Ethnic Diversity (R.E.D. Unofficial) v.29 beta 5b

cleaner said:

am I right assuming that the "Edited_Animations" folder doesn't need to be in the common folder anymore with version 12.02?

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If you redownload the mod (vs. applying the bugfix), the Edited_Animations folder has been moved out of the "copy to common" folder. For the bugfix, I've just imported those files into the VFS without moving them (if you are using the bugfix, and move them, you'll have to change the modinfo file). I'd like littleot316 or someone else with the "sunk" ships and tanks to let me know if Gedemon was right, so I can be sure that it's really doing the trick for them. You'll still need to copy the civ5artdefines_viseffects.xml file to the common folder to fix a couple of animations (y'know, that reminds me, I never fixed the vis effects for Single Unit Graphics).

cleaner said:

Also regarding the optional units, do they work in a way that for example Germany's Paratroopers will always look like they're from WW2, no matter in which era you currently are?

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Yes, they will always look like they're from WWII if you use Optional Units. But that's the same as most units in the vanilla game. You can keep a warrior around, and it will always look the same. I suppose I could make all of them revert to the vanilla unit when the Future era is entered. Since the Optional Units are in that pack because they go beyond the scope that Gedemon has maintained (simply because they require me to change the default unit to maintain consistency), I guess I don't have a problem futzing with that pack even further. I suppose I could do the same with carriers and the anachronistic missile cruisers (though since missile cruisers are going to be unlocked at the end of the Modern era, they won't keep the ethnic models very long).

EDIT: I suppose I could wait to apply the Napoleonic musketmen until the Industrial era (though you'll have unlocked rifling by then, so similar result for the opposite reason). And again, like the missile cruisers, but ooh! I can stick biplanes in for fighters until the modern era. Dreadnoughts for battleships! What fun!

EDIT #2: Early tanks, too!

tested, the new version is working here, no more sunk ships & tanks

Gedemon said:

tested, the new version is working here, no more sunk ships & tanks

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Great to hear, thanks!

Nutty said:

I suppose I could make all of them revert to the vanilla unit when the Future era is entered...

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Hm... now that I look at the SQL tables, I'm not sure how Firaxis is changing the units by era. Has someone replicated this behavior already, or is it a hardcoded thing? I can only find where 'UnitArtInfoEraVariation' can be set to true, but not how the changeover to the new artdefines are defined.

Thanks for the comprehensive answers. I look forward to further updates to this outstanding mod.

Nutty said:

Great to hear, thanks!


Hm... now that I look at the SQL tables, I'm not sure how Firaxis is changing the units by era. Has someone replicated this behavior already, or is it a hardcoded thing? I can only find where 'UnitArtInfoEraVariation' can be set to true, but not how the changeover to the new artdefines are defined.

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Workers and Great People are the key to understanding era variance. I believe era variance only means ancient and industrial.

Sneaks said:

Workers and Great People are the key to understanding era variance. I believe era variance only means ancient and industrial.

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Thanks to Pazyryk, I got halfway there with era variance using just a couple of custom SQL columns and a few lines of LUA (as far as which unit class the player is allowed to build in a given era). However, automatically changing all of the existing units of a class to the next class requires a bit more work. Luckily, there's some prior art in, e.g., Gedemon's WWII scenario.

However, it looks like the new Gods & Kings expansion is going to add a lot of the units I was interested in using with my era variation feature (including WWI-era biplane fighters and bombers, and "land ship" tanks), so the wind has been let out of my sails.

In the meantime... of the 5 known (out of 9) new civs in G&K, Netherlands already has quite a few units ready to slip right in (bomber, destroyer, fighter, infantry, submarine, and tank; plus optional units for cruiser, paratrooper, and Napoleonic musketman), and I've already added these to my latest betas.

As to the other 4 known civs, it's always tough to allocate units to civs that were subsumed by other civs, so they will probably end up sharing units...

EDIT: Although... I have no idea what to do with Byzantium and Celtia. Byzantium really screws up the neat, if historically suspect, transition from Ancient Rome to modern Italy, and Ancient Greece to modern Greece. Celtia has a similar problem for the opposite reason. The Celtic peoples spread over Germany, France, Spain, and England. The language and culture survived longer on the British Isles, but that doesn't mean they should "become" England. Unless... maybe we just take the English units and throw some kilts on 'em and call it done.

Notice another bugfix has been posted (see the first post). A few small issues. I don't know how the wrong fScale snuck into the modern armors (default scaling only), but I'm surprised no one mentioned it given the fact that there have been nearly 1000 downloads of the full pack since the first beta. Are most people using R.E.D. scale, I wonder?

I've been using the R.E.D. Unofficial scaling. Not interested in default or single-unit.

Never tried the optional units pack. I'm a bit confused - what exactly does it add, and how much do they change gameplay?

- PR-0927

PR0927 said:

Never tried the optional units pack. I'm a bit confused - what exactly does it add, and how much do they change gameplay?

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The whole philosophy for this mod carries over from Gedemon's (and my original Single Unit Graphics mod). These are cosmetic changes only. The gameplay changes not a whit. And that includes the Optional Units pack.

The Optional Units are not quite right for one reason or another, but my thought in these cases was that since someone took the time to make or convert this unit to CiV, and it's almost right, we might as well use it. Mostly this occurs because danrell's unit packs were focused on WWII. For danrell's units, I also throw out the vanilla model in favor of another generic WWII-era one that matches its ethnic counterparts.

No matter what, though, the gameplay remains the same.

At the same time, Gedemon and I have both tried to add support for other mods that add new units and do change gameplay or add civilizations, that would otherwise conflict.

Which of the parts of your mod could theoretically make the game crash? I had constant game crashes with multiple mods enabled and so started a game with just CivUP+VEM which worked fine. Now that I added your mod, the crashes came back. I deleted the cache and moduserdata folders and enabled your mods last, so it shouldn't be anything on my end.
Thanks in advance.

cleaner said:

Which of the parts of your mod could theoretically make the game crash? I had constant game crashes with multiple mods enabled and so started a game with just CivUP+VEM which worked fine. Now that I added your mod, the crashes came back. I deleted the cache and moduserdata folders and enabled your mods last, so it shouldn't be anything on my end.
Thanks in advance.

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I haven't heard of any crashes directly related to ED, though I know at one point the method I'm using for Smaller Landmarks caused crashes--are you running that? What are all of the mods you are using? Are you running the latest CiV patch?

Nutty said:

I haven't heard of any crashes directly related to ED, though I know at one point the method I'm using for Smaller Landmarks caused crashes--are you running that? What are all of the mods you are using? Are you running the latest CiV patch?

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I was using the Smaller Landmarks one in the past, but since I got constant crashes I decided to just try with the CivUP/VEM mod and completed a game without problems. My plan was to add mods one by one and so I just added yours, including the R.E.D. scaling and optional units parts. It crashes now after I press "Next Turn" and also when trying to load the game. I'm using the newest patch.

cleaner said:

I was using the Smaller Landmarks one in the past, but since I got constant crashes I decided to just try with the CivUP/VEM mod and completed a game without problems. My plan was to add mods one by one and so I just added yours, including the R.E.D. scaling and optional units parts. It crashes now after I press "Next Turn" and also when trying to load the game. I'm using the newest patch.

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Hi cleaner, I'm not sure what the problem is you are experiencing. I have installed the CivUP and VEM with this mod, I used the optional part which scales the units down like original R.E.D. I am quite inexperienced with this but are you installing both optional files as in the one that scales them down and the single unit graphics, might cause a conflict. Forgive me if I'm being a total nub though xD

I haven't had any conflicts though using just the CivUP/VEM just to let you know.

It might not be a conflict with this alone, could be one with this and some other mod you had activated

cleaner said:

My plan was to add mods one by one and so I just added yours, including the R.E.D. scaling and optional units parts. It crashes now after I press "Next Turn" and also when trying to load the game. I'm using the newest patch.

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If you're saying that you deleted the cache folder and are running nothing else other than 1.CiVUP+VEM, 2.ED, 3.EDOU, 4.EDREDUO (activated in that order), then... I dunno! I just tried using just that configuration, and I don't have a problem, nor do a small sampling of other people.

EDIT: Here's a good checklist that works for troubleshooting mods generally. However, I suspect something is corrupted with the unit art (for which you can redownload both mods, especially ED). Perhaps CiVUP's version of civ5artdefines_unitmembers.xml is winning out (you could just delete it from CiVUP).

In a pinch, you can go the extreme route and delete and reinstall Civilization V... maybe start with reinstalling Windows.

St0Ne 4Ge said:

I am quite inexperienced with this but are you installing both optional files as in the one that scales them down and the single unit graphics, might cause a conflict.

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No, that shouldn't cause a crash. One just overrides the other.

Hello again Nutty, Pouakai and St0Ne 4Ge.

Right now my game is working fine since last time I posted. It really appears that it was the civ5artdefines_unitmembers.xml file from CivUP which caused the crashes. I was sure it would be enough to just load your mod last, but I decided to delete the file and now it's working fine. I don't know why CivUP's file wins over yours though.

cleaner said:

...now it's working fine. I don't know why CivUP's file wins over yours though.

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Well, that's good to hear! Usually clearing the cache allows you to get the order right, but when all else fails....

Nutty said:

Well, that's good to hear! Usually clearing the cache allows you to get the order right, but when all else fails....

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Yeah. Unfortunately now I realized that for example the Minuteman unit that CivUP adds for America is missing in my game...
I already made a post in Thal's forum, looking for the best way to combine your file with his if possible.

cleaner said:

Yeah. Unfortunately now I realized that for example the Minuteman unit that CivUP adds for America is missing in my game...
I already made a post in Thal's forum, looking for the best way to combine your file with his if possible.

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The Minuteman is America's unique unit in the vanilla game. I don't think CivUP+VEM adds any unit [models].

Nutty said:

The Minuteman is America's unique unit in the vanilla game. I don't think CivUP+VEM adds any units.

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Oops. He posted it would have been a bug that has been fixed by now. So I guess I raised a false alarm there. Sorry about that.