We are happy to announce it! Download V2.5 Beta 5 (http://sites.google.com/site/thehistoryofthreekingdoms/Files/2.5BetaEn.7z) (~9MB). It requires V2.4 Patch F.

To install:
1. make sure you have V2.4 Patch F installed.
2. extract the downloaded 7z file, copy 'The History of Three Kingdoms' folder within the 7z file, to your Beyond the Sword\Mods folder, overwrite the folder with the same name.

What's new in this version, roughly:
1. hero capture, execute, release, and trade system. See HoTK concept's Hero section.
2. Army system. See HoTK Concept's Army section.
3. Hero attribute: leadership and might, with slightly revised legion. See HoTK concept's Hero section and Legion section
4. Customising random hero. See HoTK Concept's Random Hero section.
5. When changing leader picking from current faction heroes as well. See HoTK Concept's Hero section.

What to keep in mind when playing:
1. hunting bugs, of course
2. see if the hero trade value is proper. See if AI's requesting for hero trade is timely. See if AI knows when to and not to refuse trading heroes.
3. see if hero's surrender, capture, die chance, etc. is proper.
4. what do you think of using experience and leadership to determine legion's maximum member.
5. How to use leadership and might attributes better
6. How to adjust the customisation option when creating random hero.
7. The type of promotions random heroes gains when level up now is influenced by the heroes potential unit combat level. See if we should adjust some promotions' chance to appear.
8. Any thought on the new and complex (probably too complex) Army system is welcome.
9. when creating new leaders out of heroes, do you like the random trait and personality choice.

Some notes:
1. This beta is feature complete. V2.5 will be released around 10.1
2. We will include new art and may be some sound in V2.5. Such as new unit by Bakuel, and new buttons and icons by koap.
3. The AIs don't know Army system, yet. In V2.5 it's unlikely they will know. It's hard.
4. The hero leadership and Might attributes are just the first draft, we are looking for feedback in order to further adjust them.
5. xxhe, our xml guy, has some reservations about watermill improvement being overpowered. Would like to hear your opinion about it.

Yay...something new to try. But are we going to have a real 3 Kingdoms scenario (Shu, Wei and Wu) soon?

Well, a last minute change messed up the Mod, causing a game hang bug (busy writing a 1GB save game). Uploaded beta 2 to fix it. Break save game. Download at the same link.

@AP

Not until advisors and history event are in place. When? It depends on how well everything goes.

There seems to be a big glaring glitch: when heroes are defeated, even if they are not killed, they can't be found anywhere on the map. Doesn't matter if it's human or AI (Taishi Ci was defeated by me and he's not in Liu Yao's capital the next turn; in a different game, my Zhang Fei was defeated but I can't find him anywhere in my cities the next turn).

Addendum: Duh, I guess I didn't realize I actually caught Taishi Ci, so I had to persuade him. Never mind. Maybe if you can put in a reminder that heroes are languishing in prisons (in the future there might be a lot of heroes waiting their turns to be persuaded or executed).

Hey, I thought I did put some reminding text on screen when you capture a hero didn't I? Of course, an alert message reminding player about hero in prison would be nice.

Got a msg my hero died during combat when he actually didn't.

If you persuade a captured generic hero twice, you'll get 2 duplicate heroes. One of them is defective, and when you group the legion the defective hero will disappear.
If you eliminate a faction and they currently hold one of your heroes prisoner, that hero will still be imprisoned.
Any way of putting up imprisoned heroes as part of peace talks?

Addendum: Sun Quan (my imprisoned hero) broke out of prison and returned to me! (It would have been better if I freed him after Wang Lang was destroyed though...)

Ok, I found a bug. When you pass a judgement on a prisoner, the button requires two clicks before it goes away. This means however, that if I persuaded Cao Ren to join me (as Lu Bu) I have to hit the button twice, giving me TWO Cao Ren's. The game seemed to really hang up later however, with massive slowness.

Same bug as Kenjister that I referred to in the post before his.
When the head of an army gets defeated, a CTD happens (tried this before when playing the first beta).

When you select Huang Gai's Danyang and attack Chen, it'll crash, no matter how good the odds are. So the CTD bug doesn't seem to be related to whether your army wins or not.

I wounded Gan Ning the turn before when he dared to blockade Yue Yang, but even though there are no pirate ships, the blockade is still there!
On another note, a hero of the people will cause a CTD when you move him. Can't even upgrade him.

No matter what you do, when you hit enter next a CTD happens. (I tried deleting the troublesome hero of the sword which has a lot of my generals attached, but no use) (and I was about 15 moves from an emperor cultural victory and just rescued the emperor from Xu Chang):mad:

I noticed that all heroes seem to surrender without fail if you choose to persuade... maybe a variable is off here?

EDIT: A CTD when I attempt to dismiss the Army that Liu Bei is commanding with the Dismiss Army button. I had the only legion that was in the army (Guan Yu) grouped when I hit the button. I also had Resilient 1 from Liu Bei via Nine Transformation active on the legion.

EDIT2: I noticed that in my current Liu Chong game, I can no longer make any trade proposals with any other factions. I can contact them, and recieve trade offers, but when I attempt to propose something (such as a peace treaty) I can't even get to the trade table because the button is not there.

Got a msg my hero died during combat when he actually didn't.

He escaped or be captured?

to join me (as Lu Bu) I have to hit the button twice, giving me TWO Cao Ren's. The game seemed to really hang up later however, with massive slowness.

It's the AI's turn or the player's turn? If it's human player's turn, it's clicking plot list button, or attack with an army member, or open a screen, or something else?

I noticed that all heroes seem to surrender without fail if you choose to persuade... maybe a variable is off here?

EDIT: A CTD when I attempt to dismiss the Army that Liu Bei is commanding with the Dismiss Army button. I had the only legion that was in the army (Guan Yu) grouped when I hit the button. I also had Resilient 1 from Liu Bei via Nine Transformation active on the legion.

EDIT2: I noticed that in my current Liu Chong game, I can no longer make any trade proposals with any other factions. I can contact them, and recieve trade offers, but when I attempt to propose something (such as a peace treaty) I can't even get to the trade table because the button is not there.

If the hero won't surrender, the 'persuade' button will not appear.

About the CTD and Liu Chong's situation, if there's a save game it would be a tremendous help.

Another update on the missing Diplo Text: I think it has to do with when a hero takes the place of a deceased leader. Everything was fine up until Zhang Liao took over for Lu Bu and I entered the diplo screen to check his traits. I could propose trades to Liao, but after that, I couldn't make any trades with anybody else. I'll try to see if I can dig up a save.

Actually the buttons are still there, but you can't see them. If you click on the appropriate places (usually it's the 2 middle ones that are missing) you'll get the appropriate screens.
Stmartin, if you want a save for this, use my late Sun Ce game which crashes the next turn, it's got it. (Gongsun Zan is dead but is replaced by a generic leaderhead, and Lu Bu was too earlier until he was dead).
Any idea about the phantom menace (Gan Ning)?

He escaped or be captured?

I still had the hero at the end of the battle.

How often do heroes break out of jail, and is it related to their history (e.g. Guan Yu more likely to be uncontainable)? Therefore is it better to wait; is there even an option to ransom them?
Also, since some generals are more loyal, when they do betray you in battle, can they become "freelancers" rather than betray to the opposite side, so that the original faction can hire them back. E.g. Cao Cao captures and persuades Guan Yu, who then helps him fight Lu Bu, but Guan Yu betrays, and instead of going to Lu Bu he should be free so that Liu Bei can rehire him for a low sum. Now, of course if Liu Bei is dead, then he should just betray, but loyalty should be dynamic, maybe even allow it to slowly increase to you the longer he's in your service.

I've noticed that some of the Leader and Might stats seem... interesting I suppose. Some heroes like Zhang Yang seem quite overrated with their dual 80's in each. Some, like Yue Jin, have strangely low Might ratings (he has a 70 compared to Yu Jin's 80). Perhaps if the stats can be adjusted so the more famous generals (such as Zhang He and Yue Jin) have improved might ratings since they both seemed to be quite capable warriors in their own right.

Finally, I've noticed that the leader name doesn't change after the death of the previous leader. It's quite odd when Zhao Yun is referred to as Gongsun Zan all the time.

Uploaded HoTK V2.5 Beta3 to the same address in the first post.

0.298: fix: fix CTD when dismissing Army
fix random leader's text and button display error in score board hover text
fix CTD when Army's normal legion core troop is defeated, but has other legion member
fix a bug when heroes who did not die naturally in history die too early in the mod
fix a bug that Hero Advisor's prisoner screen refresh too late
rule tweak: Leader heroes can die and be captured in combat now.

Haven't fixed the pirate blockade bug though. Also I haven't see any couldn't propose trade stuff. May be fixed also.

You can propose hero trade, just start diplomacy with the other player, and you'll see the choice.

As to the chance for hero's to break out of jail, it's related to the heroes' might attribute, the maximum chance is 1/10 per turn.

My late game still crashes the next turn. (And please comment on the hero of the sword located in Chen with 2 generals attached, no buttons are available and whenever you move him it'll crash too)

@AP

To make your save game work, open world builder, choose edit unit mode, select the unit Sun Ce is attached to, then set it's experience to 1, then return. It should not crash any more, but don't move that unit.

As to the move unit crash bug, I think I have fixed it, it may has something to do with that Huang Gai attack then crash thing before.

Hmm, I'm getting LOTS of CTD's with this latest Beta... perhaps I applied it wrong? (I downloaded it and copied over the previous beta). As for feedback, heroes seem to get executed far too much by the AI. I see the Cao Cao AI regulary excecute Zhang Liao and Xu Huang upon capturing them. It's just odd seeing two of Wei's five top generals die in every game...

Uploaded beta 4. Download at the old address in the first post. Start a new game recommended.

changes:
0.299: fix: fix CTD we hero dies in combat
fix missing diplomacy text for new rando leader
fix bug when a captured leader hero surrenders
rule tweak: lower chance for hero to die and be captured in combat
lower chance for captured hero to escape
lower chance for AI to execute and release heroes
Component: Better BTS AI update to 0.81


@Kenjister

You did right apparently, these problems are now fixed.

I'm sorry, but I downloaded the new beta and I'm still getting crashes when army heroes get defeated (this time it was Liu Bei/Zhang Fei's Danyang against a Yuan Shu archer).

I got a python exception while browsing the Demographics screen, in the Top 5 Cities/Wonders section.
(forgot to take a screenshot though :()

I've noticed that I don't get a random hero when I win on defense or via the Yellow Turban trait. The screen pops up, and I can select the perk, but no hero ever appears. It gets quite annoying when this happens in the late game when combat points take forever to accumulate.

@AP

I have confirmed that Bug.

@Opera

Please check to see if there's any python error log in your log folder. Should be located in My documents\my games\beyond the sword.

@Kenjister

Accumulate enough XP with attack works fine?

Yep, attacking works just fine. It's just defense and other non-attack methods that don't work, the counter simply resets when it hits the threshold that way.

I have no English text when doing diplomacy.

Fen Cong doesn't appear to have a leaderhead (picture all black).

I have no English text when doing diplomacy.

Fen Cong doesn't appear to have a leaderhead (picture all black).

I need a save game for each of these bug, because I tried but failed to replicate the first bug, and the second one involves a random hero, whose name is random so I don't know which portrait he should be using.

Ok, this may be a bug, or it might be my interpretation, but the Stong promotion doesn't seem to give me an auto-win. I'm assuming it's supposed to give you a free win without taking any damage though. I used Zhao Yun to attack a barb warrior, and I still managed to take 15hp damage... if it just means that you can't lose the battle then I think the promotion requires some serious buffing, because if you already have the 3:1 strength ratio you only have a 1% chance of defeat.

@stmartin: I wasn't able to reproduce it and the PythonErr.log was overwritten. I'll try again :)

my fort improvement appears as a red blob

I need a save game for each of these bug, because I tried but failed to replicate the first bug, and the second one involves a random hero, whose name is random so I don't know which portrait he should be using.

Check Peng Zhao.

I have no English text when doing diplomacy.

I need a save game for each of these bug, because I tried but failed to replicate the first bug, and the second one involves a random hero, whose name is random so I don't know which portrait he should be using.

It only occurred the first time I ran it. The "agreement" options were all empty instead of displaying text.

Upon restarting the mod, the problem disappeared. I frankly wouldn't know how to replicate it.

Perhaps it lies in initiating the language setting for the mod - maybe the first time someone runs it, the language isn't set to "English" and so a default blank gets displayed, but from the first close/reload onward, English is set and thus it uses the proper language strings.

That's just my guess.

By the way, this is more or less a balance issue, but it occurs to me that you don't always want your sovereign leading an army. Sun Ce, for example, with his Conqueror promotion. If he forms an army, he has no personal unit. With no personal unit, nobody can use the Conqueror promotion and though the overall army might have +1 strength or some such, this isn't strong enough a benefit to overcome the power gained from a Conqueror unit. There is a strong disincentive to use Sun Ce as an army leader versus a legion leader.

It's a little counter-intuitive to think that you might not want your strongest leaders at the head of the army.

I'd suggest giving the army leader a personal "honor guard" unit, so that they don't disappear as an entity.

By the way, this is more or less a balance issue, but it occurs to me that you don't always want your sovereign leading an army. Sun Ce, for example, with his Conqueror promotion. If he forms an army, he has no personal unit. With no personal unit, nobody can use the Conqueror promotion and though the overall army might have +1 strength or some such, this isn't strong enough a benefit to overcome the power gained from a Conqueror unit. There is a strong disincentive to use Sun Ce as an army leader versus a legion leader.

It's a little counter-intuitive to think that you might not want your strongest leaders at the head of the army.

I'd suggest giving the army leader a personal "honor guard" unit, so that they don't disappear as an entity.

Yeah, I completely agree with attaching the army leader hero to some unit. This may be hard technically though. Too bad the Civ4 engine do not allow two unit attach to one unit entity.

BTW, the leader hero's core unit promotion is supposed to pass along to the army 'guardian', which is the first selected member hero's core troop. Doesn't it work this way?

my fort improvement appears as a red blob

Same here. It is extremely likely that either that graphics path is wrong or the graphics are missing. An easy fix.

Also, Elite Rider promotions are not appear for my Cavalry Legions. Since they appear in the Unit Promotions section of the pedia, I assume this is a bug.

Yeah, I completely agree with attaching the army leader hero to some unit. This may be hard technically though. Too bad the Civ4 engine do not allow two unit attach to one unit entity.

BTW, the leader hero's core unit promotion is supposed to pass along to the army 'guardian', which is the first selected member hero's core troop. Doesn't it work this way?

I'll have to check more closely to give you a conclusive answer.

The AI isn't defending his cities properly. I got 3 cities with no defenders, or only heroes + workers.

BTW, the leader hero's core unit promotion is supposed to pass along to the army 'guardian', which is the first selected member hero's core troop. Doesn't it work this way?

I can confirm that the Army Guardian unit is not recieving the Core Promotions of the Army General, weakening the whole system quite a bit.

As for city defense, I noticed that the AI doesn't garrison it's cities much at all. That can however be attributed to their complete lack of units! In my most recent Gongsun Zan game, Yuan Shao quite literally sent ALL his units at me. Though it made initial survival difficult, it allowed me to counterattack with ease. Now Zhao Yun is an unstoppable monster. (Not really, don't even think of nerfing Smart!)

This save consistently crashes upon new turn. I don't know why.

Edit: Unhandled exception at 0x022e3f80 in Civ4BeyondSword.exe: 0xC0000005: Access violation reading location 0x00000180. Occurs in CvGameCoreDLL.dll.

Can't seem to be able to capture any heroes at all, despite what the comment line says.

@Ambreville

Have you checked the 'prisoners' panel in hero advisor screen?

@Ambreville

Have you checked the 'prisoners' panel in hero advisor screen?

Ahhh, yes... check the prison cell. I had forgotten about the sinister, dark place. Well, it was -- how shall I say -- crowded. One prisoner complained when I came by about others pushing in the back. Others groused that the place smelled, the food was dreadful, the guards were rude, the roof leaked, and the whole thing was a total disgrace. The ever-growing steamy pile in the corner and its buzzing flies didn't help. Two were trying to dig out an escape tunnel, while another found a way to hang from the ceiling.

I persuaded a handful of hirsute and bleary-eyed heroes to join my cause, and they agreed it was their destiny. The others looked at me funny. They didn't seem very trustworthy. I debated quietly whether to execute the obnoxious bunch, but I didn't see the point. Perhaps if there had been some benefit doing so, or an even greater benefit releasing them, I would have considered the options. But without seeing an advantage for either, I shrugged, closed the door, and let them stew in their own... well, you know what.

Unfortunately, the world came to an end when I attempted to finish the turn. The great CTD god acted up, and magically transported me to Desktop heaven. "How strange," I thought. "This had never happened to me before." Oh well. I did return a few more times, but the great Celestial Thundering Dragon still didn't relent. The world had really come an end, and that was that.

Just realize that you're still in beta limbo, so this is not the real world. The CTD nightmare will end eventually. :D

@Ambreville

Good story. The benefit of execution is this: all your unit get +20% temporary strength. The other faction will hate you for this of course. But they will hate you more if you persuaded their hero, so it's actually a bonus in disguise. The benefit of release is you got some slight relation boost to the other faction. You release 2 heroes, receive +1 relation. All these boosts and penalties are 'memories' which will fade over time.

@Ambreville

Good story. The benefit of execution is this: all your unit get +20% temporary strength. The other faction will hate you for this of course. But they will hate you more if you persuaded their hero, so it's actually a bonus in disguise. The benefit of release is you got some slight relation boost to the other faction. You release 2 heroes, receive +1 relation. All these boosts and penalties are 'memories' which will fade over time.

Okay, makes sense. Thanks. It would be nice if that information was visible on the prisoner screen. By the way, any interest in allowing the two parties (the captor and the former owner) to "trade" prisoners or pay ransom to recover a captured hero?

Ah, yes, you already can trade heroes with other faction. Just through normal diplomacy.

Ah, yes, you already can trade heroes with other faction. Just through normal diplomacy.

Really!? Dang, I missed this entirely.

One note about the previous post. Releasing a hero when his original faction has been destroyed doesn't seem useful at all. Couldn't there be something else then?

What does the belief of a hero, and its strength rating, actually do? Does it give some loyalty bonus to a master with the same philosophy?

Uploaded beta 5, download it in the first post, this time we put some leaderhead in it, so size is bigger, and require 7-zip to upzip it.

changelist:

0.300: fix: fix CTD when dismissing Army with only one unit
fix a bug that a 100 loyalty hero surrender to enemy
fix a bug that Army Guardian doesn't receive core troop promotions of leader hero
fix a BTS bug which causes CTD when a unit has -30% innate city attack penalty and -35% extra city attack penalty
fix a bug that unit who has Strong Promotion still take damage in combat
fix a CTD when an AI unit tries to ranged bombard friendly plot's improvement
restores missing Fort art
fix a python exception in screen that display GDP and the such
art: random leaders now have leaderhead that retains the corret length-width ratio
rule tweak: Qiang Cavalry now starts with Cavalry promotion as well
interface: added alert message when a captured hero is willing to surrender

@Ambreville

Why would you want to release a hero with no faction? He would be willing to surrender in that case also.

Loyalty has a big impact on weather the hero would like to surrender to you. Belief at this time only works when recruiting the hero.

@Raize

Concerning your save game, the bugs in it is pretty 'good', do you still have some autosaves for it?

Uploaded beta 5, download it in the first post, this time we put some leaderhead in it, so size is bigger, and require 7-zip to upzip it.

changelist:

0.300: fix: fix CTD when dismissing Army with only one unit
fix a bug that a 100 loyalty hero surrender to enemy
fix a bug that Army Guardian doesn't receive core troop promotions of leader hero
fix a BTS bug which causes CTD when a unit has -30% innate city attack penalty and -35% extra city attack penalty
fix a bug that unit who has Strong Promotion still take damage in combat
fix a CTD when an AI unit tries to ranged bombard friendly plot's improvement
restores missing Fort art
fix a python exception in screen that display GDP and the such
art: random leaders now have leaderhead that retains the corret length-width ratio
rule tweak: Qiang Cavalry now starts with Cavalry promotion as well
interface: added alert message when a captured hero is willing to surrender

Thanks for that!

@Ambreville

Why would you want to release a hero with no faction?

Precisely. One could indeed wonder about that if the release button isn't grayed out as the result of the previous faction being destroyed -- thus my asking.

He would be willing to surrender in that case also.

Loyalty has a big impact on weather the hero would like to surrender to you. Belief at this time only works when recruiting the hero.

Alright, thanks for the update. The explanation was helpful. Wish this information was plainly visible on the prisoner screen itself. It would have prevented much of this discussion.

Stmartin, thanks for the update. Did you fix the bug where if your hero was captured and you destroy the faction that's holding him captive, he is still imprisoned and you have no way to release them? (Just asking because not everybody has Sun Quan's might and escape)

Uploaded beta 5, download it in the first post, this time we put some leaderhead in it, so size is bigger, and require 7-zip to upzip it.

changelist:

0.300: fix: fix CTD when dismissing Army with only one unit
fix a bug that a 100 loyalty hero surrender to enemy
fix a bug that Army Guardian doesn't receive core troop promotions of leader hero
fix a BTS bug which causes CTD when a unit has -30% innate city attack penalty and -35% extra city attack penalty
fix a bug that unit who has Strong Promotion still take damage in combat
fix a CTD when an AI unit tries to ranged bombard friendly plot's improvement
restores missing Fort art
fix a python exception in screen that display GDP and the such
art: random leaders now have leaderhead that retains the corret length-width ratio
rule tweak: Qiang Cavalry now starts with Cavalry promotion as well
interface: added alert message when a captured hero is willing to surrenderNice! Going to play right now :)

Btw, any idea when you will release the source code again? Or maybe I'm blind and it's already there...? Being a modder, I would really like to read the code of HotTK :)

Oh, a bug I noticed. Even if the hero has all his combat levels maxed out, he can still take the "Leadership" promotion - in effect wasting a promotion. Can you put in a check so that this promotion is disabled if he's already maxed out?

CTD when Liu Chong (me) erases Yuan Shu from the history books...oh when can I play a proper game without crashes?:cry:

A bug from beta 4 that I didn't have time to report, it may or may not be fixed by now, but sometimes when a leader hero dies, the leader does not change. (ex Zhang Yang dies after being captured, but still is the leader of his faction). It didn't happen all the time though.

@Raize

Concerning your save game, the bugs in it is pretty 'good', do you still have some autosaves for it?

My computer is shared, so unfortunately I don't.

I seem to getting very regular crashes in the small map. Though I don't know what the cause may be, I have a feeling it's linked to Yuan Shu losing Shou Chun, because as soon as a lost the city (Zhang Fei got a lucky win!) the game crashed. Actually it crashed right as I lost the final combat, I never actually saw the city change hands.

EDIT: I can now say that all of my games, regardless of map size seem to crash within the first 10 turns. No good idea why though.

I have another save with repeatable crash. The latest file is Vince SanGuo B, and it's about one turn after the last autosave (AD 193 Early May). I've included all the autosaves that I could.

Kenjister funny you should say that. (My Liu Chong game was me capturing Yuan Shu's final city which was Shou Chun). Why would it just affect him though? May be it's because it would a major shift in everybody's attitude once the public enemy is disposed of (like Dong Zhuo).

Speaking of which, a 190 AD Dong Zhuo scenario would be interesting (the major players being Liu Biao, Liu Yan (Liu Zhang's dad), Yuan Shao, and Yuan Shu, and minor players being Gongsun Zan, Ma Teng, Sun Jian, Cao Cao and Liu Bei (who was in the service of Gongsun Zan). Lu Bu would be in his right element playing just a general. They would each have units encamped around Luoyang, and a logical move for whoever is playing Dong Zhuo would be to break out and escape to Chang An, and make peace with each of the players.

I'll do some testing to see whether all my crashes are related to Shou Chun falling. Usually it's due to Liu Bei, so if I'm right, then in the small map it should always crash around turn 4-7 since Liu Bei ALWAYS manages to take Shou Chun...

I really like the idea of a 190AD Scenario... I wonder if the early scenarios are already being planned out for the next phase (since it focuses on factions). I'd really like to see a 184 Yellow Turban Rebellion and the Dong Zhuo scenario. Perhaps the minor players in those maps can simply be set as vassals to the lord they were serving under. Makes sense thematically too!

Stmartin, thanks for the update. Did you fix the bug where if your hero was captured and you destroy the faction that's holding him captive, he is still imprisoned and you have no way to release them? (Just asking because not everybody has Sun Quan's might and escape)

Ah, totally missed that one.

Nice! Going to play right now :)

Btw, any idea when you will release the source code again? Or maybe I'm blind and it's already there...? Being a modder, I would really like to read the code of HotTK :)

The source code is always online here: http://code.google.com/p/sanguoforciv4/

If you haven't used SVN before, then it's a chance to learn a version control system. It's a vital tool to any software developing.

The source code is always online here: http://code.google.com/p/sanguoforciv4/

If you haven't used SVN before, then it's a chance to learn a version control system. It's a vital tool to any software developing.Oh, thanks. This tool might help us :goodjob:

When I move my army the game crashes, also it doesn't have any action buttons. It happened after I upgraded some horses...

Uploaded Beta 6, change list follows:

0.301: fix: fix a bug when a hero dies in combat his status is set to unemployed
fix a bug when two players in the game use the same faction, the initial free hero would get duplicated
fix a bug sometimes when a hero's unit combat levels are maximized he can still choose that promotion
fix a CTD when capturing central city for a belief
fix a bug that promote leader hero has no effect. (Now if leader hero and core troop hero both can be promoted, first promote core troop hero, then leader hero)
fix a bug when upgrading units within an Army
fix a bug in forming legion interface which would result in OOS Error
fix a bug in random maps experience needed for first random hero do not match current hero number
art: replacd Strong civic's button
rule treak: capture enemy capital will now free our own heroes
removed innate city attack penalty for Qiang Tribal Horsemen
removed human players auto promote heroes
Interface: in info screen of hero advisor player can now see heroes that are visible to him/her
in prisoner screen of hero advisor add a button to initial hero trade directly as well as some help text
the 'clear' choice in legion screen will no longer show if the legion/army cannot be dismissed

@Kenjister

I've tried to replicate the random hero bug, by using Zhang Jiao and let a barbarian win combat so he will reach the threshold before next turn. The screen pops up normally and the random hero appear normally. Also the change leader failure bug: I have tried to execute an enemy leader hero, the change leader function works. The next time you experience these two bugs, please keep a save game.

Ooh, beta 6, nice!


@ stmartin

as for the bugs, I haven't seen them reoccur since beta 5, so perhaps they were a one time issue.

EDIT: I noticed that whenever I select Zhang Yang's core troop in my current game that the message "WidgetTypes 186 help already registered" pops up on the notice list. It happens whenever control passes to the unit. Not really a bug, but can get a bit annoying at times.

EDIT2: I have a failed leaderchange here. Gongsun Zan was captured and excecuted by Yuan Shao, you can check that in the log, but is still the leader of his faction.

I don't see a Persuade button near my captured heroes anymore... I just took all of Liu Bei's cities but there is no option to persuade him (he's imprisoned.)

It appeared eventually, for one of the generic heroes. Subsequently I was able to use it on all of the other imprisoned heroes (in the same turn.)

Also, the legion cap doesn't seem to be correlated with leadership anymore. It appears to be based on hero level, instead. I have a hero with 7 in his legion.

I see the widget message too. Much more stable, probably because I didn't have an army head.
Finally won as Sha Mo Ke for monarch cultural victory (I could have gone for diplo or domination, seeing that all the western powers except for Ma Chao were my vassals, and I even have a foothold with Liu Chong as a vassal). Key point is to befriend Sun Ce so that he goes hunting Liu Biao instead of me.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=229050&stc=1&d=1253948150

If you have multiple heroes selected with the Nine Transformation, clicking the Nine Transformation button brings up a transformation screen with no options and no way to get out except for closing and reopening the game.

When you're getting a new random general, the Event screens cancel it. (ie Largest Civ screen, Wealthiest civ screen, etc)

Also, in general you can use the tail-unit of a legion to attack, and then once it dies join another unit to the legion using the "join legion" button and then attack that same turn. This only doesn't work if you've used the core unit or the "lieutenant" unit (first unit after the core unit.)

I thought this trick (sacrificing a core unit troop then have another unit join it) was disabled several patches ago.
On the same note, right now there's no dismiss core troop button even if one of your troops is injured (very annoying because you do want to have fresh troops under your general).

Several issues:
1) If any prisoner is willing to surrender, the Persuade button does not go away and you can use it to persuade every prisoner you have.

2) If you Dismiss all your legions within the army (using dismiss legion), your army hero exists, but doesn't show up on screen, so you can't do anything with him. Then the game crashes when you try to End Turn.

3) WidgetTypes 168 help already registered shows up repeatedly.

4) Try highlighting the entire army in the attached save game, and then moving all the units as one. The game crashes immediately.

5) Try highlighting the core unit (Feng Lan/Advanced DanYang Army) in the army. It has no options. Earlier, I switched my core unit by having my core legion leave the army, and then rejoin it as a non-core unit. This was some turns ago.

6) I can't move everyone except the Army leader out of range (so that everyone disbands), either. The game crashes once I leave the range.

@Raize

The best civ screen cancels random hero creation: does the create hero screen popup first, or second or not poping up at all?

As to the save game, if you still have some earlier saves, normal or auto, it would be great.

Just playing a Monarch Cao Cao game with the small map with no prebuilt cities. It's actually quite fun, having to build Luoyang and unable to build Xu Chang (because I'm all Division).
One interesting bug: even after a unit leaves a legion, if the legion general has 9 terrains, the unit will retain the 9 terrain promotion.
After you dismiss a legion, you have to click on one of the units to have the unattached general show up.
If possible, can you make heroes loyal to a dead civ (e.g. Liu Bei and Guan Yu) surrender quicker? It took forever for them to be persuadable, and only after Raize's bug (i.e. having a persuade button from another prisoner) was available.

@Raize

The best civ screen cancels random hero creation: does the create hero screen popup first, or second or not poping up at all?

As to the save game, if you still have some earlier saves, normal or auto, it would be great.

The Create Hero screen does pop-up, but it's interrupted and the hero never gets created.

See attachment for the autosaves.

Another consistent crash. No armies this time (at least on my end.)

3. see if hero's surrender, capture, die chance, etc. is proper. I would kind of like to see more heroes die, just because there is a lot of hero-bloat as the game runs on, with all the random generals being born.

4. what do you think of using experience and leadership to determine legion's maximum member. I think this makes the Army system redundant. The Army system is rather complicated, as you have to think which hero is properly complemented by which other hero, and a person with a lot of heroes has a disproportionate advantage over someone with just a few. I think this experience + leadership combination is good, and can be used in lieu of the Army system.

5. How to use leadership and might attributes better Honestly, I don't know what these attributes do.

6. How to adjust the customization option when creating random hero. Add explanations for what each of the emphasizes mean.

8. Any thought on the new and complex (probably too complex) Army system is welcome. Personally, I think the added layer is unnecessary and kind of cumbersome. It favors a strong / warmongering player too much.

Other I would like to see civil heroes; as opposed to war heroes, these heroes would boost the production/culture/happiness/whatever of the city they are sitting in. Unlike the "Renowned" characters, they wouldn't actually join the cities and could move about freely, only providing the bonus while they're there. I'd also prefer them to be not-your-team-specific -> as you could send the hero to an ally and boost production for him just by stationing the hero there.

That's a funny image, Zhuge Liang and Zhao Yu being like nomadic camps that can actually move into a city to boost gold/hammers. :lol:

5. How to use leadership and might attributes better Honestly, I don't know what these attributes do.

6. How to adjust the customization option when creating random hero. Add explanations for what each of the emphasizes mean.

8. Any thought on the new and complex (probably too complex) Army system is welcome. Personally, I think the added layer is unnecessary and kind of cumbersome. It favors a strong / warmongering player too much.

1. don't know what leadership and might mean? Leadership is obvious, it changes experience required to increase leading capacity. Might influence the chance of hero death,escape, wound chance in combat, grant some strength bonus to core units, and influence the chance of prison breaking. Any suggestions how to make these effect more obvious?

2. I think there are explanations in place already. Are those hint not enough?

3. About the army system. I agree it's not very user-friendly. A bit too complex. My goal with this system is to allow a faction's leader and grand generals to be different with other heroes. There is not enough time to adjust this system for V2.5 right now, so I will add a game option to disable this system.

1. don't know what leadership and might mean? Leadership is obvious, it changes experience required to increase leading capacity.

I didn't think it was obvious either.

Might influence the chance of hero death, escape, wound chance in combat, grant some strength bonus to core units, and influence the chance of prison breaking. Any suggestions how to make these effect more obvious?

Sounds more like "Luck" than "Might".

I really don't want to start harping on this because I've run Beta 2.5 just a few times, but in general I tend to dislike features that are so esoteric that their actual impact on game play can hardly be observed. I see this in various other mods, including bonuses, events, and other game features that barely impact game play (if at all). I'm not sure this is the case here, but in general I'd say if they don't really affect the game, don't add the extra levels of complexity.

I actually thought that the might component was very easily observed. Of course I'm the guy who studies the combat odds religiously before every attack, so I noticed the +X bonus from might really quickly. As for the prison break chance, I noticed that alot when playing as Gongsun Zan after capturing Wen Chou and Yan Liang.
If you really want to see the might feature in action, just play a Lu Bu game on the small map. You'll really come to love the +21% he gives to his core troop! Survival or death really hinges on every percent you can get for that scenario, especially when you're forced to make 50% odds attacks.

On the other hand, maybe leadership could be explained in a more prominent location. Maybe there can be a legion help screen that comes up the first time you form a legion?

On the other hand, maybe leadership could be explained in a more prominent location. Maybe there can be a legion help screen that comes up the first time you form a legion?

Something like that would definitely help, yes.

One thing I noticed is that the name of the hero does not appear on the screen when pulling up the hero's Civilopedia page. For Chinese-challenged players like me, it's not very easy keeping track/setting apart the various heroes, except for the best known ones. Sheesh, I'm still struggling keeping the factions straight. What happens is that I'll click on a hero icon (usually without looking at the hero's name) and skip to the Civilopedia page. Almost invariably then, I'll mutter something along the lines of "Darn it! Who's that dude again????" (go back to the previous screen) "Oh yeah, him..." (return to the Civilopedia... and forget what I was looking for.)

When managing multiple heroes in a stack, I end up doing this more than I'd really care to admit. It's annoying.

Actually I think the problem is that in the Pedia page, the hero that you selected is supposed to be highlighted on the list to the left. As it stands, it is highlighted in a slightly more tan color. Not very useful. I think that if that was changed to dark blue or something then the problem would be solved. It can get very annoying.

I thought the icons taken from RoTK were very representative. Cao Cao has that menancing look while Sun Ce and Guan Yu both look, well, war-like. (Yan Baihu looks like an idiot, while Liu Biao looks like a gentleman) Maybe trying to tie your memory to the pictures if the names are too hard, e.g. put the names on the pictures themselves?

Actually I think the problem is that in the Pedia page, the hero that you selected is supposed to be highlighted on the list to the left. As it stands, it is highlighted in a slightly more tan color. Not very useful. I think that if that was changed to dark blue or something then the problem would be solved. It can get very annoying.

I can't see any name highlighted on the pedia list. They are all exactly of the same color. The individual Hero window (the one that pops up when clicking on the flag command icon when the Hero unit is selected) does not have the Hero's name either, unless you mouse-over the Hero's illustration.

@ AnotherPacifist

I thought the icons taken from RoTK were very representative. Cao Cao has that menancing look while Sun Ce and Guan Yu both look, well, war-like. (Yan Baihu looks like an idiot, while Liu Biao looks like a gentleman) Maybe trying to tie your memory to the pictures if the names are too hard, e.g. put the names on the pictures themselves?

I agree as far as faction leaders are concerned. There are far many more heroes running around that there are faction leaders however. It gets even more confusing in the beta version because a lot of the usual faction leaders get bumped off and replaced with others less well-known. Keeping track of them just isn't easy.

I can't see any name highlighted on the pedia list. They are all exactly of the same color. The individual Hero window (the one that pops up when clicking on the flag command icon when the Hero unit is selected) does not have the Hero's name either, unless you mouse-over the Hero's illustration.


Ah, you see, that's the problem. It is highlighted, but in an almost identical color as the background! In addition to that, the entry you select gets moved to the very bottom of the list, making it extremely hard to find, even if you know where it is.
I agree though, the pedia definitely needs some fixing in the highlight and naming departments.

Try using the conscript militia that's south of Yuan Shu's only city and attack (I thought the odds were OK, going to reload if I lost). In this game I've killed all my neighbors and my arch nemesis Liu Biao and his distant 2 Liu cousins (Chong and Yao), but have no cash at all, and capturing cities was the only way to keep me afloat.

With the no-city scenario starting at 196 AD, I'm just starting to see how much Lu Bu's greedy trait helps so much when rushing early on (I had 1/3 of all the land before 205, running oligarchy and running 10% science with still decent rates, partly helped by Legalism--the philosophy of the Qin Dynasty). All you need early on are a few decent small (to avoid unhappiness) cities with food to build good troops. Can't really rush with Sun Ce since there's no cash and Gan Ning is probably too strong to be captured early.

So I played on with Sun Ce, finally capturing that bastard Gan Ning who gave me 950+ gold as tribute! :D DOW'd on Liu Bei and captured one of his cities.
Then I asked Gan Ning to captain a floor galley, and found out I can't load any troops on it--is this intended or a bug? (this might be because he has the hidden nationality promotion that I thought would be useful for cash in the future without war, and maybe you can't load on a nominally "pirate" ship since it's not counted as yours?)

You can't ever load on a hidden nationality unit. That's a game-specific feature; it's not HoTK-specific.

I thought you could load HN units onto HN ships. Isn't that true in HoTK?

Too bad you can't have Gan Ning hide units in a floor galley or a 5-floor galley (or a fleet of them)--you can then attack whenever the time is right, e.g. when the AI is busy building inferior ships to counter yours and leaving only a few land units in the city.

Also, it seems that the Dread promotion doesn't work if Gan Ning is in a ship rather than a land unit.

2.5 is out! Thank you very much.:goodjob:

I'm really sorry, but it still crashes due to the hero system. Try this following game: no matter how you do it, whenever you capture Pu Yang (I have enough troops to kill the mighty Lu Bu), it'll crash.
Addendum: I tried waiting 1 turn (also DOW'd on Gongsun Zan), but still crashed when I captured Pu Yang. Doesn't matter if I kill using a halberdier in a legion or not.

Oh, I'm so impatient to have this CTD bug fixed...any word on how? Or can we just revert to 2.4 for now (but I don't have the installer anymore...)?

I'm working on this.

if don't mind downloading again, go to the google code server and look for files that are 'deprecated'.

http://code.google.com/p/sanguoforciv4/downloads/list

change the 'current downloads' into 'deprecated'