C2C Options

I have an Idea for new gameoption, hopefully easy to do in dll - double move for all units

Would be very easy to do. Not something I'll be working on any time in the foreseeable future though as there are far too many other tasks ahead.

Game options can be added with out referencing the dll but it is not recommended. I want one for "building give missionaries occasionally" so I can finish Kornifere's mod and get it out there.

YOU can go ahead and do it. On occasion I do update the dll with the new option when I see its been done. Since you understand the cause for reluctance I have no problem with it.

Is there any way to disable animals? Disabling barbarians disables barb cities and Neanderthals, but not animals. I personally think they're annoying, especially early on and during colonization, when you're trying to settle on an island/continent that's untouched by humans and stacks of like 10 animals spawn in every single tile. Are there any files in the C2C folder, or do I have to disable them in XML? Or can they not be disabled at all?

@GohmaGaiden
Disable "Ethernal Peace" between NPC players (before game).
Neandertals would war barbarians and Predators would eat Herbivores.

GohmaGaiden said:

Is there any way to disable animals? Disabling barbarians disables barb cities and Neanderthals, but not animals. I personally think they're annoying, especially early on and during colonization, when you're trying to settle on an island/continent that's untouched by humans and stacks of like 10 animals spawn in every single tile. Are there any files in the C2C folder, or do I have to disable them in XML? Or can they not be disabled at all?

Click to expand...

I don't think there is but there's lots of different settings to work with to get a balance you're looking for. What options regarding animals are you using where they get this overwhelming?

GohmaGaiden said:

Is there any way to disable animals? Are there any files in the C2C folder, or do I have to disable them in XML?

Click to expand...

In Assets/XML/A_New_Dawn_Global_Defines. Change Animal_Spawn_Modifier. A lower value spawns less animals. Not sure if 0 (zero) turns them of or not.

Currently this Option is Off and Invisible (even though this code says it's On, but it's from DH's early posts in this thread. The Option is not visible at game set up):

<GameOptionInfo>
<Type>GAMEOPTION_UPSCALED_BUILDING_AND_UNIT_COST S</Type>
<Description>TXT_KEY_GAME_OPTION_UPSCALED_BUILDING _AND_UNIT_COSTS</Description>
<Help>TXT_KEY_GAME_OPTION_UPSCALED_BUILDING_AND_UN IT_COSTS_HELP</Help>
<bDefault>0</bDefault>
<bVisible>1</bVisible>
</GameOptionInfo>

Question: I believe this was turned off and made Invisible because it was not doing what it was intended to do, correct?

If it's broken, and from what I'm seeing in the GameSpeedInfos file it's definitely got problems, do we want to Fix it? Or Do we want to Eliminate it?

I don't know who built the Option or if it was Tweaked by someone else afterwards. But it seems they did not have a reliable understanding of what some of the Modifiers they adjusted did. So they made adjustment that in some cases made the Option easier instead of harder.

If this Option is not to be used then I'm asking can the 2nd set of GS for this Option be removed from the GSInfos.xml file? It would mean that the place this option holds in the Option List would only be a placeholder. T-brd or DH, would this cause any problems?

If it would, then I can Fix the Option to be more what it was intended to be. And it could then be made Visible again for use.

But do we need it in the Mod?

Edit: I also see the No Future is still in the Options (hidden and off). Does that Option actually work?

JosEPh

1) I don't think that No Future works but it remains in case I can figure out a fix.
2) It would be good to fix the option. It does have a place in giving a player option that is worth giving. It's supposed to make unit and buildings cost about a third to half more than the core so that it makes it impossible to build all buildings you can and still have a serviceable military, enforcing strained choices onto the player. May not be great for the AI but the AI in some cases may do better than the human in this environment.

I'm about 95% sure I can make the Upscaled Option work as it was intended. But it will come after I get the 1st version of the GS changes I'm working on committed to svn.

JosEPh

I want to make my CultureLevelPoor change, so that when you found a city it only starts with the 1 main city tile, an Option.

But I have no idea how. I would call it 1 Tile City Founding.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

JosEPh

JosEPh_II said:

I want to make my CultureLevelPoor change, so that when you found a city it only starts with the 1 main city tile, an Option.

But I have no idea how. I would call it 1 Tile City Founding.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

JosEPh

Click to expand...

I'd love it if you did at least include it in this manner. I'll have to explain how to go about this when I get home tonight.

In the meantime, consider adding to the option a building you can construct right away that would give +1 culture that would compete with the other Alpha options. This, imo, would make the modification completely valid as it would introduce a strategic decision. (Animals use territorial markers if they get fairly intelligent so even before language for humans we were probably trying to mark our territory with rock piles and scratches on trees and so on. So perhaps Territory Markings would be a good one?)

I'll also try to back you up with some programming support for the AI on the matters noted, mostly about bringing entertainers along if they really need to grab that first rung of plots around the city to support the starting population.

Ok, so obviously the first part is to setup the option in the gameoptioninfos.xml file. It used to be that this would require some adjustments in the code as well but AIAndy removed that requirement (though I do like to keep things nice and streamlined in the code as well so that code calls to the option can be made easier and it helps to avoid some potential issues that can crop up eventually later but I do that at various intervals now and then and it's not critical.)

This should be pretty straightforward. You'll need to also add the text entries for it of course. I think I can assume that's not unfamiliar stuff right? Let me know if you need any help with the options xml syntaxes. I THINK it's all straightforward.

After that, I would establish a Poor Culture Level that doesn't act any different at all from the first culture level after that. This one would operate for the non-option game.

Then create a replacement entry.

If you look at the replacement entry for GAMESPEED_NORMAL when GAMEOPTION_UPSCALED_BUILDING_AND_UNIT_COSTS is in play, you'll see that aside from all the tags that change and adjust the way the core GAMESPEED_NORMAL operates, there are a few new tags in use that declare it as an option replacement.

You'll notice of course that the <Type> tag is the same as the core version. Then:

1)
<ReplacementID>GAMESPEED_ALT_NORMAL</ReplacementID>

This tag is like a second name for the entry, a 'last name' if you will. You can basically name this whatever you want. CULTURE_ALT_POOR perhaps. What's important is that the tag is used and isn't used the same way again for any additional replacement options covering the same <Type> tag.


2) Put this tag in the xml entry and change only what option is used to activate this replacement entry.

It's pretty simple really.

IF it doesn't work then it's because culture levels need to be made capable of being option replaced like that but MOST types have been made possible to option replace. Just let me know if you have any problems with it.



Question: Do you know if its possible to make the first rung grow out according to the delay rules in Realistic Culture spread or is that impossible without coding? I'm not sure without looking and I wondered if you would know. Just thinking here.

Question, is the perceived need for adding of a building for this option because of Rev?

And this works with Realistic Culture Spread. I have several games going with RSC being On. In fact my 45 min EoT Game is one of them.

Some explaining:
All cities when founded, even your initial city on every GS has Culture added every turn. Even if you do Nothing with Culture you will reach the Poor level in a matter of a few turns on Normal to no longer than 20-30 turns on Eternity GS. As the Culture you receive per turn for doing Nothing Culturally is scaled to GS as well. Always has been. You get more Culture per turn with the longer GS you use. And how much city growth and tile improvement does an Eternity Starting city get in it's 1st 20-30 turns. Not much cause it can take up to 17-20 turns for your 1st tech to be researched.

Snail to reach Culture Level Poor needs 50 culture. Snail receives per turn 4 Culture. How devastating is it on Snail to not have those 8 Free tiles (which should've Never been free) for 50/4 turns without any other source of Culture available? And there is almost always something to give you a few extra culture points in the initial 50/4 number of turns.

On every GS for the Capitol City you can not do anything to any tile for 7+ turns because the gatherers tile improvement speed is slow. And you don't get your gatherer anyway till you have researched your usually 2nd Tech Gathering. So 5 to 30 turns (Normal thru Eternity) must pass before you get your gatherer. Plus your starting ST is not going to see many animals it can subdue for the 1st 10 turns either. All this does is make the next 8 tiles for your city delayed by this scaled # of turns. And even your Initial city can get lucky and get extra Culture during this scaled delay by Goodie huts or your ST getting lucky and subduing an early animal.

Now after you have founded your starting city you will not be founding another until Tribalism. And by that time you will have the Story teller hut and the story teller available to add Culture to pop those 8 tiles even faster. Plus if you send a gatherer with the tribe that gatherer with an escort can build a wooden tower or palisade or ablatis on one of the 8 soon to be popped tiles that has the food, hammers and/or gold to let you 1st citizen go to work. Once the 8 tiles pop then another gatherer can improve the tile and remove the defensive structure. And everything is back to the "old" way of playing in a short time.

As the game progresses this time to pop the 8 tiles for a new city gets shorter. But it does add a strategic layer to city founding. Even moreso as the game progresses and the race to get your border established is on.

The AI has had no problem with this either.

I personally will not go back to the old way of being given the 8 extra tile for free. Every game I play will be with this Culture Level Poor addition. For me it makes no sense to have 2 levels of Culture at the start of the game to have No Culture value, ie. 0 Culture Level to achieve, for all GS for None and Poor while you are given 2 to X culture per turn every turn. Why not just start the game with Fledgling Culture Level then?

This also makes using the early and late culture bldgs and units more important. Especially when you and an AI lay down a city 3 tiles from each other the same turn or within a turn or 2 of each other. Who will get their 8 tiles to pop 1st? The AI is actually pretty good about this. Territorial challenge laid down. Culture border "wars" so to speak w/o real fighting.

I know I've done a poor job explaining this. But all it takes is playing with it past the founding of your 1st city to see what it adds to the game play. The decision making it allows is now not so rote. A bit more depth is added to the game along with a bit more challenge.

Wish I had saved my screenshots to illustrate with. But I deleted them.

EDIT: Back to RCS usage with this, of course Realistic CS will not pop 8 tiles at once, it still must play by it's "rules". But you will still get some of the 8 at initial level value for the GS used. Again if you need another tile in that initial 8 to be usable with RCS then you will need to build a defensive "bldg" on that tile to get your culture to show.

When I can I will post some screenshots that show this.

I'm convinced that once players get over the initial "shock" of not having 9 tiles available immediately at city founding (and those that use RCS will already be somewhat used to this) they will begin to see it's game play value. And Yes there will be Players that will claim "micro management", no value, etc. but that is all really not wanting to try something out of their "comfort" zone of play. And with it being an Option of course they won't have too. Unless they get adventurous and try the Option.

JosEPh

Thunderbrd said:

Ok, so obviously the first part is to setup the option in the gameoptioninfos.xml file. It used to be that this would require some adjustments in the code as well but AIAndy removed that requirement (though I do like to keep things nice and streamlined in the code as well so that code calls to the option can be made easier and it helps to avoid some potential issues that can crop up eventually later but I do that at various intervals now and then and it's not critical.)

This should be pretty straightforward. You'll need to also add the text entries for it of course. I think I can assume that's not unfamiliar stuff right? Let me know if you need any help with the options xml syntaxes. I THINK it's all straightforward.

After that, I would establish a Poor Culture Level that doesn't act any different at all from the first culture level after that. This one would operate for the non-option game.

Then create a replacement entry.

If you look at the replacement entry for GAMESPEED_NORMAL when GAMEOPTION_UPSCALED_BUILDING_AND_UNIT_COSTS is in play, you'll see that aside from all the tags that change and adjust the way the core GAMESPEED_NORMAL operates, there are a few new tags in use that declare it as an option replacement.

You'll notice of course that the <Type> tag is the same as the core version. Then:

1)
<ReplacementID>GAMESPEED_ALT_NORMAL</ReplacementID>

This tag is like a second name for the entry, a 'last name' if you will. You can basically name this whatever you want. CULTURE_ALT_POOR perhaps. What's important is that the tag is used and isn't used the same way again for any additional replacement options covering the same <Type> tag.


2)

Code:

			<ReplacementCondition>
				<Has>
					<GOMType>GOM_OPTION</GOMType>
					<ID>GAMEOPTION_UPSCALED_BUILDING_AND_UNIT_COSTS</ID>
				</Has>
			</ReplacementCondition>

Put this tag in the xml entry and change only what option is used to activate this replacement entry.

It's pretty simple really.

Click to expand...

Pretty sure I have this part right.

IF it doesn't work then it's because culture levels need to be made capable of being option replaced like that but MOST types have been made possible to option replace. Just let me know if you have any problems with it.

Click to expand...

Mod stops loading (Loading screen disappears) with no error pop up during Loading (uncached files). Even going and Clearing cache before trying to load does same thing when Loading.

Suspect this is the area of problem.

it's because culture levels need to be made capable of being option replaced

Click to expand...

Question: Do you know if its possible to make the first rung grow out according to the delay rules in Realistic Culture spread or is that impossible without coding? I'm not sure without looking and I wondered if you would know. Just thinking here.

Click to expand...

Answered in previous post, but Yes it works with RCS. Tested on several games using RCS.

JosEPh

Question, is the perceived need for adding of a building for this option because of Rev?

Click to expand...

Not in the least. This is so that you make the feature make a difference for players who make differing decisions with their first build. Currently there is no way to influence how fast the first city grows its culture. (Ok, you make the point about an early subdual but it's a longshot and thus all the more imbalancing for the player that gets this unlikely advantage.) Therefore, usually all the change does at this first stage is slow things down equally for all players. That's an inert design choice that just frustrates.

But if you make the player choose between their current initial build options (which imo is no tough choice as getting a head start on an extra hammer is going to heavily outweigh all other options at that stage) and constructing a cheap building that would give a culture to help expand culture a few rounds earlier than you otherwise would (which could mean getting a lot more hammers faster than the Alpha Male would give but only for a few rounds so it would be an interesting tough calculation to see which would be the better benefit) would give the player an 'interesting decision' which is the heart of what makes any given project a positive thing for the mod. Civilization is, at its core, a game about interesting choices. What's better? An apple or an orange?

So the simple addition of such a building would give a sense of purpose to the one tile start. It can quickly obsolete too. It's really about how the player chooses to try to get his jumpstart.


I get your arguments but also consider that you may need to, for now and until the ai is taught to use their storytellers when settling, disable wonders like the Great Bath of Mohenjo-daro for the option. Otherwise the added population will die off as soon as the city has experienced its first round because it will be impossible to feed it.

I think this could be interesting if worked out properly.

The reason I was asking about the RCS interaction... I was wondering how it would feel if the first level opened up only the easiest tiles rather than only one. This would mean you'd have a production impediment at first, which would be frustrating especially for the first capital at the beginning, but could be good to help with start balance between nations. Furthermore, if it worked in this way, the food problem with wonders like the Great Bath would be likely overcome immediately and it wouldn't be so critical to thus teach AI to try so hard to overcome the initial one tile impediment.



OK, so we're having trouble with the culture levels and option replacements. That's an easy fix but it's going to take me a few days since today is my birthday and there won't be any modding going on tonight as we're going out to dinner.

@T-brd,
1st thing 1st, Happy Birthday! Have a great evening out.

2nd, I can wait. Do you need to see the files I worked on? There are 3, 1 in Text and 2 in the GameInfo folder.

3rd, I've been playing with this for almost a month and the AI is doing very well with it. The AI so far is in no need of being "taught" to use their culture giving units or buildings. Wonders don't need to be disabled or any such thing. Much of what you are questioning is really not a concern. You really need to play with this and you will see. Just hold off on all this speculation till you try it and we get some constructive player feedback (and not the pissy gripey rants either).

If a problem does crop up later on then I will do something extra like a special building. But it's just not needed now imhpo and my testing shows it so far.


JosEPh

I stated the problem that such a building would address but you deny that its a problem. (Though you explained it yourself in your post.) I'm not saying its a huge problem but it could make the whole concept much more palatable when the player enters the game to have there be a strategic decision point to being limited to the single tile.

Furthermore, if the AI isn't blasting out the first tile as soon as they plant the city then the Great Bath of Mohenjo daro is useless to them if they happen to build it. The Great Bath gives the city 2 population to start and you cannot feed 2 population with just the city tile so you starve it out in the first round. That's not subjective, that's simply the way it would go. I don't think the AI is programmed to bring an entertainer with all settlers are they?

This is not griping. These are just the observed fact obstacles to overcome to make it work without causing minor problems. I point them out not to deter but to make it possible to make adjustments that will make it so that the modification doesn't become the target of valid attack.


Thanks btw... should be fun!

So what is the first population doing in the city? Currently the best choice would be to make it a detective specialist (+1 espionage, -4 crime etc) as the only other alternative is to make it a Citizen specialist producing 1 .

My next task is to look for a better place for that detective specialist to become available. If I remember correctly it is done by building.

Also do we really need to use the Replacement method could not an easier way be used?