Revolution FAQ

List of Frequently Asked Questions:

General Questions:
Where can I get the latest version of Revolution?
Does Revolution work with BTS? How about older versions?
What custom maps can I play with?
How can I make my map work with Revolution?
Multiplayer?
Francais? Deutsch? Espanol? Italiano?

Revolution Mechanics:
How does a game of Revolution differ from a normal Civ game? What's it like?
I'm having revolutions all the time, what can I do?
Any tips for choosing civics in this mod?
How does the city garrison effect work?
What does the RevWatch screen mean?
How does the Assimilation/Annexation system work?


Troubleshooting Questions:
How can I tell if the mod is working?
After starting the mod I don't see an interface. What can I do?
The mod crashes or doesn't load properly! Help!


Modding Revolution:
How do I merge Revolution with another mod?
Where's the SDK source code?

If you don't find your question on this list, ask away!

How can I tell if the mod is working?

This mod has a couple of features to help determine if you have installed it correctly. First, it will complain if it is unable to locate the config file Revolution.ini ... it should still work when it can't find this, but it won't have any of your modified settings. Second, in Revolution.ini in the Config section you can enable ActivePopup. With this, the game will popup a window informing you which mod components are active when starting or loading a game.

After starting the mod I don't see an interface. What can I do?

If you are running the BUG mod or have other files in your \My Games\BTS\Custom Assets\ folder, this is most certainly the culprit. Rename this folder or move the contents if you wish to keep it for use in Vanilla games. Files in these folders will replace the files used by the mod and cause problems.

For the old Warlords version of the mod, you can also see the posts by b3virq3b starting here.

Does Revolution work with BtS?

Grishnash said:

Does Revolution work with BtS?

Click to expand...

No, it does not. It has yet to be updated.

Does Revolution work with BTS? How about older versions?

Yes, currently Revolution works with BTS 3.13. Whenupdates to BTS come out, it usually takes a few days to a couple weeks for me to update Revolution.

There are older versions of the mod for Warlords and Vanilla Civ4 available from the download page, though the newer version for BTS has lots of new features and improvements.

How do I merge Revolution with another mod?

Depends! Revolution has two versions, a standalone version which is stable but no longer under active development, and RevolutionDCM which has several additional feature like BUG and DCM. How you merge depends on which version you're using, but also what exactly you're merging in.

In the download for the standalone version, there is a merge guide included in the Revolution download which explains how the different pieces (Python, XML, SDK) can be merged. If you have a more specific question, check out the Modders and Mergers thread.

RevolutionDCM uses the WOC Lite modular XML loading system, so adding new civs or units is now really easy! Merging in new Python mods is a little different than with plain Revolution, as BUG has its own Python event management system. It is still quite straight forward once you get the hang of it.

When I tried to load Revolution mod I get RUNTIME ERRO !
How can I fix this ?

D14 said:

When I tried to load Revolution mod I get RUNTIME ERRO !
How can I fix this ?

Click to expand...

This means the DLL portion of the game is crashing, which usually means it has encountered unexpected input from XML or Python. Have you updated Civ to BTS 3.13? If not then the 3.13 version of the mod would produce this error. Did you download the full version of the mod, not just a special DLL? The other possibility is that you have some XML files in your CustomAssets folder which are not compatible with the mod (ie civics or units changes), or that the XML files that come with the mod are not in /Revolution/Assets/XML/

Let me know if it's still a problem.

The number of player/team slots defined by the DLL and the map must agree for the map to work. The default number of civ slots in Revolution is 34, so any map that defines 34 slots (doesn't have to fill them all) should work.

Install maps to run with the mod by placing them in the Revolution\PrivateMaps folder (create this folder if it doesn't exsist). To run maps in the game, after launching the game choose single player and then either 'Play Scenario' or 'Custom Scenario'.

Below is a list of maps which are known to work:
Earth with 34 civs (Copy any of the maps over from the PrivateMaps folder to the Revolution\PrivateMaps folder)

The DLL that comes with plain Revolution defines 34 slots for civs while RevolutionDCM defines 50. Any map you use must also define this many slots (though many can and should be empty). It is fairly easy to add empty slots to any map:

1. Open your WB save file with a text editor
2. The first thing in the file is the game definition which ends with "EndGame". If what comes next are team definitions (ie BeginTeam), go to step 3. If what comes next are player definitions, skip to step 4.
3. You need to add teams so that there are 34 or 50. If the team definitions don't have numbers, count how many "BeginTeam" ... "EndTeam" definitions there are (if they are numbered, remember they start at 0). Then add:
after the existing definitions so that there are 34 or 50 total definitions.
3. After the teams come the associated player slots. Like before, pad the number of definitions out the 34 or 50 using:
Where under most circumstances for the 19th player slot (ie player 18) ### should be 18. This puts each blank player on a team by themselves.

That's it, the map should work.

How many troops must you have in a city for it to count towards the garrison revolt index bonus?

Also: since once a city revolts, any other cities with over 600 revolt index may revolt also, is 600 r.i. also the number at which cities are in "warning?"

The effect of garrisons changes depending on several factors. In the early part of the game, troops can be a significant source of stability in cities with walls and particularly a castle. Once liberalism is discovered, the revolution quelling effect of troops decreases.

For a full break down of how the numbers work, check out the "effect calculator.ods" open document spreadsheet. Garrison effects are the first listed, with a breakdown for the 4 different situations with up to 25 defenders.

Under all circumstances you will get an effect with only 2 defenders, though Post-liberalism or without defenses the effect is very small. The "Garrison" effect label in the RevWatch popup only appears when the effect has strength -3 or stronger for Rev 1.26bts and earlier. It will show up at -2 starting in 1.3bts so that it's more visible.

A final example: If you have 6 units in a city, post Liberalism the effect is -2, with no defenses -3, with walls -4, and with a castle -6. These numbers are for Epic speed, the net effect of all rev index factors on a city is scaled by gamespeed.

The RevWatch screen breaks your cities into three groups based on their Rev Index (how close they are to revolting): Safe, Warning, and Danger. Inside each group the cities are also ordered with safest at the bottom.

For a city to instigate a revolt, they must either be in the Danger category or be suffering some very bad local effects like serious unhappiness or starvation. Other cities will only join revolts started by a city in the Danger category and then will only join if they're in the Warning category.

In all categories, cities shown in white are either locally improving or at least locally neutral. Cities in orange or red are locally worsening, with red meaning that the threat of violence in the city is serious. The local conditions in the city (ie things specific to that city) are only part of the picture, however, as civ-wide effects can change the disposition of a city even if the local effect are positive/negative. National effects include tax rate and finances, civics and changes in civics, results from war, empire size, etc. These are summarized in the top of the RevWatch details screen.

Revolution does not work in multiplayer, sorry. It was not designed for multiplayer from the start, so retrofitting it now is a large undertaking and would be difficult to test.

That said, if you disable the Revolution component (and don't use AIAutoPlay), the rest of the mod should work.

If the mod crashes when loading, there are a few things to check before posting to the Bug Reports forum:

1. Make sure you have no files in \My Games\BTS\CustomAssets\. These files override the mod files and this can certainly cause crashes and other problems.

2. Make sure that the DLL, Python folder, and XML folder for the mod are located in your (BTS install directory)\Mods\Revolution\Assets\. These locations are necessary for the mod to function properly.

3. Clear out your cache in \My Games\BTS\cache.

If it's still not loading, please post in the Bug Reports forum with as much information (Civ version, mod version, what happens, etc) as you can.

Francais - Many thanks to Fabrysse for translating the mod into French!

Deutsch - The mod is partially translated into German, if you can help that would be great.

Espanol - My Spanish is not good enough ... no Spanish support yet, sorry.

Italiano - No Italian support yet, sorry.

Question: How does the annexation system work? I have seen in my current game another civ become annexed, yet I am at a loss as to how, why and when this happens. Could you clarify?

Assimilation or annexation occurs only for very small civs (who do not own their own tiny island) under certain conditions:

- Rebels in civ X wanted to join civ Y, but X wouldn't let them go and Y was unwilling or unable to declare war. The rebels may ask to join Y later if they have moderate success and take a couple cities.

- A tiny vassal who has strong cultural influence from their master and doesn't hate them may join their master.

- A tiny vassal who has Pleased or better relations with their master, plus trails them by significant amounts in both power and tech, may join their master.

- A tiny non-vassal who's capital city has majority nationality from another player and doesn't hate that player may join them. Odds go up significantly if under threat of revolt. (This is the case that originally started this system ... a tiny civ that doesn't even culturally own its capital is screwed, but the old city revolt mechanism can't cause your last city to disappear so there'd be these 1-3 square civs sometimes completely enveloped in another civ and incredibly backwards)

- A tiny non-vassal who has 20% or more nationality in their capital from another player and has Pleased or better relations may ask to join that player

- A tiny non-vassal who has 35% or more nationality in their capital from another player and is at least Cautious towards them may ask to join that player. In both these last two cases, only the second highest cultural player is checked as the highest cultural player is covered by an earlier case

- A tiny non-vassal that is several eras behind in tech will lower its standards on joining another civ with culture in its capital (this case is probably obsolete now with the TechDiffusion component)

Ah, thanks!

Another two questions, I'm afraid:

1.The 'start all civs as minor civs' option - does this make these tech rules for becoming a full civ applicable to all upcoming civs (i.e. formed from barbarians)?

2.If I were to customise my civ name, nationality and so on, would it affect the dynamic civ names mod?