This thread is for feedback on Dune Wars version 1.3. All feedback welcome, be it good, bad or ambivalent. :)

(replies to feedback on "new convert" thread, redirected here)

- Right at the beginning I get notified that the altroot.py is in the wrong direction (I still have it copied over in the BTS directory from my attempt to play with Dune wars 1.2)

I don't know this one. I don't use this file. Anybody?

- I found the groundwater ressource nearly impossible to spot without the ressource overlay

Agree. Deliverator will add a graphic.

- Some events behave weird. Often the choice you got offered consist only of a single word, which is the same for all. Then one time my scout passed a desert and caused the "found black oil" event - but the second option of paying 10G for discovering all spice wasn't available (despite having enough Gold). Perhaps the save helps to track that issue down (if it is one)
- Since that event I get the two python errors every few turns (see pics)

Unfortunately we have not updated the events at all. I always play with events off, we should cleanup this whole file at some point. For now "don't use events" should go into the release note.

- You still get "Gold" (isn't the currency on Arrakis "Solarii"?) from tribal huts, also a computer opponent "circumnavigated the globe"
- The hoover help for the Space Port tech talks of improving chop yield by 50% - is there anything left to chop after the removal of tubers?

There is some text which is hard-coded to refer to certain things. It may be possible to find these somewhere in the xml/text files. This is one, from the tech tree; another is "Allows working water tiles". The effect is the correct one, but the text needs to be fixed.

If anybody finds additional text which needs to be updated, please let us know and we can hunt them down. (The text, not the playtesters :-)

- The tech Xeno Botany allows "Desalinating a Salt Pan" - is that just a worker command for clearing tiles covered with the feature "Salt"?

On the other hand, here is where we did update one of the texts. This used to say "Remove Jungle", but jungle => salt and you "desalinate" it. We should make sure the same name, "Salt Pan", is used in both places.

DA01. Sapho button is missing ("BONUS_SHEEP") I think keldath already noticed this.

DA02. The City Wind Trap gives no water. It "appears" to have no effect at all. It actually gives fresh water around the city, but this is in python so there is no message about it. Should the CWT give a similar bonus to what the normal WT gives? That, combined with the 3 water for a normal city, may make it too easy.

DA03. The Sand Verbena bonus allows both a drip farm and a camp ("enclosure", I think) to be built, but they appear to give different benefits. Not sure if that is on purpose.

DA04. Need a "water consumed" icon to replace the bread with a nibble out of it, in the city screen at the top where it shows your population growth rate.

DA05. Maybe I had an easy start location, but I had 20 water income by very early. I had two groundwaters, two hills (for wind traps) and a sand verbena in my starting BFC. On the other hand, I couldn't get my health above 4 until I got nutrient convoy. If we get a lot of feedback that water is easy and health is hard, we may need to tune slightly.

DA06. When I built my spice corp, I had 5 gold income, but zero city expense. It is supposed to cancel out -- that is, you are supposed to get 5 gold income but 5 gold expense from "corporate payments". Is anybody getting the 5 gold expense? This makes the amount of early game gold too high.

DA07. I notice the monument only gives +1 culture vs +2 in vanilla. That means the second city takes forever to expand its BFC (without creative). Is there a reason for this? Possibly a side effect of deleting one of the other early culture buildings, but I vote to put it back to +2 culture.

hey guys,
been busy with study to final exam..

great work you guys did so far,
the new fedykeen units, cities map and more.


one thing though...
are we sure we wanna have a thread for every version? wont it create multiple threads in the future?
shouldnt we use "bug thread" for that...?

but, that's just me...

next week ill get back on some Sirius dune work.


lets make 1.4 version a blast :)

Most of the mods with sub-forums start a new thread for each major version. That way, if a new player joins up, they can read what people have already reported on the current version, without having to wade through dozens/hundreds of posts about decisions which have already been made in previous versions.

Extracting the 1.3 sound file gives about 30 "file is broken" messages.

Loading the 1.3 mod gives me about 20 or so tag failures when loading xml, including all the leaders. No leaders show up in the mod.

*edit*
I did one atypical thing; I installed the mode before installing 3.19 by accident (the installation was open in another window), then deleted the dune wars folder and reinstalled.

*edit2*
Dumb question, the 1.3 was supposed to be a standalone right, not installed over some previous version?

*edit3*
Deleted and reinstalled the core mod again, but not the sound file, and it works fine.
Maybe the sound file over-wrote some important files by accident?

Please make sure 3.19 is working by itself, then delete your mods\dune wars folder, then install 1.3. This is how I did it, and the game came up first time.

I already did that. It works now, but *doesn't* work if I install the v1.3 Sounds file.

I am strange, I always play with sound off. It works this way, for sure.

There is a patch available which has a new graphic for Groundwater and few other things: Link (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8255665&postcount=56)

I haven't tested the sound pack myself yet, I'll have a go.

Not sure which is the best thread to discuss about runtime performance, but here is what I found.

I did several runs to experiment with runtime. I am not sure exactly what I proved. Perhaps I should have taken a more formal approach. I used the same map, standard size archipelago, and autoplayed 100 turns. Here are the runs, the time in seconds, and what was different about each one.


a 127 Normal
b 159 Ctrl-z+zoom
c 113 Ctrl-z+zoom, empty spice nif
d 141 Ctrl-z+zoom, empty storm and worm nif
e 77 Minimize
f 56 Minimize, python off
g 67 Minimize, all three nif empty


In (b,c,d), I tried to display as much of the map as possible by turning on ctrl-z and going out to maximum view size (before the clouds appear). In (c,d,g) I replaced some of the nif files with the empty.nif Deliverator made. In (e,f,g) I started autoplay and then immediately minimized the game with alt-tab so it was not actually drawing anything. In (f) I disabled the python so there were no storms, worms or spice displayed. This makes the game play totally differently due to no commerce income, so it is not a perfect test.

I can draw a couple of easy conclusions. First, if you are autoplaying, minimize! It's 40% faster (a vs e). Second, comparing b-c and b-d, the spice seems to make a pretty substantial difference in runtime; the worm and storm together make a much smaller difference. I will retry with the new graphics deliverator has just put up.

It is hard to analyze what (e,f,g) together mean. If it is minimized and no graphics are being drawn, then you would think (e,g) should have the same runtime. Perhaps this time is spent preparing graphics, which are not displayed after all. But the python is clearly doing the same thing in both, so this 10 seconds cannot be attributed to python runtime. The other 10 seconds between (f,g) is due to two factors, python runtime, and the fact that the civs basically starve to death from lack of commerce income. I can't think of any way to separate these. Let's say it is 50/50. Then the additional runtime of all the python is 5 sec, against 127 sec of total runtime. To really understand the impact, we would have to re-implement all this in sdk and see what the runtime of that is; let us say it is 0 sec. Then python accounts for 5 sec of 127 sec or about 3%. I am OK with that.

In patch 1.3.1, I have removed the attachable effects from the spice - it made a noticeable difference on my machine.

Initial impressions; there is a *wide* variance in civ power. I think this comes from variance in tile yields.

First, some civs start in areas of badlands that can't be cottaged, and so are commerce poor.

Second, there is a big variation between the water plants and the water supplies, but these come from differences in the value of their improvements.

My *guess* is that the map generation script tries to have fairly even unimproved tile yields across the planet (with some areas slightly better and other areas slightly worse) and then locate civs start point in areas that have good food supply and at least 1-2 hills nearby.

This is problematic when some of the food sources only get 2 water or so from complexes on them, but the groundwater sources get much larger yields from wells.
Civs that started near groundwater grew much faster than those that started near barrel cactus.

Possible solutions:
a) Have the Well and Complex improvements give similar tile yield bonuses, and represent any other small variation in the value of bonus resources with variation in their base tile yield.
b) Remove many of the flatland terrain restrictions, so cottages and solar farms can be built on all or most of the basic terrain types.

b) Remove many of the flatland terrain restrictions, so cottages and solar farms can be built on all or most of the basic terrain types.

I'd vote for this one. Plus maybe I can further tune the placement of bonuses.

Interesting points. I think groundwater distribution is the most worrisome of those feedbacks. I would vote against equalizing the bonus of the well and the complex; the well is supposed to provide a lot of water, while the complex represents getting a little dew off the leaves of things. There is an argument to make the complex *cost* water. So perhaps we have to more carefully normalize the groundwaters available to each civ.

If you think the starts are too varied now, you should play 1.3.1 with the new polar terrain. ;)

If you think the starts are too varied now, you should play 1.3.1 with the new polar terrain.

Maybe the solution there is to have everyone start at the poles; half near the north pole, half near the south pole? And then they expand out towards the middle.

I also don't think that the tundra replacement badlands near the poles with better tiles near the equator makes much sense given Arrakis geography.

If you think the starts are too varied now, you should play 1.3.1 with the new polar terrain.

In my local version with the Terraform Counter, I have defined vanilla plains and grassland. These are also added to the map especially around start positions. I suspect that the mapscript function normalizeAddFoodBonuses is adding my terrain, and also adding your terrain. There are two possible solutions, neither is perfect.

1. In the mapscript, add a line at the end:

def normalizeAddFoodBonuses(): return

This prevents any new food bonus from being added near you, which may be too strong. It seems this does improve terrains, even though from the name you would guess that it only adds resources.

2. I have written a python function inside onGameStart which finds the Terraform terrains and puts them back to our mod's terrain for grassland and plains. I can add the polar ice terrain to this check. It's easy to add but my DuneWars.py is in the middle of some revisions right now. Perhaps tomorrow morning I can make a 1.3.2 which includes your 1.3.1a and also converts polar ice back to arid.

I think we need a more permanent solution to prevent our special purpose terrains from being placed by the default mapscripts. Cephalo is our local mapscript expert and he does not know of a way to do this. I suspect the answer lies inside vanilla CvMapGeneratorUtil.py.

In patch 1.3.1, I have removed the attachable effects from the spice - it made a noticeable difference on my machine.

Using 1.3.1a, the time of run (b), with the full map displayed at max viewing size, is reduced from 159 sec to 124 sec. So that is a significant improvement. Thanks!

def normalizeAddFoodBonuses(): return

This prevents any new food bonus from being added near you, which may be too strong. It seems this does improve terrains, even though from the name you would guess that it only adds resources.

In 1.3.1, I always seem to start in the polar terrain - so much so that it can't be a coincidence. In BonusInfos.xml I have only set groundwater to be normalized, but I'm not sure there's a bit difference with or without it.

Stubbing out normalizeAddFoodBonuses seems a good way to go for now.

hey guys,

i think theres no button for polar terrain ..:)

I did several runs to experiment with runtime. I am not sure exactly what I proved. Perhaps I should have taken a more formal approach. I used the same map, standard size archipelago, and autoplayed 100 turns. Here are the runs, the time in seconds, and what was different about each one.


David, how did you print out the times? I want to make some tests too.

It is not so obvious. Do you write python? I already have a callback in the python which is executed once every 10 turns and prints into a file. You can see DuneWars.py StatInit and StatPrint. When I did this locally, I added the line, "import time" at the top of the file; then the magic phrase you need is:

s = time.strftime("%H:%M:%S")

This gives you a string you can print into the file which gives the current hour, minute, second. I autoplay 105 turns and then look into the debug file. It has the time that turn 0 ran, and the time that turn 100 ran, then I subtract. There is a function time.time() which is supposed to give the number of seconds since 1970. But this function seems to cache somehow because it returns 0 for a while, then 128. So it does not have good resolution. Although strftime is not perfect it does what I wanted.

strftime is what I needed to know. ;)

Some more feedback from my 1.3 game and a new one I started with the 1.3.1 patch:

- [1.3.1] Game runs a bit faster in the beginning, I will pay attention how it goes on
- [1.3.1] Don't know if that was the intention, but Groundwater is now very abundant (and now also very visible ;) ) - it is hard to place a city without having a source in its radius (see picture)
- [1.3] I noticed that their is still inflation in the game and also read the discussion Ahriman started about it. Maybe it could be replaced by higher costs for specialized and later units, like in Planetfall?
- [1.3] Another text relict from BTS...leaders still "unite under the AP", if the Bene Gesserit Palace is built

- [1.3.1] Don't know if that was the intention, but Groundwater is now very abundant (and now also very visible ;) ) - it is hard to place a city without having a source in its radius (see picture)

Well what you said is sort of the intention - Groundwater is the most productive source of water and we want most starting positions to have access to it to ensure decent growth. There is, obviously, a downside in that there is less room for other bonuses to be placed and things can feel a bit samey. Hopefully, with maybe a bit more tuning and maybe some other bright ideas we can refine the concept. All this is quite new since it was only in the last week that water-for-food got integrated...

Hopefully, with maybe a bit more tuning and maybe some other bright ideas we can refine the concept. All this is quite new since it was only in the last week that water-for-food got integrated...You could make groundwater less common but make it discoverable - like gold etc. can be found with mines and increase the rate at which it is found (because the standard rate for metals would be too low).

Just a random idea.

Cheers, LT.

Maybe some variation in groundwater can be made just for mild flavor, and a slight difference in tile yield? maybe some have +1 water to start with and -1 from wells? Or some that give 1 more from a well than others? Like how pigs/sheep and rice/wheat/corn are different?
Differentiate size: meagre groundwater, groundwater, plentiful groundwater?
Or by name? Artesian Spring, aquifer, artesian basin, groundwater, thermal spring, geysers
Or by depth? Shallow aquifer/deep aquifer etc?

Deep aquifers could have higher tech requirements to be revealed.

Also; the stillsuit maker corporation seems to be unbuildable (it is unfounded, I have the tech requirements and a great trader but no found corp option), which is a good thing, since using groundwater as a

I plan to write some documentation for a 1.3.x patch. It will be included in 1.4, presumably, so I did not create a separate thread.

I will mod the civilopedia "BTS Game Concepts" tab. I will rename it "Dune War Concepts". I will remove all the concepts which are there (you should know these by now!) and put new ones. Let's discuss which should be the important topics.

1. Movement. Ability of early game units to move on desert with techs; hover units; carryall units; maybe also, "why don't you have carryalls at the start of the game".

2. Hazards. Sandworms and sandstorms.

3. Water. Importance of groundwater bonus and wells; why do plants give you water

4. Spice. Blows, spice, spice harvester, spice corporation, spice expires.

5. Terraforming. Explains the terraforming victory.

6. Civilizations. List of the unique abilities for each civ. Currently only Harkonnen slavers and Fenring hero-spies are listed, but it will grow.

Any major new concepts missing?

hey guys,
about patch 1.3.3:

1. some buttons are missing - the terrain,

2. terraforming improvement art isnt good - see pedia for this.


ill start working on a patch fixing all of those on the weekend.


***
something is wrong with te terraforming art- the terrain aswell..

I'm going to put my playtest comments for 1.3.4 here, regardless of whether they are bonus related or not.

Overall, I have to say the mod is totally different now than it was with 1.3.1, it is like playing a brand new game. The unit changes were designed independently of the bonus changes, and it shows a little bit. I think we need a bunch of playtest feedback, then some more major changes to move things around. Once that is done, we will be ahead. But I think we should hold off on different types of gameplay changes until we get units and bonuses more synchronized.

I am going to number my feedbacks starting with my list in post #3 in this thread, using "DA" as a prefix. Some people may view this as overly organized, unless you also have been in charge of "code bash" activities for commercial software. We may get dozens of feedbacks, some contradictory, some duplicates, and having a unique name for each comment will help make sure nothing gets lost. Your mileage may vary.

DA08. There are too many hidden resources. In vanilla, there are only three early game resources which are hidden: horse, copper, iron. The location of these makes a big difference. In DW today, the insect farm tech hides four resources, the desert plantation hides another four, and none of these are particularly strategic. I recommend removing most of the reveals so they can be seen when the game starts.

DA09. The water cache (granary) gives +1 health on three resources. That is good but they seem to be less common resources, and why these three? Perhaps it should apply to a wider, consistent set of resources.

DA10. The bladesman gives +10% to city attack. That is nice, but we still need a siege unit to damage the walls. This is not available until crystal is connected. This is a less common resource and it seems to delay city attacks.

DA11. No civs start with thopter. I am not sure exactly how the game assigns your beginning explorer unit. Usually civs that start with hunting start with a scout. But even civs that start with the proper tech for scout thopters, start with a soldier instead of a thopter.

DA12. Art of Kanly makes no sense on Water Transportation tech.

DA13. In the civilopedia, the description of the Ix leader says "she". Based on the screenshot, sorry, that is one ugly lady! Can we pick a male Ix leader or get a female screenshot?

DA14. I find health to be a huge limit right when the game starts. By turn 50, I built a couple of windtraps and wells, and I had 16 water income. But my health was only 3. So I was going to have like -5 health. There was one health resource in my BFC, but it wasn't one of the water cache related ones, so it only gave me +1. I had to beeline space ports and build nutrients convoy to get anywhere at all. I think we need more health bonuses, either from resources or buildings, for the early game.

DA15. I did not understand the difference between the three groundwaters. All three of them give +1 water. I see that the different well types give more water when you build on them. This may be too much complexity, I am not sure.

DA16. Spice decays too fast. Several times I just got the harvester built, and then it immediately vanished. We need it to decay a little so that new blows appear, but it should be slower.

I basically agree with everything in this last post.

Health has certainly been an issue I've noticed. There seems to be something fundamental we are missing from vanilla, or maybe just lots of small differences all adding up.

I definitely got carried away with the hidden resources. It might be interesting to delay the Desert Plantation ones just slightly, but make the others visible at the beginning.

The three types of Groundwater was suggested so I thought it was worth trying out.

We seem to have quite an interesting collaborative technique going on. The cycle seems to go: step release -> new feature free-for-all -> balancing/fixing/tidyup -> next step release. That is not a bad iterative process all things considered, and more ideas come out of the interactions between different people's work. It may be a bumpy ride at times, but the mod will end up better for it I think.

hey i agree with you guys,

as for the siege unit,
koma removed it, ill re add it.

In general I welcome david's attempt for more structure, but what is DA standing for?

DA10. Bladesmen have the 'IgnoreBuildingDefense' ablility. Unfortunately it doesn't show up in the civilopedia, but it's on my todo list for fixing. If aquiring crystal is that much of a problem we have to increase placement rate and make sure it's in a short range to your starting position.

DA11. Yeah, I don't have a clue where starting units are defined. :dunno:

DA16. Agreed. Also I fail to see the advantage of the current dynamic spice system. Imho it doesn't add anyting interesting to gameplay. There doesn't seems to be any strategy involved in acquiring spice. You don't have to protect it. It only makes your economy less predictable. More worse, it thwarts my poor cpu. :)
I would prefer going back to spice as a bonus (no feature). Place it only far in deep desert. We would have to edit the sdk to make bonus usable and improvements buildable outside of territory. You would not only have to protect your cities but also your spice production far away. This would finally give us a reason to go into deep desert.

as for the siege unit,
koma removed it, ill re add it

What do you mean? I haven't removed the maula mortar.

I quite like the random blows; particaulrly if you can make the sandworms more of an issue for them.

It seems atm like worms are animal AI - they won't enter cultural borders to attack?
Maybe more worms need to be spawned?

But I like the idea of sending out harvesters but having to run from the worms.

Another possibility; make the build time for a refinery much longer (like triple the current build time or more) and have fewer blows in total, but make the refinery decay much much longer.

That way, you spend more of your time there building improvements (and having to worry about worms) and less time constantly moving around to new blows.

Another possibility with this; have harvesters that are only for building spice refineries, and give them very high movement rates, but long build times for the refinery.

This woudl also improve the value of the techs and civics that increase worker rate.

I'm suspicious about the ability to get the AI opponent to intelligently build improvements and defend from pillage spice resources that are a long way out into the deep desert.

DA11. Yeah, I don't have a clue where starting units are defined.

I know you can use FreeUnitClasses in CIV4CivilizationInfos.xml to give yourself extra starting units. Presumably, if you trace that tag through the code you can find where the other starting units are defined.

Maybe more worms need to be spawned?

No, imho there are already too much worms. The current implementation of sandworms favor human player big time. Ever played an ai autoplay game in dune wars? The ai is constantly losing units to them.


I'm suspicious about the ability to get the AI opponent to intelligently build improvements and defend from pillage spice resources that are a long way out into the deep desert.

Ai behaviour can be changed. ;)

In general I welcome david's attempt for more structure, but what is DA standing for?

Sorry, I do this all the time in RL but I forgot to explain. If several people are all submitting issues simultaneously, then we need a way to tell whose "issue 10" we are discussing. My initials are DA. So "DA10" is my tenth issue. Each person should use some different string prefix, so we can tell them all apart.

I fail to see the advantage of the current dynamic spice system.[...] More worse, it thwarts my poor cpu.

The key concept of the spice blows is that they appear randomly in the books, and signal Fremen that more spice is appearing. If the spice does not decay, then there is no reason for new spice blows to ever appear. So to make blows appear, the spice has to decay. Any votes on keeping it or removing it?

The *randomness* of the spice appearing has nothing to do with overloading your cpu. If there are 100 squares of spice there constantly, it is the same cpu load as 100 squares in changing locations. After Deliverator's change to remove the attachables, do you still find it too slow?

I'm suspicious about the ability to get the AI opponent to intelligently build improvements and defend from pillage spice resources that are a long way out into the deep desert.

Ditto. I can make the spice appear at the start of the game and never change or decay; but then I have to remove blows, and it requires a little more care to make sure each player has equal access to spice. Right now I just assume that random is random, and if you have less now, you will have more later.

Deliverator

ill add to patch 1.3.5 the scout thopter.

koma13,
your right,
i mean we should make mhula a bit sooner.

though i loke the spice blows alot - its one of the cool unique stuff we have,
i tend to agree with koma,

first i think we should limit spice after a blow to 1 tile only,
second, make spice blows occur not every five min, but much longer and rarer = spice should cover all of the map, and indeed i think we need to add some strategy to the spice - i want nations to fight for it, spice as a resource - madse it rarer and if you wanted more pf it to your empire - you needed to conquar more land.

koma13,
no need to edit the sdk - we have jimprovement code, we can do what ever we wnat with improvements - built outside and more.

so, any thought about spice mechanics?
mine is to make spice apear less and smaller, so it wouldn't be that easy to get spice,
and in order to adjust economy - change the spice money value from house corp.

There's somethnig weird with Assault Hovers; when I select one the normal orders panel disappears, and they don't seem to have any promotions available to them. Maybe they're in the wrong unit class or something?

Sorry, I do this all the time in RL but I forgot to explain. If several people are all submitting issues simultaneously, then we need a way to tell whose "issue 10" we are discussing. My initials are DA. So "DA10" is my tenth issue. Each person should use some different string prefix, so we can tell them all apart.


Ah ok. So when I have a new issue to report I will put a MK before. :)

The key concept of the spice blows is that they appear randomly in the books, and signal Fremen that more spice is appearing. If the spice does not decay, then there is no reason for new spice blows to ever appear. So to make blows appear, the spice has to decay. Any votes on keeping it or removing it?

It doesn't feels random. It's always there, next to you. I don't care if spice appears in plot (20, 22) or (24,22). So whats the point in constantly changing this?

I have to admit that reducing appearance of spice and increasing decay time could help. But it has the disadvantage that economy would even more fluctuate.

I think one of the coolest flavor things from Dune is the tension of trying to get as much spice as possible before the worms come, and the differning Atreides/Harkonnen attitudes to this (save the spice vs save the crew - sounds like a good event actually -> pick a gold income or a happiness bonus).

I think this isn't in the mod as much as it could be (radically longer build times would help with this), but making them normal resources that are there permanently would remove this.
You need to be *afraid* of worms as a human player, rather than just having them eat a few scouts.

I'd remove their ability to go into non-ocean tiles, but make them normal barbarian AI, so they will enter your territory and try to go after your harvesters and pillage your refineries.

Personally I'm not bothered by the randomness at all; law of large numbers it evens out, and its not that hard to adjust the science slider to account for the changes over time.

DA17. Worker can still "walk on water" using TerrainPassableTech. This was removed from the other early units due to the scout thopter.

DA18. Sandworm should not be able to attack thopters at all, or at least, it should not be attracted to stacks which have only thopter units.

DA19. Harkonnen slaver attack converts a defeated sandworm into a slave.

DA20. Why does infantry have a ranged attack? Perhaps it is just inherited because the unit started out as archer/longbowman, but it isn't clear why they should attack at range.

DA21. There is an improvement "Aquabore", but the build action is "Build a Qanat System". Not sure which is intended but they should match.

DA22. I improved some of the build buttons. But still, the improvement buttons for all three mines (in the pedia) should be changed to match the build buttons. Also the build buttons for all three turbines should be replaced with their improvement buttons (they will need to be cut out of the atlas, it seems build buttons cannot come from an atlas.)

DA23. The thopter, which is not an air unit, is eligible for air unit promotions such as Range I and Ace.

DA21. There is an improvement "Aquabore", but the build action is "Build a Qanat System". Not sure which is intended but they should match.

My mistake it should be "Drill an Aquabore" or something like that.

On the spice, my vote is keep the spice blows, but slow the decay process down quite a lot. It might take a bit of tuning to find a nice level for it.

DV1. Xeno Botany for Desalinating Salt Pans is a bit wrong. I'd change the name to Desert Engineering which fits with the surounding techs, and change Mining -> Surface Mining just to differentiate it a bit from Mineral Extraction.

DV2. Koma made this point: Carryall tech comes way too late to be a decent replacement for roads. ... and I agree. It seems a bit strange that you build a space port and many other things, but then Dune Topography for Light Carryalls is so far up the tree. Can we bring it forward?

DV3. Not really an issue, but a feature request. I would like to see the Desert Workers replaced/upgraded with Worker Carryalls. These would be great for flavour. They can have +1 movement over the Desert Workers.

DA17. I don't think the ai will load workers on transports. If we remove the ability to cross the deep desert, ai will have to build a worker on every single island.

DA18. Ah, finally... :goodjob: I suggested that multiple times. We can try giving the sandworm a huge combat penalty vs. thopters.

DA20. True, it's related to archer. Maybe moving ranged attacks to the missile trooper is more convincing?

DA23. Looks like a relict. Thopters were orignally intended as air units.

ok guys, ill try to get as much of this latest feed into patch 1.3.5

DA02. The City Wind Trap gives no water. It "appears" to have no effect at all. It actually gives fresh water around the city, but this is in python so there is no message about it. Should the CWT give a similar bonus to what the normal WT gives? That, combined with the 3 water for a normal city, may make it too easy.

I'd say remove the City Wind Trap. I've never been a fan, because I don't like having a building that has the same name as an improvement just with 'City' in front of it.

The presence of windtraps in the settlement is pretty much captured by the +3 water on the city tile in my opinion.

hi,
im not sure the ai uses the reservoirs of liets,

i ran an autoplay - and i was the only one to have it, might be mistaked - but worth a test.


*
ok im sure the ai wont build resorvoirs.

also i won the game very fast - i think 7 res' is to low - how about 10-15 - so it will be req to conquer more cities and to go to war more.

DA17 Is it possible to have workers be like galleys and things; so they can't cross deep desert unless its within your cultural borders? Best of both worlds.

DA18 Do we really want thoptors able to hunt down and kill sandworms?

The level 2 reservoirs need a higher tech requirement; you shouldn't be able to win a construction victory so easily.

In making the AI build them, make sure it doesn't build them in cities with badlands tiles, since these don't terraform.

Also, at current balance levels at least pro-terraforming is way better than pro-spice. It can make mega cities with huge numbers of specialists, combined with the feudalism civic +3 beakers from specialists.... crazy specialist economy.
Maybe you shoudl make it so that spice blows won't occur within the territory of pro-terraforming factions? Or that they are more likely to occur within the territory of pro-spice factions?

(redirected from bonus placement thread)

There are a lot of buildings that need to be tweaked or culled IMO. Many are also ridiculously cost-ineffective; some high level buildings that are like 300 hammers for a +15% gold bonus?

I think there are too many buildings that provide happiness bonuses. The shrine of the worm in particular is far too easy for often a +4 happy bonus.
If you want this building, why not tweak it so that its an alternative cult to the established religions, and so gives +1 unhappy for each religion present in the city.

Keldath has said he feels there are too few buildings. You have mentioned about Shrine of the Worms several times. Can you point out which other high level buildings you feel should be culled?

DA17. I don't think the ai will load workers on transports. If we remove the ability to cross the deep desert, ai will have to build a worker on every single island.

Interesting. In vanilla archipelago, I assume that the AI will load workers onto transports. Is there a reason to think it should be different in DW? I have not monitored vanilla autoplay games closely enough to tell if the workers on other islands got there by transport or by being built natively, but I'd be surprised if that was missing.

Now, that you are mentioning it... We can try adding unitai_worker_sea to all transports.

Yesterday I made a crude attempt to create a spreadsheet of all the units in this post (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8271232&postcount=36). The main point was to help focus on which units should require which strategic bonus. I have written a real script to do this, and also included the unitcombat, moves, and strength. This is based on the 1.3.5 patch from keldath today.

The attachment is a "comma separated value" file so you can read it into your favorite spreadsheet program or process it further in some other way.

Too *few* buildings? Wow.

Do you have a list of all the buildings currently in their mod with their hammer bonuses and effects? I'd be happy to go through and make recommendations. Its a bit cumbersome to try to do it from the civilopedia.

Unfortunately buildings have such a varied effect, it is hard to come up with a good way to capture the data in a spreadsheet. I can get the name, the required tech tier, and any obsoleteness tech tier; this will let us know which buildings are available at each tier. But there are so many other possible effects.

Ok, that would still be useful as a base. Saves a lot of typing :-)

But I won't have time to look until next week.

In case it is useful, here you go. It would be interesting to take this a little further and give a cumulative count of the number of wonder, nonwonder buildings available by tech tier, and compare it to vanilla ... someday.

I have written a real script to do this, and also included the unitcombat, moves, and strength. This is based on the 1.3.5 patch from keldath today.

This is going to be a big help. Thanks.

Keldath, I'm getting this python exception when starting a new game with 1.3.5:

http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/4348/civ4screenshot0016.jpg

Keldath, I'm getting this python exception when starting a new game with 1.3.5:

That is my code. I can see how this could happen in unusual circumstances, such as reloading python modules after changing them during a game. But it "should not" happen all the time. If you exit civ, restart, and start a new custom game, do you see this? Do you see this every time or just sometimes?

david, perhaps this error will be ok withyour new patch - after you relocated the new terrain in the xml?

if not - see if changing the buttins ive chosen to something else - maybe that will do the trick?

f you exit civ, restart, and start a new custom game, do you see this?
Yes, but not always. I also have to admit that it happened after editing the CvMainInterface.py. I had to constantly quitting civ4 and restarting it to make changes in CvMainInterface visible.

Yes, but not always. I also have to admit that it happened after editing the CvMainInterface.py. I had to constantly quitting civ4 and restarting it to make changes in CvMainInterface visible.

As long as this only happens when you are editing python in the middle of a session, I agree with you. This will not affect people who play the game normally.

I would still like to figure out why this comes after editing the python. There is something about when BUG calls __init__ compared to when the game throws away my objects. For some reason, the game throws away my object when python is reloaded, but BUG does not call my __init__ to let me reinitialize the object.

Possibly, you can fix this locally by adding one line to your copy of DuneWars.py:

def onGameStart(self, argsList):
self.Initialize() # <== add this line
for iPlotLoop in range(CyMap().numPlots()):
pPlot = CyMap().plotByIndex(iPlotLoop)
iType = pPlot.getTerrainType()

Patch 1.3.6 is up. Details at this post (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8276339&postcount=129).

Sandworms can move into peaks tiles. Ooops :-)

Worse, sandworms can attack cities.

I also think the worms are going to completely gimp AI expansion, because they will eat all their early units. They're a big pain for the human player, but the human at least knows that they're safe on hills tiles, the AI doesn't and so will lose many units.

My recommendation; don't let worms move on land. They should be limited to the desert. Its crazy to think of worms wandering around on non-sandy land tiles, through cottages and farms and human habitation with all that moisture.

So, they're naval units that eat your stuff if you try to cross the desert, and your workers that are trying to build refineries, but won't stop you from basic early expansion and worker improvement construction (I'm unable to build the dew collectors near my capital because there are 2 worms who constantly sit one tile away.

Workers aren't woken up by worms moving next to them, so you have to manually cancel their orders at the end of every turn to avoid them being eaten if there is a worm nearby.

The worms also pillage your improvements like cottages, and there is nothing you can do to stop them.

This is pretty broken.

Playing as BG at least, there is no longer a harvester unit and workers seem unable to move onto desert tiles - so how are you supposed to build refineries?

Battle thoptors seem too strong in the early game.

Horse archers in vanilla are only 2 moves IIRC, and you have road networks within your empire so that spearmen can catch them. Its too easy here for thoptors to pillage like crazy and destroy workers.

I'd reduce their strength to 5 at most, maybe remove their ability to pillage, and take the initial scout thoptor down to strength 2.

You can put a worker onto a transport (I've only tried hover transport so far), move the transport onto the spice, and have the worker build the refinery. Unfortunately, I've yet to see the AI do this, and thus they miss out on the income from the house spice firm.

You can put a worker onto a transport (I've only tried hover transport so far), move the transport onto the spice, and have the worker build the refinery

Sounds like entirely pointless micromanagement. What was wrong with the Harvester unit? Or with workers walking on desert within your borders?

I think I'll try and prevent worms entering land terrain in the next patch. I'm not really sure what the argument was for allowing it...

ok guys,

after hours of hunting a crash within my overlord2 mod (im just updating it to 3.19),

ive traced a Sirius game crasher bug inside the buildings,

first feedback before i talk bout the crash:
some buildings in dune - still require river - so they cant be built at all...cause we dont have rivers...
for example - the holzman field generator.

so this needs to be changed for all buildings...

the game crasher bug -
the holzman building - is built on the three gorges dam from the vanilla.
they both have the same function:
give power to all cities in the continents -
this tag in the bulding infos:
<bAreaCleanPower>1</bAreaCleanPower>

when this building is built - band a ctd occurs.

i traced this in my overlord2 mod - cause i use the same dll we have for dune - so
just incase - i tested this on our latest version of dune:
removed the tag - briver>1 to 0 on the hotlzman,
then - bang - a ctd upon build.

im not sure at the moment about this crash to be in the revdcm 2.5 as well - haven't tested yet - but i leaning to think its in our dll, i suspect a specific code.

you guys are welcomed to test this as well,

meanwhile we have no danger from this ctd cause it neutralized because of the river preqeq.

i will work on fixing this for the next patches.



*****

second issue:
david - when you start a game on the shy hulud era (future) ton your start location - you have green terrain....once you found the first city - it disappears... chech it out.


long post i know,
but i had to let you guys know.

*****

oops!

i wanted to post this on the feedback 1.3....silly me.

With respect to spice, I feel that it simply isn't important enough in game. I think there should be something like a global spice counter (spice resources per turn per civ) which, say, gives each civ a flat solaris bonus once it reaches a certain milestone. For example, 1000 solaris (adjusted upward for each era) per civ each time the global counter hits 1000 spice. It would be nice to increase the importance of solaris as (I think it was) keldath mentioned in a different post...

This global dynamic would help to level the playing field. But to encourage extra spice production, each civ could have their own spice counter. Once they reach a certain quota, they could receive special, otherwise unobtainable units from, perhaps, their home world (which could tie in to your idea about the homeworld screen). Or perhaps from the Spacing Guild who could receive something every time a civ uses this feature, but is otherwise unable to do it themselves.

Finally, I really think the spice harvester unit should return. It should have sufficient movement points to enter an adjacent spice plot and immediately begin production of a spice harvester improvement. Additionally, I would personally like to see a very expensive harvester unit that could make an improvement in one turn, and perhaps has additional defensive bonuses. Maybe make it a national unit...


As for other suggestions: I have found that most civs NEVER switch to terraforming, except the Fremen ones. Perhaps this is because I have the terraforming victory turned off (then again, I hate all victory conditions and never actually play to achieve one...) This is unfortunate because I think the terraforming mechanic is impressive and is significantly better than the spice civic, which could use some improvements itself. Perhaps if you choose to implement something like my spice quota mechanic, there could be significant bonuses to that. Alternatively, the spice civic could offer something like access to a special spice oriented corporation. It would have to be something that would provide an ultimate benefit to every city it is in (instead of relying on the corporate HQ to counteract the weird maintenance mechanic).

I think you guys should also consider altering what terrain cottages can be placed on. While their importance is greatly reduced in this mod (thankfully!) due to the increased importance of trade routes, civs that start on primarily rocky continents almost always do absolutely terribly. Ahriman already mentioned this, I just wanted to second it.

Finally, and I think this is primarily just a personal preference, but I would like to see how the AI chooses city sites changed. Way too often they build cities way too close together, simply to get access to, say, a meagre water and one other special improvement. These cities simply detract from precious city plots of the main ones. City plots are significantly more important in this mod due to the (justified) harshness of deep desert absent the presence of spice. This mod would be much better served with fewer cities, in my opinion. Actually, a fairly radical approach would be to use the 3-plot radius mechanic used in FFH, with the AI modifications that knows how to use it. Like I said, just a personal preference.

hey edorazio,

and welcome,

thank you for the long feedback.

ok,
first -
3-city radius - i had up until patch 3.19 come out - an excellent mechanism for it - the city tile size grew with the culture levels - you could even have a city sized with 4 tiles.
but, i couldnt merge the code to 3.19 , im not an sdk coder, so it had to stay out for current version,
im eager for someone to update this code - its mylons enhanced city something.

as for spice,
i also tend to agree , our current spice economy system is awesome by it self, but it should be more, exactly how you described it - a quantitive resourse system,
but again we need a well trained sdk coder for this - we have many ideas that we cant implement yet due to this.

we are improving the mod every day, we will use your feed, thanks !

Way too often they build cities way too close together, simply to get access to, say, a meagre water and one other special improvement.

This can be fixed by setting up MIN_FOUND_VALUE in GlobalDefinesAlt.xml. But if we choose it to high (eg. 600), ai won't found any cities at all.

3-city radius

How is that working in city screen? Is it zoomed out making tiles smaller? Right now there is barely enough place for a 2 radius city.

Here is patch 1.3.7. There are two changes:

1. In 1.3.6 I removed the ability of workers to move on desert. I forgot that workers need to do this in order to build spice harvesters. I put it back.

2. Everybody on the forum has now complained that worms should not be allowed to move on land. They have moved on land since the first version of the game. Am I the only one who remembers the scene in the books and movies, where the Fremen attacking the capitol ride up practically to the front door using worms? However, since everybody votes against it, I have prevented them from moving on land.

Please unzip the attachment and copy it over your file dune wars/assets/xml/units/civ4unitinfos.xml.

EDIT: Please unzip the second attachment and copy it over your other file dune wars/assets/python/DuneWars.py.

Workers aren't woken up by worms moving next to them, so you have to manually cancel their orders at the end of every turn to avoid them being eaten if there is a worm nearby.

@ koma13: Could this be caused by your bNoDangerCount change from a couple of releases back? *Storms* have bOnlyDefensive in the xml so they should not cause this, but the worms should be treated the same as any other barbarian unit, and cause automation to cancel. If so, we have a problem, because we need bNoDangerCount in order to prevent the AI from building tons of units in a pointless attempt to counter worms.

I suspect that too. Going back to an old dune wars version can help testing it. If true we surely have a problem.

Thanks david. :)

If you look at the map I made today (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=221526&d=1248024049), Arraken would on the 'coast' in Dune Wars terms. One of the reasons I think that implementing worm riders as naval transports would be a good way to go, is then you can ride your loads of Fremen up to a city and do amphibious assault in what would be a fairly good representation of the Battle of Arrakeen in the film. It's the Fremen riding the worms that do most of the damage, not the worms themselves...

I think the terraforming mechanic is impressive and is significantly better than the spice civic, which could use some improvements itself.

Welcome!

Ahriman has suggested that the bonus terrains from terraforming are too powerful, leading to cities with too many specialists. I have found in several autoplays that a Fremen AI will often win around turn 400, so perhaps it is too easy. I really like the "look" of switching to globe view and seeing green, so I like the present rate of terrain spread. Perhaps we can make it give less benefit, or have a stronger penalty. Maybe the anti-spice zone needs to be bigger.

Also, the pro-spice faction needs to be stronger. The +1 hammer from spice economy does not seem to be enough.

Any suggestions are welcome. For non-modders, it may be hard to tell what is easy to implement and what is hard; we are often limited by what we can teach the AI to use effectively.

I think you guys should also consider altering what terrain cottages can be placed on. While their importance is greatly reduced in this mod (thankfully!) due to the increased importance of trade routes, civs that start on primarily rocky continents almost always do absolutely terribly.

There is a discussion in another thread about a completely different mapscript based on a polar view. We may switch to that. In the archipelago mapscript, all the terrain near the north and south edges is this type of terrain, like vanilla tundra. Perhaps we should make that terrain less common or make sure civs don't start there. I would rather do that, than make cottages buildable on that terrain.

I would like to see how the AI chooses city sites changed. Way too often they build cities way too close together, simply to get access to, say, a meagre water and one other special improvement.

This should be pretty trivial to try out, if you want to locally edit your xml. See file assets/xml/GlobalDefines.xml. There is a variable, MIN_CITY_RANGE, which has the default value 2. Change it to 3. Voila. Now the minimum distance between cities will be 3 instead of 2.

Any suggestions are welcome.

Here's one, at the stronger end; how about spice blooms in the territory of civs with the pro-spice civic *never* expire. Or at least take twice as long to do so.

Here's one, at the stronger end; how about spice blooms in the territory of civs with the pro-spice civic *never* expire. Or at least take twice as long to do so.

That is an interesting idea. But, in 1.3.6 spice expires much more slowly. Do you feel that this will make much difference anymore?

Here's one, at the stronger end; how about spice blooms in the territory of civs with the pro-spice civic *never* expire. Or at least take twice as long to do so.

This would make sense if a spice blow can't happen a second time on the same tile.

That is an interesting idea. But, in 1.3.6 spice expires much more slowly. Do you feel that this will make much difference anymore?

Haven't played enough 1.3.6 to tell; partly because its nearly impossible to actually build refineries (workers can't move onto desert without transports, harvesters no longer exist).
But my point is that this would be a way to differentiate between the pro-spice and pro-terraforming civics. This isn't about the absolute level of spice, its about differentiating between the three; at the moment pro-terraforming is kindof a no-brainer.

So pro-terraforming means that spice blows can't occur in your cultural borders (though it can spill over from the tiles outside), neutral has the standard rate of spice generation, and then pro-spice has higher chances of spice blows within their borders or slower degeneration of spice blows.

The economic differences are subtle, but could be signicant; pro-spice gives you higher tile yields from desert tiles and higher spice corp income, pro-terraforming gives you higher water income and larger city sizes.
Bigger water income would also be a bit less awesome if it were slightly harder to keep large cities happy (cut some of the happiness buildings).

This would make sense if a spice blow can't happen a second time on the same tile.

I don't understand this comment. Surely a spice blow can only occur if there isn't already spice on the tile? Should be easy to code I'd think.

Haven't played enough 1.3.6 to tell; partly because its nearly impossible to actually build refineries (workers can't move onto desert without transports, harvesters no longer exist).

Please use 1.3.7, where this is fixed.

So pro-terraforming means that spice blows can't occur in your cultural borders (though it can spill over from the tiles outside), neutral has the standard rate of spice generation, and then pro-spice has higher chances of spice blows within their borders or slower degeneration of spice blows.

That is a good idea. I have also locally changed terraforming to require some improvement on the plot, so it will take a little longer for the terrain to improve.

I am havinga bit of troulbe getting the mod to run. I've tried the Mods directory, as well as the base directory for BTS...but no dice. suggestions would be appareciated

Are you able to download and run other mods? Is your BTS installation updated to 3.19? What specifically are you doing to run the mod, and what specifically is going wrong?

I currently have 3.19 update. I have put the Dune Wars files into the Mods folder for BTS. should I put it into the Base BTS directory folder?

(is rather new to modding) :D

This link (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=184567) may be helpful in helping you install and run your first mod.

I don't understand this comment. Surely a spice blow can only occur if there isn't already spice on the tile? Should be easy to code I'd think.

English, you know. :) Maybe I should have put an 'ever' somewhere in the sentence. What I mean is that:
After spice is vanished on a tile there will never (ever) be spice on the same tile again (think of forest, it's gone after chopping).
You surely will harvesting spice next to your territory first. As the game evolves you would have to send out your harvesters deeper into the desert in search for new spice(= more danger of sandworms). Finally there will be a run for the last spice tiles left in game. This would make spice much more valuable because amount isn't endless. Now think of a spice civic that will drastically increase spice decay time for you. If choosen early it will allow to keep your harvesters close to your territory. When choosen late in game it will maybe help you to keep your last spice tiles left existing a little longer. We could make a victory condition being the last house having access to spice (=spice monopoly).

With regards to installation issues, maybe it's time we moved to having a proper installer .exe. The autounzip technique is a bit confusing. We should keep a straight zip file manual install too. Aymerick created an installer for Age of Further Discovery (a side interest of mine) and he said it was really easy to do... there are threads around on the subject.

With regards to boosting Spice Economy. I've been looking through BuildingInfos to consider the possibilities, and perhaps we could use the power stations mechanic somehow to boost production based on the spice bonus.

With regards to installation issues, maybe it's time we moved to having a proper installer .exe. The autounzip technique is a bit confusing. We should keep a straight zip file manual install too. Aymerick created an installer for Age of Further Discovery (a side interest of mine) and he said it was really easy to do... there are threads around on the subject.
Use phungus420's install script (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=292464). It's pretty simple to use (to make the file, I mean) and the installer is pretty cool. It works for all BtS versions (including the other things like the Complete DVD etc.), has an uninstaller routine, can create desktop shortcuts with custom icons and allows for patches - it looks very professional and neat.

Cheers, LT.

Use phungus420's install script. It's pretty simple to use (to make the file, I mean) and the installer is pretty cool. It works for all BtS versions (including the other things like the Complete DVD etc.), has an uninstaller routine, can create desktop shortcuts with custom icons and allows for patches - it looks very professional and neat.


I'm personally no friend of this. If we use that script, it would be nice to offer 2 versions. One having that install script, another one compressed with 7zip only. ;)

There should be two links. An Installer link and a Zip link, that's what I'm suggesting.

A lot of people will just want to play the game and won't want to copy directories/files around...

True , you already suggested having 2 links. :)

I'm personally no friend of this. If we use that script, it would be nice to offer 2 versions. One having that install script, another one compressed with 7zip only. ;)Ah, I see where you're coming from. I tend to dislike installers as well - but only because I do tinker and mod. For modders it's way more convenient to have a zip so you can grab selected files without doing a full install (like grabbing some cpp-files from a mod).

But for everybody else, installers are nicer. In the modpack forum are really loads of people who rarely post and just play instead of mod - and when they post, you often get things like people applied a patch in the wrong fashion, installing it in the My Files\My Games directory instead of the proper BtS folder and so forth - and in the end that's the group a mod team is really working for - because that's the group of people that cannot or doesn't mod on their own and hence rely on the work modders do.

The installer is just way neater for those "drive-by downloaders" that just want to play the mod instead of tinker.

Cheers, LT.

I know: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8275834&postcount=48 :crazyeye:

I just don't like the idea a mod is adding entries to registry.

I just don't like the idea a mod is adding entries to registry.Ah, it sounds a bit intrusive, right? Well, you could always remove that stuff (the uninstall routine, pretty much - though it's useful for bigger updates with a new main file).

Furthermore, that's actually one of the things that I count as "legitimate" use of the registry. Programs shouldn't put gazillion of settings into the registry, it's a mess. But this is exactly what the registry was made for - keeping track of programs (among other stuff) - after all, the mod doesn't store anything in the registry (that would be really intrusive).

As long as the uninstaller cleans up the entries properly... I think that's fine. After all, the fact that you're using an executable installer pretty much says "this is going to use the registry!". :lol:

Cheers, LT

That is a good idea.

The other advantage of this system is that while the pro-forming factions will still get some spice from spillovers, it won't be in the BFC of their cities (except ones that have low culture output) because the borders will be too far away.

What I mean is that:
After spice is vanished on a tile there will never (ever) be spice on the same tile again (think of forest, it's gone after chopping).

I don't really like this, I don't think it works from a gameplay or fluff perspective.

From gameplay, territory just doesn't expand that much, and we also want spice to sometimes be in the cities BFC, at least for non-terraformers.
From fluff, spice is a renewable resource, there is no reason why harvesting the spice in one area means there can never be spice there again. Its not like mining minerals or something with depletable mines.

Please use 1.3.7, where this is fixed.


Link please?

Version 1.3.7 is just a two file patch over 1.3.6, available at this post (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8279549&postcount=74). It was released in this thread, rather than in the patch thread.

Thanks, missed that post somehow.

Workers can't build the desert compound needed to harvest the sand trout or similar bonuses; harvesters used to have this build order but they are gone.

Also, I'm not seeing any of desert hawks or hares, or coffee or any of the plantation bonuses. Do the map scripts generate these?

Trade ports give +15% trade bonus and +1% foreign trade bonus. Typo?

Workers can't build the desert compound needed to harvest the sand trout or similar bonuses; harvesters used to have this build order but they are gone.

Hm, that is a bug, and it will make it somewhat difficult to generate Reverend Mothers. We better fix that. Is it OK to stick with one worker unit, and make the worker able to build this?

Also, I'm not seeing any of desert hawks or hares, or coffee or any of the plantation bonuses. Do the map scripts generate these?

I have definitely seen hawks. I have not noticed the plantation bonuses but I did not look very closely. Are you using the Arrakis mapscript or archipelago?

Trade ports give +15% trade bonus and +1% foreign trade bonus. Typo?

I dunno. Let's lump this into a building retuning project; we may decide to dump the building altogether.

Also, I'm not seeing any of desert hawks or hares, or coffee or any of the plantation bonuses. Do the map scripts generate these?

If you use the cheat code "chipotle" in your BTS ini file, then do ctrl-Z the whole map will be revealed. If you literally don't see any of the resource anywhere, then that is a problem. In any case, I am reviewing bonus placement for the 1.3.8 patch.

Is it OK to stick with one worker unit, and make the worker able to build this?

Yes, that seems fine to me.

Using archipelago mapscript.

From gameplay, territory just doesn't expand that much, and we also want spice to sometimes be in the cities BFC, at least for non-terraformers.

Sorry, I didn't followed spice/terraforming concept too closely but why do you want to have it in the bfc? I find it a little strange to have a map script full of deep desert and then we're trying everything to avoid going into it.

Sorry, I didn't followed spice/terraforming concept too closely but why do you want to have it in the bfc?

Because of the tile yield bonuses, and the tile yield bonuses from the pro-spice civic.
Basically, both terraformers and spicers need to have powerful economies. One way of doing this is that terraformers get lots of water income, so get huge cities with cottage economies or specialist economies, while spicers get lots of spice resource (and so bonuses in their corporation hq) and higher tile yields from the valuable spice tiles.

Honestly, maps full of deep desert seem kinda boring to me; I like the idea of the ring around the polar water source, but deep desert is just MMFD, all boring and all the same. I'm guessing that all the conflict on those maps will still really be around the rocks and the pole; nothing much happens in the exterior.

Combat is fun when you have different terrain types, and cities nearby. And the AI understands how to defend its cities.

Another thought; why does the Wonder that gives free monuments everywhere expire before the monuments do? This seems weird.

hey guys,

ahriman,

your right bout the buildings,
some needs more tweaking and fixing.

so for v 1.4 - what you guys suggest? two link + zip/exe file?


****
no one noticed that i wrote that theres a hidden ctd in our game ? :(

david,
have you seen what i wrote about starting a game in a late era - and the green terrain start?

so for v 1.4 - what you guys suggest? two link + zip/exe file?

Yes, two links. One to an installer made using phungus420's stuff that Lord Tirian linked, and one to a zip file for the modders/those who don't want the installer.

no one noticed that i wrote that theres a hidden ctd in our game ? [...] have you seen what i wrote about starting a game in a late era - and the green terrain start?

I don't write "Yes, I read this" for every post, sorry. I read them. I was assuming that when you do a patch you would fix some of the issues you found. I will try out a late game start at some point.

hey, sure david, its just that there was a lot of posts since i wrote, and i wasnt sure if you saw
the terrain bug i mentioned.

i will work on a fix for the crash.

:)

I noticed it too, you wrote me a pm about it. :D

yeah oops i forgot...

sorry for bugging you guys...

Supply pod is overpowered.

I assumed that it was intended to let you transfer hammers between cities; spend X hammers to build the pod in one city, move it to another city, sacrifice it to get Y hammers, where Y < X.

But it seems in fact that Y > X; in fact, Y seems to be the full production boost from a great engineer, so I can build wonders way faster by building a supply pod and then sacrificing it in its own city.

You need to cut down the number of hammers it gives.

Its annoying that the perimeter defense becomes obsolete, when its a pre-req for the citadel, that gives extra trade and does NOT become obsolete.

Ahriman,
thanks buddy you provide great feedback.



****

woooooohoooooo!!!

i fixed the ctd bug !!!!

now we can allow the use of holzman field generator!

i also clean the sdk,

i will upload it along with the civic hated code later to the incremental patch :)


thanks koma13 for the tips!

Hi - I've downloaded the .exe and add-on file twice now, extracted it to the /mods folder etc and all looks to be in the right place but CIV4 BTS crashes when I try to run Dune Wars 1.3 using Load Mod - am I missing something verrrry simple here, as is my usual habit?

Are you patched to BTS 3.19?

millenniloon,

hi and welcome,

basically, the released for public version are only 1.3 without a patch - and for patch 3.19.

tel plz,
are you using vista?
non engligh lang'?
and as asked - did you update your civ4 to patch 3.19?

have you seen what i wrote about starting a game in a late era - and the green terrain start?

I am not able to reproduce this problem. I select "Shy Hulud" from the late start menu. When the game starts, I zoom all the way out to globe view and there is no green terrain. I found a city, which immediately goes to size 6, and autoplay 10 turns, and zoom all the way out to globe view. Still no green terrain.

Is it possible you had a start where one of the Fremen cities had a catchbasin already constructed, and you looked after the first turn had played? Then there is a good chance the catchbasin had already produced some green terrain. If that is what you are seeing, then it is (mostly) the intended behavior. There is a bug in 1.3.6 which makes these terrains appear almost instantly. In my next patch (1.3.10, I guess, if deliverator takes 1.3.8 and you take 1.3.9) I will fix this, so it will take longer to appear.

mmm strange,

i will check it again then, if it happens ill picture it for ya,
but dont worry about it, its realy nothing for now.

yeah i think ill book 1.3.9 :)

tomorrow im releasing y overlord2 mod for 3.19...then im right back on dune modding,something good came out f it, i caught a bug that i would never have seen,

i will have a Sirius brain storm on units (my favorite part of the game :)).

Also, I'm not seeing any of desert hawks or hares, or coffee or any of the plantation bonuses. Do the map scripts generate these?


THe map script does generate those resources. But they are extremely rare to none existant.

Well, Spice Coffee and Spice Bread were fremen staples and shouldn't be too hard to make. I would think that thye might be fairly easy to get for food items.

Game looks good so far. I might have to do a clean reinstall of Civ 4, because for whatever reason, I still cannot get the modd to run :(

I've opened an installation guide and issues thread here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=8292312#post8292312). If you continue to have problems installing the mod, please post your issues there.

Thanks for the help. it was only after a clean reinstall that things started working. Currently fiddling with House Atredies. I'll let yah know If I find any bugs :)

A bumper release for you...

Patch 1.3.8
(A full patch over 1.3 including all previous 1.3.x patches)

House Ecaz
House Ecaz has been added as a faction. They don't have any unique units yet - hopefully people's imagination will rise to the challenge. What they do have is an advantage in...

Unique Bonus Resources

Most Civs now have a bonus resource produced by a Unique National Wonder. The general idea is to make trade and diplomacy much more interesting. Here are the details:

Atreides: Landing Stage (Off World Trade) produces 3 units of Caladanian Wine, +1 happy, further +1 happy with Banqueting Hall

Tleilaxu: Landing Stage (Off World Trade) produces 3 units of Slig, +1 happy, further +1 happy with Banqueting Hall

Bene Gesserit: Chapterhouse (Zensunni Teachings) produces 3 units Missionaria Protectiva, +1 happy
Note: I wanted to provide the BG an early advantage to represent the preparing of the way by the Missionaria Protectiva. This gives them an early advantage in trade and diplomacy.

Fremen Civs: Stillsuit Workshop (Stillsuits) produces 3 units of Fremen Stillsuits, +1 health

Corrino: Sardaukar Outpost (Off World Trade) produces 3 units of Sardaukar Cooperation, allows construction of Sardaukar.
Note: This allow factions who can secure a deal with House Corrino to build Sardaukar troops.

Fenring: Fenring Landing Stage (Off World Trade) produces 3 units of Kindjal, allows construction of Ginaz Swordmaster.
Note: I'm not sure the association between Fenring and Ginaz is Dune canon, but it definitely helps make them unique.

Ix: Ix Landing Stage (Off World Trade) produces 3 units of Thinking Machines, allows construction of Cymek, Ixian Spider and Sentient War Machine.

Ordos: Ordos Landing Stage (Off World Trade) produces 3 units of Opafire, +1 happy

Ecaz: Semuta Suppliers (Off World Trade) produces 4 units of Semuta, +2 happy
Sapho Suppliers (Off World Trade) produces 4 units of Sapho Juice, allows construction of Mentat unit

Harkonnen don't get any because Giedi Prime is an industrial wasteland and they are reliant on others for imported goods. Of course they can always just take what they want by force...

We'll hopefully figure out a way for the Spacing Guild to make gold out of shipping units and resources in the future.

The units mentioned above are no longer Unique Units, but units that may be built by anyone who can secure a supply of the relevant resource.

Art

+ New city screen by Koma with some art from me

+ New unit graphics (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=222114&stc=1&d=1248475392) for Fremen Fedaykin and Naib's Chosen

+ Water texture removed - no more grey sparkly desert

Other features

+ Renamed a lot of units for flavour, used several of the suggested names posted around the forum.

+ Includes Arrakis.py mapscript by Cephalo. This features the new Polar terrain forming a polar cap. There is also a new Polar Ice resource. The next step is to have an improvement and World/National Wonders associated with the Polar Ice bonus, but this is not yet implemented.

+ Removed the strategic resources Borax, Sulphur and Jasmium Quartz.

+ Uranium replaces Iridium, to complete a list of six strategic resources. The graphic colour has been changed to orange to avoid confusion with Crystal.

+ Cotton bonus replaced with Dates

+ Reviewed bonus placement - see attached table (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=222115&d=1248475384) which shows the proportions of each of the land based bonus resources. This spreadsheet will make it easier to gauge the impact of increasing/decreasing the amount of each resource. The sea based resources Sandtrout and Little Maker are much more prevalent than before.

+ Strategic resource unit dependencies reviewed and updated for all units.

+ Water Cache and a new Food Processing building provide increased health from some bonuses

+ Fremen Civs renamed to Chouhada Fremen (formerly Fremen) and Sihaya Fremen (formerly Sietch Tabr Fremen).

+ All Fremen Unique Units are now shared between both Fremen civs

+ Fremen civs now have a new Deathstills UB replacing Water Cache which retains 60% water on growth, rather than 50%.

+ Arid and Desert Plains terrains renamed to Rock and Mesa respectively

+ Desert terrain is now called Dunes and is meant to be used for the outer areas of Arrakis.py. The terrain has no yield and no cities can be founded on it. We should probably change the Archipelago mapscript not to place this terrain.

+ Removed all non-spice corporations

+ Cleared out all events from the XML

+ Includes davidallen's renamed XML tags and keldath's latest DDL.

+ Changed MIN_FOUND_VALUE from 350 to 400 to try and get the AI to space out its cities more.

Er... think that's it, but I'm sure to have forgotten something. :)

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> DOWNLOAD HERE (http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?thgzymjyidh) <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

There seems to be an issue with Arrakis.py where half the civs are instantly killed at the beginning of the game. Not sure why...

wow deliverator!
massive work!

im very happy with house ecaz :)

i also like the idea of the shared fremen uus, very interesting indeed.

i book patch 1.3.9,
i will add the missing units,
and spice up the unit part of the mod.

superb work.


edit:
here's a thought on the spacing guild:

how about - allowing the spacing guild corp to be the only corp that can spread to other cities/factions?
somehow this can contribute more money in some mechanism of the corp?


bout the units,
its very interesting about the shared units ,
but, wont you want that there will be an even number of uu to each faction?
its just a question, im more inclined to your new system - its really cool.

Bad news, I've just run a couple of autoplays and they both CTDed at around 150 turns. Could it be something to do with the new DDL?

Edit: Switched the link in the post above to patch 1.3.8b, as I had not included the correct new DDL. I am re-running an autoplay to see if there is still a problem.

Edit Edit: No I'm still getting a CTD, hopefully one of you guys can sort it out as I'm off to bed...

There seems to be an issue with Arrakis.py where half the civs are instantly killed at the beginning of the game. Not sure why...

It happens to the player sometimes too.

hey,

mm ctds...who invented those anyway?

the new sdk is fine, ive tested it a bit on my second mod,
also - the changes are minor.

i would put my money on some art.

i saw some units overlapping each other that needs to be fixed.

tomorrow i will try to isolate the ctd,

dont worry , we will find it.

Yeah, that happened to me too. It doesn't happen on Archipelago so it seems specific to the Arrakis mapscript.

I cleaned out my mod directory, reinstalled 1.3 and then overlaid 1.3.8b. I have done two autoplays (tiny/noble) for 255 turns on archipelago with no CTD. I also did two autoplays for 255 turns on the arrakis mapscript; no CTD and no "crib death" of civs. Is it possible that the crash only occurs when certain civs are in the game? I ran civcheck and all it found was some leftover buildingclassinfo entries for the old corporation buildings; unlikely to be a problem.

EDIT: two huge 250 turn autoplays on archipelago, no CTD. Is anybody else getting a CTD or is it a "rumor"?

There seems to be an issue with Arrakis.py where half the civs are instantly killed at the beginning of the game. Not sure why...

I don't think it is half the civs, but it is a definite problem in the mapscript. See this post (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8298185&postcount=163) for details and some further discussion. (I am not sure cephalo reads all the posts in the sub-forum but I bet he reads the mapscript thread.)

EDIT: two huge 250 turn autoplays on archipelago, no CTD. Is anybody else getting a CTD or is it a "rumor"?

Maybe I mashed up my mod directory somehow by accident. I'll do a clean install and see if I still get the issue.

Cephalo is away for a week, so we'll probably have to keep using Archipelago for now. Arrakis with larger mapsizes may suffer less from this issue. It would good to amend Archipelago so that none of the Dunes (formerly Desert) terrain is placed, and so that some Polar Terrain is placed at the poles. I can maybe have a look at this.

Good news. The reported CTD seems to have been user error on my part. 1.3.8b seems to be stable after all. :)

Other good news is that the MIN_FOUND_VALUE tweak definitely seems to be causing the AI to spread its cities out more from what I've seen.

Can we try a new issue raising convention where we include the patch number?

1.3.8-1: There is an improvement called Qanat and a building called Qanat. Suggest we rename the building. 'Qanat Hub' is the best that springs to mind.

1.3.8-2: Health is still too much of an issue from initial plays. To control growth I'd rather reduce the amount of water available than have it restricted by health. Maybe we should have early building that gives +2 health, and/or we can make Water Cache give +1 health with Groundwater without giving Groundwater itself a health bonus.

bout the units,
its very interesting about the shared units ,
but, wont you want that there will be an even number of uu to each faction?
its just a question, im more inclined to your new system - its really cool.

I think units that are semi-unique in that other factions can build them in some circumstances is much more interesting. We can still have a number of true unique units per faction.

In terms of balancing factions, I always liked Kael's concept of balancing at the civ level rather than in each individual game component. If one civ is strong in terms of economy or powerful hero units say, then it should be weaker in terms of rank and file military units to compensate. If we balance our civs overall by giving them advantages and disadvantages in different areas of the game, then that will add more strategic depth and flavour. That's one thing people say they like about the Dune board game - the strengths and weaknesses of each faction are really well captured in the gameplay.

To control growth I'd rather reduce the amount of water available than have it restricted by health.

Why? The current method works much better IMO; it limits early growth without lowering the maximum population supportable in a city given its terrain (because you can eventually get rid of unhealth) and without slowing the growth of cities founded late game (once you have multiple health resources), and it provides good incentives to acquire health resources through colonization, trade, or offworld trade building.

The current method is ideal from a gameplay perspective.

If you start making health more available and water less available, you reduce the max city size in any given terrain, and you reduce the growth speed of late-founded cities, and you reduce the value of health resources.

You may be right. I just don't like all my cities having the sickly fumes all the time. Perhaps we can change the graphics if unhealth is going to be a common state for cities.

hehe deliverator!

i didnt notice it was you - your new awesome avatar confused me :)


ok, glad to know the ctd isnt in the patch.


city distance - we can also increase city instance between one another via globaldefines,
is also can help.

i agree,
we can make each faction different from the other with varius things, i like the way your heading.

hey deliverator,

have you changed any unit tech position?
also - unit classes?

i need to know cause there seem to be some weird stuff there.

edit:
wow guys..not sure why, but there is a big mess in the units.

You may be right. I just don't like all my cities having the sickly fumes all the time. Perhaps we can change the graphics if unhealth is going to be a common state for cities.

I agree with Deliverator. If you pay attention to groundwater and hills when you choose your city site, you can usually arrange to get two wells and two windtraps. But often a BFC may contain zero health resources. So I have 15-20 water coming in, and my city *could* grow up to 8-10, but it winds up with -5 health. It doesn't feel like growth is water limited at all, really, which was the original point.

I recommend putting less groundwater and more plants. As you get more tech, you can increase the water limit with better wells; maybe we can add a better windtrap also.

Feedback on 1.3.8:

DA24. Why is a tech (water conservation) needed to reveal polar ice? It should be always visible.

DA25. Desert Insects tech reveals the plantation bonuses like coffee? I would prefer they should be always visible; if not, at least controlled by plantation tech instead of insect.

DA26. I am not sure if there is a reason for "stone waste" terrain. If we keep it, it should be passable to thopters.

DA27. "Hovering" tech was probably supposed to be renamed "Suspensors"

DA28. Most buildings are named in the singular, so that the game text "You have completed a XXX!" makes sense. Please make Deathstills singular.

DA29. Is there a game reason why the base soldier should be immune to first strikes?

DA30. We have a midgame windtrap wonder and a wind trapping tech, neither of which is related to the early game windtrap unit. The wonder and tech should probably be removed, or maybe the tech should give an advanced Windtrap 2.

DA31. The button to build a hunting camp is the pitchfork. It should be a camp button.

DA32. This is a funny problem, is anybody else having this? It seems very painful. When I click on the tech chooser (F6) I get a cascade of python errors. The techs I have are not all highlighted in green, and when I click on a tech to select it, I also get a cascade of python errors. I looked into this briefly; the error relates to STechSelectTab in CvTechChooser.py. This is a standard BUG file, I did not mod it, and nobody else from DW has modded it either. Nobody has complained about it, so I am wondering if it is just me. I have seen this type of thing before due to an undefined tech or unit, but civcheck does not find anything missing.

EDIT: DA32 happens only when I change python and reload during the game. Normal players will not find this problem. However, I did not have this problem until 1.3.8. There does not seem to be any way the 1.3.8 patch should have broken this, but it is very annoying to python modding. I will try to dig into it.

hi david,

ive now fixed tons of tons of unit errors,

units where replaced with other units, many loops,
wrong names, a big mess.

guys,
when you change names of units+buildings,

plz make sure, that you remember to chnage voth the unit/building info .xml,
as well as the class info .xml.


ive noticed some of the errors you reported here,
ill do them all for next patch.

ive now fixed tons of tons of unit errors,

Ah ... are you positive you installed the whole patch? I cleaned out my local area, installed 1.3, and installed 1.3.8. There are *no* unit errors, the game plays fine.

i installed correctly,

look closley on the units replacing other units,

for example - see the grenade trooper - its replaced by thopters...?

look in the unitclassinfos.xml,
check out heavy thopter :
</UnitClassInfo>
<UnitClassInfo>
<Type>UNITCLASS_HEAVY_HORNET</Type>
<Description>Heavy Thopter</Description>
<iMaxGlobalInstances>-1</iMaxGlobalInstances>
<iMaxTeamInstances>-1</iMaxTeamInstances>
<iMaxPlayerInstances>-1</iMaxPlayerInstances>
<iInstanceCostModifier>0</iInstanceCostModifier>
<DefaultUnit>UNIT_HEAVY_THOPTER</DefaultUnit>

also - missile trooper was unbuildble - it was replaced by grenade trooper.

these kind of errors.


****
ok im not sure how does all the imported goods work,

you have a mentat for example - he requires saphoo for construction,
sahpoo building suppose to be unique for ecaz, but its not working at the current patch - the building is acceble for every civ -

im not so sure thats what you intended to do delivertor - i understand the unique bonus and trade -
say you are the corrino house, you are the only one that can build sarduccar outpost - that gives sard' corp - that is a prweqe for sard' unit,
corinno gets 3 of these so it can be traded with another civ - so they will be also buildble by other faction then corino,

but - in patch 1.3.8 -
the sarduccar outpost isnt unique to the corrino, so....what sthe point?

i can fix this by assigning the unique bunuses to each house, by creating a demi building.


deliverator - why did you wrote the buildings like this:

</Building>
<Building>
<BuildingClassType>BUILDINGCLASS_STILLSUIT_WORKSHOP</BuildingClassType>
<BuildingType>NONE</BuildingType>
</Building>
<Building>
<BuildingClassType>BUILDINGCLASS_SEMUTA_SUPPLIERS</BuildingClassType>
<BuildingType>NONE</BuildingType>
</Building>
<Building>
<BuildingClassType>BUILDINGCLASS_SAPHO_SUPPLIERS</BuildingClassType>
<BuildingType>NONE</BuildingType>

unless there some python involved,

i do not understand how it works.


****

about units:
some factins now have 1-2 uus,
do you guys want me to leave it as is - or add 1 or two per civ? or is it suppose to work like this due to the unique bonus in patch 1.3.8 - that by my currnt understanding - doesnt work - and theres no uniqueness to the factions inreality - hence every civ can now get to build for instance saphoo - ot jus a matter of who gets it first.

I guess "tons of unit errors" is a little misleading; there are no xml parsing errors or gameplay errors. I looked in the civilopedia and I agree the upgrade tree seems a little scrambled; but it was a little scrambled before also.

I cannot tell easily if the illogical upgrades and mismatch of unitclass/default unit was caused by my renaming script or deliverator's manual renaming, or if it was there before, and it's just more obvious now.

don't worry about it,
its all better now,

:)

its all fixed now and i polished it.

about my post on the unique bonuses ,
i will rework this system a bit .

correct me if im wrong - the unique bonuses - should allow other factions to build certain units by trading that unique resource with the importing faction.

I recommend putting less groundwater and more plants. As you get more tech, you can increase the water limit with better wells; maybe we can add a better windtrap also.

If you do this, then there needs to be something that boosts the yield of dew collectors. As it is they're stuck at 3 all game.

Also, 8-10 is not a large city. In vanilla you can easily get a city up to 16-18 in the late game.

ahhhh i get it now....

theres is no:
<BuildingClassType>BUILDINGCLASS_LANDING_STAGE</BuildingClassType>
<BuildingType>BUILDING_LANDING_STAGE</BuildingType>

in the buildinginfo.xml...

thats why the buildings have no uniqueness...

i will fix this.

<BuildingClassType>BUILDINGCLASS_LANDING_STAGE</BuildingClassType>
<BuildingType>BUILDING_LANDING_STAGE</BuildingType>

My thinking was this doesn't need to be in BuildingInfos because the default for the BUILDINGCLASS_LANDING_STAGE is NONE. I tested this and I'm pretty sure it only let you build your own unique imported goods building. However, the Pedia doesn't show this clearly perhaps so it might look like you could build any of them - even though you can't. As long as no one can actually build it, I don't mind it being added to BuildingInfos I suppose. The Guild and Harkonnen should have NONE for BUILDINGCLASS_LANDING_STAGE.

I don't particularly like having a building in building infos that no one can build. That's why I left it out. Perhaps others can confirm that the imported goods buildings are only buildable by the relevant faction in 1.3.8b?

If you do this, then there needs to be something that boosts the yield of dew collectors. As it is they're stuck at 3 all game.

The Dew Collectors water yield could ramp up over time like the Windtrap's does. Potentially the Well Improvements could ramp up a some stage also.

Deliverator,

ive actually delt with the building system you did here - throught this ive created unique religion to each civ.

you need to have a
<BuildingClassType>BUILDINGCLASS_LANDING_STAGE</BuildingClassType>
<BuildingType>BUILDING_LANDING_STAGE</BuildingType> ,

as a fictive building that no one can build,
otherwise - the civs wont get a unique building.

dont worry, ill polish this in patch 1.3.9,
ill take a few days to prepare it, i got some stuff to do there.

1. Workers are still unable to build desert compounds. So no sandtrout, little makers, etc.
2. I don't see why the Harkonnen can't get a resource to import - why not let them bring in slaves? There could be a worker unit that works 25% faster (slave laborers) that requires their slave resource to build.

As david said, having a civ bonus resource that only allows you to build your own units or empowers yourself more, is self-fulfilling and not that interesting. It's just another hoop to jump through after researching the tech requirement.

The other issue with specifically the Harkonnen is that the stuff that gives them kicks is repulsive to most of the other factions. For example, I considered giving them Inkvine which would boost the effectiveness of the Slave Pits, but again it is the self-fulfillment problem.

The point of the imported goods is trade, and no one would be interested in Inkvine except for the Harkonnen (both from theme and gameplay). I suppose with Slaves there is an argument that some factions would be interested in trading for them, but what is the benefit once they do? More happy? Also, it wouldn't be possible (without additional code) to stop the Atreides trading for Slaves which would feel very wrong from theme.

throught this ive created unique religion to each civ

Each Civ will have their own religion?

yeah each civ with its own religion, i did it for my overlord 2 mod,

was really cool - every civ had two optional religions it could learn, i made it so that around five civs will compete on every religion in my mod. i was able to restriced say america from ever to found buddhism for instance.

the whole system was based on ub's, so ill polish what you created and youll see.
tight now on patch h 1.3.8 - the imported resources for all the factions - isnt unique - anyone can build it, if they get to it.


i was also thinking about the inkvain - its described on the book native to giede prime right?

So are you creating lots of new religions? It sounds like we may have more religions than we can come up with ideas for!

tight now on patch h 1.3.8 - the imported resources for all the factions - isnt unique - anyone can build it, if they get to it.

I still disagree about this, since I've run several autoplays of 1.3.8 clean and the civs always build their correct civ landing stage. Anyway, no matter... your change to use the dummy building sounds OK.

i was also thinking about the inkvain - its described on the book native to giede prime right?

I explained a few posts back why I don't think Inkvine is a good idea. From the Wikipedia article on Geidi Prime: "Due to its ravaged environment, Giedi Prime has to import almost all of its requirement of organic products. The Harkonnen have sought to compensate this weakness by military power and conquest.". Inkvine is not a substance anyone would want to trade for.

i didnt made more then 12 religions,
its just that each civ had an option to found only 2 out of those 12.


trust me on the buildings, actually - its just like the corporation system - theres a demi corp building.


well, any other suggestion? maybe they can import some kind of a poisen that certain other civs would like to trade? you can ajust it through the leader head maybe?

My personal preference would be that the Harkonnen doesn't get a unique trade good, but have other advantages to compensate.

If you really want to give them one the Poison would be OK - it should be a strategic resources that lets you build some unit, not a happy resource.

well, perhaps your right - the harks are stong in millitery - perhaps they shouldnt import - as you said - take by force - perhaps we can give them one more power uu?

Since 1.2.something, the Harkonnen have a pretty strong ability: any combat win (except vs sandworm) has a 75% chance to generate a slave. The slave can quickly build any improvement, then it dies. I haven't gotten any feedback on this ability yet. In the future, I could change it so that the slave can optionally be used for a hammer bonus in a city or an XP bonus in an arena type building.

yeah, but we can make them stronger no? :)

In the future, I could change it so that the slave can optionally be used for a hammer bonus in a city or an XP bonus in an arena type building.

I like these ideas, in particular the arena one. I say implement them.

Yeah, I think we can do more still to strengthen the Harkonnen.

This might just something for you keldath to feed into your unit review. But it would be good if we could also model their use of treachery and traitors somehow, like in the Dune board game.

At the moment dessert insects is worthless as a tech. None of the resources are generated on the archipello map.
harvesting spice cost more then its worth. Harvesting just a few of them kills your economy.
Sandstorms are to prevalent. The ai cant handle/keep up with the improvements it destroys and is to stupid to fortify units on the improvement to prevent it of bieing destroyed by the storms.
Can we make it so that barbarian units besides sandstorms and worms can enter desserts?

At the moment dessert insects is worthless as a tech. None of the resources are generated on the archipello map.

I think they are generated, but they are rare. If you look at this table it shows that only 7.8% of bonuses will be Insect bonuses in 1.3.8. I increased the proportion of Hawks and Hares because people complained they weren't seeing them, but we could undo that change and have an equal proportion of Fauna, Insect and Plantation. More feedback would be helpful.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=222115&d=1248475384

We have 24 land based bonuses so it will always be possible that you wont see some of them for quite a long time in the game. Over forty percent of bonuses are Groundwater to ensure growth. We have talked about reducing the proportion of Groundwater since the water is not really as scarce as it should be at the moment. There'll definitely be further tuning of bonus placement as we go on.

harvesting spice cost more then its worth. Harvesting just a few of them kills your economy.

We can reduce the maintenance on the Spice Corporations, or remove maintenance completely.

harvesting spice cost more then its worth. Harvesting just a few of them kills your economy.

I disagree with this strongly. For eg, with 5 spice I am paying -3 gold upkeep and getting +15 commerce - which then gets split into gold and beakers and multiplied by my marketplaces, libraries etc.

Things like desert hares and hawks need to get a small tile yield boost from the camp though. Commerce, maybe.

We have hints and pedia telling you to found your spice corp, but don't explain how to do this anywhere.

At the moment dessert insects is worthless as a tech. None of the resources are generated on the archipello map.

Thanks for the feedback! This type of feedback is very important to help the mod be "fun" for all players.

I think now we may have too many resources, leading to long distances between them. Also I think there is too much groundwater; with two wells and two windtraps, you are limited by health. We are trying to capture a feeling that water is *limited*, and I think we need a little more tuning to reach that. I do not have my cheatsheets right here, but how many vanilla resources are there, compared to current DW? If there are more, it may be worthwhile to weed them out a little.

harvesting spice cost more then its worth. Harvesting just a few of them kills your economy.

I don't understand. When you found the corporation you get a 5 gold revenue which directly cancels the 5 gold cost. Then for each harvester, you get 3 commerce. Can you explain in a little more detail how this *hurts* your economy?

Sandstorms are to prevalent. The ai cant handle/keep up with the improvements it destroys and is to stupid to fortify units on the improvement to prevent it of bieing destroyed by the storms.

Actually fortifying units does not defend against storms. There is no defense except being somewhere else. Or being in a city; storms do not enter cities. Or having the House Shield wonder. This is something I can't avoid right now -- when I order a barbarian storm to move across the Great Wall, the game just ignores me. This must be protected at a low level in the game code. I should overhaul the AI to do "something" with cities and pass through the GW, but that has not come up to the top of my to-do list yet.

Do other players agree that storms are too prevalent? It is easy to change, just one threshold value in the python. If so, should I decrease it by 50%? 25%?

Actually fortifying units does not defend against storms.

I think he is saying that he has seen the AI do this.

I think I registered my issues with reducing groundwater. Its already hard to get cities over population 10-12, reducing groundwater will just make this harder.
You don't want there to only be a handful of places that can generate viable cities, and making them rare will give an even bigger advantage to civs that happen to start near them. As it is now, basically everyone starts near some groundwater and some other stuff, but if you make them rare then some civs will start near groundwater (and win) and others will start without them (and lose).

Its important for water to be common in order to yield decent city sizes; in vanilla you could get a decent city nearly anywhere by building more farms if needed, but in Dune your city-size is fixed by the resource and hills distribution from the map generation.

I have no problems with sandstorms, they seem fine to me. They're going to be weird on the Arrakis mapscript though if they still move only Eastward (I assume that map script doesn't wrap either, so all the sandstorms will eventually end up on the eastern border?).
Another thing: in the books the Shield Wall and the like are huge mountain ranges that protect the habitable areas from the storms. So maybe storms shouldn't be able to enter Peaks tiles, or peaks and hills tiles?

I think he is saying that he has seen the AI do this.

Neither my code, nor the default game combat code, offers any advantage to a fortified unit besides its +25% or whatever defense bonus. A fortified unit loses just as fast to an attacker with 1000 strength as an unfortified one.

I think I registered my issues with reducing groundwater. Its already hard to get cities over population 10-12, reducing groundwater will just make this harder.

Surely we can find a way to improve this midgame behavior with stronger improvements from techs. I think the early game is pretty weird now with a ton of water and highly limited health. Players will decide how much they like the game, based on the early game. Let's hook them by making it feel more like water is the limit.

They're going to be weird on the Arrakis mapscript though if they still move only Eastward

With some work, but not a huge amount, I can make the storms move in a spiral pattern instead. Today they go east with some chance of NE or SE; I just need to make them move generally diagonally depending on which map quadrant they are in. But then this spiral pattern will look weird on an archipelago map. So the trick will be to either retire archipelago, or find some magic way for the game python to tell which mapscript was used when the map was generated.

So maybe storms shouldn't be able to enter Peaks tiles, or peaks and hills tiles?

It is already true that storms lose strength and often die when crossing these tiles. I can make this effect stronger if needed.

Players will decide how much they like the game, based on the early game. Let's hook them by making it feel more like water is the limit.

<shrug>
Early game is important, sure, but I'm unconvinced that its better with less water and more health. Is it a purely aesthetic issue - you are inherently bothered by having a negative health value in the early game? Or do you think cities grow too fast in the early midgame (once you have a few health buildings and resources)?

And I think the early game is definitely better with more balanced start positions across factions.
I think players can be easily frustrated by getting bad start positions. And less water means higher inter-factional variance in tile yields from start positions. Which means some factions are winners and others are losers.

Personally I really like new cities growing fast; its frustrating foudning cities beyond the early game in vanilla because it takes so long fro them to pull their weight; not so here because lots of water and then abundant mid-game health means they grow quickly.

I can make the storms move in a spiral pattern instead
find some magic way for the game python to tell which mapscript was used when the map was generated

This is the best solution.

It is already true that storms lose strength and often die when crossing these tiles. I can make this effect stronger if needed.

Unnecessary - does this mean that sandstorms disappear by the late game? or do they keep spawning?
Why not just make it so they can't enter peak tiles? (And maybe hills, maybe not).

Sandstorms cant attack, thus you can block their path with units. unless later in the game they can, or something is wrong with my game.
Spice corp cost 5 gold per resource and only gives 2-3 commerce.
The supply pod is way overpowerd, seems to be functioning like a GE.
There is probably to much water resources, preventing the generating of other resources.
What about buildings generating extra water, either raw production or a percentage?
Is it inteded you can improve mountaintiles? cause they look weird when improved.

Sandstorms cant attack, thus you can block their path with units

I remembered them attacking in an earlier version; I haven't tested it lately since I always get out of the way.


Spice corp cost 5 gold per resource and only gives 2-3 commerce.

Not for me it doesn't my current Corrino spice corp has 15 spice, the mouseover on the corporation (underneath the religions in the city screen) gives +45 commerce -3 gold, and the maintenance section costs 6.31 gold (-50% for my tribunal building).
So; huge economy boost.

The supply pod is way overpowerd, seems to be functioning like a GE.
Yeah, confirmed.

What about buildings generating extra water, either raw production or a percentage


I'd support this.


Is it inteded you can improve mountaintiles? cause they look weird when improved.

They look a bit weird but it works fine for me. If you can mine them tho you should be able to build all 3 mine levels, like on hills, not just the base.

<shrug>
Early game is important, sure, but I'm unconvinced that its better with less water and more health. Is it a purely aesthetic issue - you are inherently bothered by having a negative health value in the early game? Or do you think cities grow too fast in the early midgame (once you have a few health buildings and resources)?


I am inherently bothered by having access to so much *water* on a *desert planet*. It is a theme thing, not so much a mechanics thing. I think we should find a way to make the player actually feel limited by water. Right now I feel my early cities have way more water than they need, with very little effort on my part.

I am inherently bothered by having access to so much *water* on a *desert planet*. It is a theme thing, not so much a mechanics thing. I think we should find a way to make the player actually feel limited by water. Right now I feel my early cities have way more water than they need, with very little effort on my part.

See, to me it feels like water is scarce; only a few tiles produce any water at all, and it is very hard to get cities above size ~12-14 even fairly late in the tech tree unless you are playing pro-terraforming. In this mod, a cottage tile or workshop tile or ocean tile produces no food at all, whereas in vanilla nearly every tile in the game produces food.

In vanilla, you can always choose to trade off commerce or hammer production with food production by building more farms instead of cottages or windmills instead of mines, but in this mod your food income is hard-coded by the terrain and the windtrap limitations; you build the dew collectors on plants, wells on water, and as many windtraps as you can; you have no way to increase food yield. There is little strategic decisionmaking in building improvements in this mod; the only issue is whether to build solar farm, cottage or eventually turbine. The quanat improvement (+1 water) is too trivial to consider; tile yields are not worth working.

If you make water resources really scarce, then you can't have cities of any significant size.

Adding buildings that give +x water income and/or +y% water income is a good compromise here IMO between our positions; you can make water-producing tiles scarcer while still allowing big cities.
You will have to put a high AI weight on such buildings though, and check to make sure that the variance of water yield across the mapscripts is not too large.

Something wich also might help while reducing the amount of watersources, is a tech "waterconservation" wich increases all watertiles with 1 water besides buildings. Or perhaps only the quanat improvement. Something wich is also lacking is commerce. During the game tiles that yield water should give commerce.
As it is now, the game focuses to much on specialists and production to produce a decent amount of beakers.

Adding buildings that give +x water income and/or +y% water income is a good compromise here IMO between our positions; you can make water-producing tiles scarcer while still allowing big cities.
You will have to put a high AI weight on such buildings though, and check to make sure that the variance of water yield across the mapscripts is not too large.

I'm in favour of this compromise. I also think that all water improvements should have a yield that ramps up with techs at certain points, like Biology does with Farms in vanilla and our Wind Traps do.

We should also get the Polar Terrain into the top and bottom of the Archipelago mapscript, not just Arrakis. Cephalo described how this could be done. The Polar terrain, Polar Ice bonus and associated improvement and wonder will be another source of water keeping with the theme.

If people don't want to decrease the frequency of groundwater appearing, then maybe we should decrease the benefit of wells and windtraps in the early game. Either they can ramp up automatically like villages, or they can come in three varieties that need to be built like mines or turbines. It just seems thematically wrong that I can easily get enough water to support a 8-10 size city early, on a desert planet.

But it also seems wrong in a civ game that you struggle even in the late-midgame to have cities more than size 12-14, and many AI cities will be capped out well before that.

I'd keep away from the villages-growth model, they're pretty frustrating when you get hit with sandstorms. Cottage growth might also need to be looked at; cottages are now pretty weak considering the yields you can get from desert waste with the weather scanner building.

Something else to consider as well; maybe the higher yield wells and mines should have longer build times. So to get those really big bonuses, you need to devote significant worker-time to them.

I think decreasing the frequency of groundwater somewhat is OK, but we do need to create a list of water related buildings to compensate. I'll upload the spreadsheet I have for bonuses and then perhaps we can play with the proportions and make changes in 1.3.10.

One more thematic way to get water could be to link it to trade routes. There are buildings and wonders in vanilla (Cothon, Temple of Artemis, Custom House) that increase the commerce yield from trade routes. It would be good to have a Water Market building that adds +1 water per trade route or something like that. Perhaps there is a modcomp available, as it would need an SDK change I assume.

Edit: Taking a look at the XML, there is an iTradeModifier on Civ4YieldInfos, meaning that you can have trade routes provide a yield of water (food). If trade routes provide both water and commerce, you can then make buildings that use the following Civ4BuildingInfos tags to scale up the yields:

iTradeRouteModifier = % change in no of trade routes in this city
iTradeRoutes = Change in no of trade routes in this city
iGlobalTradeRoutes = Change in no of trade routes in all cities

This would would mean that cities that have less local water (groundwater bonuses) could still get a decent water income through trade.

You could even scale down the trade yield for commerce seeing as the primary income comes from spice harvesting. Then the major role of trade routes becomes to get water for growth.

I dont mind if water sources decreases. the prevelance of water now is: meagre 10% normal 20% and plentifull 10%
Maybey it should be made: meagre 15%, normal 10% and plentifull 5% and give them a higher tile yield. either from the beginning or later with techs/buildings.
About the trade routes, in the final frontier mod and fall further their is a civ wich has as special ability increased production and food from trade routes. Wich makes them very overpowered late game imho. But certainly less dependend on where you build cities.

Do you have a building list? wich we can use to see wich one are related to food and health, and work from there wich should give a waterproductionboost.

It seems that sometimes each new spice resource costs you an extra 3 gold. Not sure why.Is there a reason why you cant expand your housespice firm to different cities? When they can expand, you could make them besides giving commerce also give water and production bonus. Representing the dependence on spice to import most ofworld goods.

Core mines give 1 less hammer then the level 2 mine.
Hawkes (and hares) give unhealthines with factories.

I think decreasing the frequency of groundwater somewhat is OK, but we do need to create a list of water related buildings to compensate

There are *lots* of late-game health buildings which should probably be dropped or merged; definitely health late-game is a complete non-issue because there are so many buildings that give health.

One more thematic way to get water could be to link it to trade routes

As zombie says, the Mazatl "Lost Lands" civic in Fall Further does this, but I don't think it really fits here. Where is this water coming from? Just because cities are rich or have more trade routes doesn't mean they'll have more water income. This would turn all kinds of commerce-boosters (space port, customshouse, etc) into growth-boosters.

Is there a reason why you cant expand your housespice firm to different cities?

I've never seen your +3 gold cost per spice, but the reason you can't expand the spice firm is because the benefits from it are huge, if you could spread it then it would be massively overpowered (and/or very hard to balance).

Where is this water coming from? Just because cities are rich or have more trade routes doesn't mean they'll have more water income.

Since water is one of the primary traded commodities on Arrakis, I think it is fair to have more water in the bigger trade centres. The city of Arrakeen has water sellers in the book, and no particular direct water source that is talked about. If we were following the books completely, then the only source of water would be windtraps.

We would like water to be more of a restriction and scarcer early on - but still have larger cities mid-to-late game and steady growth possible throughout. I prefer the trade option to just having buildings that spontaneously produce water. I think buildings should be more % changes in water from better infrastructure, storage and reclaimation.

This would turn all kinds of commerce-boosters (space port, customshouse, etc) into growth-boosters.

Not necessarily. Commerce modifiers are independent of trade modifiers in building infos as far as I can see. We can keep the two things separate.

The city of Arrakeen has water sellers in the book, and no particular direct water source that is talked about

Much of the water is coming from polar ice transported to the cities.
But even otherwise, watersellers are like retailers, they are collecting water from windtraps and dew collectors and aquifers and ice and whatever, and then selling it to the population.


Commerce modifiers are independent of trade modifiers in building infos as far as I can see. We can keep the two things separate.

What I mean is, many of the buildings that give trade bonuses or extra trade routes are things that logically feel like they would be boosting the economy, not boosting water supply.

Trade routes also give bonuses for being with foreign civs and for being over longer distances (inter-continental gives a bonus). The idea here is that the further apart cities are, the more different are the goods they produce, and so the more valuable is trade between then. None of these make sense if what you are trading is water; and it doesn't make sense for city A and city B to be trading water with each other.

Terrain on wich you can build cottages are rare. How about building a cottage gives water and commerce, (since settlements on dune are mainly self sufficient) wich increase as they grow.
But then we should also make them imune to pillaging from sandstorms.

National buildings wich give civspecific resources are listed as both national and world wonders, thus capturable.
Giving you acces to resources you should only be allowed to have through trade.
Wouldnt it be better to attach those resources to the palace?

It seems that sometimes each new spice resource costs you an extra 3 gold. Not sure why.

Somehow what you are seeing is significantly different than what the rest of us are seeing. Can you send a savegame or take a screenshot (say, of the economics screen) in your games? If there is some bug, or some unusual circumstance in your game which is causing this, we should try to understand it and fix it.

hey guys....
it seems you guys decided to cut down many of the original buildings,

theres almost no buildings on start ages and in general.

we gotta pump up the buildings guys..its kinda boring.

theres almost no military buildings for example.

i think ill do it for a later patch.

I disagree that there are too few buildings; I think that there are probably still too many buildings, particularly in the late-game, where there are many cost inefficient buildings (spotter control is very expensive for like +15% gold?), duplicate buildings (2 suk buildings nearly identical) or irrelevant buildings (soooo many health production buildings).

The mod is pretty cluttered with buildings IMO. If you want to add more buildings, make sure that there is a clear purpose for the building, rather than just adding more for the sake of it. I'd also suggest making sure that there is generally no more than 1 building per era per function (eg: culture booster, beaker booster, gold booster, hammer booster, trade route booster).

What is it that you would want military buildings to do?

For early game buildings, I'd also consider increasing the refinery yield; 15% hammers is pretty small fort the only forge-type building.

For spice corps; notice that at present you also gain all the benefits when you capture a city that has an enemy civ spice corp in it. So capturing an enemy catapult can have a huge economy benefit; its not impossible to have 3 spice corps each pumping out 60+ commerce.

hey, thanks for this feedback.

ok then ill take a look at the too much health bonuses, ill tweak this for the patch.

i wann ahave some cool army buildings - like more value towrds military production, one thay gives xp to a certain unit or combat type, buildings thatat give a certain promotion, and some hammer bonus as you suggested.

i wont add more then 5 buildings, and ill tweak the rest.

thanks.

ohhh...guys....

i think the renaming thing you guys did, made so much errors, both in the buildings and both in the units.

ive fixed everything in the buildings today as well the units as i mentioned before...

some buildings was unbuildible due to this.

plz tell me guys - the renaming thing - what are the files that was changed - im gonna go over all of them.

All of the files were changed. Please point out one specific error, so that I can verify where the problem came from. A lot of the problems such as the mixup between hornets and thopters were there in 1.1, but we could not notice because the unitclass was like Maceman and the unit was like Swordsman. Now that the names have been pushed through, we can notice inconsistencies more easily.

hey david,

the problems where in the buildingsclass -

for example - food werhouse is half water chache half food wh...

orgenizations codex - couldnt be built...

anyway - i fixed them all, went through each building.

hey guys,

isaw a small bug, probubly python origin,

when you build a worker for the first time - it gives you a massage pop up, "you have built your first...."
the bug is - that when you click carry on.. or the other one, it keeps poping out a few more times,
and then it goes away, can anyone check this out?

IIRC this happens whenever you build your first unit of any type, it gives you the first unit message for every unit class.

yeah thats right,
well, i guess i can live with this.

There must be some game option which you have turned on to see this; I do not see it. However, I have locally extended civcheck to also check python files. There are several files which refer to units I have renamed. For example:

screens/cvstatisticsscreen.py
entrypoints/cvrandomeventinterface.py
screens/cvstatisticsscreensenums.py
contrib/randomnameutils.py
revolution/rebeltypes.py
cvmapgeneratorutil.py
cvadvisorutils.py
revolution/revdefs.py

I think probably cvadvisorutils is the one that generates this. However, for units which we have *not* renamed, such as worker, I would think this should be ok.

What option did you turn on to see these?

Carryalls and suspensor units need to not get terrain defensive bonuses.

I'd argue carryalls should also be unable to attack.