MAC BAT is no longer available. The Windows version moved in a direction that the Mac version is unable to, due to technical limitations. I do not have the time, desire or bandwidth to actively support it anymore. If you are wanting a mod for Mac that has all the features BAT did (plus many, many more) please check out History Rewritten (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=353049).

Xyth
27th March 2011

Download BAT 2.1 from its sourceforge page here (http://civ4bug.sourceforge.net/BATMod.html) and install it.

Erm, your link shows downloads for BAT 3.19/3.17 etc. but not BAT 2.1 (??) - I think the correct link for BAT 2.1 is this
http://sourceforge.net/projects/civ4bat/files/The%20BAT%20Mod%20(BTS%20v.319)/BAT%20Mod%202.1/

No it's the right page, it's BAT for BTS 3.19, not BAT 3.19. Regardless, I changed to be more clear.

Thanks Xyth!

I cant download your xml fixs for BAT 2.1

@Lachlan: Xyth's link works fine for me.

@Fruno: I just noticed Xyth's comment about pink eyelids and a missing texture file. Could that be related to your pink building problem?

These mods provide a ton of information. Do they doing anything for gameplay itself?

BUG means "BtS Unaltered Game Play", so no, it doesn't change the rules of the game. BAT just adds new graphics.

However, I believe some players claim that the improved presentation and organisation of game information gives a step improvement in their performance.

The lazier your macro, the greater the benefit from BUG, certainly in my case. Just reminds you of so much.

Maybe it's just me, but it seems like you can't trade with other civilizations... :(

Hi, welcome :wavey:

Have you turned off tech trading? That's a standard option during custom game setup.

Nope, I didn't alter it one bit, all it says is "Let's discuss something else" and the option to exit. I've been playing/lurking for a long time, and have done a little bit of modding, but not on this mod component or custom assets. I'll screen shot it. I've met most everyone on my continent and they've met each other yet there is no option to go to the trade screen.

Edit: Figured out the problem, but I forgot to mention another one...

I've noticed when my unit is unselected (as India) it goes back to the regular Civ 4 Vanilla style unit.
http://i48.tinypic.com/2yw8lxd.png

But then, I'll select it, and magically it dons a turban and grows a few shades darker.

http://i46.tinypic.com/2v2w6k4.jpg

Do you have frozen animations checked?

That behaviour with units is almost always caused by having Frozen Animations checked.

Also forgive me if this is too obvious but have you and the other civs researched the techs needed to trade yet? Alphabet is needed for trading techs, currency for gold, Writing for Open Borders, etc.

Edit: Figured out the problem, ...

So, what was it? Don't keep us all in suspense!

Sorry for my ignorance, but... once I download it, how do I "install it" as you advise? I don't see anything to double-click on to install it. Do I just drag the Bat Mod 2.1 folder somwhere? Or do I put its contents in my Beyond the Sword folder? Or do the contents of the Bat Mod 2.1 folder have to each put somehwere different?

Put the 'BAT Mod 2.1' folder into /Documents/Civilization IV Beyond the Sword/Mods/

Haha, well when I was playing I had researched writing, and then I accidentally closed my game, well I thought I still had writing, but apparently I didn't save once I got it, so I just figured the game gliched, apparently not. lol... And yeah the other problem was frozen animations, but SERIOUSLY, now I have an actual problem lol.

The Indian Courthouse comes out pink like the Academies. So I'm assuming there is a missing texture file somewhere. I'll keep you updated if there are any other buildings with problems, but I haven't seen anything else, really good job with the conversion man! :goodjob:

I cannot locate this shared folder through this directory - BAT Mod 2.1/Assets/Art/Shared - for the eyeshadow.dds fix. ???

You have to make the shared folder yourself. Just right click and add new folder in the art folder. Call it Shared, and then drag and drop the eyeshadow.dds there

You have to make the shared folder yourself. Just right click and add new folder in the art folder. Call it Shared, and then drag and drop the eyeshadow.dds there

Thanks.

Also just to clarify, it's the medieval courthouse.

I play it for now, no problem so far apparently ;)

I've been playing with BAT 2.1 for a few days now and the performance of my Mac becomes, over time, significantly slower. This is the case in the early eras when there is less going on in the game.

I presume all the additional calculations units and functionality that BAT invokes are pulling more juice from my system, but even so it seems particularly sluggish.

After about an hour of gameplay I find that my machine virtually grinds to a standstill so a complete relaunch of Civ 4 BtS is the only solution (is this a memory leak?)

Is anyone else noticing this?

By moment the game is very slow but one turn after i return to normal...

You know the thing where you reload a game after seen a worldbuilder...

After about an hour of gameplay I find that my machine virtually grinds to a standstill so a complete relaunch of Civ 4 BtS is the only solution (is this a memory leak?)

Is anyone else noticing this?

Not as yet, no.

I would guess the huge amounts of art in the mod is the culprit here.

The BAT mod is pretty neat. Is it included in the BUFFY mod?

I haven't tried BAT yet, but I'm keen to. Do I need to uninstall BUG first?

I haven't tried BAT yet, but I'm keen to. Do I need to uninstall BUG first?

No, BUG is included.

The BAT mod is pretty neat. Is it included in the BUFFY mod?

Sorry, no. And judging from the the performance hits people are reporting, that seems like a good decision.

Hi guys, I've been playing a game in BAT 2.1 for a week or 2 now. I like the artwork and the advisor windows are better (don't have to scroll up and down, it condenses things to fit). However, the artwork seems to bug out a lot:
-I'm playing Malinese, and sometimes my spies look unique, but then when I hit fortify, they look like generic spies.
-Often, when I upgrade a unit, it still looks like the old unit, but once in awhile looks like its generic icon (just like the spies example).

And a few random questions:
1. Is there a way to have Civ4BTS boot up in a mod (like BAT 2.1) automatically, so that everytime I load my saved game, it doesn't have to restart into the mod?
2. Is there a way to do a custom game when you have BAT 2.1 mod going? I like to turn off tech brokering, and sometimes I like turning off tech trading altogether.
3. I remember back in Civ 3, there was an Option to turn on auto unit production, which made it so that it always automatically continued to make whatever military unit the city just produced. Is there a way to do that in civ4?

thanks all!

Hi guys, I've been playing a game in BAT 2.1 for a week or 2 now. I like the artwork and the advisor windows are better (don't have to scroll up and down, it condenses things to fit). However, the artwork seems to bug out a lot:
-I'm playing Malinese, and sometimes my spies look unique, but then when I hit fortify, they look like generic spies.
-Often, when I upgrade a unit, it still looks like the old unit, but once in awhile looks like its generic icon (just like the spies example).

Make sure Frozen Animations is unchecked. It is incompatible with unit artstyle mods.

Is there a way to have Civ4BTS boot up in a mod (like BAT 2.1) automatically, so that everytime I load my saved game, it doesn't have to restart into the mod?

Open the file /Documents/Civilization IV Beyond the Sword/Civilization IV.ini and find where it says 'Mod = 0'. Change that to 'Mod = Mods/BAT Mod 2.1'. (without the quotes)

Is there a way to do a custom game when you have BAT 2.1 mod going? I like to turn off tech brokering, and sometimes I like turning off tech trading altogether

I've attached a file, unzip it and put it in BAT Mod 2.1/Assets/XML/GameInfo. It contains all the Custom Game options and by changing <bDefault> tags from 0 to 1 you can set BAT to run with whichever options you want by default (this works for any mod btw).

Xyth, thanks, I just edited the .ini file so it will load up into the mod. And when I load up civ4 again, I'll uncheck frozen animations, I'm pretty sure I had that checked.

The zip file... when I download it, I get a program called Big Bang :confused:

Xyth, thanks, I just edited the .ini file so it will load up into the mod. And when I load up civ4 again, I'll uncheck frozen animations, I'm pretty sure I had that checked.

The zip file... when I download it, I get a program called Big Bang :confused:

Woah that's weird. I just downloaded it to check and it was fine :/

Nevermind though, it's a standard BTS file. I just attached it to save on explanation :P You can find the original in /Civilization IV/Beyond the Sword/Assets/XML/GameInfo/. Copy Civ4GameOptionInfos.xml to /BAT Mod 2.1/Assets/XML/GameInfo and edit it as described above.

@Xyth – Having successfully played BAT 2.1 even on Uncopain's Huge Europe map (admittedly, lowering graphic level during late game), I felt I needed to register to this forum just in order to say thank you for telling us how this mod runs on a mac! It does, and it also seems to work well (after a few turns) with Hell Hawk's World War II scenario, which is a non-mod WB save.:):)

I'd like to add my thanks to Xyth, too. I finally installed BAT 2.1 and it works a dream. And thanks for the extra fixes, although those pink eyelids did have a certain thing about them...

I don't like the modern flags, though (I just got France and Holland mixed up in my trial game) - can these be turned off in the mod options?

I don't like the modern flags, though (I just got France and Holland mixed up in my trial game) - can these be turned off in the mod options?

Yeah I really didn't like them either and removed them. Unfortunately I don't remember exactly what I did as for some reason I haven't kept an unaltered version of BAT anywhere. Downloading it again atm (wherever they host it is sloooow) and once it's done I'll retrace my steps and post instructions here.

If I can find a fix for these pink buildings I'll probably host a version with all the fixes applied, an updated Cultural Citystyles and and modern flags removed.

Okay it was nice and easy. You just need to find the following file and folder and delete them:

File: BAT Mod 2.1/Assets/KKFC.FPK
Folder : BAT Mod 2.1/Assets/Modules/KK Flag

Thanks, Xyth. There isn't an option to turn them off in BUG Options.

Okay first post has been rewritten with more information and a full archive of BAT with all fixes (xml, eyeshadow, pink buildings, CC 0.90, and more) applied.

Apologies for making everyone download it all again, this latest round of fixes involved a LOT of file shuffling and tweaking, much more than could be covered by replacement files and instructions.

Alan could you please change this thread's title to "[BTS Mod] BAT for MAC" so that it's still relevant for any future updates. Thanks!

I can't change the TAG (the bit in square brackets), but I've changed the title.

wow, works great, I see no problems yet Xyth! Good job man!

Just so you know, the rice and wheat pictures are back to what they were originally. It's not really a problem obviously. Just letting you know in case you didn't want that to happen.

Yeah that's because Cultural Citystyles 0.90 includes some changes to farm graphics, and thus messing with some of the same files as Blue Marble. It sounds like these farm changes are a work in progress though so I decided to just leave it as is until I get a clearer idea of the scope of the changes in later versions.

I will redownload it... ;)

Wow. Well done, Xyth! A million thanks to you.

I suppose this means I can now delete the old BAT, BUG and VD folders cluttering up my Mods folder...

I'm playing as the Carthaginians, and when the build menu comes up the maceman option has the swordsman icon next to it. Presumably this is a problem with the mod itself, rather than the Mac version.

Hello. First of all, thanks for converting all those mods. Now, BAT works perfectly, the only problem is that the LeaderHeads add-on crashes the mod halfway through loading, whereas for VD alone, it only crashes when starting a game, even with the file fix provided in the VD thread... Do you have any idea of how to fix that ? :)

Yeah something is going on with Leaders of VD that I haven't figured out yet. I've been pretty busy recently so I've not had any time to look at it further sorry. I will eventually though :)

No problem, just know that your work is very much appreciated. :)

I've added a 'Known Issues' section to the first post to help me keep track of what needs fixing. Please let me know in this thread if you come across anything else that needs to be put there. I'm guilty of modding much more than playing so I really rely on your reports to help get things running smoothly.

L of VD is compatible for me...

Also, the Wheat and Rice Graphics that are different aren't from BM. When I used BM for Mac, I had the same graphics that came with the game for most of the improvements and resouces.

Xyth, please could you add instructions in the start post for using BAT not as a mod but as standard? As far as I remember it is something like "put it in Custom Assets", and I'm sure I could find it somewhere in the threads here, but it would be really useful in the start post :)

Might be nothing to do with the mod, but I was trying to get Mansa Musa to capitulate to me yesterday, and I had a CTD whenever I asked him to give me his world map. The actual capitulation, with or without techs, went smoothly - the crash only occurred when I asked for the map. Is this something you'd be interested in looking at, Xyth?

Xyth, please could you add instructions in the start post for using BAT not as a mod but as standard? As far as I remember it is something like "put it in Custom Assets", and I'm sure I could find it somewhere in the threads here, but it would be really useful in the start post :)


Already there (sort of):

If you want MAC BAT to launch automatically when you start BTS, edit the file /Documents/Civilization IV Beyond the Sword/CivilizationIV.ini'. Look for the line 'Mod = 0' and change it to 'Mod = Mods/MAC BAT 2.1'.

That's the best solution anyway. I've found Custom Assets to be very unreliable for anything too complicated and the VD component of BAT definitely falls into that category. Blue Marble works, BUG works, but VD just won't play nice, at least in its currently put together. Custom Assets also does not seem to work very well, if at all, with modular components. Which is a real shame :(

Might be nothing to do with the mod, but I was trying to get Mansa Musa to capitulate to me yesterday, and I had a CTD whenever I asked him to give me his world map. The actual capitulation, with or without techs, went smoothly - the crash only occurred when I asked for the map. Is this something you'd be interested in looking at, Xyth?

That's possibly related to the crashes PC users are getting as well and probably something I cannot track down or fix until VD is next updated. However, keep reporting such crashes as it may help identify a pattern. What era was this in?

I've tried with ini-editing. Unfortunately, then I can't open PBEM games or older SP-saves in BAT modus :(

I've tried with ini-editing. Unfortunately, then I can't open PBEM games or older SP-saves in BAT modus :(

By all rights BAT *should* work in Custom Assets, it's not changing gameplay afterall, but unfortunately it's being stubborn. I'll see if I can find a solution. Added to known issues.

What era was this in?

Industrial, I think. I've still got the save, but I've got flu at the moment so don't feel much like opening it up. Will come back to you.

EDIT: Nevermind.

I'm playing as the Carthaginians, and when the build menu comes up the maceman option has the swordsman icon next to it. Presumably this is a problem with the mod itself, rather than the Mac version.

Yes, it is, as someone on the original mod thread has noticed the same thing:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8718801&postcount=7

However, the conversation has moved on from there so presumably someone will be working on it for the next update.

The good news:

I've updated MAC BAT with Cultural Citystyles 0.95 and a few small tweaks which has fixed a few issues, most notably the crashes caused by certain plantations.

The bad news:

My ISP has done something stupid to my upload speed (currently less than 1kb/sec) and until they fix it I'm unable to upload it for you all. Hopefully later this week.


Hope everyone's new year is going well so far!

Technicians were more efficient than I expected which is nice. MAC BAT 2.2 is uploaded and available in the first post.

Great! Many thanks! :cooool:

Version 2.2 played ! Very nice, less problems at the moment...

Approaching perfection, man !

;)

Question - how can I load CustomAssets?

I tried setting the variable in the MOD.ini to 0 but that doesn't seem to do anything...

Also, it was indicated that the BULL was removed but yet there are still dimmed out options in the MOD options (cmd-alt-O)?

Question - how can I load CustomAssets?

I tried setting the variable in the MOD.ini to 0 but that doesn't seem to do anything...

It depends what you have in Custom Assets. If it's anything other than pure art files there's a good chance it's being overridden by BAT regardless. This is especially true with anything Python based. Custom Assets really does not work as well as it should, I've pretty given up on for everything except Blue Marble.

Also, it was indicated that the BULL was removed but yet there are still dimmed out options in the MOD options (cmd-alt-O)?

I've removed the .dll but I've left all the BULL related Python intact because, as you saw, the mod is smart enough to simply disable the relevant options if the .dll is not detected. I could probably remove them all safely but in the end I decided not to, just in case it causes issues in future versions. Also, just removing them won't remove the options in the options screen - it would need to be redesigned/rewritten.

I'm trying to adjust the starting techs of the civilization... I guess I could do that in the MOD itself but couldn't find where to put the 'civ4civilizationinfos.xml' file...

I'm trying to adjust the starting techs of the civilization... I guess I could do that in the MOD itself but couldn't find where to put the 'civ4civilizationinfos.xml' file...

The file you'll need to edit is MAC BAT 2.2/Assets/Modules/Varietas Delectat/XML/UnitArtStyles&CivInfos/VD_CIV4CivilizationInfos.xml

Technicians were more efficient than I expected which is nice. MAC BAT 2.2 is uploaded and available in the first post.

Thanks, Xyth. Small issue in the first post:

If you want MAC BAT to launch automatically when you start BTS, edit the file /Documents/Civilization IV Beyond the Sword/CivilizationIV.ini'. Look for the line 'Mod = 0' and change it to 'Mod = Mods/MAC BAT 2.1'.

should now read

If you want MAC BAT to launch automatically when you start BTS, edit the file /Documents/Civilization IV Beyond the Sword/CivilizationIV.ini'. Look for the line 'Mod = 0' and change it to 'Mod = Mods/MAC BAT 2.2'.

It's obvious, I know, but it may confuse first-timers.

Oops missed that, fixed. Thanks :)

I'm getting a CTD when I end my turn at 1812 playing Russia (Industrial Era). Nothing I do seems to alter it - whatever options I take, whatever I do, I end the turn and it crashes.

This is running BAT 2.1, rather than 2.2, so the roots may lie there. Would Xyth or anyone else be interested if I posted a save?

I'm getting a CTD when I end my turn at 1812 playing Russia (Industrial Era). Nothing I do seems to alter it - whatever options I take, whatever I do, I end the turn and it crashes.

This is running BAT 2.1, rather than 2.2, so the roots may lie there. Would Xyth or anyone else be interested if I posted a save?

It will either be a plantation related crash (fixed in 2.2) or a VD8.0 related crash (which PCs get too). Unfortunately the latter I can do nothing about short of effectively rewriting VD. I am actually doing that for my own mod (sort of) and if the author of VD doesn't fix the issue by the time I finish it I will look at porting what I've done for MAC BAT. No short term solution though I'm afraid :( Do post it though, I suck at interpreting crash logs but I'll do my best. Knowing what each city is building would help for sure.


EDIT: Added this to known issues.

My one worry with trying to fix or replace VD is that I don't know what's required to ensure multiplayer compatibility. While this is not an issue for my own mod I believe much of the popularity of BAT is because of multiplayer compatibility so I definitely do not want to break this.

Can't find the AutoSave, for some reason, so I'll have to post my last deliberate save, which goes back a few turns.

Remind me where to find the crash log.

Remind me where to find the crash log.

Launch /Applications/Utilities/Console.app

Select Show Logs if the left hand column with a log list is not displayed.

Choose FILES->~/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/Civilization IV_<date>-....

You only need to copy/paste3 the first part of the log, down to the end of the Treads list. The rest of it is just environment info that is usually not much help. The Crashed Thread listing is the valuable stuff - typically Thread 0.

Think this is the relevant file. I've copied and pasted it into a new text file - just the threads bit.

Faulty animation in a NIF file I would guess. Looks as if it's related to trying to achieve a goal. I've seen a somewhat similar crash log before here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8760207&postcount=2). Xyth interpreted that one as the plantation issue mentioned by him above.

Faulty animation in a NIF file I would guess. Looks as if it's related to trying to achieve a goal. I've seen a somewhat similar crash log before here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8760207&postcount=2). Xyth interpreted that one as the plantation issue mentioned by him above.

I won't have a chance to look at the saved game until tomorrow but yes, that is almost certainly a plantation related crash, and if not, a VD crash.

If you want to test it yourself, on the turn just before the crash go into world builder mode and look around to see if there are any workers on a banana or incense tile. Something else you can do is look for any cities that are due to finish building something that turn, then switch to that player and manually place that unit/building. If you get a crash then you've found the culprit.

Unfortunately the crash could also be related to one of the civs in the game advancing an era and thus one or more of their city, improvement, and/or unit art changes is causing the crash. This is much more annoying and time consuming to track down and I suspect that this is why this crash hasn't been fixed yet in VD.

That's a lot of different things, Xyth. I don't have time to test them all, I'm afraid - but, if you have, do go ahead (but I guess you're already working on this sort of thing).

I'm in awe of how you guys can just look at a log and see straight away what's wrong, but I guess that's experience showing.

That's a lot of different things, Xyth. I don't have time to test them all, I'm afraid - but, if you have, do go ahead (but I guess you're already working on this sort of thing).

I'm in awe of how you guys can just look at a log and see straight away what's wrong, but I guess that's experience showing.

No magic involved. The relevant bit of your log is:


Exception Type: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGBUS)
Exception Codes: KERN_PROTECTION_FAILURE at 0x000000000000002c
Crashed Thread: 0

Thread 0 Crashed:
0 com.aspyr.civ4bts 0x0068c3c2 NiControllerManager::AddSequence(NiControllerSeque nce*, char const*, bool) + 76
1 com.aspyr.civ4bts 0x0067ac86 NiActorManager::ChangeSequence(unsigned short, NiControllerSequence*) + 68
2 com.aspyr.civ4bts 0x0060db04 FResourceMgr::CreateAnimation(FActorManagerProxy*, int, bool) + 108
3 com.aspyr.civ4bts 0x0060dc5f FResourceMgr::SetTargetAnimation(FActorManagerProx y*, int, bool) + 99
4 com.aspyr.civ4bts 0x005ed859 FActorManagerProxy::SetTargetAnimation(unsigned short) + 33
5 com.aspyr.civ4bts 0x00af5c24 CvPlotBuilder::doFinalizeImprovement(CvLSystemNode Instance*, CvLSystemArtRef*) + 2212
6 com.aspyr.civ4bts 0x00af6812 CvPlotBuilder::doFinalizeNode(CvLSystemNodeInstanc e*, CvLSystemGoal&) + 156
7 com.aspyr.civ4bts 0x00ae739c CvLSystemInstance::dfs_to_meet_goal(CvLSystemNodeI nstance*, CvLSystemGoal&, int) + 156
8 com.aspyr.civ4bts 0x00ae7752 CvLSystemInstance::dfs_to_meet_goal(CvLSystemNodeI nstance*, CvLSystemGoal&, int) + 1106
9 com.aspyr.civ4bts 0x00ae7752 CvLSystemInstance::dfs_to_meet_goal(CvLSystemNodeI nstance*, CvLSystemGoal&, int) + 1106
10 com.aspyr.civ4bts 0x00ae7752 CvLSystemInstance::dfs_to_meet_goal(CvLSystemNodeI nstance*, CvLSystemGoal&, int) + 1106
11 com.aspyr.civ4bts 0x00ae7752 CvLSystemInstance::dfs_to_meet_goal(CvLSystemNodeI nstance*, CvLSystemGoal&, int) + 1106
12 com.aspyr.civ4bts 0x00ae79e7 CvLSystemInstance::continue_dfs_to_meet_goal(CvLSy stemGoal&) + 233
13 com.aspyr.civ4bts 0x00af135d CvPlotBuilder::doLayout(std::vector<std::pair<CvLSystemNode*, int>, std::allocator<std::pair<CvLSystemNode*, int> > > const&, std::vector<std::pair<CvLSystemNode*, int>, std::allocator<std::pair<CvLSystemNode*, int> > > const&) + 1383
14 com.aspyr.civ4bts 0x00af4caa CvPlotBuilder::rebuild() + 2316
15 com.aspyr.civ4bts 0x00af5154 CvPlotBuilder::updateData(float) + 448
16 com.aspyr.civ4bts 0x00ac3f74 CvEngine::updateUpdateableEnts(float) + 42
17 com.aspyr.civ4bts 0x00ac6025 CvEngine::update(float) + 775
18 com.aspyr.civ4bts 0x00a9202a CvApp::OnIdle() + 1616
19 com.aspyr.civ4bts 0x0066ea41 FWinApp::Run() + 31
20 com.aspyr.civ4bts 0x00b1ee52 WinMain + 50

I've highlighted the bits that stand out and give clues. Xyth knows the details of the problem areas in BAT, so he is able to relate these to the actual mod.

WinMain is the main game code, ported lock stock and barrel from Firaxis code. It was running in Thread 0 and crashed with an access to an illegal address near the bottom of RAM. That's pretty typical.

dfs_to_meet_goal is a routine monitoring some goal in the game.

FActorManagerProxy::SetTargetAnimation is a method for FActorManagerProxy - probably meaning "Firaxis Actor Manager's assistant" - that animates units on screen.

NiControllerManager::AddSequence is probably a method in the NIF (NetImmerse File Format) handling code, and is at the top of the list. So this is where the program fell into a black hole.

It's so obvious when you explain it.

Thanks for that info Alan, very helpful. I knew to look for the NIController thingy and anything saying Animation but it's very handy to be able to interpret more of those entries.

Oscar, I loaded your saved game with MAC BAT 2.2 (I simply renamed the folder, .ini file, and entry within the .ini file to MAC BAT 2.1) and I played as far as 1900 without issue. Well, except for handing many of your cities over to the Dutch and Romans and ruining your economy :P

This is good news because it means that it's extremely likely that crash was fixed in 2.2 (always a small chance that my actions up to 1812 caused the crashing culprit not to happen) and also you can finish your game if you wish by temporarily renaming 2.2 as 2.1 as described above.

If the crash does reoccur anyway under 2.2, please post a save from 1810 or thereabouts and I'll have another look.

Thanks, Xyth. I was keen to finish the game - probably better than you did. ;)

Im not sure if my problem lies with the same roots as Oscar's but I am getting a crash to desktop in my current game every so many turns. Im running MAC BAT 2.2 with a custom map, a gigantic earth map. I don't think its my system because Im running on an Intel 2.8Ghz processor with 4GB RAM, although it could be. I received only one memory allocation error which was because I was doing too much at once and I stopped that.

I have played with the gigantic earth map in vanilla BTS before with no problem until I added it to this mod. I like the MAC BAT mod but if I can't use it because of the map its fine let me know.

Welcome :wavey:

It's another crash with the same symptoms as Oscar's. A NIF file is failing to animate. Since you are running BAT 2.2, it must be a bug that wasn't fixed from 2.1.

What's so special about BAT that you feel you need to suffer all these problems? Surely it's just eye candy, isn't it? ;)

Yes it is, I just like the increased graphical quality, one reason I have the computer I have. But I converted my game back over to vanilla BTS so I can keep playing uninterrupted.

And thanks for the welcome.

Great mod!

I would be the happiest man on Earth if you could had a Future Era Expansion to this mod. Something like in the BtS "Extra" mod.

Im not sure if my problem lies with the same roots as Oscar's but I am getting a crash to desktop in my current game every so many turns. Im running MAC BAT 2.2 with a custom map, a gigantic earth map. I don't think its my system because Im running on an Intel 2.8Ghz processor with 4GB RAM, although it could be. I received only one memory allocation error which was because I was doing too much at once and I stopped that.

I have played with the gigantic earth map in vanilla BTS before with no problem until I added it to this mod. I like the MAC BAT mod but if I can't use it because of the map its fine let me know.

I'd need a saved game, preferably the turn before a crash happens, to track the crash down. I'm pretty sure that with 2.2 there are no more crashes related to city or improvement graphics, meaning that this crash was most likely related to VD8.0 (component that gives cultural unit graphics). Unfortunately this component is a nightmare to debug and hasn't been updated by the author for some time :(

Great mod!

I would be the happiest man on Earth if you could had a Future Era Expansion to this mod. Something like in the BtS "Extra" mod.

I won't add a future era expansion to BAT as the mod is intended to have unaltered gameplay and be multiplayer compatible. I did look at making such a component into a optional module but unfortunately it won't work effectively without maintaining a completely separate version of BAT.

However, I am in the process of making my own mod that is based on BAT and I would like to eventually add a future era expansion to that. I hope to have a beta out by the end of this month, though it probably won't have a future era at first release.

Okay, I enjoy this mod. However, the tank and modern armour sprites are killing it for me, even the mechanized infantry. Now, how do I add in the generic units?

However, I am in the process of making my own mod that is based on BAT and I would like to eventually add a future era expansion to that. I hope to have a beta out by the end of this month, though it probably won't have a future era at first release.

I'm looking foward to play your mod.

Okay, I enjoy this mod. However, the tank and modern armour sprites are killing it for me, even the mechanized infantry. Now, how do I add in the generic units?

The files you need to edit are in MAC BAT 2.2/Assets/Modules/Varietas Delectat/XML/UnitArtStyles&CivInfos/VD_Civname_CIV4UnitArtStyleTypeInfos.xml

In these you'll see a list of entries that look something like:

<StyleUnit>
<UnitType>UNIT_MODERN_ARMOR</UnitType>
<UnitMeshGroup>
<EarlyArtDefineTag>ART_DEF_UNIT_T80U_DESERT</EarlyArtDefineTag>
<LateArtDefineTag>ART_DEF_UNIT_T80U_DESERT</LateArtDefineTag>
<MiddleArtDefineTag>ART_DEF_UNIT_T80U_DESERT</MiddleArtDefineTag>
</UnitMeshGroup>
</StyleUnit>

Deleting such entries will cause that particular Civ to use the default graphics for that unit.

Incidentally I am deliberately going to be doing minimal unit variation on modern vehicles in my mod. It's just not worth the performance hit.

I obtained a CTD with error message when trying Earth3.py the new version in mapscripts forum this new Earth3.py is nice...

Why Smartmap can, and not Earth 2 or Earth 3 (new version) ?

:confused:

I'm used to have 18 Civs in same time since the start in Standard Size Earth 3

I obtained a CTD with error message when trying Earth3.py the new version in mapscripts forum this new Earth3.py is nice...

Why Smartmap can, and not Earth 2 or Earth 3 (new version) ?

:confused:

I'm used to have 18 Civs in same time since the start in Standard Size Earth 3

When does this crash happen? While the map is generating or during gameplay? And does this crash occur when using this mapscript on BTS with no mods? Trying to work out if this is related to MAC BAT or not.

When I was porting BUG I looked at SmartMap, and it crashed every time, because it made Python called to the Windows registry. I didn't have time to fix it and it wasn't a critical component of BUG, so I left it as it was. Has it since been fixed? Maybe Earth 2 and/or Earth 3 have similar problems.

I am also getting a crash to desktop in my current game every so 4-5 turns. I'm running MAC BAT 2.2 with a "Planet generated map". I don't think its my system because I'm running a bran new MacBook Pro, although it could be.

To be honest I've never even tried most of the mapscripts that come with BUG/BAT so it is possible they are not Mac compatible. The only one I know for sure I've tried is Tectonics and that seems to work fine. I don't know how a mapscript could cause a crash while playing the game however, I'd assume if they'd simply crash during the generation phase.

SmartMap certainly used to crash as soon as it was selected at the start of the game, as the Windows registry calls were used during initialisation.

To be honest I've never even tried most of the mapscripts that come with BUG/BAT so it is possible they are not Mac compatible. The only one I know for sure I've tried is Tectonics and that seems to work fine. I don't know how a mapscript could cause a crash while playing the game however, I'd assume if they'd simply crash during the generation phase.

It does, on generation phase :sad:

It does, on generation phase :sad:

Well that's an incompatibility with the mapscript then and unrelated to MAC BAT. If it's calling the Window's Registry then I'm afraid that's something I don't know how to fix.

Next version of MAC BAT I'll test the included mapscripts and remove any that aren't compatible or fixable. Added to known issues.

I am also getting a crash to desktop in my current game every so 4-5 turns. I'm running MAC BAT 2.2 with a "Planet generated map". I don't think its my system because I'm running a bran new MacBook Pro, although it could be.

This sounds unrelated to the mapscript. Is the crash replicable? If so, could you post a saved game a few turns before it occurs?

Here is a saved game in witch I crash to desktop every 4 or 5 turns. I've tried to reload several times and it doesn't seem to happen always at the same time.

I would appreciate if anyone could test it, so I will know if it's a bug related to my system or not.

Well that's an incompatibility with the mapscript then and unrelated to MAC BAT. If it's calling the Window's Registry then I'm afraid that's something I don't know how to fix.

As I'll probably be doing some mod-to-Mac compatibility work again soon (MacBUFFY?), I may be able to take a look at some incompatible map scripts and fix them t the same time. Please let me have a list of the map scripts that you have found to crash during configuration.

Even Tectonics is concerned :eek:

If i choose Random Earth in Tectonics.py

Even Tectonics is concerned :eek:

If i choose Random Earth in Tectonics.py

I just tested all the random options in Tectonics and they all work fine for me. Testing the other mapscripts now.

EDIT:

Some of those mapscripts have a TON of options o.O I obviously didn't test every configuration but instead just chose random options if they existed, or reasonable defaults if they didn't. I always chose Huge for world size and ran each one 3 times. The following mapscripts seemed to work:

- Tectonics.py
- Planet Generator_0_68.py
- Maze.py
- Ring_World.py
- Full_of_Resources_3_00.py
- Lows_Random_Maps_3_0.py
- Smart_Map.py

The only one that crashed while generating was Team_Battleground.py which crashed on first launch but was fine the next two times. I have very limited understanding of how mapscripts work but I imagine the occasional crash could happen if the script is not robust enough to handle unforeseen circumstances. As they are not a core part of MAC BAT, more included bonuses, I'll just leave them as is.

Here is a saved game in witch I crash to desktop every 4 or 5 turns. I've tried to reload several times and it doesn't seem to happen always at the same time.

I would appreciate if anyone could test it, so I will know if it's a bug related to my system or not.

Thanks for the saved game. Unfortunately I was able to load it and play until the modern era without any crashes, implying it may be a problem on your system. When do these crashes happen? While the other civs are making their move? Scrolling around the map?

Thanks for the saved game. Unfortunately I was able to load it and play until the modern era without any crashes, implying it may be a problem on your system. When do these crashes happen? While the other civs are making their move? Scrolling around the map?

Thanks for the test. It happen sometimes when other civs are making their moves, when I clic to open city screen or other basic actions like that. I'll try to reinstall the mod and make sure I have all the patches.

Looks like the problems come from VD: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=237192&page=101

Looks like the problems come from VD: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=237192&page=101

Yup. The Citystyles half of VD is updated regularly by the author and MAC BAT 2.2 is already up to date with all these changes, plus a bunch of mac-specific fixes as well. It seems very stable and in this regard we are much better off than Windows users of VD or BAT.

The unit art half of VD however has not been updated for some time. I've fixed a few things that I noticed but there's still likely to be some that have escaped me so far. The problem is that the xml for all the unit art is a real mess; several different systems of organization are used and thus it's a real challenge to debug. Any crashes in BAT are most likely to be in this part somewhere.

how do you add this to BUG?

EDIT: whoops! didn't know that bug was included. However, i just had a look at USA units and... erm... the maceman is a swordsman and the musketman is a redcoat and the mobile artillery is a mobile SAM... is this meant to happen?

how do you add this to BUG?

BUG is already included as part of BAT.

Xyth, I'm suddenly having a lot of trouble with crashes. Last night, I hit a spot where every time I pressed return to end the turn, the game crashed to desktop. So, I sent my save game to use my old iMac instead of my new Macbook. I was using 2.1, caught up in reading this forum, and so I upgraded to 2.2, then renamed the mod 2.1 so that my old saved game would play.

Now here's the weird thing, when I try to load my saved game directly, it crashes to desktop, won't even finish loading the saved game. I found a work-around: load the mod, then begin a brand new game, then load the saved game from that new game. Success!

Except, now ever few turns, the game crashes to desktop - at random times, sometimes when new turn is starting, and other times when I open an advisor screen. On my Macbook, when it crashes to desktop, I get error report. On my iMac, it crashes to desktop and I don't get error report.

Would you like me to post the error report? Or perhaps a savegame?

here's error report as attachment:

The crash happened when Civ4 tried to display a unit button.

unit button? any ideas for work-arounds or fixes?

No idea. I was simply providing the interpretation of the crash log so that someone who knows the mod has a starting point for an investigation.

Everything I read here about BAT - and the VD bit of it in particular - tells me it's well worth avoiding if you just want to play Civ4 without buggy eye-candy.

I was looking through all the VD stuff just last night actually and noticed that a LOT of button references are broken/wrong. I didn't think this could cause a crash but looks like it can :(

I've decided to officially give up on VD. It's a shambles and would take a massive amount of time and effort to fix and test thoroughly. I'm going to use my time and energy to continue putting together a replacement for it. However, the rest of BAT is pretty well maintained and stable in my opinion.

Rewriting VD is a big project and I can't guarantee it will be 100% complete or stable to begin with (it's all too easy to cause crashes with unit art defines, seems BTS has very poor error handling in this area) but the advantage will be that I will know the xml inside out and will thus be able to fix things much more promptly. I will also try my best to make it less of a performance hit in the later eras.

I plan to have a beta version up by the end of the month, I'd really appreciate it if people could help me test it.

Thanks alan and xyth. is there any way I can just turn off or deactivate the VD parts of BAT for now? i look forward to ur upcoming mod xyth.

Thanks alan and xyth. is there any way I can just turn off or deactivate the VD parts of BAT for now? i look forward to ur upcoming mod xyth.

I haven't tested this (not near my Civ computer atm) but try removing the folder "MAC BAT 2.2/Assets/Modules/Varietas Delectat/". If that doesn't seem to work try removing the files "Varietas Delectat v8.0.FPK" and "CD_v1.1.FPK" (both in MAC BAT 2.2/Assets) as well.

I'm playing as the Persians and the Rifleman unit build icon is showing up as a Musketman, but I assume this is a VD problem.

Incidentally, is there any way to alter the XML so that the maceman can be renamed the heavy footman? This was in an earlier version of VD, but seems to have been removed. I always thought heavy footman made more sense, since very few of them carry maces.

VD has many many button/icon issues, one of the many reasons I'm rewriting it. As for the Heavy Footman thing, that is indeed possible but the necessary file is not included in BAT and will need to be copied over from one's Civ4 install and edited. I don't know which file exactly but it will be in /Assets/XML/Text somewhere. I'll make this change (and Horse Archer -> Horseman) in the next version.

is there a way to rename units in-game? REading "Swordsman 1 (infantry)" is awful long. All of my upgraded units keep the original plus the new in parenthese, and it confuses me.

is there a way to rename units in-game? REading "Swordsman 1 (infantry)" is awful long. All of my upgraded units keep the original plus the new in parenthese, and it confuses me.

Enter the option screen for BUG, (Command-Option-O), which is the mod doing this. Click the tab for the units. If memory serves correctly that is something along the line of "Plot List". There is an option there for naming the units. If you turn it off, you will only get the standard BTS names. If you do this mid game, any units that already have the long names will retain them. You can get rid of those by clicking on the name field in the lower left of the screen when the unit is selected and then deleting everything in the pop up. If you want to rename a unit to something else, type it into the box after you delete what is there. You can also just edit what is there if you prefer. Also, if you are not using BUG, or using BUG with the naming option off, you can use this method to name units whatever you like.

VD has many many button/icon issues, one of the many reasons I'm rewriting it. As for the Heavy Footman thing, that is indeed possible but the necessary file is not included in BAT and will need to be copied over from one's Civ4 install and edited. I don't know which file exactly but it will be in /Assets/XML/Text somewhere. I'll make this change (and Horse Archer -> Horseman) in the next version.

What are the news of your mod :) ?

I decided to not use pm for this...

What are the news of your mod :) ?

I decided to not use pm for this...


Coming along slowly but surely. I still plan to put out a beta version at the end of the month for people to try out and test. Mostly what I'm doing at the moment is hunting for missing units and sorting which features are complete/stable enough to be released and temporarily removing those that aren't. Then I need to do some more testing to catch any obvious crashes and errors. Tentative feature list for initial beta version:


BUG
Blue Marble
Cultural Citystyles
Cultural Units for every civ, handpicked with all xml completely written from scratch. Ships are not done yet though I hope to get them done before release. Modern ships and vehicles do not and probably won't have cultural variation in an effort to reduce slowdown in the late game.
New Civilizations: Iroquois and Sioux (to replace Native Americans), Nubia, Siam, Vietnam, Polynesia. I'm also working on Assyria, Israel, Phoenicia, Tibet, and have plans for others but they probably won't be ready for initial release.
New Leaders: I'll have 20-30 new leaders ready to go for the initial release. Most of these have custom personalities and diplomacy text. I plan to have several new leader traits available and assigned but these definitely won't be ready for first release.
New Religions: 11 of these, all with matching missionary and building graphics.
New Units: Skirmisher and Horseman. These are going to need lots of testing for balance.


I'll stress again that it will be a *beta* version, and is very likely to lack polish in places such as Civilopedia text. I'll endeavour to test thoroughly but I can unfortunately guarantee there will be errors, glitches, small balance issues and maybe even crashes that slip by me. I spend much more time modding than playing atm. I've really appreciated the bug reporting that I've received for MAC BAT and I hope that a few of you will be interested in trying out this new mod and help get it running smoothly. I currently have no plans to release this outside of the CFC Mac forums and I'd be more than happy to try implement people's ideas and suggestions as the mod develops and matures.

Something else I'll mention is that I'm designing this mod to be as 'modular' as possible, meaning that I can release updates to individual components (a specific civ, religions, etc) without everyone having to download and reinstall the entire thing all the time.

Anyways, back to it :)

Thanks for your answer :goodjob:

I will be happy to beta-test this and surtout have a mod to play ;)

Xyth, if you ever want children, I'm your man.

Is Oscar Wilde Said this ?

"Je résiste à tout sauf à la tentation"
"I resist to all but the temptation"

Sounds familiar; I think the original reads, "I can resist anything except temptation." I'll Google it.

[EDIT: It's "I can resist anything but temptation", and it's from Lady Windemere's Fan.]

@ OscarWildebeest : Ok, i didn't knew the english quoting ;)

@ Xyth : we are the end of this month, when do you release the first public beta of your mod ?

Your mod works well ?

@ Xyth : we are the end of this month, when do you release the first public beta of your mod ?

Your mod works well ?

Unfortunately I didn't get as much time to work on it this last week as I wanted. My job was unexpectedly busier than usual and my 7 month old son has a cold - meaning a drastic reduction in sleep for all around here.

However this week coming I have very little on and thus lots of time to devote to modding and thus it's best I delay the beta release until next weekend (Feb 5th or thereabouts). Sorry about that.

I'm also facing a design decision regarding the Holy Roman Empire, the English, the French, and the Celts. Basically the main problem is that France is really represented by the Celts in ancient eras, HRE in medieval times, and France proper in later periods. This makes for a fair bit of difficulty in selecting unit art, not to mention severe overlap in list of cities (though I haven't yet I intend to overhaul almost every city list in the future).

The option I'm debating is to merge these 4 civs into the following:

- Britain: Representing Ancient Celtic Britain through to modern Britain/England
- Gaul: Representing Ancient Celtic Gaul through to Modern France
- Frankia: The Franks, replacing HRE and parts of Medieval France and Germania

This would drastically reduce the overlap of unit art, cities and position if playing on an Earth map. Any thoughts or suggestions on this? Maybe some in-between option?

Thought about it, mulled over the available unit art and decided that I will keep England, France and the Celts more or less as-is and just remove the HRE as an available civ. They will be merged into France and Germany.

Will you make Charlemagne available as a France leader?

Thought about it, mulled over the available unit art and decided that I will keep England, France and the Celts more or less as-is and just remove the HRE as an available civ. They will be merged into France and Germany.
:goodjob:
Best choice, HRE doesn't remotely make any sense in civ, outside of specific scenarios. It never was a unified country, nor a cultural, political or ethnic entity.

Actually it looks like I do have enough unit art to sustain all 4 after all. I still think HRE is not really suitable as civ in itself but I could make a Frankish civilization, distinct from both France and Germany. It does feel sort of strange having both the French and Franks though. Thoughts on this?

I would definitely keep Charlemagne as a leader, just not sure whether to make him Frankish (if I include them), French or German. There is also an excellent Clovis leaderhead that could be used in addition. I'd need to research to find the best option.

You could, but then why not Goths, Vandales or Lombards ; I think none of them really warrants a full-fledged civ, so just cut the workload and keep Charlemagne. If you also have Clovis, then give Clovis to France and Carolus to Germany, everybody's happy ! :p

You could, but then why not Goths, Vandales or Lombards ; I think none of them really warrants a full-fledged civ, so just cut the workload and keep Charlemagne. If you also have Clovis, then give Clovis to France and Carolus to Germany, everybody's happy ! :p

Yeah I agree, once the Franks get added then suddenly there's a case for every Germanic tribe and Western Europe is already crowded enough.

So I've decided to not include either the HRE or the Franks as their own Civilization. Clovis and a decent amount of Frankish unit art will be used as part of France's ancient and classical eras. This creates a nice strong distinction from Celtic Gaul too, and allows me to use the best unit art sets.

Charlemagne/Carolus could go indeed go into either France or Germany really. I can't decide which atm but he will definitely go into one or the other.

Now for England vs Britain. Having an Anglo-Saxon ancient/classical era just does not feel right given that Angles, Saxons, Jutes, etc all came from across the sea in medieval times. At least the Franks came from an area within and just outside of the historical French region. However, with a Celtic ancient/clasical era I'm very tempted to make England into Britain (after all, the island was Britain and the people Britons long before they became England/English), to make Boudica a British leader and *maybe* to even add a non-romanticized, historical-as-possible Arthur (assuming I can find suitable art).

This means that the actual Celt civilization would focus primarily on the continental Celts - I'll add Vercingetorix as a leader here. Any thoughts on all this?

Your thinking is good, but i will perhaps have new ideas while playing your future mod...

Ok, you have the luck to have a child with your wife, i'm thirty the tenth february and i have not wife not child... To be single is nice but i consider that have a woman friend should be nice also but women are so difficult today...

Unlike Lachlan, I don't think your thinking is good : the CIV4 engine and moddel is not adapted to simulating real life civs, since starting in 4000BC with the USA is always possible, unless you imitate/continue/refine Rhye's work. (That's why anyway I prefer Era-specific scenarios. ;) )
I proposed Clovis for France since he was born and died in Paris and is more a "French" king then Carolus is. Carolus is more "Germanic", being born and dead in Aachen. So even if it's a bit arbitrary, it has some sense and both nation get an old leader.
About Britain/England, all people of the island always came from the continent anyway, the Britons were Celtic, Angles and Saxons were Germanic and Normans were Vikings. So since the "English Empire" is roughly from William to Victoria and today, choosing ancient and classical artstyle is just again arbitrary and a matter of taste and diversity. Personnaly I'd go with some Saxon style, they also had funky names.
If you need some good and well done Arthurian gaming stuff, go check out the choices made by a RTW modding team for their Arthurian Total War HERE (http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=55983)

Unlike Lachlan, I don't think your thinking is good : the CIV4 engine and moddel is not adapted to simulating real life civs, since starting in 4000BC with the USA is always possible, unless you imitate/continue/refine Rhye's work. (That's why anyway I prefer Era-specific scenarios. ;) )
I proposed Clovis for France since he was born and died in Paris and is more a "French" king then Carolus is. Carolus is more "Germanic", being born and dead in Aachen. So even if it's a bit arbitrary, it has some sense and both nation get an old leader.
About Britain/England, all people of the island always came from the continent anyway, the Britons were Celtic, Angles and Saxons were Germanic and Normans were Vikings. So since the "English Empire" is roughly from William to Victoria and today, choosing ancient and classical artstyle is just again arbitrary and a matter of taste and diversity. Personnaly I'd go with some Saxon style, they also had funky names.
If you need some good and well done Arthurian gaming stuff, go check out the choices made by a RTW modding team for their Arthurian Total War HERE (http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=55983)

I don't disagree with you, Civ (excluding scenarios) is definitely not designed to accurately portray/recreate actual historical civilizations or history itself, but that's kinda the point. In my opinion, the moment one starts playing on a map that doesn't represent the actual Earth in some way the importance of historical accuracy is greatly reduced and striving to retain strict accuracy hurts the spirit of the game. Rhye's and Fall is really the only non-scenario mod I've seen that retains accuracy and remains 'fun'. I do find some of the mechanics needed to achieve that frustrating though, but that's me.

Civ really is a great big fun game of historical "what if" - what if the Mayans developed gunpowder and then invaded the continent of the Ethiopians to spread Buddhism, and so forth. History gets recreated, sometimes in quite bizarre ways. That's much of the fun! My philosophy when designing this mod is that while it cannot and should not be historically 'accurate' it should at least make reasonable historical 'sense' whenever possible.

England/Britain is one of the hardest civs to represent sensibly given the numerous waves of peoples that formed it. However I will make them have Celtic origins in this mod for 5 reasons: 1) The Britons were the first defined civilization (that we know of) on the isle, 2) in my opinion the Britons were quite distinct from the continental Celts, at least as much as the Germans-Vikings or Spain-Portugal, 3) Germanic peoples are already being well represented in Germany, the Vikings, France and later periods of Britain, 4) I have some Welsh ancestry so I'm somewhat biased, and 5) there is extremely little quality Anglo-Saxon unit art available but plenty of Celtic.

I realize that my first point somewhat contradicts what I'm doing for France but as you say, in the end it's a matter of taste and diversity. I also feel it's nice to have certain cultures represented even if they don't warrant their own civ, and 'filling in the eras' is a nice way of doing this.

You mentioned America; it is easily the most frustrating civ to work with in these sort of mods, given it's the only civ that doesn't have a pre-gunpowder era (unless one wants to consider the Native Americans as such, but I'm pretty sure that most people, including myself, would find that idea ridiculous and undesirable). Half the time I'm tempted to just omit them altogether but they've been too culturally and historically important over the last 500 odd years (3-4 eras of the game) so I don't. I won't add any other post-gunpowder Civs though.

At this point of development I'm mostly using place-holder city lists and pediatexts but when I get onto that aspect (probably my favourite part of modding!) I'll revisit a lot of this. One of my biggest gripes with Civ as designed by Firaxis is that there is way too much emphasis on Civs being the modern version (China's first cities being Beijing and Shanghai for example). I'd much rather that each Civ represent a continual evolution from ancient through to the modern and all the political, cultural or even ethnic changes on the way. This is the approach I'll eventually use for this. The goal for now though is to get a beta out, add some more features and getting it stable.

In the end it's all personal preference and that's why one of the major design goals of my mod is modularity. I hope that I'll eventually have it at the point where civs and leaders can easily be added or removed so that people can customize the mod to their heart's content or borrow parts to create their own.

I really appreciate the debate btw, especially as the history of Western Europe is not my area of expertise. It helps a lot and I hope I don't come across as too unbending :) Thanks for that link, I'll check it out.

EDITED : 8 characters

England/Britain is one of the hardest civs to represent sensibly given the numerous waves of peoples that formed it. However I will make them have Celtic origins in this mod for 5 reasons: 1) The Britons were the first defined civilization (that we know of) on the isle, 2) in my opinion the Britons were quite distinct from the continental Celts, at least as much as the Germans-Vikings or Spain-Portugal, 3) Germanic peoples are already being well represented in Germany, the Vikings, France and later periods of Britain, 4) I have some Welsh ancestry so I'm somewhat biased, and 5) there is extremely little quality Anglo-Saxon unit art available but plenty of Celtic.

Being Welsh myself, I have a vested interest in this bit. The problem is exactly as you define it - here in the UK we're a mixture of native, Roman, Norman, Anglo-Saxon and Danish (and that's not taking account of recent immigration from the former parts of Victoria's Empire). Even the definition of 'Celt' varies according to, well, the mood and agenda of the person using it.

The modern Welsh are descended from the indigenous Britons who mixed with the invading Romans in the first century BC, and who were driven west by the invading Normans in the eleventh century AD. Since then there has been a great deal more mixing with the English (too much, some would say ;)) so that it's impossible to say who among us today is descended uniquely from those original inhabitants. I know my great-grandmother's family were farming the land several centuries ago, but since she was called Jones it's a bit difficult to separate her family tree from the millions of other Joneses (and 'Jones' is clearly a name of English origin, since there is no J in the Welsh alphabet).

in my opinion the Britons were quite distinct from the continental Celts, at least as much as the Germans-Vikings or Spain-Portugal

Of course they had their specificities, which grew as time and isolation from the continent grew, much like all the continental Celts had specificities : Belgae weren't Gauls who weren't Cis-Alpines, who weren't Celtiberians nor Galatians nor Etruscans nor any other Celts...
But looking at it from a wide angle, Britons were just Celts, culturally, linguistically and ethnically ; they were part of the Celtic "civilization".
Did you have a look at the link I provided ? It can be of good inspiration for a very unique Britto-roman look, absolutely specific to britain !

Being Welsh myself, I have a vested interest in this bit. The problem is exactly as you define it - here in the UK we're a mixture of native, Roman, Norman, Anglo-Saxon and Danish (and that's not taking account of recent immigration from the former parts of Victoria's Empire). Even the definition of 'Celt' varies according to, well, the mood and agenda of the person using it.

The modern Welsh are descended from the indigenous Britons who mixed with the invading Romans in the first century BC, and who were driven west by the invading Normans in the eleventh century AD. Since then there has been a great deal more mixing with the English (too much, some would say ;)) so that it's impossible to say who among us today is descended uniquely from those original inhabitants. I know my great-grandmother's family were farming the land several centuries ago, but since she was called Jones it's a bit difficult to separate her family tree from the millions of other Joneses (and 'Jones' is clearly a name of English origin, since there is no J in the Welsh alphabet).

And then you get out to the former colonies where I am (New Zealand) and it starts getting super messy. I'm a born and bred Kiwi, but my mother is Canadian, I have 2 Welsh grandparents, 1 Ukrainian grandparent and 1 Maori grandparent. My girlfriend is also a Kiwi but with Scottish, Irish and Chinese ancestry.

Our poor son is going to have an identity crisis...

It would be nice if you add effectively Lombards, you could add a few Lombard families... Like Borromeo or Mandelli, three families who has acted a sum of influence in medieval-"rinascimento" north Italia in different ways... I think that Lombard are nothing other than Langobard germanic tribe, and this tribe seems to be from modern Swedish zone...

But i searched on google its difficult to find any info about them... "Pourtant" this was a real existence but writings from this epoch has perhaps mostly disapeared, it's really not nice :(

"Mandel" in swedish has the sense of "amande" in french and in english "almond" and in roman italian "mandorla"... Showing repetition of "mand" syllabus...

I'm fond of history like you all and its a great please to know about its far past origins, i agree with you Xyth :)

Rhye's and Fall of Civilizations its not really for me like for you, Xyth...

I love the kind of replayability in Civ 4 ;)

What do you think of this? Xyth, sorry if it was uninteresting :confused:

For my part i have ascendency in Italia for the most part, three recent branch : in north Italia, in south Italia and French Normandy... But i think at Roger of Sicily who ruled a proto-kingdom of Naples... That is astounding that Vikings had ruled South Italia and Normandy at same time ;)

Our poor son is going to have an identity crisis...

Well, my two boys are part Jewish and part Catholic. Oi vey Maria, as the joke goes...

Of course they had their specificities, which grew as time and isolation from the continent grew, much like all the continental Celts had specificities : Belgae weren't Gauls who weren't Cis-Alpines, who weren't Celtiberians nor Galatians nor Etruscans nor any other Celts...
But looking at it from a wide angle, Britons were just Celts, culturally, linguistically and ethnically ; they were part of the Celtic "civilization".
Did you have a look at the link I provided ? It can be of good inspiration for a very unique Britto-roman look, absolutely specific to britain !

Yeah point well taken regarding the various denominations of Celts. That link was great, thanks for that. A lot of those units actually look quite similar to some of the units I'm using for Germany. I've also found some units that in my opinion seem to be a good looking mix of Germanic and Celtic elements and I will use these for Britain. The units I have for the Celtic civilization proper are mostly Gallic inspired. I'll stick with this setup for the time being and revisit it later on.

At this stage I have no capability to create or modify unit graphics myself but maybe I someday I will sit down with a tutorial and try figure out Nifskope.

What do you think of this? Xyth, sorry if it was uninteresting :confused:)

Oops I missed that post when the thread went to page 8. There were a lot of fascinating kingdoms established around and after the fall of Western Rome, the Lombards, the Franks, the Visigoths, the Ostrogoths and many more. A crazy and fascinating time of history. This is one area that I do feel would be much better handled in a scenario rather than a full-game mod, mostly because Europe, particularly Western Europe, is so well represented already and I'd like to see other parts of the world 'catch up' a bit first. Another Eastern European civ would be good too.

That being said, I do not have any Civs atm that properly represent 'Italy' (as opposed to 'Rome') and that may well be worth addressing at some point, even if only being represented within the Roman civilization itself.



Nearly there on the Beta btw, just need a few days to tidy up loose ends and double check for crashes. I haven't properly started on ships yet so I feel it best to leave them out for the initial release. If all goes well I'll have it uploaded on the weekend.

A quick update: I have the beta ready to go except for one very elusive and persistent early game crash. I'm pretty sure I know why it's happening but to fix it is going to take a long process of elimination, which I'm working on atm. Soon as it's fixed I'll start uploading :)

Nice to hear this :goodjob:

Hit the first real problem: I can't play as Alexander with BAT 2.2 loaded. I have to 'Unload Mod' first, otherwise I get a CTD while the hints screen is still loading. All other leaders (so far) have been unaffected.

[EDIT: It's a Greek problem, I can't play as Pericles either. I managed with him OK in a previous version (2.1, I think).]

Hit the first real problem: I can't play as Alexander with BAT 2.2 loaded. I have to 'Unload Mod' first, otherwise I get a CTD while the hints screen is still loading. All other leaders (so far) have been unaffected.

[EDIT: It's a Greek problem, I can't play as Pericles either. I managed with him OK in a previous version (2.1, I think).]

Eww that was a careless bug in VD. That particular issue would also be causing crashes in the Modern Era in any game that the Greeks were an AI opponent. I've attached the fixed file, it goes in /MAC BAT 2.2/Assets/Modules/Varietas Delectat/XML/UnitArtStyles&CivInfos/

Once I've finished with the latest version of History Rewritten I'll make a proper update of MAC BAT.

Thanks, Xyth. Amazing how quickly you can turn these things around.

Lol why don't I take the time to read. I just did a full reinstall because the game kept crashing when I tried to play as Pericles...:blush::crazyeye:

Perhaps a good addition to the the "known issues" section :)

Lol why don't I take the time to read. I just did a full reinstall because the game kept crashing when I tried to play as Pericles...:blush::crazyeye:

Perhaps a good addition to the the "known issues" section :)

Done.


Next week I'll put together MAC BAT 2.3. It will contain this fix and BUG 4.3. I was originally going to replace VD with the unit art module I've made myself for History Rewritten but I'm now I'm uncertain. Would like people's opinion on this.

PROS

HR contains a lot of newer and (IMO) better unit graphics
HR is more stable and less cpu/memory intensive
I've made HR myself so I know the xml inside out - much easier to fix issues
VD xml is messy, poorly organized and has a lot of redundancy
VD seems to be abandoned, author has not been seen since last year


CONS

HR does not have unit art for vehicles, air units or motorized ships (and is unlikely to)
Great People and Generals are not finished yet
Because HR has new units and civs the two mods are not completely compatible, I'd have to maintain two parallel versions
May mean that any future changes to BAT become harder to port as doing this would make it more HR Lite than MAC BAT


With Civ5 looming I'd sort of prefer to put all my energy into History Rewritten and leave MAC BAT with one last version (keeping VD) for those that want unchanged gameplay. I would of course still try to fix any reported issues as best I can. Any thoughts on these options?

Since - in your reply to me above - you've separately issued the fix for the Greek CTD, Xyth, that takes away that advantage of 2.3. I don't know what changes are in BUG 4.3, so I'll take a look now. That doesn't really answer your question, though.

I think the stability/lower CPU demand advantage is a strong one, plus the fact that you're the author of HR which gives us all instant access to the horse's mouth, if I can put it that way. As for future changes, I'm kind of happy with BAT as it is so I wouldn't worry too much about that aspect.

My main concern is compatibility. How difficult would it be for you to maintain the two versions? Seems like it could be a lot of work for no reward beyond the satisfaction of helping the community (for which we are all grateful, but you'd be within your rights to feel that's not enough).

[EDIT: I'd discount my opinion by 50% if I were you, since I haven't tried out HR yet...]

Xyth, I vote to replace VD with your HR, and/or to make a BAT version that excludes VD altogether. I look forward to your new mod!

Well a new version of BAT was just released today, so that changes things again heh. Most of the changes seem to be ones I've already made to MAC BAT though. I'll have to take a more in depth look to see if there has been any improvements or bugfixes to VD. So I'll leave any decision making until at least next week, see what feedback it gets from Windows users.

Since - in your reply to me above - you've separately issued the fix for the Greek CTD, Xyth, that takes away that advantage of 2.3. I don't know what changes are in BUG 4.3, so I'll take a look now. That doesn't really answer your question, though.

BUG 4.3 is mostly minor and behind-the-scenes tweaks. Some new information/capabilities in the Espionage and Technology screens seem to be the major features.

I think the stability/lower CPU demand advantage is a strong one, plus the fact that you're the author of HR which gives us all instant access to the horse's mouth, if I can put it that way. As for future changes, I'm kind of happy with BAT as it is so I wouldn't worry too much about that aspect.

I can't imagine BAT is going to be getting any/many more features given there's not too much more that can be done without changing gameplay.

My main concern is compatibility. How difficult would it be for you to maintain the two versions? Seems like it could be a lot of work for no reward beyond the satisfaction of helping the community (for which we are all grateful, but you'd be within your rights to feel that's not enough).

Well I wrote HR with modularity in mind so hopefully it shouldn't require too much effort. There will be two problematic areas: firstly, in HR I've split the Native Americans into the Sioux and the Iroquois and they share a number of units. The second and trickier one is that I've removed the Holy Roman Empire and most of their unit art I've used for early France. Everything else should be easily transferable though.

[EDIT: I'd discount my opinion by 50% if I were you, since I haven't tried out HR yet...]

/begin advertising pitch

Well I'm about to put out version 0.2 which introduces all new leader traits. I think I have almost 100 leaders in HR now (across 40 civs), and every one has a unique personality and trait combination. So unlike most mods they're new opponents, not just new graphics and names on the same old foes. Give it a shot when you're tired of the Firaxis leaders! Hope to have it out in the next couple days :)

/end advertising pitch

sounds fun!

Can't wait ! ;)

Give it a shot when you're tired of the Firaxis leaders!

I will; I've only got seven of them left to go.

Eww that was a careless bug in VD. That particular issue would also be causing crashes in the Modern Era in any game that the Greeks were an AI opponent. I've attached the fixed file, it goes in /MAC BAT 2.2/Assets/Modules/Varietas Delectat/XML/UnitArtStyles&CivInfos/

Once I've finished with the latest version of History Rewritten I'll make a proper update of MAC BAT.

Just wanted to confirm that I can now play the Greeks, thanks to your fix, Xyth.

hello... I've read the whole thread and well, my issue never came up... It's not really an issue, it's more that the graphics display kinda weird in the civics advisors... In my past game, in the trade advisors, the leader's icons were all blurry except Asoka.
Also I don't see the BUG icon anymore, the espionnage screen and victory screen are not the same... I did as instructed, so is it normal?
http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/6889/picture1fcb.png
I also realized some icons are small compared to others in the Sevopedia, maybe that's the reason.
http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/1058/picture2lm.png

hello... I've read the whole thread and well, my issue never came up... It's not really an issue, it's more that the graphics display kinda weird in the civics advisors... In my past game, in the trade advisors, the leader's icons were all blurry except Asoka.
Also I don't see the BUG icon anymore, the espionnage screen and victory screen are not the same... I did as instructed, so is it normal?
http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/6889/picture1fcb.png
I also realized some icons are small compared to others in the Sevopedia, maybe that's the reason.
http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/1058/picture2lm.png

I think that happens if graphics quality of BTS is set to Low, I'm not certain though. Check that and if that doesn't fix it, let me know.

Btw I know I haven't updated MAC BAT in a long time, but this is because there are a lot of changes happening to the Windows version - most notably, VD9.0 is coming out soon. When BAT has been updated I'll see what needs to be done to make it Mac compatible.

^^ Exactly, that was the reason... I'll leave it low, the leaders animations are not working otherwise (don't think it's related to BAT), it's ok , I'll deal with it.

^^ Exactly, that was the reason... I'll leave it low, the leaders animations are not working otherwise (don't think it's related to BAT), it's ok , I'll deal with it.

Antialiasing is the option that causes the leaders to mess up. Set that to 0 and you can set the rest to anything else you like.

MAC BAT 2.1:
Every time I go to world builder, the game crashes:cry::cry:

That is just a very great BUG in the game.
As I said before, the game crashes when I go to worldbuiler AND/OR just going up with the camera.
A message appears saying somewhat as:
FATAL ERROR
Exiting program. Reason: Bad alloc. (numbers)
And sometimes in diplomacy mode the game freezes.
I'd like to know who could I do to have a solution for this
I'm playing on 2.1, 18 continents and civilizations, largest possible map, and Renaissance Era

Sorry I've been without a computer for a while so I haven't been able to test this. World Builder works fine for me but there was an issue with the Greeks that could be causing the problem. This post (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8956216&postcount=150) has a fix for it.

MAC BAT is now quite out of date compared to the Windows version. The reason I've not been updating it is because there's been a change of project lead who is doing an awesome job at fixing all the problems with BAT, also the author of VD is back and updating regularly too. As a result the mod has been massively overhauled and will require a new conversion from scratch.

I've learned a lot from creating HR so what I would prefer to do this time around is contribute any fixes to the new project lead so that BAT itself can be Mac compatible, rather than maintaining a separate version. Once she's got BAT up to date with all the latest VD changes I'll have a look at it and see what needs doing.

I downloaded this mod no problems for my Mac, but i must admit that the mod severely slows down the performance of the game on my comp. Towards the end of the game, turns end up taking forever and alot of stuff takes a long time to load. Its a good mod, but Idk if the performance hit is worth it for me or not,.

Antialiasing is the option that causes the leaders to mess up. Set that to 0 and you can set the rest to anything else you like.

Sorry for the late answer... Thanks a lot!!! I just tried that and it worked out perfectly!

This is the great mod!

But I want to remove Blue Marble.
I love default terrain graphics.

Does anyone know how to remove Blue Marble?

I don't have a copy of MAC BAT handy anymore so I cannot verify this but in the Assets folder there are several files with the extension .fpk. One of these is the high resolution version of Blue Marble and another is the low resolution version (it's possible I may have removed one of these already, I forget). It should be fairly obvious from their names.

Remove them from the Assets folder (always best to back them up somewhere just in case). If memory serves the mod should work as normal but without the Blue Marble terrain.

Maybe I'm missing something, but the link from the first page seems to not work anymore.

I wanted to give this a try, but I can't find it on the site. Is it gone?

Thanks,
b

It's no longer available sorry. The Windows version moved in a direction that wasn't possible to follow on Mac and I just don't have the time, desire or bandwidth to support it anymore.

@Xyth: Please can you edit the first post to indicate that, and remove the link? If you're too busy, let me know and I can do it for you.

@Xyth: Please can you edit the first post to indicate that, and remove the link? If you're too busy, let me know and I can do it for you.

Done! Apologies, thought I had already done this a while back.

I don't have a copy of MAC BAT handy anymore so I cannot verify this but in the Assets folder there are several files with the extension .fpk. One of these is the high resolution version of Blue Marble and another is the low resolution version (it's possible I may have removed one of these already, I forget). It should be fairly obvious from their names.

Remove them from the Assets folder (always best to back them up somewhere just in case). If memory serves the mod should work as normal but without the Blue Marble terrain.

I removed "BM_v4.50_HI.FPK" and "BM_v4.50_LO.FPK", and that's done!

Thank you!