1.9 Beta Feedback

Deliverator

Graphical Hackificator
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This is thread is for feedback on the Dune Wars 1.9 Betas.

Dune Wars 1.9 Beta II is available here.
 
WORK LIST
-----------

+ Better reporting for URUs/Controlled Resources - kinda done

+ tweaks to the offworld unit import system (increasing refresh rate, removing transports and non-combat units from the pool).

+ Mentat redesign (CityBonuses - Decimals?)

+ Genetic manipulation tech seems like it should be required for the Kwizatz Haderach. Can we add is as a secondary requirement for the 3rd and 4th Kwizatz projects?

+ final pass over faction balance/differentiation - Link

+ Have civilizations decide at the beginning of each game whether they are going to pursue Arrakis Paradise or Arrakis Spice for that game. Give each leader a pro-Spice probability to control this:
Never adopt Paradise: Bene Gesserits, Ecaz
80/20 spice: Corrino, Harkonnen, Ix, Ordos
80/20 paradise: Leto I, Alia, Tleilaxu?, others?
Never adopt spice: Liet-Kynes, Stilgar, Leto II, Muad'Dib

+ Fremen Sietch improvement to be built on Caves - something like +1 water, +1 hammer, +1 commerce, +1 population at nearest city (no net water cost), very long build time.

+ Strengthen Thinking Machines religion and make more interesting
- All the Thinking Machine stuff is clustered. How about we add Research labs as an And requirement for the Computerized research lab?

+ Sandstorms - Thopters - bigger sandstorms

+ AI trades Goods for nothing? sapho juice, ginaz and groundwater

+ Ordos:
Could we have an Ordos UB somewhere that gave some extra EPs,
Maybe a University replacement? Or a Bank replacement? Something that emphasizes their techno-raider mercenary theme.

+ No-Ships Bug: currently displaces all defending units from their city / which displaces all defending units from their city

+ Axolotl tanks - Immortality

+ Leto II -> Adaptive Trait?

+ Building Infos - FFH2 - RemovePromotion - Poorly Maintained

+ conscription from buildings - Razzia Command - Jihad Veterans Barracks

------------------------

BUGS:

+ Annex Crash:
- Crashed a few times for me. Each time it was caused by attempting to use Annex. Annex does not, however, always crash (even in the same game, reload, annex same city on a later turn).

+ Observed several bugs with saboteurs and facedancers in V1.8 like preparation promo not working, messages "saboteur/facedancer" captured" (which kinda reveals which civ send them) or messages like "an Infiltrator ... capture near the Ordos city of Ordos" (instead of actual city names).

+ Check: If spice silos aren't disappearing when you switch out of Spice, then that's a bug that should be corrected.

+ BG:
But I think there is a known bug with it. It should immediately give the AI the city even if they didn't have any military units conquered in it.
Its something to be aware of; you can't ignore espionage in this game. The ability is incredibly expensive (they have to build up thousands of EP) so having some EPs invested against the BG will help protect you from this by increasing their costs out of reach.

- Sapho Juice does not work. I guess a Sapho Juice supplier should appear but it is not there. I acquired the resource before I had access to mentats.

---------------

ART:

+ Worm - lighter skin - better fortify idle anim (looped)

+ Worker Unitclass Icon

+ Replaced Water based action icons

+ Switch Ducal Guard graphics - Fall Further technique

+ Update Hints

+ More logical Improvement Shortcuts

+ Make Diamond,etc disappear when mine built

+ Beesting/Wasp Interceptor graphic very annoying.
 
Note to self. Salt unhealth doesn't work in 1.9B1 - already fixed locally.
 
Looks awesome! I will try to do testing when I have some time.

+ Mahdi Zealot requires only Mahdi religion in the city rather than the Temple of the Mahdi building. The Temple is still required for the later Mahdi Mujahid.
Lets also make them require Mahdi State Religion.
We don't want any exploits.
And assume this also applies to the Mujahid?

Also consider going through and making every Tleilaxu UU/UB require Zensufism state religion to avoid any exploits where you can decline to adopt.

New Covert Operations tech following on from Academies
I'll check out the implementation, but there's potential overlap here with Mind Training.

Weirding Way tech is gone and Weirding Way promos now at Water of Life (couldn't think of a better place)
This is too early I think. These promotions are very strong, and are analgous to the other late-game techs that cost ~8000 beakers.
I'll take a look and see if I can think of something better.

Religious trait now doubles passive religion spread rate
I think with the free prohpets, we don't need this, and this could be broken with Imperial religion.

+ Renamed the Technocracy religion to Thinking Machines, Thinking Machines tech is now named Artifical Intelligence.
Good, but I think we might need to look at the Thinking Machine stuff again. It feels weak atm.
One thought I had, was that the Automated buildings might give a straight +beaker or +hammer bonus, rather than a % bonus, indicating that they are free-standing appliances, rather than needing lots of people to work in them?
Another thing I thought of for these: they could give large free hammer/beaker bonuses, but as well as unhappiness could give a penalty to great person production. If machines are doing the work for you, you don't have to think so hard.

The shrine probably also needs a buff; late-game shrines should be very powerful, since they're only around for a short time. Qizarate shrine acts as a +gold shrine AND removes all unhappiness.
Maybe the Thinking Machine shrine should give a production boost as well as +science?

+ Fixed: Buzzard thopters can't pillage.
I'm tempted to remove pillaging but up the movement rate on all thopters by 1. They're a bit... lacking in purpose, particularly the early 2-move one.
 
Lets also make them require Mahdi State Religion.

Pretty sure they do already.

And assume this also applies to the Mujahid?

The Mujahid still requires the Temple.

I'll check out the implementation, but there's potential overlap here with Mind Training.

Forgot to say that Mind Training and Mentat Logic are both gone. The effects are mostly split between Covert Ops and Mental Discipline. When I get a chance I'll layout my rough redesign for mentats. I wanted to bring them earlier because they are a big part of the novels and I felt it was a shame they came in so late.

This is too early I think. These promotions are very strong, and are analgous to the other late-game techs that cost ~8000 beakers.
I'll take a look and see if I can think of something better.

I think all we can do is find a place for another tech and put them there. Weirding Way as a tech leading into Galactic Religion was just a bit... weird.

I think with the free prohpets, we don't need this, and this could be broken with Imperial religion.

Documentation error again. I took out the double spread for Religious. I've amended the release note.

Thinking Machine stuff again

Agree more work is probably needed.

Maybe the Thinking Machine shrine should give a production boost as well as +science?

I have given it the requested +1 hammer per city with the TM religion. That one *is* in the release note.

I'm tempted to remove pillaging but up the movement rate on all thopters by 1. They're a bit... lacking in purpose, particularly the early 2-move one.

Let's see what other people think... not sure myself.
 
the art of the levied trooper, isnt good

Why not? It's an improvement on the strange android thing I think.

i dont think its wise not to tag the sdk changes...just a thought.

Yeah, I'll comment the new code in a consistent way before 1.9 final release. I've been working quickly and commenting just slows me down. Can't do everything and seeing as I'm the only one really doing changes these days...
 
I did not play the beta yet, but I ran civcheck. Please find attached a zipfile containing some feedback. File post-civcheck.txt shows some apparently missing artdefines and other keys. File text-civcheck.txt shows some apparently undefined text strings.

I also wrote a throw-away script which may ultimately ease translation. As discussed previously, many of the xml files contain in-line English text where they should have contained a reference like TXT_KEY_UNIT_SOLDIER. I have gone through seven of the main files and replaced in-line descriptions with TXT_KEY references, moving them into DuneWarsText.xml. The result is that there are many fewer literal text strings in the game files, and DWT.xml is much larger.

The good news is, this change allows calvitix's text translation tool to be used. The bad news, maybe, is that the local changes he had made to some xml files are no longer relevant. It would be possible to use his tool to update DWT.xml with the French strings, since there are now proper TXT_KEY's in the individual xml files.

The files I updated are buildings/BuildingClassInfos, buildings/BuildingInfos, technologies/TechInfos, units/BuildInfos, units/PromotionInfos, units/UnitClassInfos and units/UnitInfos.
 

Attachments

  • dw-19-textpatch.zip
    200.3 KB · Views: 265
I get a CTD when trying to start a game.
From memory this has happened to me in the past with new versions sometimes, though I forget the exact reason. Something about log file code not being commented out? David may remember, he has fixed previous versions when I have had this problem.

[Also, the install process first uninstalled my existing version of 1.8 - intended? Is this file a fully self-contained version?]
 
Occasionally I had goofed in previous releases by leaving the routine to print statistics active. This would cause a CTD on systems where c:\ is not writable by the user. Ahriman has found this problem multiple times. I have checked in 1.9 beta 1 and it does not have this problem.

I have also started a number of games of 1.9 beta 1 and had several CTD. There is at least one missing art file which "may" be causing this. I did not find any python logs and I cannot reproduce it yet. This is, of course, why we have beta's.

Yes, this release is a full release, which you can tell from the 122 MB size.
 
leaving the routine to print statistics active.
Yes, this was it. Ok, must be something else this time. Art file seems plausible - but why would that happen some times and not others?

The CTD is happening every time I try to start a game (well, 4 times in a row anyway) and does not appear to be creating logs of any type.
 
Yeah, I'll comment the new code in a consistent way before 1.9 final release. I've been working quickly and commenting just slows me down. Can't do everything and seeing as I'm the only one really doing changes these days...

yes i figured thats why, i used to do that too.. no rush, many sections of code in 1.8 aren't tagged, with careful look, you can see them so its not that important.
 
The CTD is happening every time I try to start a game (well, 4 times in a row anyway) and does not appear to be creating logs of any type.

I have autoplayed several games to 400 turns. One crashed, several did not. So there may be some problem; but for me it does not occur every time. There was no python log on my crash.
 
OK, here is Patch 1 for 1.9 Beta I. It's just a zip file patch to be unzipped over 1.9 Beta I.

+ Included David's multi-lingual TXT_KEY patch from a few posts ago.

+ Fixed the following undefined symbols from David's civcheck output:
Spoiler :
Code:
MissingArt: Art/Interface/Buttons/TerrainFeatures/cave.dds
   Used: dune art/civ4artdefines_feature.xml at line 17
MissingArt: Art/Interface/Buttons/TerrainFeatures/cave.dds
   Used: dune art/civ4artdefines_feature.xml at line 27
UndefinedSymbol: AI_DIPLO_DEMAND_TRIBUTE_POWER_EQUAL_LEADER_ARMAND_ECAZ_1
   Used: dune gameinfo/civ4diplomacyinfos.xml at line 3540
UndefinedSymbol: AI_DIPLO_DEMAND_TRIBUTE_POWER_EQUAL_LEADER_EXECUTRIX_1
   Used: dune gameinfo/civ4diplomacyinfos.xml at line 3521
UndefinedSymbol: AI_DIPLO_DEMAND_TRIBUTE_POWER_EQUAL_LEADER_LADY_MARGOT_1
   Used: dune gameinfo/civ4diplomacyinfos.xml at line 3654
UndefinedSymbol: AI_DIPLO_DEMAND_TRIBUTE_POWER_EQUAL_LEADER_LIET_KYNES_1
   Used: dune gameinfo/civ4diplomacyinfos.xml at line 3635
UndefinedSymbol: AI_DIPLO_DEMAND_TRIBUTE_POWER_EQUAL_LEADER_MALKY_1
   Used: dune gameinfo/civ4diplomacyinfos.xml at line 3597
UndefinedSymbol: AI_DIPLO_DEMAND_TRIBUTE_POWER_EQUAL_LEADER_RHOMBUR_1
   Used: dune gameinfo/civ4diplomacyinfos.xml at line 3616
UndefinedSymbol: AI_DIPLO_DEMAND_TRIBUTE_POWER_EQUAL_LEADER_WENSICIA_1
   Used: dune gameinfo/civ4diplomacyinfos.xml at line 3578
UndefinedSymbol: AI_DIPLO_DEMAND_TRIBUTE_POWER_STRONGER_LEADER_ARMAND_ECAZ_1
   Used: dune gameinfo/civ4diplomacyinfos.xml at line 3979
UndefinedSymbol: AI_DIPLO_DEMAND_TRIBUTE_POWER_STRONGER_LEADER_EXECUTRIX_1
   Used: dune gameinfo/civ4diplomacyinfos.xml at line 3960
UndefinedSymbol: AI_DIPLO_DEMAND_TRIBUTE_POWER_STRONGER_LEADER_LADY_MARGOT_1
   Used: dune gameinfo/civ4diplomacyinfos.xml at line 4093
UndefinedSymbol: AI_DIPLO_DEMAND_TRIBUTE_POWER_STRONGER_LEADER_LIET_KYNES_1
   Used: dune gameinfo/civ4diplomacyinfos.xml at line 4074
UndefinedSymbol: AI_DIPLO_DEMAND_TRIBUTE_POWER_STRONGER_LEADER_MALKY_1
   Used: dune gameinfo/civ4diplomacyinfos.xml at line 4036
UndefinedSymbol: AI_DIPLO_DEMAND_TRIBUTE_POWER_STRONGER_LEADER_RHOMBUR_1
   Used: dune gameinfo/civ4diplomacyinfos.xml at line 4055
UndefinedSymbol: AI_DIPLO_DEMAND_TRIBUTE_POWER_STRONGER_LEADER_WENSICIA_1
   Used: dune gameinfo/civ4diplomacyinfos.xml at line 4017
UndefinedSymbol: AI_DIPLO_DEMAND_TRIBUTE_POWER_WEAKER_LEADER_ARMAND_ECAZ_1
   Used: dune gameinfo/civ4diplomacyinfos.xml at line 3102
UndefinedSymbol: AI_DIPLO_DEMAND_TRIBUTE_POWER_WEAKER_LEADER_EXECUTRIX_1
   Used: dune gameinfo/civ4diplomacyinfos.xml at line 3083
UndefinedSymbol: AI_DIPLO_DEMAND_TRIBUTE_POWER_WEAKER_LEADER_LADY_MARGOT_1
   Used: dune gameinfo/civ4diplomacyinfos.xml at line 3216
UndefinedSymbol: AI_DIPLO_DEMAND_TRIBUTE_POWER_WEAKER_LEADER_LIET_KYNES_1
   Used: dune gameinfo/civ4diplomacyinfos.xml at line 3197
UndefinedSymbol: AI_DIPLO_DEMAND_TRIBUTE_POWER_WEAKER_LEADER_MALKY_1
   Used: dune gameinfo/civ4diplomacyinfos.xml at line 3159
UndefinedSymbol: AI_DIPLO_DEMAND_TRIBUTE_POWER_WEAKER_LEADER_RHOMBUR_1
   Used: dune gameinfo/civ4diplomacyinfos.xml at line 3178
UndefinedSymbol: AI_DIPLO_DEMAND_TRIBUTE_POWER_WEAKER_LEADER_WENSICIA_1
   Used: dune gameinfo/civ4diplomacyinfos.xml at line 3140
UndefinedSymbol: AS2D_INFANTRY
   Used: dune art/civ4artdefines_unit.xml at line 385
UndefinedSymbol: TECH_THEOLOGY
   Used: dune inquisition/inquisition.py at line 482

+ Fixed Salt Unhealth (SDK and XML) - still needs some display text to say "-1 from Salt".

+ Fixed missing animation files for Levied Trooper (By "isnt good" Keldath meant "isn't working properly" I figured out in the end.)

I hope this will at least get the mod starting for people. I can start a game with a debug DLL without any errors which should mean Vista is OK, but we'll see...


Edit: This patch is superseded by patch 3.
 
Nope. Still CTDs during the initialization phase creating a game.
I'll delete everything and redownload/reinstall in case I had a corrupt download or something.
 
Redownloaded, reinstalled, still happens.

Is anyone else using Vista? Perhaps this is Vista-specific?
 
Hi together,

first I like to take the chance and say thankyou for this wonderfull mod and that the work you spend in it :goodjob:

I've been a long time lurker and when I read the patchnotes, I got so excited, that I wanted to support this release with a bit beta testing.

I have played two games, both with the following settings:
Warlod, Arrakis Map with default settings, Epic Game.
The first game was with Alia and the second with Gaius.
The first crashed the complet mod at turn 283 and the second on 257. Both are repeatable.
Aside from the crashes, no problem as far. The techs and play feels smoother in the beginning.

I'll be in vacation the next weeks, so if you need the saves or some more info let me know and I'll try to give it today or tomorrow morning.

Cheers
 
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