Unofficial BTS 3.13 patch

They needed the variable riverside for the watermills as the watermill graphic would probably look ridiculous on river bends.

You know, I'm pretty sure Firaxis has some talented graphics people on their staff... I can't believe they couldn't have come up with a decent looking "corner" watermill.

By the way, I wouldn't be surprised if the programmers at Firaxis accidentally used the variable RiverSideYieldChange instead of RiverYieldChange on lumbermills and forest preserves. I don't think a lot of deep thought went into this.

That's certainly possible, I agree. This is another one of those grey areas, however, where I'm reluctant to make a change without having more knowledge about their intent. I wish I knew someone at Firaxis so that I could ask them about all this stuff.

Bh
 
And Bhruic, what's your assessment on the spy stays on top (when attacking) issue?

I haven't had a chance to look into it, actually. I've been busy working on my modification to the city location selection routine. I think I've got something that works a little better than the default BTS one, but I'm still fine-tuning it (and accounting for case specific stuff).

Bh
 
I just wonder if the Byzantine UB is messed up. You can't assign artists like you can with a regular theater, nor do you get extra happy from dyes. If so, it may be the only UB that loses some functionality compared to the normal building.
 
You know, I'm pretty sure Firaxis has some talented graphics people on their staff... I can't believe they couldn't have come up with a decent looking "corner" watermill.

Maybe they could, but they didn't choose to do so. They probably thought about how the improvement should work and look and then created the variables to make this vision reality. The present watermill is a quite unique terrain improvement and I really think it was designed to work in this unique way. A watermill can presently only be placed on one side of a river, so each stretch of horizontal or vertical river can only hold one watermill. The watermill is the only terrain improvement that is actually (graphically) being placed in between tiles (it still only uses one tile). I think that the riverside variables were created when the designers decided that the watermill should be this unique improvement. It's actually the only place where the riverside variables are really needed. Whether I'm right about this cannot be proven as the designers will not tell us such a thing, but there is some level of logic behind these thoughts.

That's certainly possible, I agree. This is another one of those grey areas, however, where I'm reluctant to make a change without having more knowledge about their intent. I wish I knew someone at Firaxis so that I could ask them about all this stuff.

I actually wasn't trying to convince you to change this anymore. I was just theorizing a bit about the variable 'river' and 'riverside' and how they came into being.

Far too many words have already been wasted on a theoretical rule change that would have barely any effect on a game of civ4. Lumbermills and Forest Preserves are only available in the late game and the number of these improvements being build on river bends is very low and the effect on a game of civ4 thus insignificant.

(I might do the rule change myself in my personal mod, but that's unrelated to this unofficial patch.)
 
The present watermill is a quite unique terrain improvement and I really think it was designed to work in this unique way.

My main problem with that is the very uniqueness of it. Why go through all that effort to create an improvement type that is so counter-intuitive to the others? Especially for an improvement that really isn't that impressive.

Far too many words have already been wasted on a theoretical rule change that would have barely any effect on a game of civ4. Lumbermills and Forest Preserves are only available in the late game and the number of these improvements being build on river bends is very low and the effect on a game of civ4 thus insignificant.

I don't know about "wasted". Every time something like this comes up, I find I learn something a little more about the game than I knew before. So if for no other reason, it's valuable in that regard.

Bh
 
I just wonder if the Byzantine UB is messed up. You can't assign artists like you can with a regular theater, nor do you get extra happy from dyes. If so, it may be the only UB that loses some functionality compared to the normal building.

Hi

Actually the hippodrome is VERY powerful. It has built in smiley face that doesnt rquire resources which normal theater doesnt get so actually it makes getting dyes have just as much happiness as a city with theater and dyes even though it doesnt get a dye bonus. BUT since its extra smiley face is built in it means if niether city has dyes the hippodrome will actually give more happiness.

Factor in that it also turns horseys into a happiness resource for any city it gets built in and gets double smiley per 10% on cultural slider a hippdorme is way stronger and more flexible than normal building.

True with the artist deal I guess it can hurt if you prefer cultural wins but it makes going for military wins LOTS easier so I guess it kinds of evens out that way. Plus you can still get artists other ways. And it does make a little sense since hippdrome is a different type of enetertainment than a theater so hippodromes wouldnt be promoting artists like a theater would.

So if you JUST want a culture win Byzantines might not be best choice since their UB may make it a bit tougher but that is sacrifced to make it MUCH stronger in other areas.

Kaytie
 
Here's something strange. If I make a colony of Portalegre, Vila Real, Chaves et al, my naval units (plus anything that may be on them) are suddenly moved to just south of Covilha, which is pretty inconvenient; if, however, I move my naval units out of Chaves where they are currently stationed, they remain under my control and, after my sudden attack of generosity in making the colony, I can immediately move them back into Chaves. :crazyeye: Perhaps this is something that needs to be looked into...
 

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When you are attacking a city you can select a unit and hover over the city with the right mouse button held down to see your odds and see the best defender in the stack. However, when you have a spy in the city the spy stays on top so you cannot see the best defender. This is a bit annoying when I want to choose promotions on the attacker so as to counter the best defender. It takes too much brain effort to mentally think of which unit it must be that's on the top. At the moment I just move my spy out of the city while I attack.

Obviously the suggestion I'm making is to make the friendly spy not stay on top when you have a unit selected and hovering over something to attack. I haven't checked but the issue is probably exactly the same outside cities too.

I don't think that I'd change the unit that appears on top. Your own unit should always appear on top of a stack of units for selection purposes. But what I might do is include the "faceoff" units in the Combat Odds box. That should have the same effect you are looking for, right?

Bh
 
I just wonder if the Byzantine UB is messed up. You can't assign artists like you can with a regular theater, nor do you get extra happy from dyes. If so, it may be the only UB that loses some functionality compared to the normal building.

The Byzantine Hippodrome replaces the Theatre, but doesn't allow Artist Specialists, is this intended or a bug?..

Intentional

:)

I tested the globalunits thing as well and it does not work you need to assign at least one unit as well and then it will only fire once you have x global units but still assign the quest to the 1 unit it choses...
 
:)

I tested the globalunits thing as well and it does not work you need to assign at least one unit as well and then it will only fire ones you have x global units but still assign the quest to the 1 unit it choses...

So.....either change the text quest ("It is assigned to a specific unit that, if destroyed, will lose the quest") and use the XML code to re-name the galley ("The Blessed Galley")...or else use Bhruic's suggested fix from earlier...?
 
Well, I'm going to keep the "upgrade" fix in. I can't really do the text change fix - or, I could only do it for English and French. The other languages are beyond me, and I don't trust Google translations. :)

Bh
 
Well, I'm going to keep the "upgrade" fix in. I can't really do the text change fix - or, I could only do it for English and French. The other languages are beyond me, and I don't trust Google translations. :)

Bh

I am going to be releasing a mod pack with some new random events whenever I completely get over this flu and stop going to sleep the minute I get home from work -- I can throw an XML fix in for the new text....I'm limited in my languages as well, but I'm sure someone will step up to the plate for the other languages (in the meantime, I'll just put the English text between <Spanish></Spanish>, <German></German>, etc. so that people playing in those languages can still use the mod, albeit with those random events appearing in English....)
 
Well, that's fine for a mod, but I'm not sure it'll fly for a patch, even an "unofficial" one.

As an aside to the public at large...

Help!

Ok, now that I've got your attention (;)), I was wondering if anyone would be willing to test my city placement modifications? I've done a bunch of run-throughs with autorun on to watch city placement, generally they look good, but I'm going to want more test cases than I can generate myself. So if I can get some people who are willing to try it out, that would help out a lot.

Bh
 
Well, that's fine for a mod, but I'm not sure it'll fly for a patch, even an "unofficial" one.

That's the Pierre Trudeau in you talking.... :D
 
Well, I'm going to keep the "upgrade" fix in. I can't really do the text change fix - or, I could only do it for English and French. The other languages are beyond me, and I don't trust Google translations. :)


What translations do you need? I'd like to do the german part, it would be an honour to support your work at the unofficial patch! :king:
 
I was wondering if anyone would be willing to test my city placement modifications? I've done a bunch of run-throughs with autorun on to watch city placement, generally they look good, but I'm going to want more test cases than I can generate myself. So if I can get some people who are willing to try it out, that would help out a lot.

sure! i have lots of free time, and i kinda like watching the AI as an observer, getting insight into their patterns.

re: translations...

there's quite a collection of international regulars in the HoF forum. spanish, italian, russian, german native speakers i can think of off the top of my head. Denniz recently asked for and got help translating some work he'd done for something. the plan to use your patch as part of the HoF BtS patch when they're ready to non-Beta-ize it. so i know you'll get help from them once you've got the english words you're happy with. not a problem at all. they'd even recognize your name if you want to ask there yourself! :)
 
My main problem with that is the very uniqueness of it. Why go through all that effort to create an improvement type that is so counter-intuitive to the others? Especially for an improvement that really isn't that impressive.

I don't quite understand what you're getting at. Do you think that the watermills improvement isn't working as intended? It is working a lot different from all the other improvements, that's true. But I do think it's an interesting variation. It does of course make the game a bit more complicated for new players, but not a lot.

Watermills with State Property and electricity and replaceable parts: +1 food, +2 hammers, +2 commerce (3 with financial). I used to use State Property all the time because of the food bonus it gives to watermills and workshops. Food is the hardest resource to acquire more of, so any terrain improvement that adds food next to nice quantities of the other 2 resources (hammers and commerce) is a good improvement in my book.
Compare it to the farm, +2 food, or the windmill, +1 food, + 1 hammer, + 2 commerce (3 with financial), and you'll see that it's a great improvement with State Property.

However, in BTS I don't use State Property very often as I like to use corporations and without the food bonus, the watermill is not that great.

I don't know about "wasted". Every time something like this comes up, I find I learn something a little more about the game than I knew before. So if for no other reason, it's valuable in that regard.

Bh

Agreed. We can all learn from some discussion. I just meant that the impact such a change would have on the game is minuscule.

Well, that's fine for a mod, but I'm not sure it'll fly for a patch, even an "unofficial" one.

As an aside to the public at large...

Help!

Ok, now that I've got your attention (;)), I was wondering if anyone would be willing to test my city placement modifications? I've done a bunch of run-throughs with autorun on to watch city placement, generally they look good, but I'm going to want more test cases than I can generate myself. So if I can get some people who are willing to try it out, that would help out a lot.

Bh

Ok, you have my attention, city placement is the core of the game. ;)

I would like to mention first that new players always tend to build their cities with lots of space in between them wasting tiles that are never going to be used by other cities. They like to get big cities without any overlap between them and if the AI doesn't place its cities using a similar pattern, then they consider this a flaw in the AI and complain about it. However, I completely disagree with this outlook and have advised many newer players to place their cities closer to one another and use all the tiles (or almost all the tiles) in the area. The strength of a civilisation can be measured quite accurately by the number of tiles all of the cities combined are using.

Example:
An area of 50 tiles can contain 2 cities without overlap or 3 with some overlap. The 3 cities would on average get about 17 tiles. This means that at size 16 and below, each of the 3 cities would be comparable in strength to the 2 cities. Only when cities grow very large at the end of the game will the 2 cities without overlap become slightly stronger (the smaller cities are about 15% weaker). But during the majority of the game, the player who builds 3 cities will have 50% extra cities. Only when the health and happiness caps are close to 20 will the 2 cities become a bit stronger per city. Still the 3 cities combined will be stronger than the 2 cities combined because they use more tiles and have more trade routes and more bonuses from corporations.

Note that cities that can use 17 out of 21 tiles will have 6 tiles of overlap with other cities. They use 3 of the 6 tiles and the other city also uses 3 out of the 6 tiles. So overlap often seems worse than it is. 6 tiles of overlap seems a lot, but that's a psychological issue. During most of the game, the cities won't be bothered by it.

There are things to be improved about city placement. For instance, you sometimes see the AI placing a city 1 tile from the coast where it isn't needed. Sometimes this is just a barbarian city that was captured and thus not the fault of the AI city placement algorithm. However, I do not think the AI places its cities too close to one another. So I hope you were not planning to change that. Not every complaint about the AI city placement is a just one.
 
Do you think that the watermills improvement isn't working as intended? It is working a lot different from all the other improvements, that's true. But I do think it's an interesting variation. It does of course make the game a bit more complicated for new players, but not a lot.

No, I understand that it's working as intended. I just don't see the variation being useful. Basically it seems like a variation for variation's sake, not to actually add anything useful to the game.

There are things to be improved about city placement. For instance, you sometimes see the AI placing a city 1 tile from the coast where it isn't needed. Sometimes this is just a barbarian city that was captured and thus not the fault of the AI city placement algorithm.

The barbarian city placement routine is the same as the AIs.

However, I do not think the AI places its cities too close to one another. So I hope you were not planning to change that. Not every complaint about the AI city placement is a just one.

What you've overlooked is that reason for city placement. A lot of the time you place a city based on resources that it'll provide, especially with food. Overlapping a city is fine if there are separate food sources. But if you are overlapping the food sources, then you've got problems. You're basically forming a city under false pretenses. Only one of the two cities can actually use the food, so one of the cities that may have been counting on the food to grow is going to end up expanding much slower than it otherwise would.

So I'm not trying to eliminate overlap completely (although I'm trying to discourage excessive overlap), but I'm trying to encourage each city to have it's own set of resources. Which isn't to say that a city needs resources, but I don't want it to rely on sharing them.

But yes, primarily I'm focused on two things - making the AI more likely to choose a river tile, and making the AI less likely to settle one tile away from the Ocean.

Bh
 
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