Post-1.8 patches

davidlallen

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This thread is for internal discussion about patches, after the 1.8 release. Anybody is welcome to try out patches, but the installation may be a little more complicated, and the results may be ... unexpected. Official releases are announced on the welcome thread, and you can assume they are fairly stable.

Older patch discussion is on this discontinued thread.
 
David, could you possibly do a simple extract from the DW1.8 Civ4UnitInfos.xml that just contains the tag name/unit name, unit strength (iCombat/iAirCombat) and unit cost (iCost)? This is so we can reset the iPower values based on some simple formula.
 
Attached. It is not hard to write this type of script in python. I happen to use tcl, but any similar scripting language such as perl works equally well.
 

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Since 1.8 was released I have been working on quite a lot of new features. I've decided to release these in a patch to (hopefully) get some feedback.

Patch 1.8.0.1 (To be installed over Dune Wars 1.8)

Screenshots
Spoiler :


Goody Huts have been replaced with Botanical Testing Stations

There are a variety of new effects including:
+ Hammers at your nearest city
+ Beakers towards your current research
+ Bonuses and Improvements such a Date Plantation appearing
+ Better free units such as Quads and Vulture Thopters (a Poorly Maintained -20% strength promo is applied to stop this from being too strong)
+ More and stronger barbarians

This thread for more information

New and Reworked Promotions

Building on the Conqueror's Delight and TLOTags effects there are a number of changes to Promotions.

+ Cave Fighter promotions which give various benefits on Mesa and the new Caves feature. Cave Fighter II and III are available at Dune Topography.

+ Zeal promotions - conquest oriented promotions - Zeal II and Zeal III are only available to those with the Mahdi state religion.

+ City Watch promotion - this promo gives First Strikes in cities and is given free to Guardsman units in place of the former general additional First Strike

+ Stillsuit -> Thumper -> Sandrider - these promotions are now available to any Civ that can obtain the Water Debt bonus from the Fremen. Stillsuit now allows units to walk on Desert, but terrain costs have been changed so that they can only move slowly (even with the Homeground promotion). Stillsuit is only available to Offworlder units (Fremen get it for free anyway). Stillsuit promo is a prereq for Thumper which makes units invulnerable to Worms. Thumper is a prereq for Sandrider. The only other way to get the Stillsuit promotion without being close allies with the Fremen is to find them in Botanical Testing Stations.

+ Accuracy I, II and III and Barrage I, II, III: These are designed to make Siege Units more powerful, since they can no longer receive City Raider in this patch. In the future, I want to make Siege Units unable to capture cities and may even make them defensive combat only. Siege Units with Barrage III should be able to do a lot of damage to stacks since the extent of collateral damage that may be inflicted is increased.

+ Since promotions can now have a PrereqCivilization the Ixian promotion no longer requires a dummy tech.

+ Ducal Guard and Order of Agamemnon promotions - The Atreides Ducal units have been replaced with these. Ducal Guard has a National Limit of 6 and Order of Agamemnon has a National Limit of 2. Both add 1 to base strength and +10% vs Melee and are available to both Melee and Guardsman units. I meant to add a minimum number of victories to both, but I forgot. Kindjal Infantry with Ducal Guard and Order of Agamemnon will be able to defeat a Sardauker Noukker which is nice and thematic.

+ Marauder promotion will no longer destroy your own improvements.

Defensive Withdrawal

Lifted the defensive withdrawal mechanic from FFH2/Orbis modmod. Units with a Withdraw Chance may flee to another tile when attacked. If the unit does flee an Exhausted promotion is applied which lasts for 1 turn and stops the unit from fleeing twice in one turn. Also, I have taken another Orbis change which deducts the defender's withdraw chance from the attacker's - this makes sense to me as Withdraw Chance (in my mind) models how fast and maneuverable a unit is - if two units are equally maneuverable then neither has a better chance of escaping the battlefield.

Mapscript Fixes and Changes

Arrakis
Islands that are smaller than 4 tiles are now removed.
Added Caves Feature
Peaks can no longer be adjacent
If starting plot is on Goody Hut then remove Goody Hut - crash fix
Don't choose Peak as starting plot - crash fix

DuneArchipelago
Added a larger band of desert at either pole, mostly to fix the cosmetic issues.
Added Caves Feature
Peaks can no longer be adjacent
Attempted to increase the amount of Mesa
If starting plot is on Goody Hut then remove Goody Hut - crash fix

Miscellaneous Changes

+ Dune Messiah - the Mahdi religion shrine - now provides +7 Military Production per global city with the Mahdi religion. On first inspection this is pretty powerful.
+ New 3D for Catchbasin and Reservoir of Liet taken from FFH2.
+ Reviewed iPower values for Units.
+ Civilization Animosities - Harkonnen and Atreides leaders hate each other. Corrino leaders hate the Atreides and Fremen leaders hate the Harkonnen. Atreides and Fremen like each other as do Corrino and Harkonnen. A bit of experiment this so we'll see what happens...
+ Replaced Inquisitors implementation with the latest code from Orion's Inquisition Mod.

I'm sure I've missed some stuff, but I'll add anything I think of to this post. I want to refine things further and address some of the 1.8 feedback before making a publicised 1.8.1 patch.

>>>>> DOWNLOAD HERE <<<<<


Known Issues:
1. Zeal II should require Zeal I, and Zeal III should require Zeal II.

Feedback in the 1.8 thread please - or in the relevant thread if it relates to the new Botanical Testing Station stuff.
 

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Nice!

Can we give Order of Agammenon a +2 or +3 strength bonus, but a high tech requirement?

So you get Ducal Guards in the early game, then the Order for a larger boost late-game?
 
Can we give Order of Agammenon a +2 or +3 strength bonus, but a high tech requirement?

So you get Ducal Guards in the early game, then the Order for a larger boost late-game?

At the moment Kindjal Infantry with both Ducal Guard and OoA is Strength 18 with +20 vs. Melee. That is already quite strong giving a 72% chance of victory against Sardaukar Noukker without any other promos. Giving OaA +2 strength would make the promoted unit very strong, but maybe that is OK since the promo has a National Limit of 2.

Tech-wise I have put Ducal Guard at Great Houses and Order of Agamemnon at Imperialism - but I'm open to moving them both if it's better for gameplay.

Also, I plan to do something with the unit art for these promotions in my next round of unit art updates.

If anyone wants to tweak and tune the promotions, I have started to 'strip' CIV4PromotionInfos.xml so that only the significant tags are included. This makes it much easier to read what each promotion is doing.
 
That is already quite strong giving a 72% chance of victory against Sardaukar Noukker without any other promos

I think with NL there is no real balance issue This is mostly for flavor, it won't have that much significant impact.

Tech-wise I have put Ducal Guard at Great Houses and Order of Agamemnon at Imperialism
Great houses sounds good for DG, maybe OoA at personal shields?

I plan to do something with the unit art for these promotions in my next round of unit art updates.
Looking forward to it!
 
Patch 1.8.0.2 (Can be installed over Dune Wars 1.8 or 1.8.0.1)

+ Reworked to Dune Messiah Military Production Bonus to stop the runaway train behaviour. I have now split out the bonus so that you can see it as a separate element in the production help. This should make spotting any further bugs easier. See screenshot below - the city has a Temple of the Mahdi and Dune Messiah with 5 Mahdi cities - hence 5 * 7 = 35% additional military production modifier - the other 15% is from the Temple.



Note: Military Production bonuses from all sources are totalled (with any other production modifiers) and then applied to the sum of base production + overflow production. So if you have 20 hammers base production and 10 hammers overflow, and a total of 50% military production modifiers, then you will produce 45 hammers towards your unit in that turn. Hammers are always rounded down after the total modifier is applied. This is standard vanilla behaviour.

+ Idle Build: Since a couple of people have requested it, I had added an Idle city build process that converts 25% of your production to gold and 25% to science.

+ The AI now builds Mahdi Zealots. The reason it was never building them is that bMilitaryProduction was set to zero which seems to indicate to the AI that the unit has no military value. Also fixed the fact that killing Mahdi Zealots gave no experience points.

+ New Unit: Mahdi Mujahid - As Mahdi Zealot but Strength 12 and Cost 60 (instead of 6 and 30). Available at Prescience tech. Mahdi Zealots can be upgraded to this unit.

+ Zeal promotions tweaks:
Zeal I: +10% Attack, -10% Defense, +7% in enemy territory, requires Fanaticism.
Zeal II: +8% Attack, +7% enemy city strength, removed if players switches from Mahdi State Religion, requires Jihad.
Zeal III: +7% attack, +1 movement point if victorious in combat, can attack multiple times per turn, +25% chance to Heal on victory, removed if players switches from Mahdi State Religion, requires Prescience.

+ Slavery Civic is now Harkonnen only. Added PrereqCivilization tag to CivicInfos in order to acheive this. Population Hurry aka Whipping now yields 45 production rather than 30 - this can be easily tweaked in the file XML\GameInfo\CIV4HurryInfo.xml by changing the tag value for iProductionPerPopulation.

+ Cleaned up invalid xml in BuildingInfos which might have been causing some issues.

+ Rebranded Spiritual trait as Religious: now only boosts production of Qizarate, Shai Hulud and Mahdi missionaries and buildings (with the exception of Mahdi Zealot/Mahdi Mujahid - these now benefit from the Mahdi Military Production bonuses and another 50% from Religious seemed like overkill).

+ Political trait now boosts production of Imperial and CHOAM missionaries and buildings. (Further work is needed on traits still.)

+ Stubbed out all Trait descriptions in Pedia. Probably no point in writing these until the effects are fully settled.

+ Made the Botanical Testing Station a bit smaller.

>>>>>>>>>> Download Link <<<<<<<<<<<<

Feedback in the 1.8 feedback thread please (unless it relates to scheduling of patches, download issues etc).
 

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I checked all of the XML (fresh install of 1.8/1.8.0.1 and 1.8.0.2). This zip file View attachment DW XML fix.zip fixes the errors I found in seven files. Only the changed files are included using the original directory structure. See accompanying changelog.txt for exactly what I changed and why.
 
Presenting Dune Wars 1.9 Beta I...

There will be at least two more Beta releases before 1.9 as there is still a lot of stuff on the list.
Hopefully, Beta II will be the remainder of the new features and responses to 1.8 feedback, and then Beta III will be the actual "release candidate" for 1.9.
I think it is worth doing it this way to make sure 1.9 is as good as possible - from experience a lot more people will try a step release than will keep up with patches.

Note:
1) This builds on the previous two 1.8 patches, 1.8.0.1 and 1.8.0.2. See above posts.
2) This is not a patch but will install a new version of the mod completely. Back up your 1.8 version if you want to keep it.
3) Bear with the lack of documentation, placeholder art and missing TXT_KEYs - I wanted to release this now to get playtest feedback. The cosmetic stuff and documentation came come later. That said, please do give feedback such "This should be documented here" or "This should be shown in this popup".

Changelog

Gameplay (sorry this isn't very well ordered):

+ Comprehensive Espionage Redesign. See this thread.

+ Health Redesign. See this thread. (All elements 1-8 of Ahriman's proposal implemented.)

+ Included Improved Air Interception modcomp

+ Wildfire spread mechanic for the Mahdi and Technocracy religions. Cities will adopt with a certain probability on discovery of the religion. With the free missionaries given at Qizarate this means that you can see all 7 religions present in the late game.

+ Monestary building (+1 culture, +10% culture, +10% science, 1 priest slot) and Razzia Command world wonder (+100% Enemy War Weariness) added to Fanaticism tech.

+ Bene Gesserit Missionaria Protectiva building at Faith, +2 EP +1 happy for now (+1 happy for non-state religions requires SDK work to be done later)

+ 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.

+ Various tech tree adjustments and rationalisations.
- Removed Jihad tech
- Divine Mandate now gives the Mahdi religion and is an OR requirement for Law of Arrakis (to make is less dead-endy).
- Social Mobility renamed Human Potential.
- Benevolence renamed Mental Discipline. Mentats now here - to have new implementation soon.
- New Covert Operations tech following on from Academies
- Mind Training removed
- Mentat Logic removed
- Refining Techniques renamed Arrakis Tamed now leads to Arrakis Transformation.
- Weirding Way tech is gone and Weirding Way promos now at Water of Life (couldn't think of a better place)

+ Tleilaxu Plague nerfed:
- Only affects Guardsmen and Melee units
- Plague promo is now -20% strength
- New spread mechanism: each infected unit can infect at most 1 other unit per turn with a 40% chance,
winning a battle versus the Tleilaxu will infect one unit in the attacking stack with a 40% chance,
these should mean it takes a few turns before the whole stack is infected.

+ Abomination (Insane) Trait for Alia

+ Differences in religion have a more profound affect on diplomatic relations leading to more wars. (This has been capped at a very low level previously.)

+ Renamed the Technocracy religion to Thinking Machines, Thinking Machines tech is now named Artifical Intelligence.

+ Waterstealer Barbarian unit for testing stations, 3 strength, +10% vs guardsman, starts with Stillsuit

+ Workers receive 2 movement through deserts at following Stillsuits tech via a new auto-acquired Sandworker promotion.

+ Mahdi Mujahid Cost raised from 60 to 95

+ Harkonnen Slaves: now have 2 movement and able to enter deserts like regular workers (can build harvesters).

+ Fixed: Suspensor units aren't getting double moves in polar desert waste.

+ Fixed: Buzzard thopters can't pillage.

+ No-Ships: National Limit 3, Can no longer pillage.

+ Great Keep is now requires State Religion Imperial and Imperial in the city, now a National Wonder rather than World Wonder.

+ BG Instructress Unit Removed

+ Thinking Machine Shrine - now provides +1 hammer per city with Thinking Machines religion

+ Made some World Wonders that were set to be destroyed on conquest to never be destroyed on conquest (changed iConquestProb in BuildingInfos)

+ Salt terrain gives +0.25 unhealth in nearby cities similar to vanilla jungle (update -this doesn't work yet)

+ Ordos Chemical trooper now strength 5, +100% attack vs melee and guardsmen, no longer does collateral damage.

+ Religious Trait gives free great prophet on founding either Shai Hulud, Mahdi or Qizarate

+ Sandstorms now have mouse-over text

+ Sorted out diplomacy text - it is all quite generic now, but at least there are no blanks or Ecazis that speak like Guild Navigators. (If someone fancies write move flavourful diplo text then you are very welcome.)

Art

+ Tweaked citysets, added parts of Lord Tirian's Data Angels set.
+ New unit art for Acolyte (SaibotLieh's Female Great Prophet), Waterstealer, Sandshadow, Spy Probe (tweaked Afterworld Gravebringer), Levied Trooper (formerly Imperial Trooper, uses Planetfall Helion), Spice Worker.
+ Made placeholder team-coloured units for Narcotics Dealer, Traitor and Sardaukar Agent.
+ Used Lord Tirian's Believers HQ for the BG Palace.
+ Desaturated the City Screen - it has been too red for too long.
+ New Mine graphics, altered mined Bonuses to fit.
+ Changed Cave graphics.

>>>>>>>>>>>>> Download Dune Wars 1.9 Beta I <<<<<<<<<<<<<<

There's quite a cocktail of changes here so I'm very interesting to hear feedback from people.

Please post in the new 1.9 Beta Feedback thread rather than here.

I'm bound to have missed things so feel free to ask "Is this intended?" - I'll update this post if I remember anything else.
 
Presenting Dune Wars 1.9 Beta II ...



This bundles up all the various patches and fixes to Beta I together with the following additional changes:

Tech Tree Changes

+ Techs should now always be to the right of their prerequisites in the tech tree. This should make it easier to see the progression of techs from left to right.
+ Mobile Armor requires Desert Industry
+ Military Complex requires Mobile Armor instead of Guild Satellites (still also reqs Mechinization)
+ Lasgun Weaponry requires Miniaturization and Ablative Shields rather than Guided Artillery
+ Renamed High Council tech to Landsraad
+ Military Elite requires Vendettas instead of Holtzmann Generators (still also reqs Personal Shields)
+ Rocketry now requires Education as well as Chemical Explosives

Faction Unique Resources and Offworld Goods Tidy-Up

+ Slig Bonus Resource no longer controlled by Tleilaxu.
+ Slig Charcutery building/mechanic removed.

+ Semuta Bonus Resource removed.
+ Semuta Den building is now -2 gold, -5% production and can only be created by the Narcotics Dealer espionage mission Establish Semuta Den.
+ Semuta Suppliers building is now Ecazi UB National Wonder and gives +2 gold per Semuta Den in the game.
+ Ecazi Landing Stage removed.

+ Caladanian Wine Bonus Resource now controlled by the Atreides.
+ Duke's Bench gives +1 happy with Caladanian Wine.

+ Sisterhood Covenant Bonus Resource removed.

Further development of the Unique Resources/Offworld Goods concept is probably needed.

Other Changes

+ Unit Rebalancing following Ahriman's suggestions in this thread. I have only deviated in one or two minor things I believe.

+ iSpreadFactor of Mahdi reduced to 30 to decrease the likelihood of multiple factions adopting it.

+ Now using Fall Further technique for Unique Units and Unique Buildings.
This means that UUs and UBs no longer have to replace a standard unit or building in order for them to be reported as unique in the pedia.
If you check out the Civilizations pedia pages you'll see that they are much better now. We should probably use the box below the UUs and UBs to write up other faction unique mechanics.

+ More of the empty pedia filled out by Ahriman. There is still a bit of way to go to get the pedia fully fleshed out. Some of the info is incorrect due to changes that have been made.

+ The Suspensor Travel promotion is removed when upgrading a Suspensor Transport to a Light Carryall. This is acheived by giving Carryalls a free promotion Suspensor Removal which overwrites Suspensor Travel but also has a duration of zero so it is never actually seen in game. It's nice to be able to fix issues like this via XML.

The details of the 1.9 Beta I patches - just in case you missed them:
Patch 1
Patch 2
Patch 3
Patch 4
Patch 5


>>>>>>>>>>>>> Download Dune Wars 1.9 Beta II <<<<<<<<<<<<<<


Please continue posting in the new 1.9 Beta Feedback thread rather than here.

.
 

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Great! Will check it out.

Lasgun Weaponry requires Miniaturization and Ablative Shields rather than Guided Artillery
I'll have to check the tree, but this seems problematic.
Miniaturization is one of the late-game expensive super-promotion techs.

It shouldn't be a requirement for lasgun weaponry, which is an early tier3 military tech.

Rocketry now requires Education as well as Chemical Explosives
I don't think this helps. Education is such an early tech that this restriction is non-binding. Any other tech requirement would need to be higher than Education.
I'll take a look at the tree when I at home.

Otherwise, excellent job.

It seems like the main remaining thing is a final pass over faction balance/differentiation, and if possible maybe some tweaks to the offworld unit import system (increasing refresh rate, removing transports and non-combat units from the pool).
 
I'll have to check the tree, but this seems problematic.
Miniaturization is one of the late-game expensive super-promotion techs.

It shouldn't be a requirement for lasgun weaponry, which is an early tier3 military tech.

Now that I've unravelled the tech tree you can see that Guided Artillery and Miniaturisation are at pretty much the same stage.

I don't think this helps. Education is such an early tech that this restriction is non-binding. Any other tech requirement would need to be higher than Education.
I'll take a look at the tree when I at home.

It does stop the beelining of Rocketry slightly, but we can choose something else I suppose.
 
Now that I've unravelled the tech tree you can see that Guided Artillery and Miniaturisation are at pretty much the same stage.
So what does it do then?

The design intention was very deliberate that none of the super-powerful promotions become available until you've basically exhausted most of the tech tree.

Keep in mind that "place in the tech tree" is a bit fluid. Its not just a matter of left vs right.

There is a broad structure of "tiers" in mind, and techs beaker costs are intended to reflect this.

Tier 0 are the initial techs, and infantry. Tier1 is maula guardsmen, quad, vulture thopter, mortar, bladesman, susnpensor gunship, rocket trooper. Hardened bladesmen are ~tier1.5. Roller is ~tier 1.8
Tier2 is falcon thopter, heavy trooper, wasp interceptor, firefly bomber, shield trooper, missile trooper, etc.
Light scorpion is ~ tier 2.25
Lasgun soldier is ~tier 2.75
Tier 3 is kindjal soldier, locust, mongoose trooper, medium scorpion, eagle thopter, etc.
Lascannon trooper is ~tier 3.5.
Tier 4 is heavy scorpion, cielago, no-ship, and the superior promotions.

It does stop the beelining of Rocketry slightly, but we can choose something else I suppose.
I get education before Rocketry every game. They are massively different in tech price, and education gives you the all important libraries.
I'll take a look at the tree and see if I can provide an actual constructive suggestion.
 
I get education before Rocketry every game.
Same here. Education is too important to not make it a priority tech. However, IMO there really are no *appropriate* prerequisites so Education is just as good as any other. The only other tech I could see making sense would be Suspensor Devices but that wouldn't really help to slow down getting Rocketry anyway.
 
Hi I love your Dune Wars 1.8, but I can not turn off the animations. this is a necessary option for me, i give up the alt-tab for small maps with 6 enemy but it is still not enough if I can not frozen the animations.

plz, give us back the animation frozen option.
 
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