For Patch 4i Minor Annoyance's 2nd unit-capture-promotions will be added, along with some fixes and corrections. I hope to have it up some time this week.

For those who can't wait for it: you can already download Minor Annoyance zipfile here http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8093919&postcount=671 (Unzip/Install in your existing MOO2Civ mod folder and let overwrite if asked.)

We're all holding our breaths :)

I hope you can hold your breath for 1-2 days.:lol:

Oh well, we hardy British people can hold our breaths for at least 1 - 2... seconds, so we only need to do that, let's see, 60 x 60 x 24 times and we're done! :)

OK, but seriously: I ran into a bit of trouble trying to exclude the barbs from building planetary defense units. If I can't fix that by tomorrow I think I'll push that back to the following patch. So, word is: Patch4i will be up either tomorrow or Saturday at the latest.;)

Oh yeah: I'll also try and include Blue Marble background terrain. I'll let you know how that works out.;)

Great stuff. Stick in the BM leaderheads as well :)

How much of BUG/BAT have you included in the MoO2 mod?

BM Leaderheads? Who/where are they?

From BUG/BAT nothing is included. Do you think it would improve the MOO feel? (For this reason Kael's Assimilation mod is merged in - plus it adds some excellent playing options.)

Blue Marble leaderheads. Then again, there aren't likely to be any, seeing as I assume you're using custom MOO ones :(

I definitely think that relationship smilies will improve the mood and things like the game clock, visible era, great leader countdown, 5% tax sliders and so on will improve the gameplay.

Indeed. Now seems like a good time for the next thread: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=321752

Well, as mentioned, I ran into a bit of last minute trouble. I'm currently trying to upload Patch4i. I'll let it be known when I've got confirmation of that.

:goodjob: Just uploaded:

M002Civ Patch4i

Full info on the download page:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=12437

I've had to push back some stuff to the next patch (which has the working title Patch4j), including a possible merge-in of BUG mod:

I definitely think that relationship smilies will improve the mood and things like the game clock, visible era, great leader countdown, 5% tax sliders and so on will improve the gameplay.

I'm still looking forward to it. I might even be able to get in a multi-player game of "MoO" for once :D

It'll come; it's just I already had a workable version and trying to include Blue Marble and some other stuff was delaying the release. (BTW, you can play MOO2Civ already with Blue Marble mod loaded - only not all the Blue Marble map graphics will show.)

EDIT: I've added a note to the DL page, saying you can play MOO2Civ with Blue Marble mod installed. (The 1st screenshot is taken to show how that looks like.)

:goodjob: Just uploaded:

M002Civ Patch4j

Full info on the download page:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=12437

Special thanks to MinorAnnoyance.:D

For the next patch I'd like to fix some annoying errors.

For instance, the Gnolams seem to be missing their flag (as a civ and for their units/systems in-game); now the flag shows up correctly in the Civpedia, but I've been unable to correct it so far.

Also, I've been unable to figure out why certain leaders appear without a greeting.

Finally, I've tried to correct the screwy Assimilation game options by reintroducing Barb. World and leaving the option invisible (Visible=0), but that doesn't seem to make a difference.

Any help/suggestions with these issues will be greatly appreciated.:please:

I guess, the leaders without greetings text have also no entry in the Civ4DiplomacyInfos.xml.

I'll check that.

Here's a shot of a Darlok stealth ship in action: the other probe saw two space wrecks before I did, but went for the one farther away. I didn't understand until I realized: the probe didn't see me. (Curiously, we did establish diplomatic contact, so my probe must have 'revealed' its presence. Funnier still, when the space wreck where my probe's at disappeared, it turned back towards my probe.)

Didn't look at the zip, but if that stealth stuff changes any python files you may have to manually merge Wormholes modcomp in.

Specifically:

-CvEventManager.py
-CvAI.py

Thanks, I know. (But it's XML primarily, I noticed.)

It's all done in SDK as I don't know how to do python, so I'd only ever use it if I tried to use events.


The probes should be seeing each other as they have detection ability. The AI's probably not smart enough to know to grab one wreck over another.
The first way I tried to get the stealth in the ships were undetectable by anything ever, which would be extremely frustrating for a human player to have to protect every city like a stack of death was next to it all the time. The question is if detection coverage is so much that the ability doesn't ever get used.

Hm. While Darlok ships are indeed invisible outside Darlok territory, they cannot capture enemy systems. (A similar problem occurred with Cloaked ships in Star Trek mod; it was - partially - solved by not giving all ships the Cloak promotion, but making it optional.) I don't know if there's any way attacking stealth ships can do anything but destroy enemy units...

In the shot below 6 stealth Invasion Ships destroyed my Psilon defenders, but didn't capture the system.

Ah, a fatal flaw. Well that will have to be fixed. I'll find where it prevents invisible units from capturing cities and disable it. I think hidden nationality ships also have this so regular stealth ships would still not be able to capture cities.

You think it can be fixed? Because that would be great (might be of interest to Star Trek mod as well).

You think it can be fixed? Because that would be great (might be of interest to Star Trek mod as well).

It's fixed. Not by me though, xienwolf (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8354940&postcount=2)already had a fix for this problem. Good thing because although I was looking in the right place I wouldn't have recognize what line of code I was looking for.

Also I had failed to include a file that put information on how Darlok stealth works in the Civilopedia. It's in there now.

Checking it out now. So far, so good.;)

BTW, I noticed that TC01 came up with a different solution for Cloaked ships in Star Trek: he added a Cloak promotion with an on/off button (with the Cloak off, ships can attack/defend/capture systems).

Yeah, I haven't really ironed that out yet since I've been doing a lot of other things. I want to make it so that the Cloaked promotion removes the ability to attack (by forcing the ship to have 0 strength until it decloaks), and I have to fix a few bugs.

I'm in the process of adding AI scripting to cloak/decloak ships depending on where they are and if there are enemy ships they could destroy in range. This would be a lot better implemented via SDK- except I don't do SDK coding.


There was a purpose to this post besides that: I've uploaded the current Wormholes code (for v1.2/v1.0 of ST/FF), merged into Final Frontier, to the first post of the Wormholes topic in this forum, for the next patch.

Duly noted, and thanks again.:)

Oooh, toggleable cloaking :) Sounds nifty!

Nevermind (wrong thread)

Anyway, after extensive playtesting on various mapscripts everything seems OK. So I thought I'd upload patch4k some time this weekend. ;)

As patch4k has been released, I plan to turn attention to adding more Great People for the next patch (and hopefully get rid of some bugs and errors...).

Also for the next patch I'll be looking into curbing fighter/bomber range (possibly from an initial 6 => 4) and the Human traits. Their current +50 % credits and +50 % science may be overpowered, especially compared to the Gnolams/Psilons, who are supposed to be Financial/Scientific respectively. (I'm thinking about exchanging the Gnolam/Psilon financial/scientific traits with the current Human ones. This may be compensated by assigning both Human leaders the Charismatic Trait.) The Civpedia will be definitely partially updated again as well.

Also for the next patch I'll be looking into curbing fighter/bomber range (possibly from an initial 6 => 4) and the Human traits. Their current +50 % credits and +50 % science may be overpowered, especially compared to the Gnolams/Psilons, who are supposed to be Financial/Scientific respectively. (I'm thinking about exchanging the Gnolam/Psilon financial/scientific traits with the current Human ones. This may be compensated by assigning both Human leaders the Charismatic Trait.) The Civpedia will be definitely partially updated again as well.

Speaking of, my next project was probably going to be getting MoO2 governments into MoO2civ. This would be especially important for Humans as their government is one of their defining features. To refresh anyone who's forgotten the idea was to have the four government of MoO2 be available to everyone, but have races that had that government in MoO2 have incentives to use it, like not paying maintenance, not having anarchy when switching to it, having it available from the start, and having access to the advanced form of that government.
Now I'm not saying to not change the humans now, but don't spend too much time fine tuning because eventually there will be a whole different form of democracy which would be available to everyone, but better for one and you'd have to fine tune that differently.
It also occurred to me that just having an enhanced democracy civic available is kind of bland if it's the only ability a race had, so I was then going to get in a MoO2 style 'charisma' ability. The idea was to just have a bonus to relation with everyone. I was thinking +7 because that would be enough to go up one level on the Annoyed, Cautious, Pleased, Friendly scale (unless you were far into annoyed). So if you're going to change Humans I could skip ahead and do the charisma ability first.

Ooooh! Sounds interesting :)

Speaking of, my next project was probably going to be getting MoO2 governments into MoO2civ. This would be especially important for Humans as their government is one of their defining features. To refresh anyone who's forgotten the idea was to have the four government of MoO2 be available to everyone, but have races that had that government in MoO2 have incentives to use it, like not paying maintenance, not having anarchy when switching to it, having it available from the start, and having access to the advanced form of that government.
Now I'm not saying to not change the humans now, but don't spend too much time fine tuning because eventually there will be a whole different form of democracy which would be available to everyone, but better for one and you'd have to fine tune that differently.
It also occurred to me that just having an enhanced democracy civic available is kind of bland if it's the only ability a race had, so I was then going to get in a MoO2 style 'charisma' ability. The idea was to just have a bonus to relation with everyone. I was thinking +7 because that would be enough to go up one level on the Annoyed, Cautious, Pleased, Friendly scale (unless you were far into annoyed). So if you're going to change Humans I could skip ahead and do the charisma ability first.

Wow! I'm all for it. I've actually been wanting to have the MOO II civics in. I really like your idea and can't wait how that turns out. (As said, I was just thinking of adding Charismatic to the Human leaders' Traits, but this is way more profound.) :thumbsup:

BTW, any thoughts on adding a more MOO-style Calendar? (Instead of month, year as is.)

I just released 1.4 of Wormholes, which not only makes the labelling optional but also adds an option letting you alter the order of wormholes, from Blue - Red - Purple to any combination.

If you want to use these in MOO2Civ Patch 4l (assuming that's next), I'll post the code in the Wormholes code thread.

Cool! Sure I want to use it for patch4l. Go ahead and post it.;)

Also, I have some custom intro music, but no start screen as of yet. Any suggestion will be welcome (not on how to create one, but one to use).

Cool! Sure I want to use it for patch4l. Go ahead and post it.;)

Alright, I've posted it in the Wormholes thread.

I don't really intend to do much more work in Wormholes, maybe other then update it to the next Star Trek version or if we get a BTS 3.2x patch of some sort. I was considering adding a handful of scenarios where the map was divided by a barrier of nebula, and you had to use Wormholes to cross them, but that's about it.

Thanks again. Actually, that's an intesting scenario idea: it might also be useful in order to try and include the Antarans (currently barbs/pirates), who're supposed to be accessible through Dimensional Portals only. (That would require quite a small map portion only, to fit the Antares star system.) So, by all means, go ahead!:thumbsup:

You'd need to make the nebula thick enough to maintain fog-of-war around the Antaran dimension. I'd like to see the MoO dating system instead of months and years. It would certainly be more authentic!

How about some MoO wallpaper as the intro screen? I've attached one to this post.

I agree. Thanks for the Wallpaper suggestion, BTW - should have thought of that myself... :blush:

...I'd like to see the MoO dating system instead of months and years. It would certainly be more authentic!
...

MoO2 turns were actually one tenth of a year, so going by months is actually closer to MoO2 than years would be.

Hmm, yes... I was wondering more about the designation, but 1/10 of a year might pose a problem with dating...:(

BTW (just thought of this playtesting them), I don't suppose you know of a way to give the Elerians a map-reveal-ability?

I thought that that was the easy one, seeing as one of the FfH races has the omniscience ability?

BTW (just thought of this playtesting them), I don't suppose you know of a way to give the Elerians a map-reveal-ability?

I just tested it and giving a civ a starting technology with <bMapVisible>1</bMapVisible> set will reveal the whole map. It doesn't let you see units or cities though.
You'd also have to set the cost of the technology to -1 which means it can't be researched. <iCost>-1</iCost>
<iAdvancedStartCost>-1</iAdvancedStartCost>
Also to keep it from being traded, you'd need to set it to untradeable.
<bTrade>0</bTrade>
So if you create a technology with all that set and give it as a starting tech to the Elerians that would do it.

Cool. So a tech called ELERIAN_ABILITY with those attributes would do the trick. Can those lines be included as is or do they need to be inserted at specific places, do you know?

They're standard fields in every tech entry so if you copy an entry and change everything they'll be in the right place.

Good to know.;)

I'm also thinking the Elerians should get a free Space Academy in every star system to simulate their piloting skills.

Well then the Alkari certainly should as well. They're natural pilots, after all.

Umm... no, the only Alkari ability currently not in place is Artefact Homeworld (that is, it is simulated by +10 science; they also get +40% defense and free promotions for multiple ship designs). The Elerians are the only race with no ability as yet. (They only get free promotions for recon units.)

EDIT: If possible (+10% research seems a bit overdone) the Alkari should rather get 1-2 free techs to start with.

That's fair enough, but obviously many of the racial abilities are very similar.

In Civ-terms perhaps, but I'd say NCCSavage has done a fair job of translating most MOO-specific racial abilities to Civ IV. More finetuning is ofcourse always possible.

Regarding an artifact homeworld, that could be done by having a palace unique building that adds to science. It wouldn't technically be the homeworld with the artifacts since you can move the palace, but it's close to the original effect.

One other possible ability for Elerian's is their mind control of colonies. Now it couldn't be done in as interesting as was as in the original, but there is something that could work. Mind controlled colonies never revolt and there is a field in the promotion entries called iRevoltProtection. It's not actually used in the regular game but I checked the code it is written to use it. Anyway this changes that chance of a city going into revolt because of cultural influence. It's works as a percentage so if iRevoltProtection was set to 50 and a cities change of revolt was six then it would be half that, three. So you could give the Elerian promotion revolt protection and they would mind control captured citizens to keep working without a large number of unit needed to counter foreign culture.

Thanks again. Actually, that's an intesting scenario idea: it might also be useful in order to try and include the Antarans (currently barbs/pirates), who're supposed to be accessible through Dimensional Portals only. (That would require quite a small map portion only, to fit the Antares star system.) So, by all means, go ahead!

You'd need to make the nebula thick enough to maintain fog-of-war around the Antaran dimension.

Don't know if you'd want to do this, but you could create a "Dimensional Portal" feature and have barbarian units belonging to the Antarans spawn on those tiles. It could be another wormhole recolor. It wouldn't allow access to the Antares system. However, you could make a scenario with a region of space blocked off with the dimensional portals leading to another dimensional portal in that blocked off region.

A Dimensional Portal terrain feature would be nice, I like that. (The alternative would be a Dimensional Portal unit blocking access to and from Antares - I used this in the Civ2 MOOjr4 scenario -, which could be done for a scenario, but not for a mapscript.) The idea of a Dimensional Portal leading to another one (the 1st in Antaran space, the 2nd in "normal" space) again sounds perfect for a scenario, but could it be done for a mapscript? It would need an Antaran space section to be generated, which sounds complex, perhaps too complex for a mapscript?

Regarding the Elerians:

- artifact homeworld = Palace UU; would require some work, but might be alright (ideally ofcourse certain star systems w/artifacts should give 1 or 2 techs, but this is more or less covered w/spacewrecks in Civ-terms, I think). The problem with it is that it gives a regular science boost, as opposed to 1-2 free techs to start with (for a scenario I could do this without much trouble, for a mapscript it's a bit beyond my abilities)*

- Mind Control of colonies: good thinking (regarding the iRevoltProtection), but cultural conversion isn't what I'm thinking of - rather the 0-x anarchy turns after a colony gets taken. Is there a way to minimize this?

* I see this in connection with the 50% Human science boost and the 5% the Psilons now get; as said, I'd like to exchange those values (plus the 50% Human credit boost against the current Gnolam trade gain); that - in addition to an actual Charisma effect - would equalize the Human/Psilon/Gnolam abilities to their MOO II counterparts.

A Dimensional Portal terrain feature would be nice, I like that. (The alternative would be a Dimensional Portal unit blocking access to and from Antares - I used this in the Civ2 MOOjr4 scenario -, which could be done for a scenario, but not for a mapscript.) The idea of a Dimensional Portal leading to another one (the 1st in Antaran space, the 2nd in "normal" space) again sounds perfect for a scenario, but could it be done for a mapscript? It would need an Antaran space section to be generated, which sounds complex, perhaps too complex for a mapscript?

So, I guess there are three dimensional portal ideas?

1. Features where Antaran barbarian units spawn. Randomly scattered on mapscript.

2. In a scenario, they would be features that act like wormholes. (Scenario only). A Dimensional Portal lets you access Antaran space, and another allowing you to leave.

3. A mapscript that places a blocked off space called Antaran space, with a dimensional portal in it and one outside.

#1 is probably the easiest to do. #2 could also be done reasonably easily. All you would have to do is make a map, place the portals where you wanted them, and then I could write the code to make it work.

#3 would be harder, but still doable, maybe. I think I could make a mapscript place a blocked off region (with only a solar system and a portal inside, surrounded by nebula), but it would be in the "corner" of a map each time. From there it would be easier to randomize it to appear in any corner. From there, you'd have to place a Dimensional Portal on the outside, which is easy.

If you wanted to do option 3, the easiest way to do it would be to use the first type of dimensional portal in a new mapscript (Antares? AntaranSpace? EnclosedSpace? Whatever). When barbarian units aren't spawning in them, you can travel through them.

Ok, I've been thinking about this; if you have the time, could you make that #3 mapscript? The problem - from my viewpoint - would be the Portal feature (I understand how it works, but wouldn't know how to code it). The reason I'm asking is that I think a general mapscript (where the Antarans will feature as their own civ instead of barbs/pirates)* is preferable to a scenario with a fixed map.

*As mentioned earlier, TEH_ALIENZ occupy a slot intended for the Antarans, but currently not implemented.

I'm going to open another topic to discuss the "EnclosedSpace" mapscript, to keep this one for general next patch stuff.

On that subject: in my game at least, I can choose from existing Civilization IV public maps. I may have done this by accident, but if not, you might want to block this in the .ini file so people don't try to start a game with the Archipelago or Continents script- a land script...

Again: good thinking - and thanks. :) (I actually once started up a game like that myself...):rolleyes:

...

- Mind Control of colonies: good thinking (regarding the iRevoltProtection), but cultural conversion isn't what I'm thinking of - rather the 0-x anarchy turns after a colony gets taken. Is there a way to minimize this?

...

That's a good idea. I actually had been thinking about exactly this, (reducing anarchy time for captured colonies) but for governments. Like how democracy assimilates captured colonists faster and feudal assimilates instantly when captured (although it seems that it was bugged because I haven't seen it happen), it hadn't occurred to me to use it for mind control. So I will look into that.

Also, the Human charisma ability is almost done. I just have to write text for it so it is listed on the display for it's trait, and for when you look at the factors for your foreign relations level with a leader. I've had trouble coming up with a good phrase for it though. The two best I've though of are "You're a pleasant people" and "I like your face", the second being something drunks sometimes say, or a least what people say drunks say. I could always leave it out, like how there are negative relations modifiers if an empire has lost a war to you, there's a difference in rank, or the AI's "warmonger respect" but it doesn't show it in numbers, just the "word". i.e. they'd have a big number for positive relations but still be cautious. This charisma ability also works in the negative so it could make Silicoids repulsive. I don't know them to be powerful enough to warrant a disadvantage, but it's available if they're improved later. Also back on to the Elerians, in MoO2 the telepathy ability also gave a boost to foreign relations due to being able to read minds and say the right thing, so they could be given a smaller charisma bonus of 1 or 2 to reflect that.

Sounds good.;) I hadn't thought of a negative Charisma modifier myself, but that might indeed more or less suit the Silicoid Repulsive as well as the Klackon Xenophobic traits (repulsive being even less charismatic than xenophobic). While the Klackons have a productive advantage, the Silicoids have double production speed of Automated Factory (a.o.) plus Soil Enrichment on the first planet of every colonized system, so a negative charisma modifier shouldn't be that much of a disadvantage to leave it out. (I've tried playing them a couple of times - as well as the Elerians - and they seem OK, though not really an obvious first choice to play.) Giving the Elerians some extra charisma to represent their mind reading ability seems fair as well.:thumbsup:

Sounds good.;) I hadn't thought of a negative Charisma modifier myself, but that might indeed more or less suit the Silicoid Repulsive as well as the Klackon Xenophobic traits (repulsive being even less charismatic than xenophobic)...

That would actually be two different things. A repulsive race is hated by others but they like others just fine, while a Xenophobic race hates others but others like them just fine. In that case Xenophobic would be more something that could be done in CIV4LeaderHeadInfos.xml where personalities are handled.
I had looked into CIV4LeaderHeadInfos.xml before to see the personalities of the leaders and I saw that everyone's was the same. Mrrshans are as likely to build up their military as Psilons, Darloks are as likely to use spies as Trillarians, and Klackons are as eager to make deals as Gnolams. So I have thought about how to rewrite them to conform to the six personality types from MoO2, as well as the different objectives and possibly things to make them play to their advantages. For instance have Mrrshans be more eager to declare war even without a power advantage because promotions aren't taken into account in the power graph so their +50 attack bonus isn't considered when judging the overall strength of their civilization.

Attached are the files for the new charisma trait. The charisma value for the different races are in CIV4TraitInfos.xml as <iCharisma>. Currently it's set to Humans 7, Silicoids -7, and Elerians 2. It doesn't have any text for when it lists the factors affecting a leaders attitude and it doesn't show the number either so you'll just see the word for you're relations level be higher that you'd think it would be. Seven is enough to go up (or down) one full attitude level. That's probably enough for Humans, the Elerians it's not supposed to be a major factor so two is probably enough. I don't know how the Silicoids play so someone else should look into if -7 is too restrictive for them.

Great! Will check to see how it works in-game ASAP.:goodjob:

I expect to upload MOO2Civ 4l some time next week (the exact date depends on some tweaking and testing). ;)

Oh, that sounds good. I'll look forward to it.

Also, I'll include the very first official MOO2Civ scenario, entitled "Battle for Antares" (thanks to TC01 for making the Enclosed Space mapscript and the FF Worldbuilder utility). ;)

Right: both the announced scenario and patch 4l will be delayed, I'm afraid, for at least a week. Sorry.:(