Better BAT AI

Lemon Merchant

Not Quite Sonic
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Better BAT AI -- 2v1


Yes, a new release of Better BAT AI. Now version 2.1!!!

This is a bug-fix release, and there are still some bugs, but most of them are graphical in nature. Nothing game breaking (I hope.)

Better BAT AI is a merge of Fuyu's fabulous Better BUG AI Mod, which is a merge of Better AI by jdogg5000, and the BUG Mod, by the BUG team.

A good description of Better BUG AI can be found here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=354019 -- along with the mod, of course.

Better BAT AI is The BAT Mod 4.1, folded into Fuyu's Better BUG AI Mod. Thus, you get a leaner, meaner AI, and all of the beauty of the BAT Mod's graphic enhancements, all in one handy mod!

I have changed the packaging slightly from Fuyu's mod. Better BUG AI doesn't come with Event Images in the download. You must download them separately and install them. Fuyu handles these images differently than I do in BAT, in that they don't use an FPK file in his mod. I chose to include these images in the download file, and I have them enabled. If you prefer not to play with Event Images, you can disable them in one of the BUG options screens by typing CTRL-ALT-O, and setting the images not to display, along with your other favorite BUG options.

Better BAT AI includes the following goodies:
Spoiler :

- The BUG Mod 4.5 (The new build, which has not been released yet. The code was taken from the BUG SVN commit 2245)
- BULL 1.4 (The BAT version, 1.6, with the 1.7 UP merged in. Perhaps I should call this DLL "BALL"?)

- BULL includes:
- The Unofficial Patch 1.70
- Sentry actions
- Global Warming Mod
- Governor builds workers
- Fractional Trade Routes

- Fuyu's Better BUG AI improvements, which are built on Better AI

- All of the goodies that are already in BAT:

•Varietas Delectat 9.2 (Cheetah Edition) by Avain.
•Cultural Diversity 1.1 by Chugginator. (Optimized by Avain.)
•Cultural Citystyles 0.99 by GeoModder. (Optimized by Avain.)
•Actual Quotes - Better Diplomacy Text by Willowmound.
•Better Flags & Buttons by KingKongTR.
•Improved Graphics Leaderheads by Chuginator.
•Blue Marble 4.50 by Kai Fiebach.
•Advanced Combat Odds by Piece of Mind.
•Events with Images Mod by asioasioasio, Renegade Chicken and EmperorFool. Images by Arian.
•Female Unit Graphics (Great People, CEO's and Missionaries) by SaibotLieh. Code by Lemon and EmperorFool.
•Lemon's Movie Mod by Lemon Merchant, with slices, dices, and interpolations of music from Cybrxkhan's Diplomacy Music Packs. Used with his gracious permission.

- And some new goodness:

•Lemon's Spy Mod (spies return to nearest player city) as an enabled option in custom games.
•Lemon's HUD Civics by Lemon Merchant. (From a great idea by Timsup2nothin)
•Advanced Tech Screen by Platyping.
•Specialist Count by Platyping.
•Platy Worldbuilder by Platyping.
•Platy Foreign Adviser by Platyping.
•Great Person Mod by Roamty and others. Images by Amra and others.
•Wonders Captured/Destroyed by The_J.


I've included a 50 Civ DLL, zipped into the Assets folder. To use it, just unpack it into the folder, it's that simple. Be sure to rename the original BBATAI DLL first so that you don't overwrite it.

There is no zipped copy as of yet. You'll have to use the installer for now.


The installer and zip files are at SourceForge, here: https://sourceforge.net/projects/civ4betterbatai/files/

Special thanks:
Spoiler :

- EmperorFool and ruff_hi, for unwavering support and well-timed encouragement.
- Alerum68 for setting the BAT quality bar so high.
- Avain and SaibotLieh (and the people they credit) for their advice and assistance in porting their mods, and for making them in the first place.
- Afforess, Fuyu, Baldyr, avain, and SaibotLeih, for their generous help when it was needed.
- The patient fans of BAT who have given me the push I needed to finish this not so little project. I'm enjoying playing this mod as much as I hope that all of you will.
- My wonderful beta testing, and workout buddy, Gurn ("CFC? Meh.") Blanston.
- And the lovely Candice.


And a special thank you goes out to the posters in this thread for identifying some bugs that I had missed. :blush:

-LM
 
I have released the source code for Better BAT AI 1v0. It can be found at SourceForge: https://sourceforge.net/projects/civ4betterbatai/files/BBATAI-Source/

If you decide to make alterations to the source code, or use parts of it in your mod, please remember to give all of the modders involved credit for their work, and do not remove modder's tag comments from the code. That's just not nice, and it's confusing for anyone that comes along later and wants to make changes. Besides, the BUG, BULL, and BAT source code is copyrighted by the BUG Team. So there. :p

Also, if you release your mod, please do not use the word BAT in the actual title. Anywhere else is fine. This is solely to minimize confusion with the actual BAT Mod. There have been a number of weird questions resulting from the whole BUG/BULL/BAT thing, and I'm trying to keep the mayhem to a minimum. :D

And don't forget, lavish gifts and praise are always appreciated, though we all probably appreciate gifts of fine liquor more than praise. EF especially. ;)
 
It seems there is an error with the archive file, and it can't be unarchived. :(

I'll make a zip file this evening and upload that instead of the 7z file. I have no idea why this is happening, since my original 7z file unzips fine. :crazyeye:
 
This was perfect timing! I thought I was going to have to merge all this myself - thanks!

Ok, so I thought I was playing with this mod, but I think I may have gotten the installer for just BAT instead. Can you clarify if the installer on sourceforge is for this mod or just bat? Is the combined mod only in the .7z?
 
The files have been fixed. There is now a 7z file and a zip file. Choose one, they're both identical, but the 7z file is smaller.
 
Thank you! And also thanks to Andrea! Would be a shame if this had never been released.

Unfortunately I don't have much time to test this week. But if I do and if I find a bug, I sure will report it here.

Is this compatible with all the BAT expansions you released last year (leaderheads, civs, MEE)?
 
Is this compatible with all the BAT expansions you released last year (leaderheads, civs, MEE)?
I'm not sure, as I haven't had a chance to test them yet, but they probably will since most of that type of XML wasn't altered too much by Fuyu's merge.

I may have to tweak them a little. We'll see. :)
 
AI improvements are of particular interest to me as I just had a single player vanilla BTS game on the Big and Small map ruined by the AI failing to launch amphibious invasions. Basically, I was on one continent with the Incas and Native Americans, both of whom I were at war with, and my three allies in the island group basically sent next to no forces whatsoever. They launched a single "invasion force" consisting of two cannons which sat and bombarded a city until I came in with my army and finished it off, and a handful of ships which hung around outside the Native American/Incan coast, but other than that, nothing.

So my question is, does this mod make the AI use naval transports more? They're not that bad, for AI, at moving troops across landmasses, but once you throw in a body of water between Point A and Point B, suddenly they're far less active.
 
hey there Lemon Merchant ,

you did here great inisitive i gotta say, congratz.

i have a quastion my fried,
do you any idea if this comination works under mp play?
BAT doesn't work right under MP, and it isn't officially supported, so I suspect that this version won't work either.

You can try. Some people have been able to make it work...
 
This was perfect timing! I thought I was going to have to merge all this myself - thanks!

Ok, so I thought I was playing with this mod, but I think I may have gotten the installer for just BAT instead. Can you clarify if the installer on sourceforge is for this mod or just bat? Is the combined mod only in the .7z?
The combined mod is only in the zip and 7z files for now. I'm writing the installer, and finishing off a few things. When I'm done, I'll be moving this mod (Better BAT AI only not BAT) and all of the extras packs to a separate project on Sourceforge, so that we can minimize the confusion.
 
I never had problems with Better BUG AI + BAT 2.3 in mp, didn't try 3.01 yet, though.
Oh? Well, that is good to know. It seems to be hit or miss for some people and we don't know why. :crazyeye:

@Everyone:

I am assuming that a few people have played a couple of games with Better BAT AI by this time. Has anyone had any issues, or graphics glitches? I haven't, as yet, and neither has Gurn. He has played quite a few games without any issues, but we're only two computers. With such a variety in setups among Civ players, that is a very small sample size.

No one has complained yet, so I'm encouraged, but if anything goes wrong, please complain. :)
 
I found a small error:

I met Ragnar and Frederick for the first time and got the FIRST_DIPLOMATIC_MEETING or whatever it is instead of their catchphrase (e.g. Julius Caesar talks about his salad). Shaka, JC, and Hannibal were fine.

Sorry to be imprecise, I'll load it up later and write down what it's supposed to be.
 
I found a small error:

I met Ragnar and Frederick for the first time and got the FIRST_DIPLOMATIC_MEETING or whatever it is instead of their catchphrase (e.g. Julius Caesar talks about his salad). Shaka, JC, and Hannibal were fine.

Sorry to be imprecise, I'll load it up later and write down what it's supposed to be.
Thank you very much. This is the sort of thing that I'm looking for. I appreciate the information. :)
 
This has probably been mentioned elsewhere but I searched and couldn't find the answer. In the first post it says to install the mod to the "%USER%\My Games\BTS\Mods" folder, but I downloaded the game from Steam and it's actually in the "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\sid meier's civilization iv beyond the sword" folder. However, within this folder is both a "Mods" folder and another "Beyond the Sword\Mods" path and folder. Within the former Mods folder are the following folders: American Revolution, Desert War, Greek World, and Tutorial. Within the latter further nested Mods folder are a lot more folders: Afterworld, Broken Star, Charlemagne, and 9 others.

Which of these Mods folders should I unzip to?
 
I'm getting that annoying moving cloud layer in the strategy layer. Can this be disabled?

And, this may have nothing to do with the mod but is there a Pause key combo? My keyboard does not have a pause/break key.

Update - my laptop is supposed to have Pause mapped to F12, but this does not work in-game. It brings up the Sevopedia. Is this essentially pausing the game?
 
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