Vincentz Infinite Projects [VIP MOD]

Considering throwing up a 0.97 beta.
There have been made so many changes, and I need to balance it, but everytime I play a game, I'm beaten, either on an isolated start (by the barbs) or from early AI war declaring. So far I havnt got past 200 AD
I had to go down two levels of difficulty, and still struggling, however I've never been a really good player, and constant interrupting from kids doesnt help either

So.... any interest in a non-polished version, that would mainly be for helping me catching the bugs (if any) and help me balance things out? I could really use the help

edit : well... so far so good. Maybe, just maybe I'll make it past 200AD
(sorry for big pic. playing on TV atm)

Been playing Realism Invictus a lot and I thought I would download this. Have to say I instantly got a civ 2 vibe from it (not sure if thats the feel you were aiming for)

The map looks amazing the deserts look very realistic good job on that. My only major gripe(s) would be that the map doesnt open up quick enough so I am having to move on to every square to uncover it. Also some of your techs dont make much sense. You wouldnt need animal husbandry to gain a settler really.

Title music is very good too, I'm impressed with this mod.

Thanks

The reason for both the settler and visibility, is to make player feel a gain, sort of step up the evolution ladder. Sort of "in the beginning there was nothing". You can get the extra vision from scouts pretty early though, and using the Special promotion line will also make units be able to view more. When getting barracks all units get the extra view, and on top of that the Buddhist Dharma promotion also gives +1 vis. Add this together and quite early in the game you can have some killer scouts.
Regarding the settler, its same story. In the beginning there was 1 city. It shouldnt be an option to straight out build a settler. I think it makes sense with Pottery and Animal Husbandry as Settlers should be seen as a rather large group of people traveling far distances with settling in mind. So they would have to carry stuff (seeds/water/food in general) along with some pack animals/slaughter animals/breeding animals for their settlement.
In my current game I got my first settler around 4000 BC, so in that regard I dont think its too late (nor too early )

Btw. I loved civ 2 (especially Test of Times) so maybe there is some influence. Idk

edit : Which techs doesnt make sense?

dbl edit : Just a pic.
4th war so far Though Partisans mod seem to work as intended


triple edit : New VIP Loader feature
I hated to do cross-"platform" civ.ini editing (resolution and fullscreen/windowed) every time I switched pos, so I extended the VIP Loader a bit
(Im aware of the typo


4th edit : Siege Ranged Attack
Apparently AI understands Range Attack even when attacing (thought it was only when standing in city)

If you don't post it, we can't play it.

JosEPh

Agreed!

Side note: has anyone experienced a MAF error at all with the new Platy version? My son had 2 during his max civ challenge, and that's the first time it's ever happened since upgrading to 64 bit.

Its pretty messy atm, so gonna hold it a bit until further testing. then going to clean up a bit and upload.

@ drak
Nope. no MAFs at all. I'm currently playing a Gigantic 34 civ Normal Speed and is in turn 263 at 715 AD. Turntimes are long though (around 20-30 sec).
Whats the settings of your sons game?

Not sure. I haven't had a chance to check out his laptop yet. My suspicion is that he had something running in the background (which would be typical of a teenager) while playing his game.

Additional side note; anyone familiar with EvolveHQ or Hamachii for direct IP or LAN games? For some reason the new ISP that I have will no longer allow my kids and I to play either of those two options for any length of time before getting kicked. I did a quick scan of the Troubleshooting thread, and those seem to be the alternatives. Seems a little odd that I would need a 3rd party program in order to play a LAN/Direct IP game, so I thought I would ask and see if anyone has any experience with either of them.

I dont think Evolve or Hamachii is needed for LAN. Iirc I had a MP game after gamespy shut down. I did install Evolve at one point but we never got it to work. Direct IP does need 3rd party software unfortunately. dono why, but apparently it hooked up to gamespy's servers somehow (??).

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I either have to kill the Nat Lib, Encyclo and Com Network or change it drastically. In my current game with 34 civs, I just got 15+ free techs with Nat Library and moved up from 20+ to 7 on scoreboard...

vincentz said:

I dont think Evolve or Hamachii is needed for LAN. Iirc I had a MP game after gamespy shut down. I did install Evolve at one point but we never got it to work. Direct IP does need 3rd party software unfortunately. dono why, but apparently it hooked up to gamespy's servers somehow (??).

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I either have to kill the Nat Lib, Encyclo and Com Network or change it drastically. In my current game with 34 civs, I just got 15+ free techs with Nat Library and moved up from 20+ to 7 on scoreboard...

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Hmnn, I'm not to sure about making a huge nerf on those bro, as they come in real handy during a max civ game. OTOH, the AI builds them fairly consistently as well which makes for an exciting game on trying to maintain tech supremacy.

True. I might just try to change them so instead of "all at once" its going to be 1 per 2 turns scaled with gamespeed.

vincentz said:

True. I might just try to change them so instead of "all at once" its going to be 1 per 2 turns scaled with gamespeed.

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That's a much better implementation!

I also had the "gain lots of techs instantly" phenomenon happen, as soon as I had established contact with enough civs, and that was somewhat immersion- and game- breaking in my opinion.

Noyyau said:

...and that was somewhat immersion- and game- breaking in my opinion.

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Yup. In my current game I just skipped half an era or more.
Thought I was going straight for the win, and when Kublai declared I laughed at the 1 unit he sent. So I took one of his cities and.... holy crap... its an ambush... I'm doooooomed...

Well, as I'm striving towards the goal of reaching an exact amount of infinite projects, I opened another box of "lets see where this is going".

Now units can only heal up to a certain amount depending on their situation :
Friendly city -> Max 100%
City in disorder -> Max 25%
Friendly territory -> Max 75%
Neutral territory -> Max 50%
Enemy territory -> Max 25%

So a Strength 10 unit that was badly damaged while taking an enemy city, would only be able to heal to 2.5 while the city was in disorder.

Medic Promotions greatly increases the Max% (maybe too much)

Uploading a 0.98 beta. Not because its finished for testing, but because my computer have started showing starting problems (pushing the powerbutton does nothing from time to time) and bsod (Blue screen of deaths) appears randomly. Its 7+ years old with only the graphic card being changed, and used quite heavily, so I'm expecting a sudden death soon, which is why I'm making a backup.

I don't want the work I have done on VIP since last version to go to the eternal bitfields, so here it is for those interested in seeing which way VIP is moving:
Vincentz Infinite Projects v.0.98 beta

and source code

Imminent motherboard crashes are quite frustrating. I haven't been able to play the VIP Mod since my desktop went down last Fall, so I feel your pain.

Vincentz, thanks for a great mod!

This is my 3rd game played with your mod. The first two games went great. But this game crashed on AD180. The save is attached here. This turn worked out, but when i hit the "end turn" button, it crashed.

Could you take a look and see if it helps you to develop the nexe version?

Vincentz, could i make a small suggestion/request in this post?

Could you add that little "dotting tool" to your mod? The tool that the BUG mod provides that allow us to draw the fat cross on map by pressing "ALT+X"? I am so used to it that I do not know how to play without it any more.

Thanks so much if this is not something that is too hard.

Yeah, if there is one thing I really miss from BUG it's that one. I'll see what I can do.
Is the savegame from 0.96 or 0.97 beta?

Strange bug indeed. I have honestly no clue to why it crashes, but if you pick Fermentation tech, it won't crash, so it could be some overflow i guess.
Thanks for the save though. I'm gonna try dig a little deeper when I have the time.

Great progress have been made on the GiveTech-Projects (Nat Library, Encylop Civ, Com Network and The Internet).

Now it only have a chance of giving techs, instead of giving all the techs possible.
Formula is = Random(1-10) - CivsNeededWithGivenTechMet.
So a Nat.Library with 8 civs who know the tech, will give a 20% chance of any techs researchable. So if you are 50 techs behind but can only research 10 different techs, then it will be around 2 techs you get from Nat lib initially (not 50 like it was before).
On the other hand, if you build The Internet, it will be 80% chance of getting techs.

Big thanks to Archid and Nightinggale for the helping hand. Couldn't have made it without them

Vincentz, thanks!

And while we are on this topic, another BUG feature that I miss is the "red fist" feature. The feature that shows a red fist when an AI is "having too much on their hands".

Could you consider this in your next version too?

vincentz said:

Yeah, if there is one thing I really miss from BUG it's that one. I'll see what I can do.
Is the savegame from 0.96 or 0.97 beta?

Strange bug indeed. I have honestly no clue to why it crashes, but if you pick Fermentation tech, it won't crash, so it could be some overflow i guess.
Thanks for the save though. I'm gonna try dig a little deeper when I have the time.

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