Requests for new components (and features) [Archive]

Roland Johansen

Sep 12, 2007, 05:14 PM

Here is another request which might be outside of the concept of this mod.

In BTS, Firaxis decided to add a list of bonuses when you hold the mouse over a trade route. This should make it possible to see how the value of a trade route is determined. However, the calculation often doesn't make sense.

It consists of a base trade route yield plus bonuses. The base trade route yield is (almost) always 1 or 2 and the bonuses can vary depending on whether you're trading with a foreign city or not and whether the city is oversees or not and whether you have a harbour or custom house or no such building.

The reason that the calculation often doesn't make sense is because the base trade route output is dependent on the distance and size of the other city and the value is often a number between 1 and 2. The ingame display rounds it to 1 or 2 which results in strange math.

You can take a look at this bug report (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=234397) for more detailed information.

Now, I know this mod isn't about bug fixing and maybe Firaxis will fix it themselves in the upcoming patch (supposedly arriving within one-two weeks). But on the other hand, you did add a calculation for the commerce production to the city screen and this is similar. However you will decide about this, it's probably best to wait and see what Firaxis does in its upcoming patch.

There is a War Academy article about the way trade route revenues are calculated. It was written before BTS arrived on the market and is thus based on Warlords code, but maybe it can still be useful for you guys when you wish to change this. The article is called Trade Routes (http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/trade_routes.php). If the article is correct, then the way the city displays the trade route revenue calculation is incorrect because some bonuses seem to be multiplicative and not additive like the ingame breakdown of trade route revenue suggests.

EmperorFool

Sep 12, 2007, 09:21 PM

alerum68

Sep 13, 2007, 01:38 AM

More and more things I want to do seem to be tied to the DLL. I'm starting to think we'll have to do it to go to the next level.

ruff_hi

Sep 13, 2007, 04:46 AM

Request Feature optional change: An option to change the Reminder mod to not get a pop up during the start of the turn but only an entry in the event log (and mentioned as one of the events during the start of the turn).You have just described its original format ... a message in the log and that was it. The problem I found was that I put in these reminders and then I missed them. Hence, I created the popup up that forces you to act. I think it also writes to the log.

Elandal

Sep 13, 2007, 05:51 AM

My problem with reminders is that the pop up in the beginning of the turn and block other actions so I can do nothing but close it. Then I get whatever other popups there are and promptly forget about the reminders while handling those...
My most common reminder is "whip city x", so what I'd want to do when the popup is up is to go to city X, check whipping situation and either whip or set a new reminder for probably next turn (miscalculations).

EmperorFool

Sep 13, 2007, 10:45 AM

My most common reminder is "whip city x", so what I'd want to do when the popup is up is to go to city X, check whipping situation and either whip or set a new reminder for probably next turn (miscalculations).

I had been toying earlier with the idea of reminder-setting buttons in various places. This is a perfect example. You'd have a button near the production bar on the city screen that, when clicked, only asked you for the number of turns to wait. The reminder message would be set automatically to "Whip <City>" and put an icon over the city (like when a building is completed).

I wonder if there's a way to set popup-style alerts like when you learn a tech that opens a new civic or a new religion spreads to one of your cities. It would popup at the end of the turn so you don't forget. Do any mods you guys play do this?

Roland Johansen

Sep 13, 2007, 06:11 PM

Those are some great ideas, Roland. I tried implementing a new alert (when civs will sign OB) the other night without success. This one is hard to test, but I needed it because I got the strange "almost everyone cancels OB and most trades with you" bug(?) in my game. Killed my tech rate and sent many cities into disarray. Everyone was willing to start up trades immediately, but everyone wanted to "wait and see" about OB. Whatever.

Everyone was either Pleased or Cautious with me, so this makes no sense. It happened the turn that someone was elected as SG of the UN, but I voted for the leader and he was pleased with me. Bizarro-world I guess.

I've also had that one turn when 2 civilisations suddenly stopped their trades with me and closed the borders. I could immediately restart the trades, but the borders needed to stay closed. In my case however, the civilisations weren't that pleased with me and thus I guessed that closing borders somehow also temporarily stopped the trades (which would be a bug, but still). I've seen this reported earlier. I hope it might be fixed in the upcoming patch.
A reminder for open borders could be very useful as sometimes it just takes some random amount of turns before a civilisation will consider (re)opening borders with you.

Regarding the trade routes, the problem with this is that the popup is generated in C++. Our plans don't include modding the DLL at this time, but I'd recommend suggestion this same thing (perhaps just display initial 1/2 value to two decimal places like :gold: and :science:) in the World of Civilization mod or Solver's Unofficial Patch threads.

I'm not familiar with the World of Civilisation mod and I believe that Solver isn't planning to do any more changes until the patch arrives.

Still, I don't expect you to fix everything that I would like to see different in this game. ;)

You have just described its original format ... a message in the log and that was it. The problem I found was that I put in these reminders and then I missed them. Hence, I created the popup up that forces you to act. I think it also writes to the log.

My problem with reminders is that the pop up in the beginning of the turn and block other actions so I can do nothing but close it. Then I get whatever other popups there are and promptly forget about the reminders while handling those...
My most common reminder is "whip city x", so what I'd want to do when the popup is up is to go to city X, check whipping situation and either whip or set a new reminder for probably next turn (miscalculations).

I'm playing in a similar style as Elandal, so I would prefer to see it mentioned in the start of turn event + in the event log. I always check the event log before I end my turn. But I expected that there could be many who would prefer the stronger, more obvious pop-up reminder. So that's why I suggested a best of two worlds: an option to change the Reminder mod to your own preference whether that is a pop-up or a start of turn event + event log or both. The options menu (CTRL Alt O) is one of the strongest points of this mod as it allows you to customise every aspect of this mod to your own preferences. Maybe I wasn't that clear that I just wanted an option and not a change.

It's nice to hear that you like some of my suggestions.

EmperorFool

Sep 13, 2007, 08:42 PM

I definitely like the option to have the reminder appear in two places (each optionally).

I was going through the available events and found "endTurnReady" that looks promising for some serious changes to the alerts. I assume it triggers when the "End Turn" button turns red. This would be a good time to alert you to city growth/starvation, trades, etc.

This is far off in the future stuff since there are high priority items still, but it'd be good to start a discussion on this. The alerts are a very powerful aid to the user, and I think they could be improved (and errors fixed) to great effect.

NikNaks

Sep 16, 2007, 06:17 AM

Just a thought, but would this (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=243477) be a good addition?

alerum68

Sep 16, 2007, 09:05 AM

Would be a perfect addition NikNaks.:)

EmperorFool

Sep 17, 2007, 03:04 AM

Request Feature optional change: An option to change the Reminder mod to not get a pop up during the start of the turn but only an entry in the event log (and mentioned as one of the events during the start of the turn).

How's this for a compromise: When the reminder pops up, it also goes into the chat log (I thought it already did this). Also, it asks you if you'd like to show the reminder again next turn.

Note that I tried something far better at first but was denied by Civ4. I had it ask if you wanted to show the reminder again at the end of the turn. If you did, you'd then get to choose to show it again next turn as well. The problem is that Civ4 defines an event called endTurnReady but doesn't fire the event. :mad: Such a tease! I have the code written and committed, but it's commented out since it doesn't work. We're left with the suboptimal solution above. Is this at least helpful?

Before posting this, I reread your suggestion see that I forgot about making the popup optional. I suppose that's possible, but then you'd lose the ability to have the reminder fire again the next turn. Thoughts?

EmperorFool

Sep 17, 2007, 03:14 AM

I tried implementing a new alert (when civs will sign OB) the other night without success.

I must have been really tired or something because the reason it was failing was utterly obvious (and in the error log): a cut-n-paste error. Once I pasted the right function name, voila! I have committed the change.

Let me know of any trouble with this one. If none, I'll add DP, PA and Vassal State as well.

And a variation on this idea. I had created the faded OB/DP icons for the scoreboard but ended up not using them. How about showing the faded version if the civ is willing to trade that item? This way if you miss or forget about the alert, you can always just look at the scoreboard to see who's willing to sign OB or DP. PA makes you a team so there's no icon for that, though.

This might be trickier, but I'd also like a message "Catherine is willing to go to war against Montezuma."

Who wants to learn Python? :D

Roland Johansen

Sep 17, 2007, 06:06 AM

How's this for a compromise: When the reminder pops up, it also goes into the chat log (I thought it already did this). Also, it asks you if you'd like to show the reminder again next turn.

Note that I tried something far better at first but was denied by Civ4. I had it ask if you wanted to show the reminder again at the end of the turn. If you did, you'd then get to choose to show it again next turn as well. The problem is that Civ4 defines an event called endTurnReady but doesn't fire the event. :mad: Such a tease! I have the code written and committed, but it's commented out since it doesn't work. We're left with the suboptimal solution above. Is this at least helpful?

Before posting this, I reread your suggestion see that I forgot about making the popup optional. I suppose that's possible, but then you'd lose the ability to have the reminder fire again the next turn. Thoughts?

I see that you want to improve the reminders in a different direction. It all depends on the way you play. I like to play in the following way:
1) I get the city pop ups to build new stuff in my cities
2) I get top of screen messages while moving my units and giving my workers new orders.
3) I go into the event log (Ctrl Tab) to see what else needs to be done.

In step 3, I'll read about the reminders (which have been logged) and react to them. It doesn't really help me to have to click on them at the start of the turn before step 1; the pop up doesn't help me and just slows me down a little bit. But other players like that as it is a more active form of reminding than the event log. Because there are many types of players with many different preferences, your settings/options menu (CTRL ALT O) is very useful. It could be used to allow different reminder settings for different players. I would like a setting without pop ups and just a log entry in the event log.

It's a pity that a 'remind me again next turn' option is only available with the active pop up reminder. On the other hand, I don't see me using it that often. It doesn't really fit in my play style. This mod adds lots and lots of features but a single player will probable use only a third of them. However, another player will use a different third of the features and is not troubled by the features he/she doesn't use. This mod allows you to customise the game to your needs. Thank you for that. :goodjob:

I must have been really tired or something because the reason it was failing was utterly obvious (and in the error log): a cut-n-paste error. Once I pasted the right function name, voila! I have committed the change.

Let me know of any trouble with this one. If none, I'll add DP, PA and Vassal State as well.

And a variation on this idea. I had created the faded OB/DP icons for the scoreboard but ended up not using them. How about showing the faded version if the civ is willing to trade that item? This way if you miss or forget about the alert, you can always just look at the scoreboard to see who's willing to sign OB or DP. PA makes you a team so there's no icon for that, though.

This might be trickier, but I'd also like a message "Catherine is willing to go to war against Montezuma."

This sounds great. The alerts section of this mod is one of my favourites as I use it very much during playing the game. Such additions will only make it more useful. Will these be added to the next version of your mod?

The scoreboard addition could also be useful. Sometimes, it is nice to know that someone is willing to sign open border with you, but you don't wish to do so directly. You want to settle that city in the back of your empire first before opening your borders. You won't get an alert anymore about the willingness to open borders because the AI was willing to do that several turns ago, but you can still observe this willingness by one look at the scoreboard. It would be a very useful addition.

EmperorFool

Sep 17, 2007, 10:35 AM

@Roland - If you are grabbing this mod from the SVN repository, sync up and enjoy! :)

Roland Johansen

Sep 17, 2007, 11:52 AM

@Roland - If you are grabbing this mod from the SVN repository, sync up and enjoy! :)

Ok, did that. The version number is still the same, but I guess it was updated nonetheless. Is there a way to tell?

EmperorFool

Sep 17, 2007, 12:18 PM

Roland Johansen

Sep 17, 2007, 05:01 PM

Open the options screen (Ctrl-Alt-O) and select the "Alerts" tab. If you see a dropdown next to the Reminders checkbox with 3 options (Message, Popup, Both), you have the new version.

I'm not talking about a new ZIP or EXE installer, btw. I'm talking about getting the files directly from Subversion on SF.net. Each file matches up to a "version" but it's not the 0.16 version we publish but the individual chaingelist revision # (308 most recently, IIRC).

Ok, I guess I found the necessary files from Subversion. I was totally unfamiliar with how sourceforge worked, so I had to look around a bit before I understood the system (seems like a good way to work with a team of modders). I didn't find a way to simply get all of the newest files, I had to download them all individually. I just downloaded all the python and xml files which I might need and stuck them in the right place (I created a regular mod out of it, not a customassets mod) and everything seems to work, so I guess I did it the right way.

Now the open borders alert and the options to change the reminder mod are active. I changed the reminder mod towards my preferences and it all seems to work ok, no errors here.

There is one weird thing though: now whenever I activate the reminder I get the word 'whip' already entered as if I will want to create a reminder to whip something which is only one of the many things I create reminders for. I also noticed that the timer was already at 1 and not 0 which is ok as you will never create a reminder for this turn.

By the way, reminders never seem to be saved in the savegame. Whenever I load a game, the game has forgotten about the reminders that I created for the next turn(s). Is that the way it is supposed to work? It would be very useful if reminders could work after you had loaded the game the next day because that's the moment that you will have really forgotten about what you were planning to do during the next turn.

Good job with updating the reminder section of this mod. :goodjob:

Cammagno

Sep 17, 2007, 05:13 PM

Ok, I guess I found the necessary files from Subversion. I was totally unfamiliar with how sourceforge worked, so I had to look around a bit before I understood the system (seems like a good way to work with a team of modders). I didn't find a way to simply get all of the newest files, I had to download them all individually. I just downloaded all the python and xml files which I might need and stuck them in the right place (I created a regular mod out of it, not a customassets mod) and everything seems to work, so I guess I did it the right way.

You can download files manually as you did, but if you want to use the power of SV, you need to download from the SF website Tortoise SVN a simple client which allows you to create a local repository in one folder of your choice and to keep it always updated with the online repo. When you have created it, a simple right-click and selecting update your folder will be synchronized. Then from there you can export the files directly into BtS folder. Of course it is much more useful for modders who also have to upload files from local repos to the online one.

Roland Johansen

Sep 17, 2007, 05:43 PM

You can download files manually as you did, but if you want to use the power of SV, you need to download from the SF website Tortoise SVN a simple client which allows you to create a local repository in one folder of your choice and to keep it always updated with the online repo. When you have created it, a simple right-click and selecting update your folder will be synchronized. Then from there you can export the files directly into BtS folder. Of course it is much more useful for modders who also have to upload files from local repos to the online one.

Ah, I see. I knew there had to be a better, more efficient way to do this. If I want to get some intermediate version in between official versions again, then I guess I will do it that way. Thanks for the information.

OneBinary

Sep 17, 2007, 06:28 PM

The HOF Mod has a nice feature that automatically saves your game when you exit to desktop. I really liked that feature and it would be cool to see it in this Mod (as this is now the de-facto Mod I use). It also used a very good naming convention on those auto-saves (I don't know what it is off the top of my head, but it would be cool to steal the naming convention).

EmperorFool

Sep 17, 2007, 06:52 PM

I had to download them all individually.

Ouch, ya that's the hard way. I'm glad it worked for you, but if you want to update in the future, definitely grab TortoiseSVN. I wrote up instructions in our old development thread that were short and sweet. It sounds complicated but it's pretty straightforward. I'll see if I can find them tonight or just write up new ones.

There is one weird thing though: now whenever I activate the reminder I get the word 'whip' already entered as if I will want to create a reminder to whip something which is only one of the many things I create reminders for. I also noticed that the timer was already at 1 and not 0 which is ok as you will never create a reminder for this turn.

Oops, I didn't mean to leave that testing code in. I purposely defaulted the spinner to 1 for the reason you specified. I will remove "whip" though.

By the way, reminders never seem to be saved in the savegame.

Yet another item on my wish list. I put a comment in the code, but I haven't made it save reminders yet. It shouldn't be too hard, though.

@OneBinary - That's a good idea. Others have mentioned some good things to snag from HoF as well, so maybe I'll tackle that after the first release. I've already punted PLE
to the next version, and I'm bummed about it as PLE is very nice. We'll see...

Cammagno

Sep 17, 2007, 11:20 PM

Yet another item on my wish list. I put a comment in the code, but I haven't made it save reminders yet. It shouldn't be too hard, though.
@OneBinary - That's a good idea. Others have mentioned some good things to snag from HoF as well, so maybe I'll tackle that after the first release. I've already punted PLE
to the next version, and I'm bummed about it as PLE is very nice. We'll see...

Well... we have to leave something for 2.0 release, don't we? ;)

Elandal

Sep 18, 2007, 03:29 AM

I would recommend focusing on 1.0 instead of new features, then proceed towards next release :) Release early, release often - any feature can be pushed to the next release that way.

Regarding saving reminders - is that possible while maintaining savegame compatibility? That's essential for BUG IMO - this is unaltered in all ways including savegame compatibility.

FeedBack

Sep 18, 2007, 07:55 AM

Regarding saving reminders - is that possible while maintaining savegame compatibility? That's essential for BUG IMO - this is unaltered in all ways including savegame compatibility.

I know EF may have some way better ideas than this, but here it goes anyway.

Blake's BetterAI for warlords had something to savegame writing that wouldn't break with games without it. But it messes with the DLL, of course.

A simple way to do this is to save the reminders in an auxiliary file, say like the CDA.txt file, for each savegame. It can be buggy, as the reminder file would have to be shipped with the savegame, but I think it's the easiest way to do it.

Cammagno

Sep 18, 2007, 08:46 AM

A simple way to do this is to save the reminders in an auxiliary file, say like the CDA.txt file, for each savegame. It can be buggy, as the reminder file would have to be shipped with the savegame, but I think it's the easiest way to do it.

Not a bad solution, IMO. If the auxiliary file will not be shipped, the savegame will work anyway, only without recorded reminders... I like tihis compromise.

ruff_hi

Sep 18, 2007, 06:34 PM

A simple way to do this is to save the reminders in an auxiliary file, say like the CDA.txt file, for each savegame. It can be buggy, as the reminder file would have to be shipped with the savegame, but I think it's the easiest way to do it.No, don't do that. You can save information in the save, no problems. In fact, the unit naming code does just that. Look at how I've saved the counter information in the save and the do the same with the reminders.

EmperorFool

Sep 18, 2007, 08:59 PM

What Ruff said. Many objects (City, Player, Unit, Plot) can have an arbitrary "data" string attached to them. The savedgame reader/writer knows how to handle this. You as a modder are free to write any information you want to that slot.

Doing this feature won't be difficult, but I want to do it right which means using SdToolkit so if we add other mods that write to the same object they won't overwrite each other. Ruff has already started using SdToolkit for the unit naming, so this should be pretty straight-forward.

Cammagno

Sep 18, 2007, 11:23 PM

What Ruff said. Many objects (City, Player, Unit, Plot) can have an arbitrary "data" string attached to them. The savedgame reader/writer knows how to handle this. You as a modder are free to write any information you want to that slot.

WOW, it seems that Firaxis this time really tried to make the things easy as possible for modders. Or if not easy, at least doable.

EmperorFool

Sep 19, 2007, 01:11 AM

FeedBack

Sep 19, 2007, 06:54 AM

Wow! I mean.. Wow! That's what you get for being used to use so many workarounds at work... :blush: Those guys made it right this time! And EF... Your speed is amazing too! Thanks! :goodjob:

Btw.. Ruff, the unit naming convention is amazing! There's only one problem I see... A friend of mine :mischief: is too lazy to fool around with it too much... Y'know... What about creating some pre-defined patterns, like those in your Warlords mod, for people like this, uh, friend of mine? I see Cammagno already did the "default" for CDA, with a lot of options...

No rushing, of course.

ruff_hi

Sep 19, 2007, 08:11 AM

Btw.. Ruff, the unit naming convention is amazing! There's only one problem I see... A friend of mine :mischief: is too lazy to fool around with it too much... Y'know... What about creating some pre-defined patterns, like those in your Warlords mod, for people like this, uh, friend of mine?Well, you can tell your 'friend' that the bug.ini file that is in the repository has some already set up.

Roland Johansen

Sep 19, 2007, 01:38 PM

I removed the default (testing) text for the reminder.

There was some other change I made . . . .

Shoot, what was it . . . ?

Oh yeah, reminders are now saved. Enjoy! Or just set a reminder to enjoy it later. :D

Ok, I installed the TortoiseSVN client and found out how it works and downloaded the newest version of all of these files (I did a checkout in a seperate directory). That took a while since the download process was pretty slow (60 KB/s) for some reason. Now I combined the files from the Bug mod folder and the flavor mod folder and combined them with my own minor xml-modifications into a BTS-mod and it all seems to work. Thank you. :goodjob:

I noticed that all these files kept some sort of link with the TortoiseSVN client and have an extra tab when you ask about their properties. Does this make them somehow different than other files? Did copying them from their original download folder to the combined mod folder change something about this link with the online version of these files?

I noticed that there is a cache file in the system memory after installing the TortoiseSVN client (TSVNCache.exe). It's there every time, even after a fresh system start so I guess that it is needed for this program and can't be loaded when the program activates. I try to keep my system as clean as possible and don't like additional programs that I don't plan to use often to use system memory. Since I don't plan to use this very often as I will normally download finished mods, I don't think that I want to keep it installed. Are there some consequences to uninstalling this client? What will happen to the files that have additional TortoiseSVN properties?

By the way, I do appreciate that you allow me to download an intermediate version of this mod to experience just added features. Thanks for the help.

Cammagno

Sep 19, 2007, 02:07 PM

I noticed that all these files kept some sort of link with the TortoiseSVN client and have an extra tab when you ask about their properties. Does this make them somehow different than other files? Did copying them from their original download folder to the combined mod folder change something about this link with the online version of these files?

Into each folder and subfolder of the SVN local repository, there is a hidden folder called ".svn", with several subfolders and files; these are responsable for the "some sort of link" you spoke about :) So if you copy folders from the local repository to the BtS folder, you also copy a lot of useless stuff.
The thing that you have to do is not to copy them, but to use the Export command. Right-click on the folder that you have chosen as local repo, choose TortoiseSVN and then Export, then select the BtS folder as destination folder. (pay attention that the checkbox about the unversioned files is not checked). Doing this, only the "true" files will go to the BtS folder (you will see that they won't have the SVN mark over the normal icon).

Roland Johansen

Sep 19, 2007, 04:42 PM

Into each folder and subfolder of the SVN local repository, there is a hidden folder called ".svn", with several subfolders and files; these are responsable for the "some sort of link" you spoke about :) So if you copy folders from the local repository to the BtS folder, you also copy a lot of useless stuff.
The thing that you have to do is not to copy them, but to use the Export command. Right-click on the folder that you have chosen as local repo, choose TortoiseSVN and then Export, then select the BtS folder as destination folder. (pay attention that the checkbox about the unversioned files is not checked). Doing this, only the "true" files will go to the BtS folder (you will see that they won't have the SVN mark over the normal icon).

Hah, I never noticed the hidden folder because I had 'show hidden files and folders' switched off. Ok, I did the export thing and now the files don't have the SVN mark over the normal icon anymore and I recreated the mod folder with these 'new' files. Thanks again for the help Cammagno.

EmperorFool

Sep 19, 2007, 09:08 PM

Roland Johansen

Sep 20, 2007, 06:44 AM

Those ".svn" folders maintain all of the information about the files you have pulled from SVN. You could uninstall* TortoiseSVN, leaving the ".svn" folders on your hard drive, and at some later point reinstall Tortoise and sync to the latest version of the repo.

The only downside to keeping the ".svn" folders is the small space they take up. You can always just grab the full repo later rather than just the changed files. The ".svn" folders allow you to grab just what has changed.

*Or simply disahle it from running using msconfig I think. I'm not sure since it's an extension to Windows Explorer rather than a separate program, but I suspect that'd work.

The hard disk space is no problem. I just don't like to have programs that automatically take up system memory without me asking them to start. This program is not one of the items in the startup tab of the System Configuration Utility (I had already checked that), so I can't disable it that way. It's not a real problem though. I'll keep it running in system memory for now, it's not that big. I might uninstall it in a few weeks. For now, it might be useful if I want to use the newest improvements created by this great team.

Thanks for the help. :goodjob:

alerum68

Sep 20, 2007, 08:58 PM

If you want to disable it, there is a small utility called StartUpRun, IIRC. You may want to take a look at that. You can disable it, but SVN won't work unless you reactivate it... I don't think you have to reboot though.

Elandal

Sep 23, 2007, 06:44 PM

The worst enemy of any civ can be found by repeatedly opening the dialogue. Sometimes they warn about their worst enemies (sometimes brag about their best units, sometimes tell bad jokes, and so on). This is very annoying... Maybe it would fit in the Glance page or Info page of EFA?

CellKu

Sep 26, 2007, 02:05 PM

Thanks for endeavouring to improve BTS in this way. :goodjob: I do like your project a lot.

As I haven't seen the following mods on any of your lists, I would like to point you to the Unit Statistics mod, see http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=162977, and/or the Kill List mod, see http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=160977.

It would be nice to have them (more statistics :) ), at least as an optional feature. These mods do not seem to change the gameplay, as they provide only information of past events. So, I hope they meet your criteria for being added to your project. :)

CellKu

alerum68

Sep 26, 2007, 02:16 PM

The Unit Stats Mod alters the SDK, which we've decided not to do. The Kill List Mod does not, and I think it'd be a good addition. I'll take a look at it as soon as I finish some things I need to do for things already currently in the works.

Thanks for the suggestion!:)

NikNaks

Sep 26, 2007, 02:31 PM

I don't remember deciding not to alter the SDK, but it's a 'we want to let other people run SDK mods' thing, right?

alerum68

Sep 26, 2007, 02:44 PM

We decided not to alter the SDK before you were on the team. And that is the main reason, and also the fact that the files can't be viewed was another reason, for me at least.

NikNaks

Sep 30, 2007, 06:59 AM

Would it be feasible to have something like the screenie here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=245317) (without the extra coding)?

alerum68

Sep 30, 2007, 11:42 AM

You mean to have resources display next to the gold?

NikNaks

Sep 30, 2007, 11:44 AM

Yeah, maybe only for ones like Bronze, Iron and Horses?

EmperorFool

Sep 30, 2007, 02:03 PM

The problem with that suggestion is the mod is geared toward having a national stockpile. Even if we do away with the idea of a stockpile, which city's resource access would we display at the top? The capital?

Does it really add information you don't normally know? In other words, do you often find yourself thinking, "I wonder if I have iron?" But otherwise it should be a doable mod; it would probably require getting rid of the Era display.

CellKu

Sep 30, 2007, 02:16 PM

it would probably require getting rid of the Era display.

The Era display is nice, though... I would miss it.
CellKu

OneBinary

Sep 30, 2007, 02:44 PM

The Era display is nice, though... I would miss it.
I would miss the Era display as well, and I agree that I don't often ask myself if I have Iron/Horses/etc.

NikNaks

Sep 30, 2007, 02:50 PM

Fair enough. I'd forgotten the era display sat there. ;)

FeedBack

Oct 04, 2007, 01:50 PM

Hey, guys!
I was just reading yet another 3.13 patch thread and caught up into this:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6011516&postcount=28

I'll paste here for easier reference.

1. some display of how much of a stationary bonus spies have
and/or
2. a 'Infiltrate' function for spies, like the 'Heal' ability for units... basically the spy skips turns until it has reached maximum stationary bonus.

I don't know how difficult it is to implement (that's why I'm posting here. EF knows better! ;)), but the first one would certainly fit into the "unaltered gameplay" philosophy. The second one is handy (and surely it would be welcome), but it affects gameplay.
Can you guys help me taking a look at it?

:cheers:

jray

Oct 05, 2007, 06:51 AM

Please get the "ugly Glance screen" back into the foreign advisor :).

jkp1187

Oct 05, 2007, 07:14 AM

Please get the "ugly Glance screen" back into the foreign advisor :).

I wholeheartedly agree!

ruff_hi

Oct 05, 2007, 09:43 AM

You can get most of the information from the Relations screen, but it's tedious. The thing Glance was really good for was figuring out who was worst enemies with whom. Perhaps that could be incorporated into Relations (the worst enemy gets a fatter line, or clicking on a leader would highlight everyone who considered him their worst enemy, or some such). That info really should be easily available.

peace,
lilnev

Now that is a good idea. One question I have (and have always had) is how do you decide who is worse? The person with the most negative numbers? I've seen -10 showing 'cautious' and -9 showing 'angry'. Is there a way to ask "Who is your worse enemy?"

So - we are putting it back but with an option to 'not display' ... right? have to have the option so that it is similar to all of our other BUG changes.

yes, and if you want to placate the marketing men, use pretty smilie icons! (along with the numbers below in brackets!)

Another good idea. I might even break out the ol' python and take a stab at that myself.

Edit: errrr ... does anyone have the pre 3.13 BtS foreign adviser screen python file?
Edit2: Don't worry ... it is still there, they just put a '#' on 1 line.

ruff_hi

Oct 05, 2007, 09:54 PM

yes, and if you want to placate the marketing men, use pretty smilie icons! (along with the numbers below in brackets!)

Another good idea. I might even break out the ol' python and take a stab at that myself.

Edit: errrr ... does anyone have the pre 3.13 BtS foreign adviser screen python file?
Edit2: Don't worry ... it is still there, they just put a '#' on 1 line.
Done. Please have a look at let me know if it looks a little better.

EmperorFool

Oct 05, 2007, 10:27 PM

One question I have (and have always had) is how do you decide who is worse? The person with the most negative numbers? I've seen -10 showing 'cautious' and -9 showing 'angry'. Is there a way to ask "Who is your worse enemy?"

Along with the modifiers you can see, each AI has hidden modifiers that affect their attitude but are not visible to the player. This is why two AIs that seem to have the same attitude score will have different actual attitudes.

That's another reason Firaxis may have axed the Glance page -- it gives the impression that attitudes are random when in fact they are entirely deterministic. It's just that some of the information isn't shown to the player.

I looked through the API a while ago trying to figure out how to tell which players are the AIs' worst enemies, but I didn't find anything. :(

Roland Johansen

Oct 07, 2007, 08:42 AM

ruff_hi

Oct 07, 2007, 09:25 AM

I have heard about these other modifiers too. Some have to do with personality traits (warmonger or not) and some have to do with the relative power rating. Would it be possible to add these modifiers to the list of modifiers that are visible to the player? It wouldn't really help you with playing or give you extra information, but it would give a more meaningful number that actually determines the attitude of the various civilisations.We would could add this but first, you have to provide a screenshot (or similar) of where in the vanilla game this info is available. We are trying to provide an unaltered mod. So, short answer (because I don't think this info is available) ... NO. Sorry Roland Johansen :D

EmperorFool

Oct 07, 2007, 11:42 AM

I'm with Ruff on this one. If you knew all their hidden modifiers, you'd know their final attitude number, and this would tell you for sure whether gifting them a tech would raise their actual attitude (e.g. from furious to annoyed).

The game doesn't let you see this, and therefore neither will we.

That being said, I haven't found a way in the API to get the individual modifiers from Python. If you do, please let us know as I'd like to be able to get the visible modifiers for some new Civ4lerts.

Grave

Oct 07, 2007, 01:49 PM

I have a small request:

In the City Screen, on the right were it shows the Religions/Corporations... could you make it so that it only shows the Religions/Corporations that are in that particular city, instead of showing all the Religions/Corporations in the game?

Grave

Oct 07, 2007, 01:49 PM

EDIT:

Double-post... sorry.

ruff_hi

Oct 07, 2007, 03:51 PM

In the City Screen, on the right were it shows the Religions/Corporations... could you make it so that it only shows the Religions/Corporations that are in that particular city, instead of showing all the Religions/Corporations in the game?I can do that without even touching the code ... start a game, open a city, look at the top right ... if the religion is transparent, the city doesn't have it ... if the religion is solid, the city has it, if the religion has a box around it - the city is the religious holy city. IE - this feature is already in the game.

PS - careful of the signature length police! limited to 7 lines- depending on font size.

Grave

Oct 07, 2007, 03:57 PM

I can do that without even touching the code ... start a game, open a city, look at the top right ... if the religion is transparent, the city doesn't have it ... if the religion is solid, the city has it, if the religion has a box around it - the city is the religious holy city. IE - this feature is already in the game.

Sorry, what I mean was... if the religion wasn't in the city, then there would be an empty space. The only reason I bring it up is because say you merge this with another mod, that has added extra religions/corporations. The way they're set up now, you won't be able to see any extra religions/corporations.

I know this is mod is meant to be "Unaltered" gameplay, but if I wanted to add a few religions to the game, they all won't show on the city screen.

Or maybe perhaps making the icons smaller?

PS - careful of the signature length police! limited to 7 lines- depending on font size.

:satan: :shifty:

Roland Johansen

Oct 07, 2007, 04:22 PM

We would could add this but first, you have to provide a screenshot (or similar) of where in the vanilla game this info is available. We are trying to provide an unaltered mod. So, short answer (because I don't think this info is available) ... NO. Sorry Roland Johansen :D

I'm with Ruff on this one. If you knew all their hidden modifiers, you'd know their final attitude number, and this would tell you for sure whether gifting them a tech would raise their actual attitude (e.g. from furious to annoyed).

The game doesn't let you see this, and therefore neither will we.

That being said, I haven't found a way in the API to get the individual modifiers from Python. If you do, please let us know as I'd like to be able to get the visible modifiers for some new Civ4lerts.

Yes, I know it is an unaltered gameplay mod. :D

The reason why I would like to see the hidden modifiers is because they can be calculated by a player who wants to spend the effort to do so.

In this thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=191436) (post 7 and 1) all the relevant data to do so can be found. Of course, it might be tedious to calculate some of these modifiers (some are easy to calculate, for some you need to look in some excel personality data sheet), but all the needed data can be found in the excel personality data sheet and in-game rankings.

By the way, I've never really understood why Firaxis added a numeric diplomacy modifier system if in the end, the numbers aren't that meaningful as the final relations are dependent on hidden modifiers. It's quite misleading especially for players who don't read a lot of stuff on this forum and I still often find people asking questions about why one civilisation is pleased at +3 and another cautious. It makes players wonder what is more important, the modifier or the name of the relation. I know it is the name of the relation (furious, annoyed, cautious, pleased, friendly), but it is confusing for new players.
They could have left out all the numbers, that would have been less confusing:
Pleased: You shared resources with us, we enjoy the open borders, we're brothers of the faith (strongly positive), you shared your technological advances with us.

Ok, I should stop this complaint. It has nothing to do with this mod. :p

Oh, and I'll accept that it won't be added if that is the decision. You'll have to draw the line somewhere. You can find out the worst enemy of a civilisation by repeatedly entering diplomacy with them and asking them about every leader (also tedious though), so that can be added to the mod. The excel sheet diplomacy info comes from xml-files and thus might be considered differently. Still many players (over 22000 downloads) use the Civ4 BTS reference sheets which are available for download from this site and they contain lots of leaderhead diplomacy information which cannot be found in-game.

Psyringe

Oct 10, 2007, 12:43 PM

Hi BUG team - here are some feature suggestions from someone who can't play without your mod anymore. :goodjob:

1. scrollable mini map

In my current game, my homeland is right on the "seam" of the map. So on the minimap, one half of my country appears on the left edge of the map, and one half on the right edge. Apart from looking ugly, this also makes it more difficult for me to estimate distances. For such situations, it would be great to have some functionality to move the center of the mini-map (for example, right-clicking somewhere on the mini-map centers it on the spot you clicked on. Or, alternatively: switch between "regular map center" and "center on latitude of player capital".

2. Better usability of "reduced UI" for players who mostly use the mouse for input. Reduced UI works very well without the keyboard already, most of the important functions can still be accessed without the keyboard. But this makes it even more annoying that some can't:
- the "Main Menu" and "Civilopedia" buttons disappear in reduced UI. I don't see a good reason for that since they don't need much space, and the space that's freed by removing them doesn't even increase the visibility of the map, because the view in the upper right corner of the screen is still obstructed by the advisor buttons. It would be great to have these two important buttons active in reduced UI.
- There is no "End Turn" button in reduced UI, which is a bit silly for a functionality that is used undreds of times in a single game.
- "Switch Interface" button: Currently you need the keyboard to switch to and from reduced interface. It would be great to have a way to do this with the mouse, because sometimes UI switches are inevitable.

These three additions would make "reduced UI" just perfect for me. :)

3. Add a "wait" button to unit orders.

4. Don't display techs of our enemies in the "will trade" column. When you'r eat war with someone, all his techs that you could theoretically trade for are displayed as "will trade", which makes no sense as most of the time they *won't* trade them to you (even when you reach a peace agreement). I think these techs should better be displayed in the "won't trade" column.

5. Notify the player when the Apostolic Palace Resident has changed (witj Civ4lerts). When you aren't a member of the AP, then you don't get a notice when a new resident is elected. But this information *is* always available under "members" in the victory screen. Hence turning it into an alert should be okay. (Sometimes it's good for strategic planning to know when your enemy suddenly becomes - or ceases to be - head of the AP). The same goes for membership changes, i.e. alerts like "Civ X has been demoted from full member to voting member", "X has been promoted to full member", "X is now member of the AP", "X has lost AP membership".

6. Add an alert for "10 turn grace period will run out next turn".

Any chances of adding some of these to BUG? Who do I have to bribe? :D

EmperorFool

Oct 10, 2007, 07:45 PM

@Roland - You make some very good points, but the sad truth is that I haven't found a way to access any of the modifiers from Python. If you can find an API that gives that information, we can talk. :)

@Psyringe - You've got some good ones there. Let's see...

1. Part of the EXE core engine -- not moddable, sorry. I agree this is L A M E that the map doesn't stay centered horizontally on your capital. Zero Longitude is a completely human-invented concept (unlike zero latitude which can be measured against magnetic or spin poles) which should show up as a possibility only with map trading, and then only if you want it.

2. This could be done, and I'll add it to the list, but I gotta be honest it's lower on the priority list right now. If you can find someone to create a nice button for switching modes (2c) and point out where to put it, it'd make it more likely to get coded up.

Having the two menu/pedia buttons remain visible is probably pretty trivial. I've mucked around in that code recently, so I think it's just a matter of moving a couple lines. No promises, but much more likely to be done since it'd be quick.

3. Would rock. I need a graphic for it and I'll need to see if it's possible. The thing is that Ctrl-W doesn't actually issue an order -- it tells the interface to cycle units. Same with keys like / and \. The game gives you less control in this area.

4. I agree. I've actually thought of this before but never got around to it. In fact, I think you shouldn't get to see any information about techs for enemies that you can't speak with. How would you know what techs they know? I'd make that latter part extra optional since our aim is not to remove information already present in the game.

5. These are good ideas as long as you really can see this without being a member.

6. I have no idea if this information is available, though it displays in the Foreign Advisor ACTIVE tab, and that's built by Python, so it probably is.

Kudos! :goodjob:

Roland Johansen

Oct 10, 2007, 08:42 PM

@Roland - You make some very good points, but the sad truth is that I haven't found a way to access any of the modifiers from Python. If you can find an API that gives that information, we can talk. :)

Sorry, I'm not a real modder myself (only some xml-modifications and never needed more than that for my personal modifications). I looked around a bit and found out that Fall From Heaven created its own set of new diplomacy modifiers from scratch. I guess the modifications which are needed for this unaltered gameplay mod are only a section of that work since the modifiers themselves exist, only the text links are left out. It does seem to be SDK-work though...

Kael wrote down an entire case study of how to do this and maybe it could be useful to modding some of this stuff. It's a bit hard for me to judge how much work it would be. I can imagine that you think there are more important things to change. You can find his case study here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=166935&highlight=diplomacy).

Psyringe

Oct 12, 2007, 07:55 PM

5. These are good ideas as long as you really can see this without being a member.
I just made a test savegame to check which information is available to the player at which point. I'll attach the save to to this post in case you want to use it for checking / testing.

In the test game, you're Mansa Musa, the only Islam country in the world, surrounded by four Christian nations, of which only Bismarck (east of you) is known to you.

Hit "End Turn". The Apostolic Palace will be built. The game does not tell you who built it (it's Caesar, but you haven't met him yet, and the victory screen says "built by an unknown civilization"). The game does tell you (in the alert as well as on the "Victory -> Members" screen) that the AP religion is Christianity. You'll also see Bismarck (the one Christian nation you already know) listed as a full member in the Members screen.

Hit "End Turn" again. The Christian nations will now elect the AP resident. Caesar will win the vote. The game doesn't give you an alert about it, but the information is available on the "Victory -> Resolutions" screen as soon as the resident is elected.

Now, move the ships you have straight north, west, and east. Check the "Victory -> Members" page after each move. You'll see that every civ gets listed on this page (with their membership status) as soon as you nake contact with them.

Now, reload the game, activate the Christian missionary I put in Timbuktu, and spread Christianity to the city. Hit "End Turn". Again, Caesar will build the AP. This immediately gives you contact with every other Christian civ, even before the vote starts.

In conclusion:
- You can always look up who the current resident is (on "Victory -> Resolutions"), even if you haven't met him.
- You can always look up to which religion the AP belongs (on "Victory -> Members")
- You can always look up the membership status of every civ you have contact with (on "Victory -> Members")
- As soon as you become a member yourself, you automatically make contact with all other civs oin the AP.

This means that alerts about "Leader X has been elected resident of the AP" does only offer information that is already available elsewhere (as long as the alert only tells you about the leader name and not about the civ he/she rules). As long as you already have contact with a leader, the same goes for alerts like "Leader X has entered the Apostolic Community", "Leader X has left the Apostolic Community", "Leader X has been promoted to Full Member of the the Apostolic Palace", and "Leader X has been demoted to Voting Member of the Apostolic Palace".

Hope this helps. :)

EmperorFool

Oct 12, 2007, 08:13 PM

Hope this helps. :)

Um, it helps about as much as it possibly could help without actually writing the code for me! :goodjob: Are you a QA engineer IRL, as that was very well thought-out and from what I can tell quite thorough.

BTW, how did you create the test game? I can't imagine you could do it all with WorldBuilder as it's rather limited I think (can't set partial builds). Again, nice job.

Wanna learn Python. :)

Psyringe

Oct 12, 2007, 08:47 PM

Are you a QA engineer IRL, as that was very well thought-out and from what I can tell quite thorough.
I'm not a QA engineer, I just really enjoy doing thorough analyses ... I do have some experience with beta testing though. Thanks for the compliment. :)

BTW, how did you create the test game? I can't imagine you could do it all with WorldBuilder as it's rather limited I think (can't set partial builds).
I gave Caesar Theology and a couple of Great Engineers and then advanced some turns, checking in the worldbuilder what Caesar was doing with them, and saved the game when he was one turn from completing the AP. But yes, the worldbuilder can be pretty unwieldy. Editing the WBS save opens up more possibilities than the rather spartanic worldbuilder interface, but doesn't remove the limitations of the format (like, no partial build information saved).

Wanna learn Python. :)
I actually thought about it after buying Civ4, but haven't gotten around to it. I might try to at some point, but won't have much time for anything in the next months. But thanks for the encouragement. :)

jray

Oct 15, 2007, 09:21 AM

It would be cool to move all the Privateer blockade messages to the beginning of the log. As it is now, they're always occurring last, and when I have lots of blockading Privateers I need to go check the event log and scroll waaaaay down to see Civ4lerts, spy notifications, etc. Thanks!

EmperorFool

Oct 15, 2007, 11:05 AM

@jray - Yes, great idea. Unfortunately, it's yet another thing we have no control over. Well, that's not entirely true. It's possible this could be addressed in the DLL, but I'm just guessing.

jray

Oct 15, 2007, 11:12 AM

@jray - Yes, great idea. Unfortunately, it's yet another thing we have no control over. Well, that's not entirely true. It's possible this could be addressed in the DLL, but I'm just guessing.

Ah, I see. I'll try tempting Bhruic then :).

OneBinary

Oct 15, 2007, 04:05 PM

Thought I'd throw this out there for BAT since it was revived recently:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=241821

alerum68

Oct 15, 2007, 04:23 PM

We just added a new road mod that connects deadend roads. I'll see if the two play nice together, and if they do I'll add them... if not, I'll beg the creators of both mods to work together and see if we can get one that does both.

Minor Annoyance

Oct 16, 2007, 11:36 AM

Here's something that is the very definition of a superficial complaint. In a library the alphabetical list of titles disregards the word "the", because if it didn't the T section would be huge. The wonders section of the civilopedia looks just like that. This seems like the kind of thing that could be fixed very well. I doubt it could be made to dissregard the word "the" and the only other way would be to change everything to be like "Pyramids, The" and that would look just as bad. Of course it seems trivial to complain about the loss of at most ten seconds every few weeks but... well I can't really think of a defense.

EmperorFool

Oct 16, 2007, 11:43 AM

It's a valid quibble. Unfortunately, the only way to fix it would be a) English only but more importantly b) yield "Pyramids, The". The table widget does the sorting, so we have to give it a string that will sort how we want.

Okay, of course we could rename everything "1. Apostolic Palace" ... "23. The Pyramids", but that's just as bad.

Oh wait ... maybe I can add a zero-width sort column! I'll check into it.

ruff_hi

Oct 16, 2007, 12:12 PM

Suggestion: Does python know how long until the whip / draft anger leaves a city? If so, how about we put little numbers on the city screen just near the whip (or near the angry total middle top) that display that number. As the turns go by, that number would count down from 10 (normal speed) to 1 and then disappear.

I will take a look at this to see if we can gather the required info ... will look at (highlighted the most likely candidates:

cycity.
32. VOID changeConscriptAngerTimer(INT iChange)
43. VOID changeHurryAngerTimer(INT iChange)
72. INT flatConscriptAngerLength()
73. INT flatHurryAngerLength()
117. INT getConscriptAngerTimer() <-- int () - returns the amount of time left on the conscript anger timer
122. INT getCulturePercentAnger()
168. INT getHurryAngerModifier()
169. INT getHurryAngerTimer() <-- int () - Anger caused by Hurrying timer (why the different description?)
185. INT getNoMilitaryPercentAnger()
197. INT getOvercrowdingPercentAnger(INT iExtra)
228. INT getReligionPercentAnger()
251. INT getWarWearinessPercentAnger()
266. INT hurryAngerLength(HurryType iHurry)

OneBinary

Oct 16, 2007, 12:16 PM

alerum68

Oct 16, 2007, 01:46 PM

MA, I'm sorry but it would be a MAJOR rebuilding of the 'Pedia to do that. It seems like alot of work for something somewhat trival.

ruff_hi

Oct 16, 2007, 08:11 PM

http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/1599/civ4screenshot0027hs9.jpgre anger countdown in city ... easy!!! I'll add the ability to turn it off and on via our ini file. However, any comments re style, colour, etc?

screen.setLabel( "ProductionInputText", "Background", szBuffer, CvUtil.FONT_RIGHT_JUSTIFY, iCityCenterRow1X - 6, iCityCenterRow2Y, -0.3, FontTypes.GAME_FONT, WidgetTypes.WIDGET_PRODUCTION_MOD_HELP, -1, -1 )
screen.show( "ProductionInputText" )

if ((pHeadSelectedCity.happyLevel() >= 0) or (pHeadSelectedCity.unhappyLevel(0) > 0)):
if (pHeadSelectedCity.isDisorder()):
szBuffer = u"%d%c" %(pHeadSelectedCity.angryPopulation(0), CyGame().getSymbolID(FontSymbols.ANGRY_POP_CHAR))
elif (pHeadSelectedCity.angryPopulation(0) > 0):
szBuffer = localText.getText("INTERFACE_CITY_UNHAPPY", (pHeadSelectedCity.happyLevel(), pHeadSelectedCity.unhappyLevel(0), pHeadSelectedCity.angryPopulation(0)))
elif (pHeadSelectedCity.unhappyLevel(0) > 0):
szBuffer = localText.getText("INTERFACE_CITY_HAPPY", (pHeadSelectedCity.happyLevel(), pHeadSelectedCity.unhappyLevel(0)))

# BUG - Anger Display - start
izAngerTimer = pHeadSelectedCity.getHurryAngerTimer()
if izAngerTimer < pHeadSelectedCity.getConscriptAngerTimer():
izAngerTimer = pHeadSelectedCity.getConscriptAngerTimer()

if izAngerTimer != 0:
zsAnger = u"[%i]" %(izAngerTimer)
else:
zsAnger = ""

szBuffer = u"%s %s" %(szBuffer, zsAnger)
# BUG - Anger Display - end

else:
szBuffer = localText.getText("INTERFACE_CITY_HAPPY_NO_UNHAPPY", (pHeadSelectedCity.happyLevel(), ))

screen.setLabel( "HappinessText", "Background", szBuffer, CvUtil.FONT_LEFT_JUSTIFY, xResolution - iCityCenterRow1X + 6, iCityCenterRow2Y, -0.3, FontTypes.GAME_FONT, WidgetTypes.WIDGET_HELP_HAPPINESS, -1, -1 )
screen.show( "HappinessText" )

Roland Johansen

Oct 16, 2007, 08:21 PM

You can see the whipping anger when you hold the mouse pointer over the whipping button. It tells you how long it would take for the whipping anger to disappear when you'd whip again. However, this version is much nicer.

My preference would be to do it in red as it is a bad thing and bad things are in red. :p

What happens when you've whipped twice in quick succession? Would it show something like [18] ? (at normal speed with 10 turns of unhappiness)

Could there be an alert to remind you once the whipping anger has decreased by 1 point? That might be useful as some players tend to continuously use the whip in some high food cities. You can use the reminder function for this, but an alert might be even easier.

ruff_hi

Oct 16, 2007, 08:26 PM

@Roland ... yes, I know that you can see the whipping anger, but you see "for 19 turns" if you whipped last turn and have to deduct the 10 to get the counter (assuming normal speed). I haven't tested the double whip thing but I would assume "[18]" would be the display. I thought about red but it is a little hard to read sometimes ... will test.

Re reminder / alert ... good idea. We are toying iwth the option of adding a bunch of auto-reminder buttons around the place and this would be one of them. Maybe an alert when it got to 1 would be the go ... alert saying "City X is ready to whip next turn" or "City X is over its whip anger next turn".

Edit: ini file anger counter control added

EmperorFool

Oct 16, 2007, 09:15 PM

Looks great, Ruff. Only comments would be

zsAnger -> szAnger
izAnger -> iAnger
Maybe change it to "(x Turns)" if that fits to match other places that show # of turns left.*The prefix "sz" means "zero-terminated string" and "i" means "integer".

I think I remember looking at the C++ code and seeing that it does indeed add the timers up, just like when you hover over the whip button.

For example, whip and wait 5 turns. You have 5 turns left on the timer. All agree.

Whip again, the timer will say 15, but actually you'll have 2 angry for 5 followed by 1 angry for 5. I don't think that Python can get these actual individual values.

However, as Roland suggests, we could have an alert when the # of angry people from whipping/conscription changes, but only if the # of people is exposed to Python. I don't see it in the list Ruff posted.

BTW, what is flatHurryAngerLength()?

* You can copy the code to use the text translator to get the right text. I think you're familiar with this, but if not ask and I'll find the best place to copy. There are a few places in MainInterface, but I think some of them include more than just "(x Turns)".

Roland Johansen

Oct 17, 2007, 03:48 AM

However, as Roland suggests, we could have an alert when the # of angry people from whipping/conscription changes, but only if the # of people is exposed to Python. I don't see it in the list Ruff posted.

Couldn't you calculate the number of unhappy people from the whipping unhappiness counter? (if the number is not directly available)

ruff_hi

Oct 17, 2007, 04:40 AM

The prefix "sz" means "zero-terminated string" and "i" means "integer".:lol: I took the 'z' to mean temp, so 'zs' means temp string. Will fix.BTW, what is flatHurryAngerLength()?how do I know? I would assume it holds the '10' (normal speed). Will check.You can copy the code to use the text translator to get the right text. I think you're familiar with this, but if not ask and I'll find the best place to copy. There are a few places in MainInterface, but I think some of them include more than just "(x Turns)".errr ... what? Assuming you mean that we moved the 'turns' part to xml so we can use if for multilanguage. I think I should be able to track it down.

EmperorFool

Oct 17, 2007, 11:08 AM

@Roland - I don't know if that works. Say you whip on turn 1 and again on turn 2. You'll have 2 angry for 9 turns and 1 angry for 1 more turn (10 turns total). I think the flat counter will say "19". So it's clear you have 2 angry.

Now wait 7 turns. You've burned off 8 of the first whip and 7 of the second, leaving 2 and 3 for a total of 5 in the flat counter. But you still have 2 angry. So you can't really tell I don't think.

@Ruff - I would have started by dumping those values to the screen and played around with a few cities. That's why I asked you in case you had done the same.

IIRC I created a localized XML text containing just the "(x Turns)" without anything in front. If not, it's easy to copy an existing one.

Minor Annoyance

Oct 17, 2007, 11:34 AM

MA, I'm sorry but it would be a MAJOR rebuilding of the 'Pedia to do that. It seems like alot of work for something somewhat trival.

I assumed as much.

ruff_hi

Oct 17, 2007, 11:40 AM

@Roland - I don't know if that works. Say you whip on turn 1 and again on turn 2. You'll have 2 angry for 9 turns and 1 angry for 1 more turn (10 turns total). I think the flat counter will say "19". So it's clear you have 2 angry.Is that the way it works? I always thought it was 1 angry for 10 turns from the whip on turn 1 and 1 angry for 19 turns from the whip on turn 2. So you have 1 angry turn 1, 2 angry for turns 2 thru 10, 1 angry for turns 11 thru 19.

@Ruff - I would have started by dumping those values to the screen and played around with a few cities. That's why I asked you in case you had done the same.Nope, I just went straight for the variable I thought it was and it was exactly what I was looking for. I didn't check the others.

I'm not sold on the 'turns' part, consider the city in revolt, it just says "(2)". The player is able to affect all of the situation where it does say 'turns' but turning things up or down.

Roland Johansen

Oct 17, 2007, 11:42 AM

@Roland - I don't know if that works. Say you whip on turn 1 and again on turn 2. You'll have 2 angry for 9 turns and 1 angry for 1 more turn (10 turns total). I think the flat counter will say "19". So it's clear you have 2 angry.

Now wait 7 turns. You've burned off 8 of the first whip and 7 of the second, leaving 2 and 3 for a total of 5 in the flat counter. But you still have 2 angry. So you can't really tell I don't think.

Whipping unhappiness doesn't work that way, it works a lot simpler.

If you whip on turn 1 and again on turn 2, then the counter says 19 and you'll have 9 turns of 2 unhappiness and 10 additional turns of 1 unhappiness. After 7 turns, the counter says 12 and you'll have 2 turns of 2 unhappiness left and the 10 additional turns of 1 unhappiness. It's an extremely simple formula.

The warning that whipping unhappiness has decreased should occur when the counter reaches a multiple of 10 (on normal speed).

Elandal

Oct 17, 2007, 11:45 AM

@EF ref whip
Whip angries are counted by a single counter. The other bit of info needed is how many turns per whip. Number of angries is simply one divided by the other, rounded up.
In case the above is correct, it's likely from VoU's article. If it's wrong, it's probably just my imagination..

What this means is that if you crack the whip, play a turn, then crack it again, then play seven turns, you will have 12 left in the counter indicating (12/10 = 1.2) two angries. Play two more turns, and counter will be at 10 indicating one angry.

ruff_hi

Oct 17, 2007, 12:28 PM

well - there you go, 3 posts within 5 mins of each other all containing very similar info. I suggest an alert along the lines as Roland suggested.

EmperorFool

Oct 18, 2007, 12:19 AM

Wow, I guess it must be right then. :) I think it's actually more complicated and unfair, but it makes calculating the # of angries easy as pie.

I always thought that each time you whipped, you increased the # of unhappy people for ten turns. Whip four times on a single turn and you have 4 unhappy for 10 turns. What you're saying is that you'd have 4 for 10, 3 for 10, 2 for 10, and finally 1 for 10 ... 40 turns of unhappy people. Bogus!

Thanks for clarifying. So if a city has a non-zero angry timer, we fire an alert if it is evenly divisible by hurryAngerLength(HurryType.POPULATION). Actually, we also fire it if it hit zero on this turn, meaning we'd still have to keep track of all the cities that had non-zero timers last turn.

# untested psuedo-code
angryCities = set()
hurryLength = gc.getInfoTypeForString("HURRY_POPULATION").hurryPopulationLength() # look up actual method

def trackAngryCities:
angryCities = set()
pPlayer = gc.getActivePlayer()
for i in pPlayer.numCities():
pCity = pPlayer.city(i)
if pCity.getHurryAngerTimer() > 0:
angryCities.add(i)

def alertAngryCities:
pPlayer = gc.getActivePlayer()
for i in angryCities:
pCity = pPlayer.city(i)
iAngerTimer = pCity.getHurryAngerTimer()
if iAngerTimer % hurryLength == 0:
alert!!!

Call alertAngryCities() in onBeginPlayerTurn(). Call trackAngryCities() on game load and after calling alertAngryCities(). That's a rough outline that needs some work no doubt.

pholkhero

Oct 21, 2007, 09:20 AM

speaking of whipping ~ i mentioned this to ruff, but i think he put me on his ignore list ~

would it be possible to have an alert come up when it's possible to whip something? e.g., i'm waiting and waiting to whip a settler as soon as it is ready, but b/c i'm lazy, i don't want to check the city screen each turn. If an alert could come up saying something like: "The Settler in Rome can now be whipped for x pop" or even "bought for y gold" w/uhhh....emancipation?? i forget, i never use that function.

ruff_hi

Oct 21, 2007, 09:29 AM

Shigga

Oct 22, 2007, 01:43 AM

There's one feature I would kill for- it would make the life of every SE player so much easier: An additional +/- for every kind of specs in city view that removes all specs of a certain kind and puts them into the citizen category/puts as many specs as possible in a certain category. Uber, that would be. :)

EmperorFool

Oct 22, 2007, 02:10 AM

An additional +/- for every kind of specs in city view that removes all specs of a certain kind and puts them into the citizen category/puts as many specs as possible in a certain category.

I looked briefly into this one, but it's not performed by Python. In fact, it doesn't seem to be performed by the DLL either, but it's a little unclear. All Python does is create the buttons with keys that tell the DLL to tell the game to add/subtract a specialist.

That being said, it's possible new buttons could be added (I would prefer ctrl-click the existing buttons, but oh well) that would try to do the same thing in Python as you described. I'll have to check the API for CyCity more, but it doesn't look very promising.

Shigga

Oct 22, 2007, 03:28 AM

I would be totally satisfied with Ctrl+click, in fact that's the better solution- the city view is cluttered enough as it is. *keeps fingers crossed* I do SO hope that you find a solution to this one!

EDIT: A Killer Feature for your mod if I've ever seen one.

Derbus

Oct 23, 2007, 03:09 PM

Request Feature addition: Alert when the AI has new resources for trade. This can be handy in the time period when the AI has researched a technology like calendar and is placing plantations on the map but you don't want to check each turn whether one of the AI's has connected a resource for trading.

Is it possible to filter out gold for trade notifications ??? It's great having an alert for when a civ has a new resource to trade, but the alert "xxx has 50gold to trade" comes up too often.

OneBinary

Oct 23, 2007, 03:22 PM

Is it possible to filter out gold for trade notifications ??? It's great having an alert for when a civ has a new resource to trade, but the alert "xxx has 50gold to trade" comes up too often.

Control-Alt-o (the letter 'o')

ruff_hi

Oct 23, 2007, 06:22 PM

i love it - users have started answering questions!! way to go OneBinary!

EmperorFool

Oct 23, 2007, 08:59 PM

i love it - users have started answering questions!! way to go OneBinary!

:goodjob: :goodjob: :goodjob:

Elandal

Oct 23, 2007, 11:49 PM

And in the next phase CFC becomes subforum of BUG website? Then it'll be just a small step before cIV becomes a mod of BUG :)

EmperorFool

Oct 24, 2007, 01:21 AM

@Elandal - :lol: That made my night! Thatnks for helping alleviate much of the frustration cIV dealt me the past weekend. :goodjob:

ruff_hi

Oct 25, 2007, 08:59 PM

I looked briefly into this one, but it's not performed by Python. In fact, it doesn't seem to be performed by the DLL either, but it's a little unclear. All Python does is create the buttons with keys that tell the DLL to tell the game to add/subtract a specialist.

That being said, it's possible new buttons could be added (I would prefer ctrl-click the existing buttons, but oh well) that would try to do the same thing in Python as you described. I'll have to check the API for CyCity more, but it doesn't look very promising.I saw a mod that displayed transparent GPs (max GPs per type) and solid GPs (ones selected). If you want 4 scientists, click on the 4th transparent GS and there you go. Found it here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5777936&postcount=8).

EmperorFool

Oct 25, 2007, 09:06 PM

@Ruff - That's precisely the Spec Stacker I want to put into BUG, but I haven't gotten to it yet. I also think the elongated and lowered GP/Nationality/Culture bars are a good idea. Both of these are in Nevermind's MainScreenMod I think, but I don't know if he updated to 3.13 (I forget if 3.13 had changes to CvMainInterface.py).

ruff_hi

Oct 25, 2007, 09:10 PM

well, great minds think alike (http://www.goenglish.com/GreatMindsThinkAlike.asp) ... and the flip side ... fools never differ.

alerum68

Oct 25, 2007, 09:19 PM

Ruff, tell me you're using some extension to link to famous sayings on forums, and didn't actually take the time to do that.:p Anyway, I thought this was already put in, or I would have said something LONG ago.:p

alerum68

Oct 25, 2007, 10:14 PM

You know, just fors hits and giggles, we should add an option to Sevopedia to have Leaderhead Zoom. Have 3 or 4 levels, and each level gets further away, showing more of the background.

Also EF you were suggesting making an option to put the Research and GP bar side by side for wide screen views... I agree completely. I thinkit would look very clean.

pholkhero

Oct 26, 2007, 11:24 AM

d'oh after reading the forums, I forgot what I wanted to suggest!

Oh yeah, WFYABTA limits ~ any way that can be displayed somehow? either a notification when someone goes WFYABTA, but also displaying how many techs left available to trade at the AIs current happiness limit? This is a stretch, and I think might be difficult to pull off into the mod, but teh WFYABTA, iirc, is calculated for your civ counting ALL trades w/ALL civs, and then that is weighed against each individual AI's relationship w/you and their own cut-off.

Perhaps the tech trade screen could show total techs traded for, and an overlay there could say when they hit the limit at their current relationship?

example, screen says: 25 trades made.

[roll-over Mansa, who is at Pleased]Limit: 50 (just a guess, i don't know the actual number)
[roll-over Alex, who is at Cautious]Limit: 24 WFYABTA!

just more in my continuing quest to annoy you

EmperorFool

Oct 26, 2007, 11:31 AM

WFYABTA is on our list of Civ4lerts to add. That won't be a problem. However, the rest is either impossible to get via Python or spoiler information you can't get through the game.

Here's how I understand it from memory of reading a strategy article about it:

When you get a tech from an AI (trade or gift or peace), every AI that knows both you and the AI in the deal increases their "you got a tech" counter.
Every turn, each AI has a 5% chance or so of decreasing its counter.
If the counter is higher than the AI's individual threshold, no techs for you!

That counter is the spoiler information, and without revealing it, no other information makes sense except telling you when you hit the threshold and when it decays away past the threshold.

ruff_hi

Oct 26, 2007, 11:37 AM

Perhaps the tech trade screen could show total techs traded for, and an overlay there could say when they hit the limit at their current relationship?

example, screen says: 25 trades made.This part of your suggestion I like and is def not spoilish. It is just a counter showing how many techs you have acquired via trade. It will not be 100% accurate re WFYABTA as it will be total techs and not techs that affect an AIs counter.

That said, how do you increment this counter? I don't think there is an event re 'tech acquired thru trade'. DUH!

Roland Johansen

Oct 26, 2007, 06:20 PM

This part of your suggestion I like and is def not spoilish. It is just a counter showing how many techs you have acquired via trade. It will not be 100% accurate re WFYABTA as it will be total techs and not techs that affect an AIs counter.

That said, how do you increment this counter? I don't think there is an event re 'tech acquired thru trade'. DUH!

While it isn't spoiler information, it might be pretty confusing for those that don't exactly know how the counter works. Many players don't even know what the WFYABTA message means. It's pretty weird that the counter for traded technologies can be higher than the maximum level and you can still trade.

For instance: We have a civilisation that has a maximum WFYABTA counter of 10 at the difficulty level that we're playing at (the maximum value at which players are willing to trade is difficulty level dependent).

So we start trading technologies with several players and the WFYABTA counter goes up: 1,2,3,4,5,6 (after trading for 6 technologies) and at that point it goes down one time unknown to the player to 5. It starts going up again: 6,7,8 (after trading for another 3 technologies) and then again it goes down one time unknown to the player to 7. Then it goes up again to 8 after another trade. However, the counter that was programmed to count the number of traded technologies should now be at 10, since it should not show the 2 downward shifts. But we can still trade, so the actual counter is below 10 and the player knows this and he can record this on a piece of paper if he's willing to do so. He doesn't know, it is actually 8, but he knows it is below 10. After trading for another technology, the counter programmed to count the number of traded technologies will be at 11, but we can still trade, so we know the actual counter is below 10. It's actually at 9, but the player doesn't know this.

You could improve the counter that simply counts the number of traded technologies to do the following:
If counter >= max level counter and we can still trade, then set counter at max level -1.
But you need a counter for each civilisation, because each civilisation has a random chance that its counter will go down by 1 (if I understood the mechanism correctly).

In this case, the counter would show the possible maximum level of the WFYABTA counter as far as the player knows. The actual level of the counter could be lower than the shown number, but it can't be higher.

Elandal

Oct 26, 2007, 07:09 PM

iirc WFYABTA is counted for all civs separatelly so that they have counter for tech trades they know you have done and their own memory setting which causes them to decrement their counters.

So assume I know civs A and B and do three trades. Now A and B both have counters at maximum of three (I can't know if they've forgotten some already).
Now I meet civ C - it has counter at zero, because it does not know of the trades I've done with A and B before I met it. Assume C has met A but not B yet.
I do trade with C, which increments counters of C and A, but B who doesn't know C doesn't know of the trade and thus counter isn't incremented, even if I know B.

So while counters would be nice, have to remember that they are incremented when a civ knows of a trade, and I don't have information about their memory. Still this could be good information to have.

OneBinary

Oct 26, 2007, 07:43 PM

I assume all of this will be toggleable?

a notification when someone goes WFYABTA
I don't consider this spoilerish and I would like to see this.

displaying how many techs left available to trade at the AIs current happiness limit
I consider this spoilerish and I would not enable it in my games. It tells you who you should trade for cheaper techs and who you should wait and trade more expensive techs. I think EF touched on this:
That counter is the spoiler information, and without revealing it, no other information makes sense except telling you when you hit the threshold and when it decays away past the threshold.

So I would be in favor of an alert to let us know when a Civ WFYABTA, but I'm not in favor of any further information, such as counter. $0.02 :goodjob:

EmperorFool

Oct 26, 2007, 09:12 PM

Putting aside the counter idea and just looking at the alert for now...

I've started to code this and have a question: What is the difference between WFYABTA and "We don't want to trade away this tech just yet" and all the other reasons for declining a tech?

You already get an alert when an AI will trade at least one tech with you this turn but wouldn't last turn. And they have to have at least one tech you don't to figure out WFYABTA.

You'll get this alert whenever:

They just learned a tech that they will trade you.
They had a tech that they wouldn't trade last turn for reason X, but now they will trade it to you.

Why does it matter what reason X is?

That wasn't very clear. What I mean is that when an AI has a tech that you don't and their counter drops below the threshold, you're going to see this

New Techs to Trade: Saladin

Does a second alert

Saladin no longer feels you are too advanced

add any value? Obviously you are now under his threshold, otherwise he wouldn't be willing to trade techs.

I can see the use of an alert when you go over the threshold. An AI has two techs on you, you trade one of them, and suddenly hit WFYABTA. The alert will tell you that you hit the limit without you having to try trading the second tech. Of course, you won't see the alert until you close the diplomacy window.

ruff_hi

Oct 26, 2007, 11:48 PM

Actually - what you say, EF, makes a lot of sense. But then on second thoughts, do we have an alert that CivY just acquired a tech (trade or not). I would like to see that so I know where they are in certain tech races (liberalism, some wonders, etc).

I think the biggest request I am seeing now is the 'can hurry' one. I had a brief look at the alert code today and was glad that you are looking after it.

EmperorFool

Oct 27, 2007, 12:05 AM

Do we have an alert that CivY just acquired a tech (trade or not)?

Not yet, but I'll add that with the other alerts for tech trading.

I think the biggest request I am seeing now is the 'can hurry' one.

I've chained myself to my desk and queued up a bunch of good music . . . let's see how many alerts I can create. :)

alerum68

Oct 28, 2007, 01:56 AM

Cam, please change your first post to request feature request to be sent here:

https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=add&group_id=202755&atid=982857

robuck

Oct 29, 2007, 08:24 PM

Not sure if this has been suggested, or if it would fit under "unaltered gameplay", but I've always hated the rally points in Civ 4. It would be great if they could be improved to be easier to set, easier to see, and easier to remove. Multiple advanced rally points would be great, such as "All marines go to rallypoint X" and/or "All Armored Units from Washington go to rallypoint Y". and also, I wish workers and other civilian units wouldn't run out to the front line! :mad:

Also I just want to say when an enhanced military advisor is completed, I will be very very happy. The original one is awful! :(

Thanks everyone who spent time on this great mod. :goodjob:

alerum68

Oct 29, 2007, 08:38 PM

I'm not the coding guru, but I'm pretty sure the rally points are controlled within the C++ code, not Python or XML. I could be wrong though.

Totally agree on the Enhanced Military Adviser... I just think the one that's out there now, both the MA and EMA, are slow, and with the EMA you cannot access known enemy units. I'm going to start a thread on what should be included in a BUG version of the EMA. If you want, help contribute at this thread: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=6101109#post6101109

jray

Oct 30, 2007, 10:23 AM

Not yet, but I'll add that with the other alerts for tech trading.

I've chained myself to my desk and queued up a bunch of good music . . . let's see how many alerts I can create. :)

I'm still seeing tech trade alerts firing one turn late when a rival gets a new tech. (BTS 3.13, BUG 2.10, Bhruic 1.105). Sorry I don't have a savegame file, but I'll try to re-create the situation. Basically all you need to do though is crank up your espionage so you can see what the AI's researching, then check their diplo screen when you see they've finished. You'll see they will actually trade the tech, but the alert doesn't fire until the next turn.

Note that the alert fires correctly when it's a matter of an AI being suddenly willing to trade a tech it's had for a while.

BTW, totally awesome Hurrying alerts and new GP bar!! Those are so cool.

EmperorFool

Oct 30, 2007, 11:37 AM

pholkhero

Oct 30, 2007, 03:32 PM

that would be great, actually, EP . . . er, F :lol:

though it may be cumbersome to try and read all them if there are several new techs for several different AIs.

Cammagno

Oct 30, 2007, 05:03 PM

BTW, does anyone want the list of techs an AI will trade spelled out in the message, one message per AI? It seems odd to tell you how much gold they have, but not which new tech they'll trade.

:clap: :clap: :clap:

EmperorFool

Oct 30, 2007, 10:24 PM

I would have just done it this way without asking, except the original code gets all that info and then drops the actual new techs in favor of just displaying the AI names. I figured maybe Dr. Jiggles had a good reason.

Hmm, dare I say, option?

jray

Oct 31, 2007, 01:21 PM

I'll look into that. The trade alerts should fire at the correct times now. They are checked after all AIs have moved and just before you move. The only time this will not work is if you are playing a scenario with a fixed set of civs and aren't playing the first civ (civ 0).

Thanks, and I'll try to remember to save a savegame file next time I encounter it. I'm just playing a standard single-player game, no scenarios.

BTW, does anyone want the list of techs an AI will trade spelled out in the message, one message per AI? It seems odd to tell you how much gold they have, but not which new tech they'll trade.

That would be awesome! FYI this functionality is already done in the ShowInfo mod, which I think is in the BUG Future Enhancements list. The ShowInfo mod also shows which specific resources each civ will trade to you, which technologies and resources they are interested in buying from you, civs ready to make peace, etc. It's quite a stellar mod. There are options to enable and disable all the varieties of alerts. I did a bunch of work to update it to Warlords here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=204958), and I'd be thrilled to see it reincarnated for BtS :). It would be an excellent supplement to your already kick-ass alert system.

EmperorFool

Oct 31, 2007, 10:38 PM

The ShowInfo mod also shows which specific resources each civ will trade to you, which technologies and resources they are interested in buying from you, civs ready to make peace, etc.

Yes, ShowInfo is on our todo list.

Would Civ4lerts still be useful if we included ShowInfo? Can you give me an executive summary of what Civ4lerts has that ShowInfo doesn't? Nothing fancy, as I'll read over the docs soon enough, but just to give me an idea of the overlap.

Cammagno

Nov 01, 2007, 12:20 AM

jray

Nov 01, 2007, 09:01 AM

Yes, ShowInfo is on our todo list.

Would Civ4lerts still be useful if we included ShowInfo? Can you give me an executive summary of what Civ4lerts has that ShowInfo doesn't? Nothing fancy, as I'll read over the docs soon enough, but just to give me an idea of the overlap.

My memory might be a bit fuzzy since it's been a while since I used it myself, but the paradigms are quite different in that Civ4lerts is based on turn-to-turn changes, and ShowInfo is based on current turn information only. For example, Civ4lerts will tell you only the first time (or a turn after the first time, until the bug is fixed ;)) that "New Techs to Trade: Mansa," but ShowInfo will display every turn from then on "Mansa: Economics" until you get Economics yourself or Mansa becomes unwilling to trade it. What would be really cool is to add an option to toggle between paradigms. Sometimes I feel like a reminder each turn of all the things I could buy, and sometimes I don't want the spam. It would be especially cool to have ShowInfo's alerts for resources, because often you have a 1-turn window to snag a newly available resource trade before someone else does.

FYI, ShowInfo suffers from the exact same problem of certain alerts being a turn late. But it comes with a hotkey (Shift-I, I think) that displays it on demand. So once you begin your turn, you can hit Shift-I and see correct info.

EmperorFool

Nov 01, 2007, 09:16 PM

Eunomiac

Nov 13, 2007, 08:43 AM

I have some ideas for the Alt-M reminders function, which is an absolute godsend. I posted a thread awhile back expounding on the virtues of this little-known function, when I thought it was part of the game itself and not the BUG Mod, and a lot of people were very excited about it. Definitely one of the lesser-known treasures of the BUG Mod! I think it could be made even better with reasonably little work. Specifically:

1) Could you add a recurring reminders function? That way you can set things up at the beginning to make sure you aren't neglecting elements of your empire (i.e. every thirty turns, I have a "check Espionage ratios" reminder pop up - but I have to manually recur them by setting multiple ones at 30 turns, 60 turns, 90 turns, etc.)

2) Would it be possible to have it work as a single string? So you could define some simple syntax form such as "[# of Turns]@[Reminder text]" for a normal reminder, and "[# of Turns]*@[Reminder Text]" for a recurring reminder. That way you could Alt-M-->type-->ENTER, instead of having to fumble for the mouse to move the cursor to the number field. Also, it would be easy to save a list of reminders to load up each game in a simple text file with each reminder on a new line:

10*@Stop, take a breath, review your plan!
20@Dotmap likely 2nd city locations
30*@Check Espionage sliders
70@Getting too late to neglect Barbarian defenses...

I'm trying to be conscious of amount of effort, and hope I've suggested ideas that aren't too onerous. We all appreciate the work you guys are putting into this!

walbeek

Nov 14, 2007, 03:56 AM

Instead of an option that showed all trades every turn (it looks like it only shows the top X civs sorted by various columns you can change), how about just adding the hotkey?

Well, okay, I can see the value of the alert every turn I've been trying to think of other ways to display the data. For one, I really like the use of icons to shrink the volume of information displayed. They provide the same amount of information in less space.

One big difference between the two mods is that Civ4lerts is geared around the item to trade (showing all tech trade messages, then all DP messages, then all gold trade, etc) whereas ShowInfo shows all information for a single civ in a single message. I see the value of both and can't decide if one trumps the other. Sure, the more options the better in most cases, but more options come at the cost of fewer options for something else (and complexity). I can only code so fast.

Ooh, and a new alert possibility: showing when AIs learn techs that you already know. This would help you track their progress and know when you lost a sale opportunity (less important since it's lost after all).

Anyway, lots to think about...

Don't you think you could be providing TOO MUCH info's? This could info could influence the game. E.g. the AI's learn techs that you already know: that way you don't have to use the espionage anymore or diplomacy to see what techs you can offer (thus they don't have). Now you have to keep track of their research yourselve, providing you allocate enough recources towards espionage, and keep looking in the scoreboard who is researching what to get a general idea where "they" are in technological tree or contact your "neighbours" once in a while to check up on them. And of course that way you'll never get a complete picture, 'cause you'll always miss some... If you were really a leader of a great civ, you don't know everything the other knows or has either. And the "getting to know" is part of the game.

The recources (and what recource) "will trade" info could be usefull though. (EF: I agree on the using on Icons part! much clearer I would asume):) . I'm less enthousiastic about the tech trading part.