Fallout: Tame The Wastes

hmmm.. that is strange... it should be a casse of a soon as you step out of your border you get attacked.. maybe the answer is to fix the map scripting again to give every ai a few ruins..or maybe going the fury road route of starting you off with a founded setllement, as wandering round to find the right spot is kind of an exploit, that the ai can't take advantage of..

dunno I am too tired right now, will consider some possible fixings...

Why not to consider lowering yields of a basic scavenging camp before it's developed?

Another idea (quite logical) would be to make upgraded version of scavenged camp to remove ruins and have lower yields, and finally transform into a no-yield version. Which means the location is depleted (ruins are removed on step 2 to remove possible exploit of re-building the camp). Thus forcing you to move on from profitable scavenging to actual work and production in later game.

So you are saying that plots should have a counter telling how many turns they have been worked and change behavior based on this? The counter shouldn't be tricky to implement, but it has to be in the DLL. It will likely be easier to implement on all plots rather than specific plots (which may or may not be useful for other ideas).

The counter has to be saved meaning the savegame format has to be modified. Easily done if you know what you are doing.

Moving to the next level is likely a matter of changing improvement/feature or however it is implemented meaning each level is coded differently in XML.

The easiest setup for this would be to add two new fields to XML. One is to tell which improvement it turns into (-1 aka none has to be an option) and the other is how many turns it takes before the change takes place. This way the DLL is generic enough to allow other similar additions to become XML only changes.

Religion and Revolution has such a counter, which is used to work farms into large farms, mines into... etc. Maybe the code can be copied.

Lib.Spi't said:

It is just a little annoying, to have one person make one undefined statement, and then have another person make the same undefined statement in agreement!! Not Useful in any way shape or form!!

Click to expand...

Is this post specific enough for you to consider it helpful?

I did not mean something hard to implement like counter. There's ALREADY a counter, look at cottage growing into village etc. It's just going to be a cottage mechanic, but backwards. So working ruins would reduce their usefulness with time.

I should have considered that to begin with. Looking at IMPROVEMENT_COTTAGE it looks like the keys here are ImprovementUpgrade and iUpgradeTime. Even more interesting is the fact that IMPROVEMENT_ADV_OUTPOST has ImprovementUpgrade set to NONE (after 1000 turns). Looks like Firaxis beat me to implement precisely the same function. I think this is the shortest duration from idea for a DLL feature to a "go ahead" to XML modders I ever encountered

So again, the basic idea is: the scavenging camp requires ruins. If it's built on ruins, ruins are removed, providing hammers to a nearby city. Then the improvement transforms into a weaker version, and then to a verion with no yields. Later you should be able to build "recycling stations" on useless scavenging sites which would be constantly working. Also to prevent abuse with pillaging new scavenging site and being unable to rebuild it, only the useless version should be pillage-able.

So, it took me more than 2 hours, but I implemented the early era tech tree and started to incorporate elements into it.
Of course it's just a vanilla bts with these techs and standard graphics, these are not needed at this point.

The main key points of course are units.

About units: You start with "survivor group" unit, 2 defense, 25% city defense.
Scouts can be for more secure travel since they have sentry (but cannot fight themselves).
Trappers and hunters are there to hunt lesser wildlife.
Militia is a step up above survivor group. It's 3 str unit which comes earlier than hunters, but hunters have 2 movement and a bonus vs animals. So you either turtle safer (but deny yourself exploration/territory control) or explore/hunt with a later 3str unit.

Buildings are only those which I had time to put into the game. There's a lot of work to do, and I have 2 more workdays, so let's see how fast I can finish this step .



The idea is to simulate a Survival era with techs/units how I see them. Once I am done, I will upload it and you will be able to play around with it and tell me what you think. Maybe I will be able to persuade you that my system is quite balanced (IF it works out), and we may come to some sort of concensus. I think that testing small eras/tech paths as a concept separately from the main mod is not a bad idea.

As you see, that's plenty of pretty specific techs which barely touch any real technology, so you should not be afraid of too quick advancement without enjoyment of the early techs. Also all techs can be split in smaller ones, I have it all in xml, but right now I want to test the "general flow" of the development. This survival era design is also aimed at the next era techs, to split possible tech choices in a direction of a more turtling/developing/defensive style and raiding/scavenging/agressive style.

P.S. I did not include Hidden Nationality units on purpose. They play a very specific and game changing role and should be incorporated separately, through a thorough testing.

P.S. "Healers" is a bit out of place. I don't know which name I want to use there, but it is a tech which gives a basic "healer hut" and removes negative health bonuses from some plants enabled on gathering phase (since you learn well which plants are good and which are bad). Plant knowledge? Plant extraction (since it leads to medicine which means you learn how to get medicines from plants)? It should also be an alternative for hunting and provide "animal poisons" promotion to hunters and trappers as a bonus vs wild animals.

There's also my old idea about commerce/gold. It's a bit weird that groups trade "gold" in a world where there's no real value of fancy metals, at least early. Also natural resources like gold/silver are a bit weird, you could go without them and think of more Fallout-themed resources instead.

But again, about commerce. Commerce could be "supplies" and gold could be either currency/bottlecaps or "goods". Supplies would represent various items your scavengers and the like find or produce from remains of the old civilization. Then it makes sense to spend it either to get goods (trading), science (disassembly/study of found supplies) or culture (that percent of your scavengers look for specific works of art, like music records, comic books etc to increase your influence on local populations).

Nice I like the conversation while I am asleep

Yes Night, those were much better posts, a part from having nominally already been taken care of hehehe!

Yeah the commerce thing has always been inteneded to change to a more post apocalyptic vibe, however lets face it, it is not really a big deal as it is mostly a purely cosmetic change! We do also simulate the rebirth and evolution of currency and economy, and Fallout does this too, with bottle caps, shares, paper money and in FNV Coinage (of actual gold in Caesar's legion, or so I am led to believe)

To be honest, with the whole tech tree, I still don't exactly see what the issue is, other than the argument of 'what is more logical' in terms of eveolution, which is an arguement that could go on till the ends of the earth and as we have seen Beyond!

Or your premise of having less techs to make things go faster (which is something I again disagree with, purely because I intend to try and develop the beginning of the game and add in more stuff to give the player more 'story' and sense of tension, etc. thus making that part of the game more interesting too)

You do have some interesting tech concepts like the differentiation of hunting and big game hunting. (Although lets face it, there isn't really a lot of 'big game' that you would want to go after in Fallout, as it is mostly way more trouble that it is worth!!).

If it is simply about costs and time taken to research things, that is all still conceptual and needs fully 'mathing out' to find the sweet spot!

As yet I have not really seen anything that makes me go, 'Yes this is such a good point it is worth redoing everything!'

I am still really interested in seeing your ideas laid out and shared, but so far all I have really seen is some more or less cosmetic stuff. (which won't really be played around with till the 'core mechanics' are really finished). So right now I won't put too much of my own thought/energy into it unless something jumps out and I go 'OH yes that is so epic we need that NOW!!!'

Like for example I could argue, what are you barricading if you don't have a shelter building?

With improvements, like I said the 'evolution' of improvements is left unfinished, as until i can 'lock' upgrades of improvements with techs the whole thing is not really worth doing. Which is just waiting for someone to make the code available, or waiting for flitz to have the time to go and get it from another mod code. (Poor Flitz, he really must regret agreeing to join me I do look at him like a tasty beef burger of delicious coding ability!)

So the question is not, can we dissolve scavenger camps over time? as when the improvements are all done, scavenger camps won't be as 'stand out' good as they are now, and you will want to shift from camps to 'villages' and 'industry' etc. It's just not done yet.

The question is since you and the ai both have access to scavenger camps, why are you so much more advanced than them, and I suspect the answer is that unlike the ai who founds where it starts, you spend a bit of time exploring and finding a nice 'blob' of ruins and found there.

If that is the case, I consider that to be a bit of an exploit of the current game code mechanics, which I would seek to address. Probably by making the player 'auto found' on their starting plot, like it was in Fury Road. Or by tweaking the code rule that says animals won't spawn until every player has a city, and make it so they spawn right away, thus terrifying the player into settling, or see them eaten alive

As to the Gold argument, I think Redding had Gold mines, and you could certainly get a 'gold nugget' in F2, so by that reckoning Gold is a fallout resource, which is why I left it in. Also Gold has always been a big part of the American historical psyche, from such things as the Gold rush, etc. I do agree that 'precious stones and metals' would to me seem to be absolutely useless in the apocalypse (unless you have the technology and equipment to use them in their high Tech/Utility forms) things like gold and diamonds seem to always hang around in post apocalyptic 'environments' as 'High Currency' objects, again especially in american ones.

Again though, this is another more or less cosmetic thing and so not really worth much time at this stage in development. The current resource list was another fairly fast undertaking to turn it from BtS to Fallout. Depending on the future game mechanics we implement (the list is quite long!) the resource list will be set to rise considerably in quantity.

If you are interested, I can get you added to the dev team, then you will be given access to the secretive and powerful Vault Dev, thus giving you access to the secret inner workings of mod plans! dun dun duuuuuuuun!

In terms of game testing I would say, try founding where you start and see how things roll out from there. (that will give me a better indication of how starting balance shakes out.)

"IMPROVEMENT_ADV_OUTPOST has ImprovementUpgrade set to NONE (after 1000 turns)."

This is more evidence of my leaving the improvement job half done because of code revelations about tech unlock. also I think it was copy pasted from the previos improvement, and I changed one string but not the other. That would be kind of hilarious if it did just die out though, and also might provide a simple solution to the improvement degradation concept (although based on current evidence and future plans I still don't think it is needed, just need to find the reason why you are getting so far ahead of the ai, when you have access to the same scav camp! )

Lib.Spi't said:

Nice I like the conversation while I am asleep

Click to expand...

We do lots of stuff while you aren't looking. The mistake here is that you discovered it this time

Lib.Spi't said:

With improvements, like I said the 'evolution' of improvements is left unfinished, as until i can 'lock' upgrades of improvements with techs the whole thing is not really worth doing. Which is just waiting for someone to make the code available, or waiting for flitz to have the time to go and get it from another mod code. (Poor Flitz, he really must regret agreeing to join me I do look at him like a tasty beef burger of delicious coding ability!)

Click to expand...

So you are saying that you want the DLL to change the upgrade code from to This tech should then be set in XML as a new field.

Sounds easy to do, but I better not do it. From the looks of it, I might get eaten if I code any fallout code

mmmmmmm tasty nightinggale Come Night you are most welcomely invited to 'dinner' muahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahaha!! Anyway you have sent me one bit of code before and you are still more or less intact!

Yeah that is pretty much the idea of what the code should do, currently the correct tech is defined in the buildinfos.xml file for workers, so for example the ability to build a farm is unlocked by TECH_GARDENING I think, so if that little code snippet was hooked into the build info xml tag, that would be the 'best form' of code, a seperate entry in the xml is fine, it is just more work to implement in the xml 'filling in'.

Actually no saying that your way is better, as having a build and an upgradeimprovementtech tag is better, because then you could have improvements that can only be built and improvements that can only be upgreaded, as well as improvements that can be both! I like that potential optioning!

I think ROM and ROM:AND both have it, probably things like C2C too I would imagine, the concept is out there, I just don't have the ability to make or extract it myself..

from your statement it sounds like it would not be a big job, if you know what you are doing, just like writing a haiku in spanish would be relatively easy, if you can speak spanish...

I personally think that tech tree is something that SHOULD be discussed forever and ever and get constant updates based on embraced ideas and balance changes. I also don't think that my tech tree is as much cosmetic as of a special utility value. You will see once it's done, the balance of recon/military units and spread of unit types over different areas of tech tree is one of the most important things in a game where you win with said units .

Regarding "less techs", I think I said twice that it's important to find a good and enjoyable balance/setup with less techs and then move onto split techs, not try to balance the whole tech tree. We do not have 100 people testing it and writing feedback .

There is no need to copy code from anywhere. It is just a matter of adding an int (index to tech) to CvImprovementInfo and read it when the improvement is upgraded. The upgrade itself takes place somewhere in doTurn(). It might take less than 10 lines of code to make something like that.

I fetched the source from github and compiled it, but the horrors kept following me
The makefile is version 1.0. What blasphemy to use a horribly outdated file

Also the code has warnings. It is considered bad coding practice not to fix all warnings as failure to do so can hide bugs.

Some failures are firaxis based, and will possibly disappear in the future, as we change game elements, also just incase anyone is still missing this IT IS AN ALPHA in a constant state of work so some of those warnings may simply be works in progress.

There are lots of jobs, and sometimes fixing a minor warning takes more time and carries less utility, than adding in another piece of code, as others can then begin working on new things, so when you are finally ready to join the team and help flitz out with it all I will listen to statements on good practice

But coding practices are nominally lost on me, if you want to join the dev team and discuss things with flitz you are welcome, until then, ANYTHING Flitz does is better than what i could contribute, so I honestly don't care too much as this is all voluntary and way beyond me!

Yeah with the tech tree, I know your 'displayed thoughts' are unfinished yet, and I am always willing to discuss things and exchange ideas, but as of yet, I haven't really seen anything that makes me think it is worth my time changing everything in the tech tree, as just as your ideas are unfinished, my ideas are unfinished too. I have no real interest in 'undoing' work, unless it fundamentally needs it, and as of yet I haven't seen that need expressed

If I had a whole heap of posts saying the tech tree is a complete useless mess and I hate your game because of it, then a fundemental rethink would be on the cards, but that hasn't happened yet.

If the argument is that it is not fully balanced yet, then I would simply say well obviously it is not finished yet, but that is not an argument for 'redoing' work.

I do look forward to seeing more clearly how your design will differ from mine and the fundamental changes this will provide, I just don't see it yet.

Of course. This mod lacks attention it deserves, as many really great mods for Civ4. That is a problem, but apparently many people has moved on. Thus you don't have lots of posts since not many people are willing to be testers yet .

And of course I will finish it and show you the complete picture. I never told my ideas are unfinished, they are just mostly on papers, and I cannot make it all in the game since I am not as fast as you at modding . In any case, while tech tree takes quite a lot of time, it's a minor (regarding complexity) thing to mod in comparison to SDK and python coding, so I could always make a mod-mod with a bit different progression to your mod while still offering help like models and icons.

Yeah that is the great thing about the XML, you can do a whole.lot with very little knowledge like most.of.my.mod work ugh stupid phone putting spaces and full stop to close together. I do look forward to your inputs, the stuff you used to do for your previous mod were great. Yeah a lot of my guys that have made a lot of stuff are busy with rl which is why a lot of stuff is half done, as they hope.to return, so I am more or less happy with leaving there bits alone till they do

Lib.Spi't said:

if you want to join the dev team and discuss things with flitz you are welcome

Click to expand...

How do I do that? My flitz detector is fried and I haven't found a new pipboy yet to get a working one

Deon said:

This mod lacks attention it deserves, as many really great mods for Civ4. That is a problem, but apparently many people has moved on.

Click to expand...

It's the same if not worse with civ4col modding. There are only 2 open source DLL developers left (3 if world history really gets off the ground). This is the reason why I came up with the idea to let mods share a single DLL source. It isn't that the mods shared concept, but rather the lack of interest from other people to deliver the manpower needed to make it like we would have liked it to be.

There is some modcomp merging with the RaR mod and indications that not all closed source mods are dead, but for brand new feature development in open source, it appears to be down to 2/3 people right now.

Sure there are some non-DLL developers, but there aren't the hundreds or thousands of people interested like the game and mods justifies.

The conclusion:
Modern people appears to be too stupid or ignorant to value the great treasure provided by the civ4 engine. Sure it might be a bit dated, but I have yet to see any newer games surpassing it. Once again I made a statement that we all knew already