Unofficial BTS 3.13 patch

[KMadCandy]

Originally Posted by Bhruic

You're welcome to do so, but that change [making plain old-fashioned destroyers not go obsolete] is outside of the range I'm looking at. I'm just trying to have the game match the majority of player's expectations so we get less complaints around here about why someone's SD didn't defend their stack of ships.

yeah i prolly shouldn't have opened that can of worms! i don't think that should go in the unofficial patch, that would be a change in rules. losing the ability to build normal destroyers when they have a function you might want to keep that the so-called upgrade can't perform is something i don't see any logic to, and i think is an oversight, and since i haven't seen anybody give a reason i see any sense to, i'll just mod my .xml to have them last forever. it'll take away part of my frustration and therefore add to my fun. but nope, this patch isn't the place for it i think

i tweak stuff like that if it annoys the snot out of me. sometimes i play with my events file that lets me not delay education so that quests don't go obsolete so early . i unauthorizedly altered your unofficial patch, am i in trouble? i keep the unadulterated set too, for when i want to pretend i'm normal, and always for games i directly compare to others (RB events, ALC shadows, LHC, and of course HoF), but some games that are just for fun i do whatever i freaking want. that's part of the fun of being a permanoob!

about execs: i think it's kind of exploit-y, but really awesome, that there's no prereq for making them other than having a branch of the corp in the city. an AI can be really behind, not even know corporation, but as soon as i give them a corp branch they can build execs. i say exploit-y since if they don't even understand the concept you'd think i'd have to invest my own gold to spread it around. but i ain't complaining. it matches the civilopedia, which gives no tech requirements at all for the unit.

[jkp1187]

Originally Posted by Bhruic

Ok, here's where I think that you are so focused on the trees, you are losing sight of the forest. You say the best way to protect the stack is to have a bunch of empty Transports. Ok, so the enemy attacks that stack, and every attack sinks a Transport because they have such low combat str. If the enemy is only attacking with a few units, that might actually protect the stack for a bit, but eventually all the Transports are sunk, and they can attack the cargo-carrying ships.

Ok, so how about empty MCs in the stack? Suddenly the attack odds are much better in your favour. So most of the attackers are likely to lose. That makes empty MCs even better defenders.

Now how about Battleships? Same strength as the MCs, but even cheaper. Which means they are even better defenders than MCs.

In other words, empty Transports are about the worst defenders you can get, unless you happen to have a lot of them around, and are willing to use them in suicide defense. But it's a big waste of hammers, and it's not going to cause the attackers any damage. If you want to defend a stack properly, using strictly military ships is almost always preferable.

Bh

All the more so now that Blitz is available for naval units. A handful of Blitz destroyers would cut through a horde of combat I transports like a Ginsu knife cutting through an empty beer can....

[Minor Annoyance]

Originally Posted by Quagga

What would be great is if those fully loaded missile cruisers would launch their missiles when attacked. Same goes for carriers: attack with fighters. After that, proceed to your regular stack defense rules.

I'm surprised no one has tried to mod that yet. At least the fighter thing. If missiles fired automatically someone might sacrifice a cheap ship to waste someones missiles before bringing in a real attacker.

[bmarnz]

Originally Posted by Minor Annoyance

I'm surprised no one has tried to mod that yet. At least the fighter thing. If missiles fired automatically someone might sacrifice a cheap ship to waste someones missiles before bringing in a real attacker.

It'd have to be modded so that they only fired when the MC is likely to lose.

[Aquatic]

Originally Posted by bmarnz

I have save for this event, but it requires marnzmod v1.7.

Attachment 163473

If the first galley in the active stack is deleted or lost in combat (which eventually happened) you fail the quest.

Thanks bmarnz, and thanks Bhruic! Here is a save of the Blessed Sea Quest before it has failed, just in case the necessity of the marnzmod v1.7 causes a difficulty. The galley in question is just ourside Cuzco. My previously posted save was from a few game years later, when upgrading the galley made the quest fail.

[Harrier]

Originally Posted by Quagga

What would be great is if those fully loaded missile cruisers would launch their missiles when attacked. Same goes for carriers: attack with fighters. After that, proceed to your regular stack defense rules.

Missiles - NO WAY.
The missiles have been pre-set to attack other targets - if launched immediatly - MASSACRE.

FIghters - YES as per DALES combat mod.

[oedali]

In my current game I founded Cereal Mills but none of the civs are making their wheat, rice or corn resources available. I think it's a bug. Strange thing is I do not have this problem with Mining Inc, i.e. I am able to trade for multiple instances of those resources. The only other foreign corp is Sid's Sushi but it has not spread to anyone except Mehmed so it's not an issue of competing resources. Screenshots and save game are attached. Using latest patch. Has anyone seen this before?

[Xenomorph]

I'm still having between-turn slowdowns on my PC. What are the most CPU-intensive functions you've added, and what can be gutted out from the mod to make it run faster?

[Jaybe]

Originally Posted by oedali

In my current game I founded Cereal Mills but none of the civs are making their wheat, rice or corn resources available. ... Has anyone seen this before?

I saw this the turn or the turn after I founded Sid's. The next turn the trading resources became available. So ...
patience, Grasshopper.

[KaytieKat]

Originally Posted by Bhruic

Ok, here's where I think that you are so focused on the trees, you are losing sight of the forest. You say the best way to protect the stack is to have a bunch of empty Transports. Ok, so the enemy attacks that stack, and every attack sinks a Transport because they have such low combat str. If the enemy is only attacking with a few units, that might actually protect the stack for a bit, but eventually all the Transports are sunk, and they can attack the cargo-carrying ships.

Ok, so how about empty MCs in the stack? Suddenly the attack odds are much better in your favour. So most of the attackers are likely to lose. That makes empty MCs even better defenders.

Now how about Battleships? Same strength as the MCs, but even cheaper. Which means they are even better defenders than MCs.

In other words, empty Transports are about the worst defenders you can get, unless you happen to have a lot of them around, and are willing to use them in suicide defense. But it's a big waste of hammers, and it's not going to cause the attackers any damage. If you want to defend a stack properly, using strictly military ships is almost always preferable.

Bh

Hi

Well the assumption here is what “better” defender means. Now your example of “better” is based on how battleships and MC’s are more likely to win while defending an attack.

Well even if the average battleship has slightly better than 50/50 (or more if you have an uber promoted battleship vs. plain battleship) chance of surviving an attack from an average battleship. Once collateral damage starts kicking in even if the first few battleships win the last few are going to be no more likely to win than a transport. They will get sunk and all the hammers/turns put into em wasted.

However winning ISNT the priority. If winning WAS the priorty the combat model WOULDN’T pick a ship with .1% chance to win over a ship with 99.9% chance to win.

The priority of the combat model is making sure that a loaded cargo ship DOESN’T have to risk itself by defending against an attack at all. Now if we agree with the priority of the combat model then any ship that takes an attack so that attack cant be spent on a loaded cargo ship its mission. Whether the defender lives through the attack isn’t a factor as long as the attack gets spent on it instead of the cargo ship.

Therefore an attack spent on a non cargo/empty ship whether that ship wins or loses is an attack that ISNT spent on a loaded cargo ship is “better“. And an attack that is spent on a empty transport ship or on a battleship both accomplish THAT goal. But a empty transport does it for less resources.

Yeah it works best if you have LOTS of empty transports but for pretty much the same amount of time and hammers it takes to get X battleships you can get 1.5 and possibly even 2 times the amount of transports. That’s two times as many attacks the loaded cargo ships can be shielded from.

True it wont help much if with blitz and just sheer numbers the enemy has 10 times as many attacks as you do transports. But if instead you built battleships by that point the enemy will have 20 times as many attacks as you do defenders. Which means once all the defenders have had their turn there will be even more attacks to spend on cargo ships. Also true a greater percentage of battleships will “win” their individual battles but that wont save all those cargo ships being sunk.

The model just says “hey don’t worry about winning the battle just don’t let a loaded ship have to defend NO MATTER WHAT” And the best way to guarantee that a loaded cargo ship will get from point A to B without ever having to defend is keeping as many ships as possible the model will pick ahead of the cargo ship to absorb attacks.. Whether that ship wins or loses is irrelevant as long as it takes the attack instead of the cargo ship. And under THAT model pumping out tons of weak cheap ships works “better” than pumping out fewer but stronger more expensive ships.

And that model just bugs me. I would rather have a model that encourages using scouts using destroyers and battleships and subs to make sure the enemy doesn’t even get near the cargo stack. To me that seems a more “properly” (to use your own word) way to go about it. Using “strictly military” ships for combat missions.

Like you say about expectations regarding ‘expecting” to see a military ship like a stealth destroyer defend. I “expect” military ships with the best odds to win chosen over non military ships with lesser odds to win.

Basically I expect the ship with the best odds to win to be chosen. And when it’s not or even worse you can actively manipulate the game so that the ship with the best odds to win isn’t chosen just bugs me.

I know more people it seems arent bugged by it and more importantly at least you arent and since it’s your patch you’re doing all the work and being very nice to keep working on it and share it with us you’re opinion is really the only one that counts.. So I can accept that and have no problem with that.

You’re just gonna have to accept and live with that on this point at least you’re bugging me so :P hehe.

Kaytie

[Grump]

anybody else have a crash with the latest version? The one where you replace a dll?

[Sanchez]

Originally Posted by KaytieKat

"... And under THAT model pumping out tons of weak cheap ships works “better” than pumping out fewer but stronger more expensive ships. "

Prove to me that this is the case in general - that using empty ships is more is more cost effective in hammers than capital ships, in general scenarios, such as the enemy ships getting more than one attack - either due attacking on multiple turns or due to blitz. I don't think that's true.

Even under the assumption that the enemy ships do not have blitz, and detection is never achieved more than one turn from landing, how do you account for the replacement cost of your escorts every landing.

True it wont help much if with blitz and just sheer numbers the enemy has 10 times as many attacks as you do transports. But if instead you built battleships by that point the enemy will have 20 times as many attacks as you do defenders.

Well that is sort of what I'm getting at. What is with the 10 times number though? Isn't it actually one times, plus one, the number of attacks? They are only going to need one attack per empty transport.

So assume you can build 5 battleships or 9 empty transports as escort - I disagree that any fleet that can destroy your 9 transports could easily chew through 5 battleships. You are welcome to prove me wrong, in general.

Of course examples where transports are better exist - if the ships you are facing are better promoted battleships likely to win every battle, then sure, it's better to lose weaker units: you've lost the battles anyways - you'll only scrape by if you had enough units to weather the attacks before landing - fodder is not a foreign concept in Civ, after all.

And that model just bugs me. I would rather have a model that encourages using scouts using destroyers and battleships and subs to make sure the enemy doesn’t even get near the cargo stack. To me that seems a more “properly” (to use your own word) way to go about it. Using “strictly military” ships for combat missions.

...

Basically I expect the ship with the best odds to win to be chosen. And when it’s not or even worse you can actively manipulate the game so that the ship with the best odds to win isn’t chosen just bugs me.

We'll you'd be still be bugged under your proposed model, because it's pretty much just as easy to "actively manipulate" the system to get your empty transports to defend first - just give them combat I promotions, and give them to your non-empty transports. Is that also "active manipulation", or just good strategy (if you believe fodder is better, in any case)?

All that said, it is a bit unusual that this mechanic of protecting "higher value" units applies only to the case of transports - the argument of it not applying to other high value units (outside of their combat strength) such as Great General or medic promoted units is probably a valid one.

You could suggest that the order of the checks be reversed - rather than choosing all empty units before non-empty ones, use it only as a tie-breaker between units of equal strength (you'd have to be careful about the promotions). That at least solves what was probably the driver of this behavior - the "why did my full transport/MC defend as opposed to my empty one?" complaint. Other than that case, escorting ships typically have higher strength than what they are escorting, anyways, so the choice of ship is the same under either set of rules.

[Wodan]

KaytieKat I think what you're missing is that the actual "model" isn't that simplistic. Sure, it prioritizes loaded ships last, but for all other ships it takes the strongest defender. Thus, it's a two-level model.

As far as whether a single, strong unit is better than multiple, cheap units, that's a case-by-case situation. I don't think we could unilaterally say one is always better than the other.

I do think we can say that usually the single/strong unit will be better. Why? Because it will often win, killing some attackers. So, those lost hammers should be taken into account.

Say he's attacking with destroyers. The battleship will kill 2-3 destroyers before dying. Meanwhile, if you were defending with transports, those 2-3 destroyers would kill 2-3 transports for absolutely no gain for you.

On the other hand, especially with combat bonuses, multiple/cheap units is often better than single/expensive. An easy example is pikemen vs knights. However, unit-type-based combat bonuses encourages you to use mixed stacks to prevent exactly this situation.

Wodan

[KaytieKat]

Hi

hmmm this is fun hehe. I love this game and love talking about it and love debating about it . But as I was typing I stopped.. erased it and decided I better write this instead first...

Pausing to think it seems like, for purposes of this thread anyways in regarding to suggestions to be made for Bhuric's patch, that maybe this sub topic is done.

Sugestion's been made. Argued and counter argued. Final decision been made clear. Re argued (by me I admit on looking back I should have stopped at this point but I do love talking about the game get carried away and I am sorry for that)

So I am thinking before I bug Bhuric and everyone else any further and start getting a troll rep I would like to ask. If Bhuric wodan and everyone else also thinks this subject is done here.

If it is I would still be happy to continue in a new thread. I am just asking because sometimes people dont like it if a topic in one thread gets taken into another. And I didnt want to just NOT say anything because I didnt want people to think I was ignoring them or something like that which also feels rude :/.

So if I am wrong and people still think this specific topic is still valid in this thread YAY I'll keep going. If no but "sure Kaytie make new thread and we will continue there" YAY I'll make a new thread. If it's "AWW geez just please shut up Kaytie Im sick of this topic" That's no problem I would rather just stop discussion before people start making that beating the dead horse smiley. That poor horsey gets beat enuff hehe.

Kaytie

[Bhruic]

Originally Posted by KaytieKat

So if I am wrong and people still think this specific topic is still valid in this thread YAY I'll keep going.

Opening a new thread would be a good idea. All I ask is you spell my name correctly.

Bh

[Titer Bloodred]

Hey Bhruic (and Solver, et al who work so hard on these unofficial patches), I first want to thank you for releasing this marvelous fix on such short notice that the latest official patch caused.

However, I have a problem with the installation. I've downloaded the latest version (v. 1.11) and tried to install it as your readme showed, but it fixed nothing, at least nothing visible. I still don't get the missing pop-ups like how many EPs a building gives, and my trades are still very messy and "unfair" as they were in the past, before the installation.

I installed my game on an external hard drive and went to the Beyond the Sword's assets folder to replace the .DLL file, making a backup of the original and placing yours on top. However, the game doesn't seem to recognize this. Am I just missing the changes here, or did I install the patch incorrectly?

[KaytieKat]

Originally Posted by Bhruic

Opening a new thread would be a good idea. All I ask is you spell my name correctly.

Bh

Hi

Well I cant EVEN pronounce it so dont expect me to spell it hehe :P. I'll just call you BH since thats how you your posts

Kaytie

[sabremookie]

Bhruic. Are you able to fix the military academis bug, where it will allow you to build military academies with great generals even though you don't have military science? Thanks.

[Quagga]

Originally Posted by sabremookie

Bhruic. Are you able to fix the military academis bug, where it will allow you to build military academies with great generals even though you don't have military science? Thanks.

That's fixed in the offical 3.13 patch.

[sabremookie]

Originally Posted by Quagga

That's fixed in the offical 3.13 patch.

I have the official 3.13 patch, but it still let's me build the military academy even without military science. I am not sure why?

I use the official 3.13 patch combined with bhuric's unofficial 3.13 patch.

Could that be causing the problem?

Am I not supposed to use the official 3.13 patch with the unofficial one? Sorry, I am very dumb

Thanks.