I could share them:
1) Allowed City Garrison(s) promotions to Melee Units
2) Changed Roman Roads to create roads on 3-City Radius instead of 2. I usually play with 3 City Radius so I've made this fixed, but I guess I should make this dynamically change with the option checked or not.
3) "Blind Research" option: Instead of focusing on one technology, your research points are split between the ones that are directly available to you. This does make the start quite slow, but as I once read on an Alpha Centauri forum, the "hey I'm going to invent the wheel now!" idea has bothered me for a while. Note that this is an option in the game start menu so doesn't have to be used.
I guess I could try to make it as in Alpha Centauri as an "ideology directed research". This was just a first attempt to mess around with the SDK. I can't assure that this is bug-free but so far I've fixed what I found (including an out-of-bound check I was surprised wasn't included from the start by Firaxis...)

seady

Nov 07, 2006, 07:04 AM

I'd love to see a later version of the roman roads that shotguns railways!

V. Soma

Nov 07, 2006, 07:14 AM

OK, here is the poll:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=192023

chipper_30

Nov 07, 2006, 07:17 AM

I'd love to see a later version of the roman roads that shotguns railways!
I am much more comfortable with C++ than with python, but as far as I can tell that shouldn't be hard to implement, almost a copy/paste in XML from Roman Roads with different tech requisite, and maybe make sure you have coal and iron (is that what is required to create railroad?).
The Python shouldn't be a problem, the annoying part in my opinion to create a new wonder would probably be the movie/pedia...

V. Soma

Nov 07, 2006, 07:31 AM

TAfirehawk

Nov 07, 2006, 09:18 AM

On the comment regarding GP types other than GG requiring tech to build their special building...

Yes, they do require a previous tech -- because you have to have the enabling tech before you can get that kind of GP. Example: to get a Great Priest, you must have the tech to create a Priest specialist, or build one of the GPP wonders. Same for the rest, to get the GP at all there is some tech needed. The GG was the only one which you can theoretically get without researching anything, since a slew of warrior battles are enough to generate the necessary XP.

I hadn't thought about it much yet....and I build Stonehenge so early that popping GP makes it feel too easy so that is why I thought about it after the GG change Firaxis made.

A few cosmetic requests based on existing features in other mods

I came to this ViSa mod as an extention of playing Sevomod+Gir+UU on vanilla civ. It is to be hoped that once Sevo gets his WL-version, that and ViSa could be merged together.
Right now, I miss a few little things here and there. I'm sure you don't mind this listing:

1.- 5% increments/decrements (instead of 10%) for science/culture/gold rates
2.- F1 empire status - a more detailed screen
3.- F4 foreign relations - to see immediately what everybody has on offer (resources and techs) and what they don't want to exchange, how much money is available [ FFH2 has the same system as Sevo, basically ]

Even though mrgenie commented and I agree...I still like to throw my 2 cents in ;)

#1 - I hate that too and might look at that for this weeks patch even :)
#2 - That is a top 3 on my wish list for ViSa :cool:
#3 - I don't play with that screen much as I just go talk to the 4-5 AI's I play against, but enhancing each advisor screen will certainly happen eventually.

Lastly, I doubt you see any merge of Sevo but I anticipate pulling some things from his Warlords version...nothing specific on the list yet though.

Blake has new version of his AI: 11-07

Sweet...I think ViSa should have his full AI, not just the part Firaxis included in v2.08

It seems my last post wasn't seen so as I said, I think this idea of increase in the cost of wonders is interesting. Even if it doesn't stop the best civs to get the wonders, it would slow them a bit, and would bring more balance into the game...
In any case it is always possible to make it an option and have a couple of games with it to feel the changes.

Btw, I have made some changes on VISA 1.50. They were for my personal use as I'm sure some would not agree with them, but if anyone's interested I could share them:
1) Allowed City Garrison(s) promotions to Melee Units
2) Changed Roman Roads to create roads on 3-City Radius instead of 2. I usually play with 3 City Radius so I've made this fixed, but I guess I should make this dynamically change with the option checked or not.
3) "Blind Research" option: Instead of focusing on one technology, your research points are split between the ones that are directly available to you. This does make the start quite slow, but as I once read on an Alpha Centauri forum, the "hey I'm going to invent the wheel now!" idea has bothered me for a while. Note that this is an option in the game start menu so doesn't have to be used.
I guess I could try to make it as in Alpha Centauri as an "ideology directed research". This was just a first attempt to mess around with the SDK. I can't assure that this is bug-free but so far I've fixed what I found (including an out-of-bound check I was surprised wasn't included from the start by Firaxis...)

We finally got the Roman Roads fixed in v2.10 :)

But I don't see us moving to a 'blind research' option any time soon. And we are ALWAYS looking for tweaks/changes that our players are making/requesting because we are making ViSa FOR EACH OF YOU :D

I'd love to see a later version of the roman roads that shotguns railways!

I have seen this request before and it is something we will do....just not a high priority right now.

OK :)

I would like to see opinion of the Visa-team, too... ;)

I am not really for changing the Wonder cost that much...and I hadn't commented before because I wanted to see other comments...if a ViSa Team member says NO, then others won't bother giving their opinion :)

V. Soma

Nov 07, 2006, 09:24 AM

I am not really for changing the Wonder cost that much...

My dear Hawk, what is "that much"?
It is an idea, a theoretical question - how do you relate that? :)

The "much" can be as little as almost next to nothing... ;)

chipper_30

Nov 07, 2006, 09:44 AM

My dear Hawk, what is "that much"?
It is an idea, a theoretical question - how do you relate that? :)

The "much" can be as little as almost next to nothing... ;)
I think "that much" referred to "not really for" not to "Wonder cost" ;-)

Axil

Nov 07, 2006, 09:54 AM

May have hit a bug - just built Manhattan but I don't have the option to build the SDI -- this could be to do a few things - one it's a bug in Blakes AI (using pre 7/11/06 to finish game - two it's a bug in Visa 2 or 3 it's to do with the fact I've alreay won a cultural victory141968

edit - On the thought about a railroads equivalent of roman roads - it's a hell of an imbalance unless - railroads don't get supplanted so having a railroad pop in every tile is game stomper - maybe a better option is to work it so you get a railroad connecting each city ( and maybe resource) owned by the builder on the continent. Than way you get the increase in mobility of units without the total unbalancing hammer boost.

Also on the wonder cost it's better to have it linked to the bonus it gives and when it the timeline it is (i.e. more hammers then to be available in modern age than medieval) rather than just get harder to built as you go further along the time line - why bother building Cure for cancer at a silly cost when the techs tend to give you similar bonuses anyway. Also if having built wonder in an earlier age increases the cost of building one to you in a later age why even bother with those wonders that go obsolete ( other than the culture bonus) as they will only inhibit you in the long run.

TAfirehawk

Nov 07, 2006, 10:17 AM

May have hit a bug - just built Manhattan but I don't have the option to build the SDI -- this could be to do a few things - one it's a bug in Blakes AI (using pre 7/11/06 to finish game - two it's a bug in Visa 2 or 3 it's to do with the fact I've alreay won a cultural victory141968

edit - On the thought about a railroads equivalent of roman roads - it's a hell of an imbalance unless - railroads don't get supplanted so having a railroad pop in every tile is game stomper - maybe a better option is to work it so you get a railroad connecting each city ( and maybe resource) owned by the builder on the continent. Than way you get the increase in mobility of units without the total unbalancing hammer boost.

Also on the wonder cost it's better to have it linked to the bonus it gives and when it the timeline it is (i.e. more hammers then to be available in modern age than medieval) rather than just get harder to built as you go further along the time line - why bother building Cure for cancer at a silly cost when the techs tend to give you similar bonuses anyway.

Well on SDI...it is a 'project' like Apollo Program so there might be something about having won the game holding you back....but seems to me it should be built any time Manhattan is no matter what else is going on in the game.

And I assume you have Satellites :)

Axil

Nov 07, 2006, 10:22 AM

And I assume you have Satellites

lol that's it I havedn't developed them yet - actually that's a great idea having SDI with satellites as you then have a period like the cold war until SDI makes nuke far less harmful.

Pilotis

Nov 07, 2006, 10:38 AM

The Swede

Nov 07, 2006, 10:59 AM

HitAnyKey

Nov 07, 2006, 11:20 AM

Actually, I did find a way to download the driver only on their site. Just didn't think to look at that spot. Where they have their Catalyst downloads, they have the Part 1 and Part 2 if you are downloading at "High Speed".

But if you look down at the "Low Speed (Dial-Up)" download section, the downloads are broken up into 3 parts, and one of those parts is the Driver Only. So I downloaded and installed that, and now have a driver dated from September 2006. So hopefully that's their most current driver.

My eyes just always glaze over anytime I see anything talking about dial-up downloads, so I didn't even fully read that section before. :D

TAfirehawk

Nov 07, 2006, 11:32 AM

lol that's it I havedn't developed them yet - actually that's a great idea having SDI with satellites as you then have a period like the cold war until SDI makes nuke far less harmful.

/bonk Axil ;)

My eyes just always glaze over anytime I see anything talking about dial-up downloads, so I didn't even fully read that section before. :D

I think most of us do that nowadays ;) Lets hope that works for you.

HitAnyKey

Nov 07, 2006, 11:43 AM

I think most of us do that nowadays ;) Lets hope that works for you.
I'll find out tonight when I continue playing my version 1.4 game again (nope, still havn't finished that one, and I want to finish it before I start a 2.0..well, by that time 2.10 version game. :)) tonight after I finish all my other MP turns.

maxbjr

Nov 07, 2006, 12:52 PM

I just reinstalled a clean version of ViSa 2.0 and everything works fine :).

The not being able to raze a city is annoying. Usually I keep captured cities but I would like the option to raze it if I needed to. Examples are; if I wanted to bring in a settler and "move" the city to a better location, or if I capture a city but know I can't hold it - I'd rather burn it down then leave it for the enemy to retake. But I guess it's more realistic now, after all the Germans in WWII tried to burn Warsaw to the ground not once but twice, and it's still standing.

TAfirehawk

Nov 07, 2006, 02:10 PM

Kaiser Franz

Nov 07, 2006, 03:23 PM

Is it possible to have a worker action created so they can construct the Zuez Canal and the Panama Canal ? I've noticed that with some AI Civ's placing their cities improperly and the conseqent inability to construct a city at a canal point, we find ourselves "going around the horn" so to speak when a canal would be a very useful thing to be able to build for our war fleet and transports to use.

Kaiser Franz

Nov 07, 2006, 03:25 PM

V. Soma

Nov 07, 2006, 04:06 PM

TAfirehawk

Nov 07, 2006, 04:54 PM

Oh - the point of the above question is because we can't seem to raze the captured city and can't construct a new one due to it's proximity to the one we can't raze -- left that out of my previous post.

As I said earlier....the raze city feature should be working again in the v2.10 patch Friday.

And strategic city placement is key to Civ...don't want to bypass that :scan:

TAfirehawk

Nov 07, 2006, 04:55 PM

mrgenie, here is the chart of the waiting times between turns
in a normal standard map Warlords game.
The chart stats at BC 2800, goes until end of tech tree

Time was btw 2.5 and 7.5 mp
but it is the curve which is important - similar to what was before! :)

Great work...as we can see, plain Warlords without ViSa is slow during this time.

This is exactly what I found when I played a plain Warlords game trying to reproduce the MAF...but I didn't record wait times :)

jgbaxter

Nov 07, 2006, 06:47 PM

I just wanted to add my thanks for this mod, it's one of my favorites, especially for it's options. :)

I did want to add a couple notes from playing it so far;

#1 ... Gov Funded H.C.

-There is no way that this should cause the same hassles as emancipation, there's quite a difference from having higher taxes and state paid health care compared to slavery. Living in Canada, which has Gov Funded H.C., I can say that while I do very much like it, it is very expensive and certainly not something to die for. If you really, really, want to have angry citizens for not having this while others do (and I think it's a really bad idea and you should try a different angle along gold income / higher taxes with even greater then the +2 Health), then it seriously needs to have a lesser effect (a cap if you will) and/or slower to get people angry.

#2 Food Production

-Too high, way to high.

I've really liked playing the mod and can't wait for future enhancements. :D

TAfirehawk

Nov 07, 2006, 08:13 PM

Pilotis

Nov 07, 2006, 10:18 PM

jgbaxter

Nov 07, 2006, 10:51 PM

#2 - what are you referring to specifically?

Well, I didn't post much detail in that regard as I haven't quite made up my mind on what areas could be changed for the better. I will say that overall compared to the core game as well as other mods I've played, the level of food is insanely high (latest game it's 1200ad and I have one (of several) cities hovering at 30 pop and I constantly am whipping them down).

I realize with the extra resource types that there are more chances for high food growth, there are some various instances that I could point too...

A) Barley

-As many that have checked out this resource probably realize, many other mods ignore different grains as a resource as they have been traditionally lumped together as grain/wheat, which is completely fine. I personally like the option for more resources (I'm an 'optionaholic' hehe), so given that, I thought to myself why does barley give so much food, it shouldn't, it's not really a staple like wheat would be.

Globally, it is the most important human food grain and ranks second in total production as a cereal crop behind maize; the third being rice.[2] Wheat grain is a staple food used to make flour for leavened, flat and steamed breads; cookies, cakes, pasta, noodles and couscous;[3] and for fermentation to make beer,[4] alcohol, vodka[5] or biofuel[6].

SOURCE (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat)

Wheat- 626 million metric ton 2005 production
Barley- 138 million metric ton 2005 production

We know that barley is an important food crop, however current production (22% over that of wheat) show's that it's a distant second over wheat, historically the further back you go the more pronounced that difference is seen, for that matter, wheat has been cultivated for thousands of years prior to barley. Barley is much more of a difficult crop to grow and harvest, it's become less of a food resource as time as gone on as well.

Currently we have;

Wheat +1 Food / +2 Food & +1 Health w/farm
Barley +2 Food / +2 Food & +1 Health w/farm

So first thing we see is that barley gives more food then wheat by +1, otherwise it is the same as wheat.

Barely is much less a food staple then wheat.

As a side, barley also is not as beneficial to peoples health as wheat (yet gives the same benefit).

One handy thing is that there's the Improved Farming Tech, this can come in handy. ;)

Suggestions to fix barley;

Option 1
- Barley +1 Food / +1 Food & +½ Health w/farm

Option 2 (Barley revealed with agriculture can't be used until Improved Farming Tech)
- Barley +1 Food / +1 Food & +½ Health w/farm

I'd really recommend reducing wheat bonus health to +½ health as well, or remove any health bonus from barley (my preference).

Aii) Brewery/Distilery

+1 food extra? For booze? I think not. These are money generaters not food producers. the +25% food bonus for them with natural gas is even more out of whack. I'd remove the food bonus completely, change it to +5%/+10% cash bonus with an additional +5%+10% bonus to each with natural gas (or no bonus with natural gas).

B) Ranch

It's nice, +1 Health and +5% with cow/deer/pig/sheep. However it's totally superflous, the actual resources themselves that are improved are ranches in effect, it really should be removed.

A) Potatoes

The fourth largest food crop (and mostly since the middle ages); 322 million metric tons 2005 production.

Wheat +1 Food / +2 Food & +1 Health w/farm
Barley +2 Food / +2 Food & +1 Health w/farm
Potatoes +1 Food / +3 Food & +1 Health w/farm

So basically we're looking at something that is currently as effective as barely (almost, the fact you have to get the farm to be able to equalize the resources is relatively minor, except for the fact that this can't happen until Improved Farming).

As explained above in reference to barley, wheat beats barley which beat potatoes.

At best it would be more accurate to look at potatoes to be on a level a tad worse then barley.

Perhaps on the order of;

Potatoes +0 Food / +2 Food & +0 Health w/farm
Potatoes +0 Food / +2 Food & +½ Health w/farm
Potatoes +1 Food / +1 Food & +0 Health w/farm
Potatoes +1 Food / +1 Food & +½ Health w/farm

Now while the Irish may be able to live on taters (and I do love my taters), their nutritional value isn't nearly as high as wheat or corn for example.

I'd prefer something like; Potatoes +0 Food / +2 Food & +0 Health w/farm

Hopefully no one takes offence to my resource comments. :)

I'll post more on other resources later. :)

Axil

Nov 08, 2006, 12:12 AM

Funnily enough I never have cities anywhere near 30 pop my max in usually about 20. I was actually think about asking to increase the food level but evidently it seems if you play a particular way you can get high population whereas if you play the way I do you don't. I think having large populations - late-mid to end game is fairly accurate when you consider the human population growth explosion over the last 200 years. I agree with flipping the bonuses of wheat and barley based on acrage but the really reason why barley is grown more than than wheat is the simple fact of growing conditions.

Brewery - actually if you look back in time you'll find beer was a staple part of the diet beause beer in those day was brewed differently and retained far more of the nuteriments than todays vat brewed and watered down rubbish ( especially american ;) )

Ranch - Meat is farmed as it's energy/kg way above cereals - however the production costs tend to be greater - maybe ranch could be change to give a + food bonus to pastures in the city radius and have a maintenence cost to reflect the cost.

and Finally potatoes - again it's more the growing conditions that creates the amounts than are grown

Other than minor changes i'm pretty happy with the food system in visa as it reflects what happened in history and imho what happens in agricultural production. ( a field I working in , agrochemicals).

I do have one other suggestion though with regards the ranch as it is at the moment which is to move it to tech chemistry and rename it as Fertiliser Plant as the big food increase and hence population increase can about due to the increased development of artifical fertilizers and pesticides following the invention of the Haber process for nitrogen production.

V. Soma

Nov 08, 2006, 12:52 AM

About the slowing down of Civ in between turns

As it could be seen in the chart some posts before,
in the plain Warlords game the waiting time went up
from the aerly 1-2 secs to ca. 5
THEN up to 7-8 and THEN back to 5

What is this strange "heap" of about 2 secs?
It is end of Industrial age and early Modern age...

My bet is: workers

civ4ludo

Nov 08, 2006, 04:18 AM

I'd love to see a later version of the roman roads that shotguns railways!

It could be called "The Transiberian Railway" or "The Orient Express".

But what should it do exactly?
a.- Build rails over your existing roads throughout the empire? (which would be different from what RRoads does)
Or:
b.- build rails connecting every corner of the empire? (more in line with RR, but probably too much and unreal, in a way, building rails where there are not even roads).

I'd prefer a.-

Axil

Nov 08, 2006, 05:03 AM

V. Soma - looks like you've come to same conclusion i have I'm also pretty sure it's the worker AI

Seady's idea's for the railroad - option a - sounds pretty good to me current roads get replaced , to weaken the impact the city link option is also an option. and transsiberian's a great name for it or the west-east coast linkage of USA as both were major engineering feats (prefer the Siberian as already 2 many American wonders imho)

Also for a modern age notra dame equivalent how about the sidney opera house

bergrar

Nov 08, 2006, 05:03 AM

hi
i am playing your mod, and is really well done, i will like to have some advices :)
the best size for a map is standard? the best speed is normal?
How many civs will appear in a standard map? i played a good game till 1500 in a large map but after becomes slow, so i started back with a normal map.
what is the best difficult level for mod prince?
sorry to bother with all these questions, but i like to play well a good mod like this :)
i will save some more questions when i will become more skilled with this mod:)
ciao

seady

Nov 08, 2006, 05:07 AM

Fun fact of the day: Ateas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ateas), leader of the Scythians, died fighting Phillip of Macedon at the age of 90! :old:

seady

Nov 08, 2006, 05:12 AM

It could be called "The Transiberian Railway" or "The Orient Express".

But what should it do exactly?
a.- Build rails over your existing roads throughout the empire? (which would be different from what RRoads does)
Or:
b.- build rails connecting every corner of the empire? (more in line with RR, but probably too much and unreal, in a way, building rails where there are not even roads).

I'd prefer a.-

a) sounds fair: would not be too overwhelming (presumably script for this might take a while, on the plus side a wonder movie of trains must be relatively easy to make

My mum went on a train from china to england. What a bizarre concept.

"Gamma World" used to use vacuum tubes to have trains traveling incredibly fast underground, but barring force fields, i don't know how you could maintain the airlock. The air wants in!

I miss my Death Machines.

TAfirehawk

Nov 08, 2006, 06:15 AM

Well, I didn't post much detail in that regard as I haven't quite made up my mind on what areas could be changed for the better. I will say that overall compared to the core game as well as other mods I've played, the level of food is insanely high (latest game it's 1200ad and I have one (of several) cities hovering at 30 pop and I constantly am whipping them down).

I realize with the extra resource types that there are more chances for high food growth, there are some various instances that I could point too...

Sorry but we won't be changing those things...no offense taken :)

If you have city population issues then it is your city control that is at issue, not ViSa....you have the option to slow city growth to fit your play style and OPTIONS are what ViSa is all about so many people can enjoy the game with many different play styles.

hi
i am playing your mod, and is really well done, i will like to have some advices :)
the best size for a map is standard? the best speed is normal?
How many civs will appear in a standard map? i played a good game till 1500 in a large map but after becomes slow, so i started back with a normal map.
what is the best difficult level for mod prince?
sorry to bother with all these questions, but i like to play well a good mod like this :)
i will save some more questions when i will become more skilled with this mod:)
ciao

We only suggest playing maps Large or smaller to avoid the MAF....as listed in the first post. So other than that, whatever you want :)

It could be called "The Transiberian Railway" or "The Orient Express".

But what should it do exactly?
a.- Build rails over your existing roads throughout the empire? (which would be different from what RRoads does)
Or:
b.- build rails connecting every corner of the empire? (more in line with RR, but probably too much and unreal, in a way, building rails where there are not even roads).

I'd prefer a.-

It sure can't be like Roman Roads as that would be unbalancing....not sure we can have it balanced by just going over existing roads either. I like the concept of a Wonder to put down railroads but balance is the issue.

I do have one other suggestion though with regards the ranch as it is at the moment which is to move it to tech chemistry and rename it as Fertiliser Plant as the big food increase and hence population increase can about due to the increased development of artifical fertilizers and pesticides following the invention of the Haber process for nitrogen production.

I have never liked where the Ranch is...it needs a change :)

GRRRReat suggestion !! Could I also add: tunnels or passes through mountainous regions as 'great engineering feats' where absolutely vital....

That is in the Genetic Era and will be in ViSa in two weeks or so.

lex_kravetski

Nov 08, 2006, 06:34 AM

Is it real to implement this feature in VISA mod? I'd like to play large map game with 30 or 40 civs.

TAfirehawk

Nov 08, 2006, 06:37 AM

Is it real to implement this feature in VISA mod? I'd like to play large map game with 30 or 40 civs.

My guess is that the MAF would kill your game before you hit 50% complete, but maybe not....

seady

Nov 08, 2006, 06:53 AM

I miss my Death Machines.

And the killer mutant chickens! Hens with Attitude. Could be a good name for a rock band.

Kaiser Franz

Nov 08, 2006, 07:40 AM

TAfirehawk

Nov 08, 2006, 08:00 AM

V. Soma

Nov 08, 2006, 08:02 AM

AlexTheTall

Nov 08, 2006, 08:29 AM

Would you think it would be possible to make the game finish later then 2050 because whit all the news tech / civics / opitions / upgrades, we might don't have enough times to explore everything...?

Kaiser Franz

Nov 08, 2006, 08:35 AM

Oh well -- when all else fails - resort to cheating :)

TAfirehawk

Nov 08, 2006, 08:39 AM

Would you think it would be possible to make the game finish later then 2050 because whit all the news tech / civics / opitions / upgrades, we might don't have enough times to explore everything...?

Yup...that will be with the Genetic Era in a few weeks :cool:

Pilotis

Nov 08, 2006, 10:52 AM

Just want to say thanks and good work with the city radius problem. You appear to have sorted (at least my) ctd. Haven't followed the whole thread but much Ta.

P.

Great mod !!!!

delez

Nov 08, 2006, 11:56 AM

Sorry but i got a problem (my english, for example...)
I've tried to install visa mod on my pc but don't works. The problem is: when start the mod, i don't see all the "titles" in the menu; for more, when i try to choose a civ, there are only numbers but nothing appears (names of civ or characters...).
Warlords is updated to 2.08 version and is in italian language.
With civ 4 updated to 1.61 I have installed sevo mod or total realism and works!
Some suggestions?

Thanks a lot!:)

TAfirehawk

Nov 08, 2006, 12:05 PM

rapiduser

Nov 08, 2006, 12:23 PM

delez

Nov 08, 2006, 03:16 PM

ok, i'll try to reinstall in english. Thanks.:rolleyes:

CivFanCCS

Nov 08, 2006, 03:46 PM

Ok, I have been playing a game of Visa on a large map with 15 civs (World map that i made) Visa goes fine until about turn 240 - 290 somewhere in that span the game slows down. Not lag, but delay in code of some sort. The turn indicator of waiting (icon that spins) goes until what would seem like a normal turn then it clicks or hides for a sec. (real quick) then keeps spinning. This extra spining (resulting in sometimes 20+ sec ) according to cpu checks doesnt do much if anything. Weird thing is I pop a great artist or merchant cant remember and the following turn the turns are quick for a while. Then it happened again and I stoped. From my experience with development, it seems like a large loop looking for 1 value down a large list of code ifs. ( not nested or recursive) because cpu would go up. Possibly might be at end of everyones turn the way cpu was acting. No idea, but something to look into, shouldnt be happening because it was slow then i poped that gp and it got fast so... gl

TAfirehawk

Nov 08, 2006, 04:07 PM

seady

Nov 08, 2006, 04:08 PM

OK - I know city placement is vital to the civ strategy -- someone needs to tell the AI as well -- it seems a shame to have to raze Cairo in year 1840 just because the AI placed Cairo two plots to the west of where it should have been -- same applies for Panama City and Istanbul. I allways play with a Real Earth Map -- I suppose the only alternative, if you don't want to make a worker action to build a canal, is to design a map with historical civilization starting points rather than random generation.

I love playing with earth maps too but my understanding is the supplied one doesn't automatically generate the visa resources? Or do you have a version with them?

I'd love to play with a huge earth map but my system canna take the strain! I like the idea of clustering vital resources so that civs have to trade or fight for them... oil in the middle east, rubber south america, corn north america, potato ummm central america? or just lots of ruins??? Olives around greece, pearls off japan and so on.

I don't know what to put in australia ... are nuclear waste dumps a resource? Certainly the current government seems to think so.

I'd also like to have post oil technologies that upgrade the function of windmills and allow offshore windfarms, and also represent little things like ethanol/petrol cars, hybrid cars, solar heating and insulation, increased use of bikes in urban areas and so on, so that a realistic near future scenario can be played. Unfortunately i can't figure out what will happen to tanks and aircraft... maybe the blimp will make a come back!

And eventually unrealistic technologies... nuclear fusion tanks, force fields, transmats, antigravity, and fair and free elections...

VeteranLurker

Nov 08, 2006, 06:47 PM

OK, so I'm very much enjoying playing your ViSa mod (1.20, but not with the 2.0 patch), rolling along near the tech lead and eating up quarrelsome neighbors at the Noble level. It's the early 1900s and I'm dispatching the Maya with a combined air/ground force containing fighters/sturmovik(sp?)/A10s/strike-fighters (I think I tried them all). Eventually Pacal figures out to counter my airforce... with biplanes. And it works, and works, and works. Sure, some should get lucky, but this was beyond luck (I am reminded of the spearman-defeats-tank from days of yore). Biplanes repeatedly shot down my fighters. Blimps somehow avoided my fighter CAP. Time marches on... but those pesky biplanes somehow even shoot down my jet fighters and my bombers. I'm at peace now, or I wonder how my stealth bombers would fare?

You've done a fabulous job, but some kind of rebalancing of the air units appears to be in order. It's great that the early planes have success against ground troops (until the advent of SAMs). But I don't care what kind of promotions a biplane ends up with, it ain't gonna shoot down more modern aircraft. And why does one biplane covering a city shoot down more than one attacking unit per turn (or maybe their range is too large and they are coming in from other places I cannot see)? I cannot seem to even overwelm those pesky biplanes with superior numbers.

Similarly, why can't my air units somehow attack the biplanes themselves to get rid of them? I can bomb the city defenses (and get shot down). I can strafe the troops (and get shot down). But I cannot ever choose to engage the enemy aircraft directly? I realize that may be beyond the call of this (or any) mod, but still it would be a nice feature.

TAfirehawk

Nov 08, 2006, 08:18 PM

dawe1313

Nov 09, 2006, 01:33 AM

...(I think I tried them all). Eventually Pacal figures out to counter my airforce... with biplanes. And it works, and works, and works. Sure, some should get lucky, but this was beyond luck (I am reminded of the spearman-defeats-tank from days of yore). Biplanes repeatedly shot down my fighters. Blimps somehow avoided my fighter CAP. Time marches on... but those pesky biplanes somehow even shoot down my jet fighters and my bombers. I'm at peace now, or I wonder how my stealth bombers would fare?

i made similar comments earlier (read here). i lost F-117's, F-35's, stealth bombers, & Star defense satellites to those pesky bi-planes.

@VISA Team - in the visapedia, there is a unit category for "Early Aircraft", but there is nothing under it. shouldn't bi-planes & blimps be listed there instead of "Airplanes"? (sidenote: Glouchester Gladiator (WWII prop plane) is classified as "Jetplane"?)

Similarly, why can't my air units somehow attack the biplanes themselves to get rid of them? I can bomb the city defenses (and get shot down). I can strafe the troops (and get shot down). But I cannot ever choose to engage the enemy aircraft directly? I realize that may be beyond the call of this (or any) mod, but still it would be a nice feature.

there is "air bomb" mode (bomb city defenses/tiles) & "air strike" mode (bomb land/naval targets). is it possible to make an "air-to-air" mode (only attacks other aircraft)?

some other things: ( clean install of 2.0_full )
Promotion issue: Unable to get Heal III via promotion with XP
there are 2 Heal II's
Heal I -> Heal II(a) <has additional defensive bonuses>
Heal III requires Heal II(b) <no defensive bonuses listed> (which cannot be gotten, ASFAIK)
both Heal II's show in pedia
hydra MLRS - replaced by/upgraded to modern armor
artillery - can't upgrade to howizter per visapedia
City Guard Building - unable to build due to prereq walls becoming obsolete/unbuildable
Suggestions:
don't make walls obsolete/unbuildable (i think that was a Firaxis thing)
remove city walls prereq from city guard (only as a last resort)
NEW Building (Police Force, Nat'l Guard armory, etc)
replaces city guard building (obsoleted by same tech as city walls)
does the same thing as city guard, but has no prereq (other than tech)
something for the "Upgradeable Buildings" mod?
Great Doctors - increase occurrence (i've only seen two spawn in a game of over 1200 turns)
Suggestions:
enable doctor specialists
make more techs give great doctor for first to discover
Great Doctor/Statesman splash screens still showing all pink
bog down/hung app - happened several times after sound played for GP spawn, but no GP splash screen. i had to force quit through task manager (WL showed "not responding", no CPU usage) and even hard power down my machine a couple of times (couldn't ALT-TAB out) and reload from last autosave. most times it would continue on past, but a couple of times it took 2-3 tries to get past

Some Questions about the City Guard Building:
What determines what unit city guard creates?
why do some produce sam infantry and some machine gun after sam infantry becomes available?
what are all the units that city guard spawns and the chances of doing so?
how do computer civs wind up with many (8-10) city guard units in one city?
why the lack of documentation in the pedia?
are you tired of me asking questions yet? ;)

that's all for now

dawe

mrgenie

Nov 09, 2006, 05:06 AM

@VISA Team - in the visapedia, there is a unit category for "Early Aircraft", but there is nothing under it. shouldn't bi-planes & blimps be listed there instead of "Airplanes"? (sidenote: Glouchester Gladiator (WWII prop plane) is classified as "Jetplane"?)
that is an python issue i guess, so I'll look for that, but won't be in the next patch, sorry

some other things: ( clean install of 2.0_full )
artillery - can't upgrade to howizter per visapedia
City Guard Building - unable to build due to prereq walls becoming obsolete/unbuildable
definatly python issues, will look at them, but not in next patch either, sorry

[list] Suggestions:
[list=a] don't make walls obsolete/unbuildable (i think that was a Firaxis thing)
remove city walls prereq from city guard (only as a last resort)
the obs is a thing for firehawk, have to discuss it with him, the prereq for city guard is inside the python, I'll check to move this to xml so it's not my problem anymore but firehawks :P

NEW Building (Police Force, Nat'l Guard armory, etc)
[list] replaces city guard building (obsoleted by same tech as city walls)
does the same thing as city guard, but has no prereq (other than tech)
good idea! :) will see to make it more dynamically, however, not in next patch, since im almost ready with that and will test it in a few if all the fixes are there, won't take up these bugs untill next patch release

Great Doctor/Statesman splash screens still showing all pink
bog down/hung app - happened several times after sound played for GP spawn, but no GP splash screen. i had to force quit through task manager (WL showed "not responding", no CPU usage) and even hard power down my machine a couple of times (couldn't ALT-TAB out) and reload from last autosave. most times it would continue on past, but a couple of times it took 2-3 tries to get past
now that's a wierd one, they show up right on my computer..could you check your xmls logs and cut out the parts that tell you about missing art tags?

Some Questions about the City Guard Building:
[list] What determines what unit city guard creates?
python routine, why?

why do some produce sam infantry and some machine gun after sam infantry becomes available?
there are 2different routines, you could get even both at the same turn, though unlikely...it's all about chances

what are all the units that city guard spawns and the chances of doing so?
I guess we have to add an pedia entry :)

how do computer civs wind up with many (8-10) city guard units in one city?
they are MOVEABLE! :) you can walk with them...we disabled the "stuck in 1 city option" because in reallife you would move and focus your forces on the good spots also..no commander(except adolf hitler) is so stupid to spread his armies over wide areas

why the lack of documentation in the pedia?
we are in need of info about this, if noone reports what you are missing there, we cannot enter it :) now we know since you told us :)

are you tired of me asking questions yet? ;)
not exactly, i wish everyone would make a huge list of tweaks, suggestions, missing entries etc etc..

that's all for now
That's all?? jesus, is it so hard to find issues? :) hehehe

Pilotis

Nov 09, 2006, 06:56 AM

bergrar

Nov 09, 2006, 07:23 AM

sorry to bother again but i need to understand what i am doing wrong.
i have a comp pentium D 3.6 dual with 8giga ram and 2 geforce 6600 with 512 mega in sly control,is a good game comp at my advice, but when i play visa mod and i will be around 15 century the game begins to slow a lot and when i arrive 1700 1800 i have to wait more then a minute for a turn sometime even 2 or 3 min .
that's make me really sad becouse i never will see the xx century with this mod in my comp :)
i am using a large map that is not so big because the comp generates a lot of water but all becomes so slow, i removed antiliasing and use medium quality for graphic and i don't select any option to improve it.
I had the same problem with some other mods, but many run fine without no waiting timee ven with huge maps and 24 civs in xx century.
I will like to understand why all become so slow, is becouse the mod works with a corrected python code? or because there are too many xml corrected?
A last question for viewers any1 has a visa earth map to share please, or there is something that i could correct with pspad with not 30 days of work :)?
thx for any hint or advice

TAfirehawk

Nov 09, 2006, 07:39 AM

Bugs ?

1. Conquered cities do not prompt for a build once they return to order

2. Unit stack mouseover list on left of screen does not indicate (with row of dots ......) when the list is incomplete EDIT: Aaah! No. Now I see the brackets on that last item. Very neat ! Forget number 2.

Still excellent mod. Even better mod !

#1 one should be fixed with this patch fixing the raze option popup...hopefully :)

#2...You snuck in that edit as I clicked the button :lol:

Balerion

Nov 09, 2006, 07:40 AM

I did not find anything on this thread about the Dale's Combat Mod. Having played with that before, I just want to ask: is this fully implemented in Visa as it is arguable on first post? Or only partially?
I'm not at home so I can't verify it now but I remeber that in the main menu of the custom game there were not all 4 checks of that mod (Ranged Bomb, Stack Attack, MAD and Missiles). What does that mean? Not everything of Dale's it's been used in Visa?
Another: when using DCM I used to see around the siege units the squares where that unit was able to bombard. Not now. Not essential but useful.

Sorry if all these questions were already been addressed.
P.S.: just a little tweak: when I built Roman Road wonder, I received 2 "RomEn Fast Workers". Shouldn't they be "RomAn Fast Workers"?

Tnx
Bal.

V. Soma

Nov 09, 2006, 07:50 AM

bug report:

We tried to play multi of ViSa 2.0 with Blake AI on - and the result is CTD :(

V. Soma

Nov 09, 2006, 07:51 AM

Yeah: Roman

also: Scotland - not 2 "t"s! :)

TAfirehawk

Nov 09, 2006, 07:54 AM

i made similar comments earlier (read here). i lost F-117's, F-35's, stealth bombers, & Star defense satellites to those pesky bi-planes.

@VISA Team - in the visapedia, there is a unit category for "Early Aircraft", but there is nothing under it. shouldn't bi-planes & blimps be listed there instead of "Airplanes"? (sidenote: Glouchester Gladiator (WWII prop plane) is classified as "Jetplane"?)

there is "air bomb" mode (bomb city defenses/tiles) & "air strike" mode (bomb land/naval targets). is it possible to make an "air-to-air" mode (only attacks other aircraft)?

some other things: ( clean install of 2.0_full )
Promotion issue: Unable to get Heal III via promotion with XP
there are 2 Heal II's
Heal I -> Heal II(a) <has additional defensive bonuses>
Heal III requires Heal II(b) <no defensive bonuses listed> (which cannot be gotten, ASFAIK)
both Heal II's show in pedia
hydra MLRS - replaced by/upgraded to modern armor
artillery - can't upgrade to howizter per visapedia
City Guard Building - unable to build due to prereq walls becoming obsolete/unbuildable
Suggestions:
don't make walls obsolete/unbuildable (i think that was a Firaxis thing)
remove city walls prereq from city guard (only as a last resort)
NEW Building (Police Force, Nat'l Guard armory, etc)
replaces city guard building (obsoleted by same tech as city walls)
does the same thing as city guard, but has no prereq (other than tech)
something for the "Upgradeable Buildings" mod?
Great Doctors - increase occurrence (i've only seen two spawn in a game of over 1200 turns)
Suggestions:
enable doctor specialists
make more techs give great doctor for first to discover
Great Doctor/Statesman splash screens still showing all pink
bog down/hung app - happened several times after sound played for GP spawn, but no GP splash screen. i had to force quit through task manager (WL showed "not responding", no CPU usage) and even hard power down my machine a couple of times (couldn't ALT-TAB out) and reload from last autosave. most times it would continue on past, but a couple of times it took 2-3 tries to get past

Some Questions about the City Guard Building:
What determines what unit city guard creates?
why do some produce sam infantry and some machine gun after sam infantry becomes available?
what are all the units that city guard spawns and the chances of doing so?
how do computer civs wind up with many (8-10) city guard units in one city?
why the lack of documentation in the pedia?
are you tired of me asking questions yet? ;)

that's all for now

dawe

As I posted earlier, keldath I believe as looked into the odd battle outcomes of planes.

I was sure I removed the other Heal 2 promotion when I merged the Great Doctor Mod by thelopez....I will double check it.

On the walls going obsolete...build earlier :)

I added TONS of doctor points to help them spawn earlier, but they are a late game unit so the jury is still out on them. I have only had one so if you got 2 in a game then it is working :)

GP splash screen has been tweaked and so far nobody has problems...will have to investigate.

Lack of documentation in the ViSapedia is due to adding 300+ things and not being concerned about spending a 100 hours tweaking the test :)

TAfirehawk

Nov 09, 2006, 07:56 AM

bug report:

We tried to play multi of ViSa 2.0 with Blake AI on - and the result is CTD :(

Not a surprise since it duplicates the SDK/DLL :lol:

Not sure how Axil got it to work...

TAfirehawk

Nov 09, 2006, 07:58 AM

TAfirehawk

Nov 09, 2006, 08:00 AM

bergrar

Nov 09, 2006, 08:03 AM

your answers means that you wait 3,5 min for a turn Takefire in last ages?

TAfirehawk

Nov 09, 2006, 08:06 AM

your answers means that you wait 3,5 min for a turn Takefire in last ages?

Never heard waits past 1 minute...and I got that in PLAIN Warlords with huge map and 18 civs.

BTW, what version of OS you running to address 8GB RAM?

EDIT
Wait times like that are usually bad INI settings, go to the troubleshooting section of the ViSa website.

bergrar

Nov 09, 2006, 08:23 AM

Never heard waits past 1 minute...and I got that in PLAIN Warlords with huge map and 18 civs.
i don't talk about plain warlords because it runs softly and fast even with 24 civs in a huge map, i am talking about visa version :)

BTW, what version of OS you running to address 8GB RAM?
hehe i was running a benchmark before because when i start the comp i read 8g but my xp pro reads only 4 giga, perhaps i have to wait vista to see them all :)

Wait times like that are usually bad INI settings, go to the troubleshooting section of the ViSa website.
ok i will check my INI settings and restart the game with your suggestions INI,
but i wonder why the maf is so big with your mod.?
I think that when we change python the game becomes a little more slow, but is only a thought.
Thx anyway for your fast answers, and my questions are not against the mod are only to play it better with my comp :)

TAfirehawk

Nov 09, 2006, 08:27 AM

i don't talk about plain warlords because it runs softly and fast even with 24 civs in a huge map, i am talking about visa version :)

hehe i was running a benchmark before because when i start the comp i read 8g but my xp pro reads only 4 giga, perhaps i have to wait vista to see them all :)

ok i will check my INI settings and restart the game with your suggestions INI,
but i wonder why the maf is so big with your mod.?
I think that when we change python the game becomes a little more slow, but is only a thought.
Thx anyway for your fast answers, and my questions are not against the mod are only to play it better with my comp :)

I don't play plain Warlords except to test...the point is (Soma has posted the hard data) that Civ has a slowdown. And like the MAF that Civ has, the largest mod out there shows the most bugs in the Firaxian code :)

bergrar

Nov 09, 2006, 08:31 AM

I don't play plain Warlords except to test...the point is (Soma has posted the hard data) that Civ has a slowdown. And like the MAF that Civ has, the largest mod out there shows the most bugs in the Firaxian code :)
i will talk u more after i will restart a game and i will arriv in 19century, with your suggestions and your new INI.

for others viewers only:) i am looking for a earth map that could work with visa mod or i could modify to work with it without a big work.
thx

seady

Nov 09, 2006, 08:41 AM

i will talk u more after i will restart a game and i will arriv in 19century, with your suggestions and your new INI.

for others viewers only:) i am looking for a earth map that could work with visa mod or i could modify to work with it without a big work.
thx

There seems to be an answer if we can interest strategyonly (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=4741612#post4741612) in making one?

bergrar

Nov 09, 2006, 08:57 AM

There seems to be an answer if we can interest strategyonly (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=4741612#post4741612) in making one?
Thx Seady i asked him

V. Soma

Nov 09, 2006, 09:34 AM

what is MAF? :crazyeye:

TAfirehawk

Nov 09, 2006, 09:46 AM

what is MAF? :crazyeye:

Memory Allocation Fault....as we have detailed in about a 100 posts here :mischief:

Kaiser Franz

Nov 09, 2006, 09:55 AM

Can we increase the range of "bombardment" Artillery as well as Battleships? Realistically, the idea for those units is to hang back and pulverize the oposition - either from off shore or behind the front lines - granted, protection would be required for the artillery so no one sneaks in from the back side and wipes them out. It's very frustrating for my artillery to get pounded by a catapult while I am conducting an assault -- I prefer to sit back and pound the little devils into submission :)

Axil

Nov 09, 2006, 10:02 AM

On the Blake AI issue I thiink it only works in Single player not multiple - I've had absolutely no problem with it ( put it in custom assets - no in mod folder) on single player and am really enjoying the challenge but I haven't tried multiplayer with it.

Win XP and every other 32 bit O/S can only address a max of 4Gb due to memory address availability - have to go 64 bit to get about that (i.e. Vista or Win Xp x64)

Don't the artillery have 2 range bombardment - as do battleships and destroyers as they do in my game where as lower tech artillery have one.

HellBoyz77

Nov 09, 2006, 10:05 AM

Well, i'm just playing my first game with visa 2.0 without a ctd.

I noticed a strange thing about technology developing: biplane in 1500 ad! Also for other gunpowered unit, they became the main part of any army around 1200 ... too fast i think.

I'm playing a Standard Map at Prince level, FX Endurance, with latest version of Blake AI.

Regarding the wait between turn, it range from a minimum of 20 secs to a minute/two until now. I've a Athlon Xp 2600+, 1GB ram dual ddr.

Axil

Nov 09, 2006, 10:13 AM

Great Doctor/Statesman splash screens still showing all pink bog down/hung app - happened several times after sound played for GP spawn, but no GP splash screen. i had to force quit through task manager (WL showed "not responding", no CPU usage) and even hard power down my machine a couple of times (couldn't ALT-TAB out) and reload from last autosave. most times it would continue on past, but a couple of times it took 2-3 tries to get past

I also get that - it may be due to the install as i installed the patch rather than tdoing the full download again or maybe it's the instalation directoty mine's install in non standard directory on G:

the technology developing fast is I think to do with the FX endurance setting . I get exactly the same when I play endurance but they tend to get developed about the right time frame when playing standard maybe the lightbulb cost of techs is not increased enough in endurance ( or of course cities are developing too many lightbulbs per turn.)