This is a huge patch with many changes. I have not done very much playtesting. I have done a number of autoplays to ensure there are no crashes. For an overview of all the features, new and old, please see the "Dune Wars Concepts" tab in the civilopedia. The patch will apply over any version of 1.4; the original release of 1.4 is at this post (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8327057&postcount=21).

Please put feedback for this version here.

Major changes
* Brand new tech tree from this thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=331222).
* Brand new civics from this thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=331036).
* Two civs have new unique abilities, Tleilaxu and Ix; details below
* Roads are gone again but new promotions should compensate; details below
* Homeworld Reinforcement screen by koma13, first version; details at this post (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8355499&postcount=82) and subsequent posts in that thread.

Civilization special abilities
* Any unit at war with Tleilax, which either wins a combat or ends the turn in the same square as a Tleilax spy, will contract a tailored plague. The plague may be passed onto any other unit in the same square, and causes a -25% strength penalty. If any unit in a city has the plague, the city suffers -2 unhappiness. A hospital or Suk Academy cures all plagued units.
* Tleilaxu units built in a city with an Axlotl tank will inherit all but one of the promotions, of the best living unit of their same unit type. This represents cloning the commander of a veteran unit.
* Added Thinking Machine Factory, which requires the Ixian unique bonus and provides "power" for factories. "Power" provides hammer bonuses for the factory buildings. For other civs, using Thinking Machines is possible but causes unhappiness due to the risk of a Second Butlerian Jihad. Ixian cities will have a significant hammer advantage in the later part of the game.

Units and Civilizations
* Automatic +1 movement for a ground unit which starts the turn inside its own cultural borders. Shown in game as a Home Ground promotion.
* Suspensor units now move 2, but get 2x on desert; destroyer, frigate move 3. Shown in game as automatic Suspensor Movement promotion.
* Removed Spacer Guild and leader Pilru, added (re-added) House Ecaz and leader Duke Prad Vidal
* Fedaykin and Worm Rider units can now move on all terrains
* Added Fremen UU for scout and soldier which can move on all terrains
* Removed -200% combat strength of worms against thopters (Falcon thopters could easily kill them)
* Added new soldier unit art from Deliverator

Terrain, Bonuses, Improvements
* Increased groundwater appearance a little (iTilesPer 16->12)
* Added new spice harvester unit art from Deliverator
* Deleted stone rock feature
* Deleted iron ore bonus
* Deleted mining station, move uranium to regular mines
* Added stone and marble bonuses; stone on map, marble contract (infinite)
* Added one row of polar terrain to north and south of archipelago map
* Added polar terrains to tech tradeable list
* Added Ice Drilling improvement on ice

Buildings, Projects
* Changed market to Water Seller, requires ice, gives +25% water yield
* Changed all wonders to have appropriate double build speed bonus
* Removed health penalty on Science Lab
* Removed +water yield on weather scanner
* Added help for Reservoir of Liet, and three "owned" unique bonuses
* Renamed Mihna (not Mihna Challenge) to Baraka Monastery
* Removed "space race" victory from building seven temples
* Changed many buttons, added a few; now "fewer" duplicate buttons

Other changes
* Sandstorms now behave differently. They can move over cities and units and can cross the Great Wall ("Advanced Defense Grid"). They now only come in one size instead of 4, and have much less chance of crossing hills or peaks. When they are over a unit or a stack, including a city, units may be destroyed or damaged a random large amount. If this causes too much damage we can decrease the number of storms, or the percent of them doing damage. As of today, the sandstorm leaves a "ghost" when it moves which lasts up to 10 seconds.
* Made revolutions related game options invisible, too many players are getting crashes when they accidentally turn these on. As additional security, I changed the sXML... values in the revolutions python code so at least they point to something useful instead of generating errors. Even though the options are gone, it is still possible for them to get turned on again. I don't know how. If it happens to you, the only way to turn them off again is to edit your CivilizationIV.ini file. Search for the line matching "GameOptions = ". This has bunch of zeroes and then, when you are having this problem, four 1's at the end. Change the four 1's to 0's.

You can download it from this link (http://jendaveallen.com/fury-road/dune-reduced-patch-1-4-6.zip) (14 MB).

Here are some known bugs as of 1.4.6. If you have found a bug and it is not already fixed in 1.4.6, nor listed in this post, please repost. To avoid losing feedback among all the other posts, it is helpful to use a four character unique ID: your initials, and a sequence number. So "AH23" below is the 23rd feedback from Ahriman. Mine are "DA".

AH23. Remove "world is round" bonus

DA41. All terrain transports allow unload, pillage, reload, move, repeat. We need an sdk change so that loading or unloading can only happen once. This may be less important now that suspensor units have fewer moves on land.

DA42. All the buttons should be moved around. Especially in the tech tree, the button which appears for a tech is pretty random. The buildings are not so bad; the units mostly use the generic yellow buttons.

DA43. The building art contains a lot of duplicates. It may be a fun project for somebody to go track down new building art and change the artdefines file. Each art should only be used once, and it should match the function of the building.

DA44. The religion system from this thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=330907) has not yet been incorporated.

DA45. The tech quotes submitted by Sword Of Justice have not yet been incorporated.

DA46. Sandstorms leave a "ghost" when they move. The ghost disappears after 10 seconds.

DA47. The only mapscripts which are supported are Archipelago and Arrakis. The others should be removed from the release.

DA48. Especially for the buildings, there are a lot of "TXT_KEY_..." messages which show up. These should be replaced at least to show a clean "Stub text" instead of a missing TXT_KEY.

DA49. Some vanilla text strings need to be updated: "Allows working water tiles" in the exploration tech, "Village provided a warrior" from goody huts

DA50. The flavors in the tech tree and corresponding flavors in the leaderheads file should be updated so that each leader researches the appropriate techs. For example, Ordos should have a high weight for espionage related techs.

Awesome!

Thoughts:
(skipping some numbers, I forget where I left off)
AH35
Deathstills might need to be at a slightly higher tech, it is very powerful so early.

AH36
Monument gives +1 happy. Intended?
*edit* Working as intended (charismatic trait).

AH37
Slavery was intended to give +1 unhappy in all cities. If this is impossible, it probably needs some other penalty.

Arrakis habitation could also probably use a beaker cost increase if it gives slavery.

AH38
Scout thopter being replaced by Fremen scout is cool, but creates a transport problem.
My starting island was exactly 23 tiles, 5 of which were Dunes, and no scout thopter to transport a settler elsewhere.
So, Fremen need a UU settler that can cross desert tiles.

AH39
No improvements (other than the drilling rig on ice) can be built on polar.
Since polar is near a ton of rugged, and rugged is the most useless type in the game, you need to either be able to build some improvements on polar, OR on rugged.

Probably best is to allow cottage/quanat/turbines to be built on polar.

AH40
Maybe spice should be unable to spawn on polar desert waste? Since it gives water yield.
Similarly, make sandworms unable to enter (too much moisture).

AH41
Trade on deep desert and desert waste should be at dune topography, not desert engineering, as should map trading.

AH42
Desert survival seems very bland. Was intended to reveal the various plantation resources, or allow the desert hawks/hares (since removed, which is fine with me). If you don't like that, maybe it can do something else too?

AH43
Sandrider trait could also give a +20% deep desert/desert waste strength?

AH38b
Move scout thopter to exploration tech, not no-tech requirement, to make this tech more valuable.

AH37b
Monument *was* giving me +1 happy as Fremen, but isn't as Ix.

AH44
Beaker costs are not what they were in the design doc. For example, Theocracy is 1000 beakers, design doc had 400 beakers.
If this is known/intended, np.
If not, let me know and I can go through and double check them.

AH35b
Death stills should probably be +2 water instead of +25%. Or make them +10%.
+% water bonuses are so strong that its kinda imba for one faction to get such a huge bonus.

AH45
Turbines should be buildable on any flatland terrain.

AH47
We need a civic or tech that boosts turbine yields. Or we could just add +1 commerce to all the turbine yields.

AH46
Weather scanner seems to be only buildable in some cities, not others?
It *seems* like it is only buildable in coastal cities? Perhaps something to do with having the Great Lighthouse picture? The art for it can only display on ocean tiles?
Which is strange, because I thought there were no coastal cities left in the mod.

If there are coastal cities, then this brings back the possibility of sandworm transport units?

It also could be because the inland city that *can't* build it is on a "freshwater lake" tile.
No idea why lakes are still being generated (with rock over the top of them).

Excellent work David. The short-animation Sandstorm and Cloud is the next thing I'll look at. Shouldn't take long.

AH48
I like Ore as a resource better than stone. Stone doesn't make much sense to me. Ore could still have the same effect of boosting some wonder production.
Marble doesn't really make much sense either, its not like they're going to be short on building materials given the high tech level.

You could use Greenstone for something more exotic sounding. I think that is what the steps in Alia's temple is made of. Something slightly more flavourful that just Stone and Marble would be good.

AH49
Faufreluches civic is supposed to be at Caste System tech, not social mobility tech. Faufreluches *is* a caste system.

Meritocracy civic should be moved to Social Mobility tech, instead of Benevolence. My error in the design doc, sorry.

AH50
You can't convert to any of the (placeholder) religions. Intended?

AH51
Fanaticism gives +1 unhappy. I don't see any reason for this, I don't like disincentives to ressearch techs.

AH52
Desert rovers tech should be an AND requirement for suspensor devices (my error in design doc).

AH53
The Tleilaxu plague is really annoying. I think either the probability of infection should be toned down, and/or there should be a % chance of recovery each turn.
It also seems to spread like crazy somehow.
There were 2 Tleilaxu suspensors next to my city, I attacked them and killed them, and now every single unit that was in that city are infected.
Maybe you should only be infected by infantry, and/or only the unit that actually kills the Tl unit gets infected, not their whole stack.
Or only infantry units should become infected.

AH54
The well improvement seems to increase the movement cost of moving onto a tile. This seems illogical.

AH55
Homeland improvement is working well, nice job.
Ixian walker units does't seem to get it though, though the cymek does.

AH56
Turbines improvement can't be built on grassland (didn't check plains).
Particularly problematic since the intention was to encourage turbines for terraforming civs (no water penalty) and solar farms for others.
Idea was that terraforming makes clouds makes solar farms less effective, but wind turbines still work just the same.
Maybe we should make the graphics actually windmill type turbines, rather than just the big blocks?

AH46b
I have a second city on a "fresh water lake" tile (Titan Xerxes) which is unable to build weather scanner (or landing stage).

Save attached.

wow david...do you have a 32 hours day? cause i dont know when where you abke to build 1.4.6 so fast.

dl now.

great work.

wow david...do you have a 32 hours day? cause i dont know when where you abke to build 1.4.6 so fast.

I had been working on the game changes for the two weeks previous. Once you put up your tech file, there were only three files to change to match: unitinfos, buildinginfos and civicinfos. It took a couple of hours to rewrite civicinfos, but the other ones only needed a few tech names changed to match. Civcheck makes it very easy to catch all the places where a name is used.

im starting to like this civcheck of yours...:)

ok, ive taken a look,

and :

the units needs some work, the powers of each in some parts of the tree are not right,
also, some units might be too close to each other.

we need to give it some thought so we will be able to extend the use of the time use for each unit.


also, i think some costs of the techs should be raised a bit, some of the late techs cost cheaper then previous techs.


homeworld:

why does it all looks black and only a small qubic picture of the guild? i thought the screen was of a heilighner or something?
also - i think if its possible it would be good to set a scroll bar to the queue section - so you can scroll if you order a massive army.

further more = perhaps it would be nicer if theres a small pop up/splash screen that says that the space transport have arrived from the homeworld.
should the delivery take 5-10 turns? in the real time strategy games - it took a few untill you got them...

one more, probably this will be hard/impossible to do, maybe imported troops should have a higher upkeep costs? or , maybe we can do this:

how about we narrow the unit classes a bit, and some will be available only via homeworld? perhaps this will create the hw screen even greater importance.

another - how does the unit costs are determined?

other then that, i can only say, superb work.



**
oh and guys we can remove the unit statistics related pythons...its an old relic.

we need to give it some thought so we will be able to extend the use of the time use for each unit. ... also, i think some costs of the techs should be raised a bit, some of the late techs cost cheaper then previous techs.

I do not have any plans to work on the xml for the next few days, apart from investigating some of the bugs reported by Ahriman. Please feel free to make any modifications you like, and put together a 1.4.7 patch.

On tech costs: before making changes, please note comment AH44
Beaker costs currently in the mod do not seem to all be what they were in the design document.

I agree completely though that tech costs and unit strengths will need tweaking to make a better unit progression.

Also we could put the Quad unit back in at sand rovers.

sa-bbaba - this is hebrew slang for - cool/great/right on/ more...

that was another fun fact by keldath.

so, sabbaba...ill see what i can do on the weekend.

Woah, I didn't even notice the Homeworld screen was in this.

Playing as Ix, the screen appeared almost entirely black.
Just missing art?

I was also able to cheaply purchase units like Sardaukar (which I didn't have the resource for), Worm riders and Fedaykin (which I did have the resource for but not the tech) and Lasgun troopers (which I did not have the tech for).

This seems much too strong.

Purchased worm riders and fedaykin didn't start with the Sandrider promotion (they should), and nothing starts with the promotion from Aggressive trait.

Worm riders and Fedaykin aren't usnig the Worm-rider graphic you guys made when on desert tiles (I'm sure you know this already).

AH57
Scout thopter should upgrade to light carryall, not to other combat thopters, so you don't lose the transport capacity.

AH58
Faufreluches tech was intended to give unlimited engineers (we should rename ix techman to just techman, as well as renaming gholas nobles), not unlimited scientists (mentats).
There are already buildings the provide plenty of scientist slots, but very few that provide engineer slots.

May I say as well: I think this mod is getting increasingly awesome. Great work guys.

Imported from offworld trade thread at this post (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8357440&postcount=98):

DA32. Please filter out other civs' UU from the list. In 1.4.4, Imperial Militia is one UU; you can test with this.
DA33. Should we filter out units which require unique bonuses? For example, Ginaz Warrior requires Kindjal; should this unit appear in the list if you do, or do not have Kindjal?
DA34. Please show the total cost of the selected units, and the amount of gold I have. As I select or unselect units, these should update.
DA35. I do not think there is a need for the "transit" section. The screen will be simpler if clicking "OK" directly makes the units appear and exits the screen.
DA36. Is it possible to draw the units which I cannot afford, in red color and make them unclickable?
DA37. Is it possible to show the icon of the unit?
DA38. After DA37, is it possible to show the hover help of the unit when I mouseover the icon?
DA39. As requested in an earlier post, is it possible to trigger this screen on a button, which appears in cities that have the spaceport building?
DA40. Is it possible to add an "elite" unit selection which has 1-2 promotions, for 1.5x the cost?

Regarding AH37b, note Stilgar is charismatic, and this trait gives +1 happiness from some buildings including monument. So this is the expected behavior.

DA32->40 all good ideas.

AH59
Falcon thopters are good vs guardsmen - intended? I thought thopters were anti-melee.

AH60
Units that are anti-thopter (missile trooper, ixian cymek, etc) all need to have intercept chances.
Hornets (and particularly assualt hornets) should have their strength toned down, so that units that intercept hurt them. Light hornets should have either higher base strength than assault hornets or a bonus vs hornets and thopters.

AH61
Shock trooper unit should be ignoring city walls, like all other melee infantry. It isn't.
Neither is Ginaz warrior.

AH62
There is considerable confusion due to "shock trooper" being both a specific unit as well as a unit class.
Recommend we merge the "shock trooper" class into the "melee" class and a few into "guardsman class", this will reduce a lot of the confusion. Then rebalance around this. After all... shock troops *are* melee troops in the Dune world, they're for leading assaults.

So shock troopers are melee (and need a melee model), worm riders, fedaykin, ginaz swordsmen and sardaukar are melee, lasgun soldiers and troopers are guardsmen. Put quads and walkers into the Scorpion class, and rename this, maybe "vehicle" or "armored" or "mechanized".

Regarding the homeworld screen, the version in this patch is version 1 which has no background other than the Guild guys at the bottom. The screenshot Koma posted in the offworld thread was of the next version he is working on. I think he is planning to take all the feedback into account for the next revision.

AH63
The AI has a habit of building forts and outposts on bonus resources, when what it really should do is build them *adjacent* to bonus resources and then build the
Alternatively, change the fort/outpost so that it grants the resource (so its the same as building the appropriate improvement on it, but instead of tile yield it gives defensive bonus and culture).

Also, what is the difference between the outpost and fort? Do we really need both?
What does the mining camp do? It doesn't seem to have tile yield bonuses, and bonus resources normally get discovered only if you work the tile.

AH64
Suspensor gunship should upgrade to and be made obsolete by the suspensor destroyer. Otherwise it clutters the build queues.

Woah, I didn't even notice the Homeworld screen was in this.

Playing as Ix, the screen appeared almost entirely black.
Just missing art?

AH56b. The art isn't missing, that's all there is so far.

I was also able to cheaply purchase units like Sardaukar (which I didn't have the resource for), Worm riders and Fedaykin (which I did have the resource for but not the tech) and Lasgun troopers (which I did not have the tech for).

The first part is a duplicate of DA32. The second part is because you can purchase any unit in your current era, which may be slightly ahead of your tech. If the era flags are correct, this "seems" OK.

AH56c. Era values in modified tech file are probably all scrambled, need review.

Purchased worm riders and fedaykin didn't start with the Sandrider promotion (they should), and nothing starts with the promotion from Aggressive trait.

AH56d. Some units are awarded promotions using python when built. (Sandrider). These need to be awarded on purchased units. Perhaps manually calling the onUnitBuilt event?

AH56e. Figure out a way to get default promotions from traits, like Aggressive or Protective, onto purchased units.

Worm riders and Fedaykin aren't usnig the Worm-rider graphic you guys made when on desert tiles (I'm sure you know this already).

AH56f. If Deliverator releases the files, I can add it to the game. I gather the animation is challenging.

AH63
The AI has a habit of building forts and outposts on bonus resources, when what it really should do is build them *adjacent* to bonus resources and then build the
Alternatively, change the fort/outpost so that it grants the resource (so its the same as building the appropriate improvement on it, but instead of tile yield it gives defensive bonus and culture).
Also, what is the difference between the outpost and fort? Do we really need both?


I am not sure how this works in vanilla, but the "intention" was to work the same way.

What does the mining camp do? It doesn't seem to have tile yield bonuses, and bonus resources normally get discovered only if you work the tile.

What is the exact name of the improvement you mention here? I only recognize surface mine, deep mine, core mine. There used to be a "mining station" but that is removed in 1.4.6.

I am not sure how this works in vanilla, but the "intention" was to work the same way.

I haven't played vanilla in a long time, but I don't think there are forts that give cultural spread.
For one thing, forts in vanilla aren't buildable outside cultural borders, right?
I think there must be some extra programming here getting the AI to build the forts outside their borders on bonus resources.

The intention in Dunewars seemed to be for these forts to be culture-spreaders, which is a new feature. Basically so it will let you expand your territory and claim bonus resources outside your city boundaries.
Which is fine, but the AI needs to use them better.


I only recognize surface mine, deep mine, core mine. There used to be a "mining station" but that is removed in 1.4.6.

Mining station was what I meant, didn't check to see if this was removed. If its gone, then ignore my comment.

I haven't played vanilla in a long time, but I don't think there are forts that give cultural spread. For one thing, forts in vanilla aren't buildable outside cultural borders, right?

You are right, this is not in vanilla. But there is no specific DW code for this either. So it must be somewhere in the "DNA" of DW, probably in Revolutions.

AH65
Marble contract resource seems to be bugged: I think you can keep building multiple landing stages with the contract. Leto II has 15 marble resources.

AH66
Medium hornet should be a fighter/bomber, and so should get the interception mission.
should probably have lower strength too; the strength jump 100%+ (from the light hornet and assault hornet) is too much.

AH65
Marble contract resource seems to be bugged: I think you can keep building multiple landing stages with the contract. Leto II has 15 marble resources.

The marble contract is allowed any number of times. Is it possible that is the only contract available anymore? For example, if you build a landing stage and get the picklist of contracts to choose, are there any other contracts available to you? If there are no other contracts available besides marble, then this is unexpected but correct behavior. If there are other contracts available, the change we need is to help the AI pick a variety of contracts instead of the same one again.

Its probably the only contract available, they run out quickly with all players competing for them, but it would still be better to cap it at 1, or 1 per civ. Its just silly for a player to have 15+ of some fairly useless resource.
You don't let players get infinite copies of other resources, why this one?

I also think Pundi Rice as a +2 health resource would be more interesting (and more canonical) than Caladanian wine. Rice (and fish products) were the main exports of Caladan.

AH67
Why do salt flats give a defensive bonus? There is nothing about the soil being infected with salt that makes it easier to defend. This seems like a remnant from forests/tubers to me.

AH59b
Thopter bonus vs guardsmen is particularly bad because missile troopers are guardsmen. So falcon thopters beat missile troopers in a fair fight!

AH63
Scorpions also need a general boost. Scorpions should be bad vs cities, but good in the field. They're not high enough strength to deal with melee atm. There should be a need for anti-tank infantry to fight off scorpions.

AH64
Military complex tech was intended to be called Military-Industrial Complex (a replacement for "Economies of War" which didn't really work as a name). Was this too long to fit?

AH40. Maybe spice should be unable to spawn on polar desert waste? Since it gives water yield. Similarly, make sandworms unable to enter (too much moisture).
FIXED locally. Good suggestion.
AH46. Weather scanner seems to be only buildable in some cities, not others? It *seems* like it is only buildable in coastal cities?
The freshwater lake is an interesting problem, but not related. Changing the building iMinAreaSize flag from 10 to -1 solves the problem. I guess if iMinAreaSize has some positive value, then it also checks if the city is on the coast. We should global search and replace to make sure all buildings have -1 for this.
AH50. You can't convert to any of the (placeholder) religions. Intended?
Not intended. I can reproduce this; after a religion spreads to my city, I can see it is there in the religion screen. I move the mouse over the religion button, which I would click in order to convert to it. But the help text at the bottom says I cannot convert. Can anybody think why this might be?
AH53. The Tleilaxu plague is really annoying. I think either the probability of infection should be toned down, and/or there should be a % chance of recovery each turn.
FIXED locally. Reduced the transmission percentage from 100% to 25%. It will still eventually spread to everybody, but slower. Is this enough? We want the unique abilities to have a strong effect; this finding may indicate that the other unique abilities are too weak.
AH55. Homeland improvement is working well, nice job. Ixian walker units does't seem to get it though, though the cymek does.
In my test game, all the walker units get homeground. It is based on unitcombat; the ixian units have either shocktrooper or guardian unitcombat, so they all get it. Can you send a savegame where there are ixian units on their home ground without the promotion? The promotion is only added at the start of the turn.
AH56d. Some units are awarded promotions using python when built. (Sandrider). These need to be awarded on purchased units.
FIXED locally. Note I split this off from the promotions you get from traits, which I cannot see any easy way to fix.
AH62. There is considerable confusion due to shock trooper being both a specific unit as well as a unit class. Recommend we merge the shock trooper class into the melee class and a few into guardsman class, this will reduce a lot of the confusion.
The intention was to have three unitcombats: early gun infantry, melee infantry, and late gun infantry. Only melee infantry can ignore city walls. I would rather keep the number of units with this ability small. Maybe we need different names to make this more clear. Maybe two is enough, gun and melee. I agree quads should go into the scorpion class; we could certainly rename it. But I wanted walkers to be almost like UU of their related infantry units, including to be in the same unitcombat.
AH63. The AI has a habit of building forts and outposts on bonus resources, when what it really should do is build them *adjacent* to bonus resources and then build them. Alternatively, change the fort/outpost so that it grants the resource (so its the same as building the appropriate improvement on it, but instead of tile yield it gives defensive bonus and culture). Also, what is the difference between the outpost and fort? Do we really need both?
The outpost and perimeter are actually identical in the XML; so there is no effective reason for both. Maybe keldath intended them to be different at one point, but I guess we could eliminate one. One interesting point is that these improvements act as a city -- including automatically connecting any bonus they are built upon. I tried that with a specific WB experiment, and it is working. So it does give you the bonus without the tile yield, just as you suggested.
AH64. Military complex tech was intended to be called Military-Industrial Complex (a replacement for Economies of War which didn't really work as a name). Was this too long to fit?
Yes.
AH65. Marble contract resource seems to be bugged: I think you can keep building multiple landing stages with the contract. Leto II has 15 marble resources.
I can think of several possible solutions. We could make a national limit of 2 landing stages. We could make the stage simply do nothing, if you already have all the resources listed. We could add a bunch more resources so there is always something to pick. What are your thoughts?

@ keldath, and anybody else interested in fixing bugs:

I am not going to be making any xml changes for the next week or so. I have added "FIXED locally" for several items which were python changes. Please go ahead and make any of the changes suggested by the playtesters. In your change log, please do note which changes you have made. I have turned the notes into a spreadsheet so I can track them, and I will try to keep it up to date. The sheet also has a classification column so that all the unit related items can be sorted together. In case it is helpful, you can see it in the attachment.

thanks david,

im planning on doing the units on the weekend.


about the outpost - i indeed was intended to have 2 sorts of defensive improvement - but we can remove one.

The freshwater lake is an interesting problem, but not related.

Weird conincidence then; my only 2 non-coastal cities cappened to be on a freshwater lake.
Landing stage, space port, weather scanner all had this issue.

This also of course suggests a possible solution for coastal transports....
Have the transports require a cheap 'desert yard' building in order to be constructed, and then set the iMinAreaSize = 10 for that building.
So we could have sandworm transport units that can't travel on land, and can only be built on coastal cities!


Reduced the transmission percentage from 100% to 25%. It will still eventually spread to everybody, but slower. Is this enough?


I don't know, we can test, but I still think it feels bizarre when my ixan meks or scorptions or thopters get plagued, or when I get my entire stack plagued when an aircraft in that stack bombs the ixians. Would be great if it could be limited to infantry types only.

In my test game, all the walker units get homeground.
My mistake, I'd forgotten that the walkers only had base movement 1, so I thought my 2 move walkers weren't getting it.

The intention was to have three unitcombats: early gun infantry, melee infantry, and late gun infantry. Only melee infantry can ignore city walls. I would rather keep the number of units with this ability small. Maybe we need different names to make this more clear. Maybe two is enough, gun and melee. I agree quads should go into the scorpion class; we could certainly rename it. But I wanted walkers to be almost like UU of their related infantry units, including to be in the same unitcombat.

My impression was that walls (at least those of the citadel) were actually shields surrounding the city, protecting it from ranged assault. So vehicles, aircraft, ranged weapons aren't very effective against defenders, hence their large defensive bonus and the small reduction from siege units. But the shield has no impact on melee guys, who just walk through it and then butcher the defenders.
Also arguably lasgun troops should ignore shields, because of the feedback nuke effect that woudl happen if you tried to use your shields against lasgun attackers.

What is the purpose between early-gun and late-gun? I think its much easier to merge these. Shock troopers were definitely intended to be melee troops (hence why they come with personal shields tech), its meant to go bladesmen, elite bladesmen, shock troops.

I think the number of units that ignore city walls can potentially be large; most units in the Dune universe are melee, because of how shields stop ranged weapons, and siege warfare is not an important thing in the dune universe.

The reason I think that Walkers should go into the scorpion class is so that anti-tank weapons are more effective against them. If I'm fighting a robotic walker, I would much rather have a missile launcher than a sword or maula pistol.
I'm fine with the walkers basically being UUs of various infantry units, but I still think they should change unit class. Why do you think they need to be guardsmen class?

So it does give you the bonus without the tile yield, just as you suggested.

Ok, this is probably fine then, lets just eliminate one of them.

What are your thoughts?

Hmm. I do worry that with the current system it is too easy for the first to get to offworld trade to monopolize all the good resources.
How about a combination?
a) Limit Landing stage to a national limit of 4. (And remove landing stage as a building requirement for other buildings if any).
b) Have three classes of resources: URUs, Major import resources, minor import resources.
Have each civ that is eligible for a URU (Corrino and Ix atm) automatically get that as their first resource. (Otherwise the AI might screw up and not get it if it picks 4 other resources, and the human player can strategically delay the resource to their 4th pick getting others first, knowing no-one else can take their one.)
Have the major import resources like the +2 luxury goods are now. These provide 3 copies and only 1 contract is allowed for the world.
Have the minor resources give +1 bonuses, provide 2 copies, and have 2 contracts allowed for the world. Marble would be a minor resource.
Have the AI make sure that they know that major resources are better than minor. Just hardcode the AI a preference order for its picks.

Then, once all the contracts are taken, then any additional landing stages do not give any further contracts.

So, there is still a nice bonus for the early researchers of offworld trade; you can get a bunch of the best resources, but its harder to lock out later people from still getting somethnig useful, and we don't get the craziness of 15 marble resources.

Caladanian wine could be a +1 happy minor resource. Pundi rice could be a +2 health major resource. Elacca could be a +1 happy resource. Fogwood could be a happy resource. Whale fur could be a minor happiness resource. etc.

David, I think you have included some outdated city screen graphics, can you update them? http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?ijc3w3qj0z2

I like Ahriman's ideas for limiting the number of landing stages and expanding the list of imported goods. We should also be more imaginative with the effects of offworld goods - health and happy bonuses only are a bit dull. Having them be building requirements and having amplifying buildings for some of them might be a start.

Not sure Elacca is the best for +1 happy. The main use in the book is to destroy the will of slaves in gladiatorial combat. I suggested a possible strategic use here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8300430&postcount=98). Now Ecaz are back in we should think about giving them some distinct trade advantages - better URs or buildings that amplify bonuses from imported goods maybe.

I like the idea of linking the resources to buildings better.
The major resources could be +1, with a further +1 from some building. Minor resources just +1 from some building.

hey guys!

i lost track of all the feedback here....


anyway! superb news!!!!!!

plz go to - http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=332254

is that gonna solve us some problems ?................................................. ...


im gonna insert this inside the sdk and merge this in,
finally we will have a proper carryall land and sea!!!

The concept of land transport is interesting. If we get this, would we rearrange the mapscript to go to an all-land model again? We should carefully evaluate whether the land transport changes work well.

keldath,

well for the looks of it, the modder knew what he was doing,

im sure that we can benefit from this a lot.

think about it - we can compensate for the lack of roads with making land transports that can move a greater num of moves,
we can have carryalls to carry units everywhere much better.



im also gonna insert the new car mod - which ads 15& of game speed to bts.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=13059

after this, im gonna do the unit tree all over again.
hopefully ill have new files by Saturday, im gonna make use of all the feed here.

I think the desert tiles = ocean work fine in general - what is the gain from removing that and going all land?

I think what this would give you though is generally better AI transport behavior.

Would it also mean that we could allow some units to enter desert waste or deep desert tiles, but still have the AI use transports for long distance travel?
Or is this the gain you would get from going to an all-land model?

what would we gain:

better ai usge of land transports - carryalls will be able to have additional unitai - assualt land -

so they will act better on all terrain.


we could make land transports - units that can move infantry around as a compensation to lack of roads.

i think we must have this one.

AH64b
Perhaps Industrial Complex would work better than Military Complex?

AH65
I think it would be cool if the mentat assassin functioned as a FFH-style marksman (attacking the weakest defender) rather than being invisible.
And then make it a melee unit, rather than an infiltrator.

AH66
Core mine reduces hammer yields over Deep mine (eg on diamonds resource, or on rock hills).

AH67
The Arrakis Spice civic (ie pro-spice as opposed to pro-terraforming) is supposed to be at Spice industry tech, not Water of life tech.

AH68
Ecaz civ is unable to build the Landing stage building, even in coastal cities.

AH69
Another idea for terrain variation.
Currently rugged/badlands terrain have very limited improvements that can be built on them, so as terrain they are very weak.
However, I understand that you don't want them to be as good as rock (or mesa); terrain variation is a good thing.
So why not just have those terrains have the same range of improvements available, but with longer build times? So it takes 75% longer to build improvement x on rugged terrain than it does on rock. And badlands terrain could be 25% longer than on rock.
So they're still weaker terrain, but that can be overcome with enough workers building.
That way, civs that start in worse terrain will grow slower, but won't have cities that are just useless.

AH70
For some reason, culture isn't moving over polar terrain properly, which is annoying when you want to capture ice resources.

Take a look at the cities Ghuzz and Semus in the attached save.

@ koma13:

David, I think you have included some outdated city screen graphics, can you update them? http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?ijc3w3qj0z2

I am not quite sure what happened here. I have two versions of CvMainInterface.py. Is it possible that when you gave the updated python for the homeworld screen, it incorporated some older python for the city screen? For example, the python in your rar file above says:

#Arch Panel Left
screen.addPanel( "InterfaceCityArchLeft", u"", u"", True, False, 250, yResolution / 8 + 64, xResolution / 33 + (xResolution - 1024) * 3158 / 100000, yResolution * 7 / 8 - 171, PanelStyles.PANEL_STYLE_STANDARD)
screen.addDrawControl( "InterfaceCityArchLeft", "Art/Interface/Screens/City/ArchLeft.dds", 250, yResolution / 8 + 64, xResolution / 33 + (xResolution - 1024) * 3158 / 100000, yResolution * 7 / 8 - 171, WidgetTypes.WIDGET_GENERAL, -1, -1 )
screen.hide( "InterfaceCityArchLeft" )

#Arch Panel Right
screen.addPanel( "InterfaceCityArchRight", u"", u"", True, False, xResolution - 250 - (xResolution / 33 + (xResolution - 1024) * 3158 / 100000), yResolution / 8 + 64, xResolution / 33 + (xResolution - 1024) * 3158 / 100000, yResolution * 7 / 8 - 171, PanelStyles.PANEL_STYLE_STANDARD)
screen.addDrawControl( "InterfaceCityArchRight", "Art/Interface/Screens/City/ArchRight.dds", xResolution - 250 - (xResolution / 33 + (xResolution - 1024) * 3158 / 100000), yResolution / 8 + 64, xResolution / 33 + (xResolution - 1024) * 3158 / 100000, yResolution * 7 / 8 - 171, WidgetTypes.WIDGET_GENERAL, -1, -1 )
screen.hide( "InterfaceCityArchRight" )

But the python in your homeworld screen (my current version) says:

#Arch Panel Left
screen.addPanel( "InterfaceCityArchLeft", u"", u"", True, False, 250, yResolution / 8 + 64, xResolution / 29 + (xResolution - 1024) * 3342 / 100000, yResolution * 7 / 8 - 171, PanelStyles.PANEL_STYLE_STANDARD)
screen.addDrawControl( "InterfaceCityArchLeft", "Art/Interface/Screens/City/ArchLeft.dds", 250, yResolution / 8 + 64, xResolution / 29 + (xResolution - 1024) * 3342 / 100000, yResolution * 7 / 8 - 171, WidgetTypes.WIDGET_GENERAL, -1, -1 )
screen.hide( "InterfaceCityArchLeft" )

#Arch Panel Right
screen.addPanel( "InterfaceCityArchRight", u"", u"", True, False, xResolution - 250 - (xResolution / 32 + (xResolution - 1024) * 3141 / 100000), yResolution / 8 + 64, xResolution / 29 + (xResolution - 1024) * 3342 / 100000, yResolution * 7 / 8 - 171, PanelStyles.PANEL_STYLE_STANDARD)
screen.addDrawControl( "InterfaceCityArchRight", "Art/Interface/Screens/City/ArchRight.dds", xResolution - 250 - (xResolution / 32 + (xResolution - 1024) * 3141 / 100000), yResolution / 8 + 64, xResolution / 29 + (xResolution - 1024) * 3342 / 100000, yResolution * 7 / 8 - 171, WidgetTypes.WIDGET_GENERAL, -1, -1 )
screen.hide( "InterfaceCityArchRight" )

It isn't clear to me which is right.

AH71
Currently reading Paul of Dune: they mention a suspensor-field jammer, used as a weapon to make suspensor vehicles crash.

I think this should be the name of the anti-suspensor class promotion, when you get to promotions. (Like shock could be anti-melee, AA guns could be anti-thopter and aircraft, improved shields could be anti-guardsmen, etc.)

Homeworld's CvMainInterface.py is based on old city screen graphics. You have to join it with new pixel settings. If that is too confusing you can wait, I will update CvMainInterface.py in next homeworld screen version anyway.

I wanted to try this mod out, so I took the original release of 1.4 and installed the 1.4.6 patch over it since that is what you said to do in the OP. Civ4 can't even load the mod. It gets to loading XML and crashes to desktop every time. Am I missing something?

Are you updated to Civ 3.19?
Does the original 1.4 release work?

Purchased worm riders and fedaykin didn't start with the Sandrider promotion (they should), and nothing starts with the promotion from Aggressive trait.

AH56e. Figure out a way to get default promotions from traits, like Aggressive or Protective, onto purchased units.

I thought about this a little more and discussed how to do it in a separate sdk/python thread. Promotions and experience of new units can come from many places: civics (add XP), buildings (add XP, can add promotion), traits (can add promotion).

If you are bringing units from your own homeworld, there is a good argument that your traits should apply. Probably we would agree that buildings should *not* apply -- if there is a barracks in the city the unit lands in, why does it suddenly get more experience? It makes sense for a unit which is trained in that city. How about civics? I am undecided on that one. Just because you are governing one way on this planet does not mean you governed that way on your homeplanet.

So if we add the trait promotions but *not* buildings and civics, will there be a followup bug report?

I agree that traits but not buildings or civics should apply.
An easy solution for wormriders and Fedaykin seems to be to just attach the sandrider promotion to the unit directly. There will never be a case where there is a wormrider unit who should NOT have the sandrider promotion.
So why not just make the wormrider unit start with the sandrider promotion, like how a Reverend Mother starts with the +visual range promotion?

Sorry for the confusion. I have already fixed the custom DW promotions. The unfixed part is the promotions from traits. Several people discussed possible solutions in the other thread. There is a function available inside the sdk which adds all the promotions and experience, including buildings and civics, and xienwolf suggested to use that. I think that won't quite work here, and it looks like you agree.

Either koma13 or I can add the python suggested by koma13 to loop the traits and add the required promotions.

I am at BTS 3.19. I am on 64 bit Vista, if that helps. I tried unpatched 1.4 and got an error saying it failed to load dunewarstext.xml [.\FXml.cpp:133]
Error parsing XML File -
File: xml\text\dunewarstext.xml
Reason: End tag 'English' does not match the start tag 'TEXT'.
Line: 9151, 3
Source: </English>

Oddly enough, I was able to start and run a game as the Harkonnen anyway after clicking ok on that error.

I then tried copying the 1.4.6 patch over unpatched 1.4 and get the unexplained CTD again.

That particular xml error from 1.4 is fixed as described in this post (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8328734&postcount=32). However, I am surprised that you are getting a crash with 1.4.6. Do you have python logging enabled in your civilizationiv.ini file? Is there any text in the PythonErr.log file?

Python logging is enabled. PythonErr is empty and PythonErr2 is attached as a text file. As I said, 1.4.6 can't even load the mod at all. It gets to loading XML and crashes to desktop every time.

Thanks for sending PythonErr2.log, but it does not contain any useful information. A few weeks ago, another new player was getting crashes with obscure messages from one of the subcomponents called "BUG". It turned out that uninstalling the mod and reinstalling fixed their problem. Have you run other downloaded mods successfully?

I am not sure it will help, but you could also try uninstalling the mod, installing 1.4, and then installing 1.4.4 from this link (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8344635&postcount=127). That has fewer changes compared to 1.4.6.

The 1.4.4 link appears to be down as I can't get any file from it. BUG, BAT, Planetfall, Fall from Heaven, and History of Three Kingdoms mods all work for me, this is the only Civ4 mod I've tried that has this problem. BUG has a method of installing as a mod or as a component of BTS and I'm using the mod only version specifically to avoid the kind of compatibility problems you mentioned.

zeodeicasia,

did you install bug mod separately by any chance? bug 4?

I think there might be an issue installing 1.4.6 over 1.4 without installing any of the interim patches.

That would be unfortunate, since I did not keep all the intermediate patches.

Hopefully 1.4.7 will be out soon. (Right keldath?)

I had BUG 3.6 installed as a mod. Uninstalling it and reinstalling this mod does nothing to fix Dune Wars.

1.4 to the new 1.4.7 patch works fine. I was able to start the game and play a few turns as the Harkonnen.

Thank goodness! There is nothing different I can think of about the construction of the 1.4.6 patch zipfile compared to 1.4.7. I built them the same way. But I am very glad 1.4.7 is working for you.