[Religion and Revolution]: Mod Development

raystuttgart said:

But did you also test Lifestock Breeding (of Horses, Cattle and Sheep) ?
Because the Yield output from the plot depends on the amount of those Yields stored in the city and is thus highly dynamic.

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Surprisingly CvPlot::hasYield() takes no arguments. The return bool tells if the plot produces any yield, but not anything about which yields it produces. This mean breeding yields doesn't matter as those plots will always be true due to other yields not affected by colony storage. The output is affected by colony buildings (docks), which is why all owned plots in a two plot radius are recalculated whenever a building is added or removed.

I added an assert to check cache vs calculated result and I haven't managed to trigger that assert. I'm fairly confident that it works.

The only way I can see breeding yields as a problem would be if the plot can only produce breeding yields meaning the plot can't produce any yield at all until something is stored in the colony. That could be fixed, but at a performance cost. I would say we shouldn't worry about this as it would require heavy XML modifications to even trigger this scenario.

Ok, I will test Lifestock Breeding tomorrow.
(e.g. when changing Yield Output of Cattle on Plots from 0 to normal, by adding a full cargo slot of Cattle to the city.)

As I said, I haven't yet checked what you have done / changed in detail.

Edit:
I have just tested Lifestock Breeding ingame (with your new DLL) and everything is working.
(Haven't yet looked at your code changes though but I trust, they will be all fine.)

Edit 2:
I now also took a look at your code changes in SVN change log and they all look fine.

We are currently still testing to finally publish Release 2.0.

After that release, we might work on these topics for a Release 2.1:
(Depending on our own time and motivation and the support we might get from our partners.)

1. Improvments to Pedia Screens

Some modders of Civ4 have added really nice additional options in Pedia.
e.g. Possibilities for filtering or sorting the lists

Similar improvments could be nice for all mods and maybe we or some of our partners will find time to work on that topic.

examples:
In Pedia for Founding Fathers filter by Category (e.g. Miltary)
In Pedia for Units filter by Ships, Military, Non-Military
...

2. Improvments to Python/XML Event System

We have wanted to improve that system since quite a while, by adding new XML-tags and thus functionality for new types of events.

Of course, this might also lead to new events.

3. Improvments to Achievment System

Again we have wanted to improve that system since quite a while, by adding new XML-tags and thus functionality for new types of achievments.

Of course, this might also lead to new achievments.

One new possibility would be to have Achievments for Sea Battles won.

4. Improvments to Combat System

I am not necessarily speaking about a completely new combat system but about a few small specific improvments.

I might also take a look at some stuff a bit more crazy like ranged attacks for cannons / artillery.

Cannot promise anything though, since a lot will depend on teaching such things to AI, which has often proven to be a bit difficult.

5. Further Improvments to AI

The 2 focusses would probalby be:

1. Selection of military units (buying, building, equipping)
2. Buildings / Infrastructure

Again, this is much more tricky than it may sound.

6. Improvments to Promotion System

This is actually pretty easy for itself and could be achieved by adding new UnitCombatTypes.

In this course we might also add Great Admirals for ships.

7. Further Improvments to Graphics / Code / Balancing

This is generally quite normal but it is also so important and part of our modding philosophie that I mention it again.

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So a possible Release 2.1 would focus again on improvments.
Also, this is much more work than it may sound. We will need to go step by step and cannot promise any release date.

I'm currently working on the French translation and this raises some questions.

Here's the list of religious buildings:

1. Chapel
2. Church
3. Cathedral
4. Great Cathedral
5. Cathedral of the Archbishop

That makes a lot of cathedrals... In trying to find a way to translate this in French, I was thinking that things would probably feel more progressive if we would add abbey as an intermediary between church and cathedral. That would then be as follows:

1. Chapel
2. Church
3. Abbey
4. Cathedral
5. Cathedral of the Archbishop

I think it would also fit better to the graphics of each buildings. What do you guys think?

Marla_Singer said:

What do you guys think?

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The renaming as you suggest would be ok for me.

Good.
I'll then proceed to the change in English and German too. Am I correct in German with the word "Abtei"?

Marla_Singer said:

Am I correct in German with the word "Abtei"?

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Correct.

Nightinggale said:

When looking at how 2-plot radius works, I wonder about how the plots are numbered.

Spoiler :

The order where plots are looped are:

24 | 17 | 16 | 15 | 23
18 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 14
19 | 6 | 1 | 2 | 13
20 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 12
25 | 21 | 10 | 11 | 22

The hardware is optimized to minimize memory I/O waiting time when the layout is

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10
11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15
16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20
21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25

Click to expand...

But the code does not seem to read through the plots in a linear fashion like the second table describes. The current system is more logical as Ray suggested since it shows the order of "growth". However why the last order of growth does not follow the same pattern as the inner levels is a mystery. Logically this would make more sense (although of no benefit practically):

Marla_Singer said:

That makes a lot of cathedrals... In trying to find a way to translate this in French, I was thinking that things would probably feel more progressive if we would add abbey as an intermediary between church and cathedral.

Click to expand...

Isn't an abbey more like a monastery than a church, since it's a dwelling place rather than a place of worship for the commons? It might be a better word for the "Large monastery" tile improvement. But feel free to change, since it does make the upgrades sound more progressive

Willi_Tell said:

I remember a different approach from another mod (but I don't remember what mod it was). The fact, that work of Blacksmith, Gunsmith and Cannonsmith is taking place in an similar "milieu" (melting iron all day) could be illustrated by giving a 50% bonus to these 3 specialists when doing one of the "familiar" professions.

Click to expand...

This is great! Also, shouldn't an "expert farmer" get a small bonus while farming for "cash crops"? How different is tobacco from wheat\maize? Also vice versa.
"Weaver" and "sailcloth maker" seems like similar professions as well. Also, Carpenters and "luxury furniture makers" are similar.

vetiarvind said:

Also, shouldn't an "expert farmer" get a small bonus while farming for "cash crops"? How different is tobacco from wheat\maize? Also vice versa.
"Weaver" and "sailcloth maker" seems like similar professions as well.

Click to expand...

Although this approach might be more realistic, I don't like it.

I really want to have specialists clearly separated.
Anything else will result in a mess of modifiers spread all over the place.

But good news is, that this would be simple XML modding and everybody could do such changes to his private version / modmod.

raystuttgart said:

Although this approach might be more realistic, I don't like it.

I really want to have specialists clearly separated.
Anything else will result in a mess of modifiers spread all over the place.

But good news is, that this would be simple XML modding and everybody could do such changes to his private version / modmod.

Click to expand...

You mean in an upcoming version? Because currently we have something like this in the ProfessionInfo.xml:
<YieldsProduced>
<YieldType>YIELD_COFFEE</YieldType>
</YieldsProduced>
<YieldsConsumed>
<YieldType>YIELD_COFFEE_BERRIES</YieldType>
</YieldsConsumed>

And there isn't a way(that i see) to set a modifier percentage per yield. (say a 50% bonus, etc.)

vetiarvind said:

But the code does not seem to read through the plots in a linear fashion like the second table describes. The current system is more logical as Ray suggested since it shows the order of "growth". However why the last order of growth does not follow the same pattern as the inner levels is a mystery. Logically this would make more sense (although of no benefit practically):

Click to expand...

Guys trust me, the current system of enumeration for the city plots does make sense, since it fits the availability of city plots / growth pattern of city radius.

1. Level: small square (1 plot radius)
2. Level: fat cross (large square without corners)
3. Level: large square (2 plot radius)

vetiarvind said:

You mean in an upcoming version?

Click to expand...

There is no intention to give Farmes an additional 50% production bonus on Tobacco.
(Or anything like this.)

vetiarvind said:

And there isn't a way(that i see) to set a modifier percentage per yield. (say a 50% bonus, etc.)

Click to expand...

Specialists (and their production modifiers) are defined at the Units, not at the Professions.
(Unless you are talking about something totally different, than Willi_Tell was talking about.)

raystuttgart said:

There is no intention to give Farmes an additional 50% production bonus on Tobacco.
(Or anything like this.)

Click to expand...

That is not what I meant. I was referring to a way to mod yield production that i didn't know abt. (but, since it already exists, nvm)

raystuttgart said:

Specialists are defined at the Units, not Professions.

Click to expand...

d'oh

So, incase anyone wants to modmod: how I've set it up on my local modmod is that a "school" level professional will get 25% bonus in his "familiar" college level profession. Wheras a college level professional will get a 50% bonus in his "familiar" bonus. (Idea being that a gunsmith should find it easier to make tools, than a blacksmith to make guns)

I created this thread to give community a simple way to share such things if they like:
[Religion and Revolution]: Contributions from Community

You could simply attach your modified XML there.
Of course also giving a short explanation and telling which release you used (for compatibility reasons).

By the way:
We are going to publish Release 2.0 this weekend.

raystuttgart said:

I created this thread to give community a simple way to share such things if they like:

Click to expand...

Maybe I should have posted about RaRE there. It's too late for that now and it likely wouldn't have caused a major difference.

raystuttgart said:

By the way:
We are going to publish Release 2.0 this weekend.

Click to expand...

There is still the issue with CvPlayer::doTurn(), which can assert with checkPower(). I haven't looked into it and it will likely a time consuming task as I have no idea what's causing it. It doesn't appear to cause notable issues for gameplay or network stability. However at least in theory the AI can have a little issue telling how strong each player is. I haven't noticed the AI behaving worse than usual though.

If I look into this, it will likely be weeks before I do. I see no reason why the release should be postponed due to his seemingly minor issue.

vetiarvind said:

Isn't an abbey more like a monastery than a church, since it's a dwelling place rather than a place of worship for the commons? It might be a better word for the "Large monastery" tile improvement. But feel free to change, since it does make the upgrades sound more progressive

Click to expand...

There's a lot of variations from one place to another, but as a general rule, an Abbey operates both as a church and monastery, with the Abbot officiating both as the head of the monastery and as a priest.

I agree it's unperfect but an abbey is generally more important than a church, with more staff, without being as important as a cathedral.

The cathedral designation is administrative as the capital building of a diocese (which is regional), lead by a bishop. As far as what I understood on Wikipedia, The archbishop is a bishop, but simply at the head of a bigger diocese (called archdiocese).

Gameplay-wise, Considering cathedrals as level-3 religious buildings make them very common, and thus of lesser importance than how they feel in real life. According to my own game experience (which is relative I agree), it makes more sense in the general progression of the game to get the first cathedrals when the general development of the colonies is more advanced (with ironworks and so on), and thus as a level-4 religious building.

Release 2.0 is available now.

For list of changes see here.
For download see here.

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Savegames of old releases will not be comptabile.

I have made some test with new cannons for the ships implemented in RaR...I never liked the square-cutted vanilla cannons of the ships in colonozation.

Therefore I will presumably change the cannons into "real" ship cannons.

I have already done this for the caravel:






I know, these ship cannons have no complete gun-carriage, especially no wheels, but this is the compromise I had to do with regard to the size of the ship model...

Have you considered the impact on the GPU load? Sometimes square graphics is not just a result of a lazy graphics artist. Maybe there should be low graphics versions of the ships with the old cannons. I would prefer if RaR can run smoothly even on low end GPUs.

Apart from hardware requirement concerns I do have to say that this looks great. It's a great addition to those who zoom in once in a while (something I do too rarely )

Nightinggale said:

Have you considered the impact on the GPU load?

Click to expand...

Simply: No, I haven't.