Getting rid of Great Person and Great General bars

[jjkrause84]

Hi there!

Playing this mod for the first time....enjoying it thus far.

Is there any way, however, for me to get rid of the Great Person and Great General bars or at least relocate them? They really clutter up the screen, for me.

Thanks for your help and thanks for a great mod!

[LunarMongoose]

Wewt, people are finally starting new threads all on their own! The subforum is coming to life!!!

Originally Posted by jjkrause84

Is there any way, however, for me to get rid of the Great Person and Great General bars or at least relocate them? They really clutter up the screen, for me.

Sure there is... edit CvMainInterface.py lol.

No, there's no configurable way to change them at the moment. Actkqk just requested smaller ones in his list of comments a few days ago since he runs the game at the minimum res, 1024x768. I have always thought the bars are great the way they are personally, but I run the game at 1920x1200 so they don't get in the way at all for me. (They are the exact same size as the vanilla research progress bar in the top center of the screen and I like that symmetry, and I do fill the bars with useful info, but I never really tested them at lower resolutions.)

I was going to shrink them for low resolutions based on Actkqk's request, but I hadn't decided yet when to shrink them or by how much. Can you tell me what res you're running that you're having trouble with them at?

[jjkrause84]

I'm running them at res unknown.... :wink:

(I'm not tech-savvy).

It's their placement more than anything, for me. If they were immediately under the science bar they'd be far less intrusive.

Otherwise, I'm enjoying the mod quite a lot. I love having to pay for improvements...it's a great touch. War Dogs? Not so much. I really didn't like that they could roam on their own and, inexplicably, ignore enemy borders. Then again, I'm a historian so I'm probably not gonna like a lot of the 'not historically accurate' stuff. Of course, it's such a small thing to quibble about considering how much I enjoy the rest of the mod tus far.

[LunarMongoose]

Originally Posted by jjkrause84

I'm running them at res unknown.... :wink:

(I'm not tech-savvy).

Sigh... you really don't have to be tech-savvy to know this; it's very basic. If you're running the game in full-screen mode (meaning it's not in a window that you can see your desktop and other apps underneath), then the resolution it's running in is probably just the resolution of your monitor. (And if it's not, you should increase it til it is; you'll enjoy the game a lot more that way. )

You can also tell directly by opening the in-game Options dialog (part of the plain vanilla Civ4 game, nothing to do with my mod), switching to the Graphics tab, and it will tell you in the upper left, along with a pulldown menu to change it. I do need to know what res you're working in to judge if the bars need to be shrunk for you or not.

Originally Posted by jjkrause84

It's their placement more than anything, for me. If they were immediately under the science bar they'd be far less intrusive.

That was actually the first thing I tried when adding them a while back. Unfortunately putting them there is completely unacceptable; if I do, they overlap the normally-fairly-invisible area where new alert and info messages are displayed every turn, and that area cannot be moved (it's hardcoded in the exe).

The BUG mod shrinks the research bar significantly to MAKE room for them in the whole top middle area, but I do not like how that looks or feels at all.

Originally Posted by jjkrause84

Otherwise, I'm enjoying the mod quite a lot. I love having to pay for improvements...it's a great touch. War Dogs? Not so much. I really didn't like that they could roam on their own and, inexplicably, ignore enemy borders. Then again, I'm a historian so I'm probably not gonna like a lot of the 'not historically accurate' stuff. Of course, it's such a small thing to quibble about considering how much I enjoy the rest of the mod tus far.

War Dogs were an idea I borrowed from other mods that had them as a whole sequence of canine units, which eventually upgraded into Renaissance Imperial Palace Guard Dogs. I personally felt one early unit was the best way to fit them in, and I needed something that could fill the role that later mounted units do but that fit into a prehistoric setting. War Dogs are not perfectly accurate historically, but they fit better than anything else.

And as I say in my intro in the Download thread, historical accuracy is an important goal with me, yes, but unlike with some other mods, here it is secondary to gameplay. I do my best to balance the two, but when they're in conflict I always defer to what makes a better game, not a better historical simulation. (Then there's the fantasy and scifi flavor stuff, which is just something I add for fun, because it fits really well, and because I personally love that sort of thing. I'm trying not to overdo it hehe.)

That they roam on their own is more a result of how the unit model was that I had available to me from whoever made it originally: it was/is just a reskinned Wolf unit. I know how to add a handler human of some sort now, but in lieu of that I just sort of went with the idea that these were highly trained, highly intelligent dogs that could be sent out on missions on their own. And if they COULD do that, I figured they could also ignore borders, since they're dogs and the other civilizations would have no way of knowing by looking at them who they belonged to.

I do sort-of apologize for the unrealistic nature of the unit, but I'm not sure how I could do the same thing any other way, and I like the gameplay that results from having War Dogs the way they are. (Besides, this is already a "more extreme, less boring version of reality" world where giant sandworms and sea monsters can exist, and giant dragons can be genetically engineered; are super-intelligent dogs really that much of a stretch? )

[jjkrause84]

I have no problems with the dogs, really...it's just that it means you get the map and little 'spies' REALLY early on (it's abusable, essentially).

Maybe cap how far they can go into enemy territory? THAT might be cool. Maybe give'em one square, for instance, to simulate the loose 'borders' of early human settlements?

[jjkrause84]

Oh, and the res is 1024x768....I'm running it in a window.

[jjkrause84]

Another thing (really sorry to be piling all this on but I'm trying to note things as I'm playing so I don't forget):

You may want to revisit how the date advances. According to the game it's 1530AD and no one has really entered the Middle Ages yet (tech-wise). I'm on turn 186 and it feels like it should be more like 800-900AD....I don't know if there's anything you can do about that.

EDIT: To say something nice for a change...I think the paved roads look REALY cool. :grin:

[LunarMongoose]

Originally Posted by jjkrause84

I have no problems with the dogs, really...it's just that it means you get the map and little 'spies' REALLY early on (it's abusable, essentially).

Hmm. I never really considered using them that way... I also usually play with Raging Barbarians on, so having them out scouting long-distance after the very beginning of the game isn't practical anyway - the barbs would kill them lol. I just added the ignore borders ability due to, as I said, it seemed to make sense, but you bring up an excellent point. They kinda do steal the exploration job of the Spy and Great Spy units, and with the new Ranger unit, who costs money and is restricted, also having this ability, that's probably plenty.

Originally Posted by jjkrause84

Maybe cap how far they can go into enemy territory? THAT might be cool. Maybe give'em one square, for instance, to simulate the loose 'borders' of early human settlements?

A neat idea, but unfortunately one that would take some programming work to accomplish (and I need to get 3.6.1 out as soon as possible right now). I may look at doing this in the future, but for now I think I'll just disable their ignore borders ability.

Originally Posted by jjkrause84

Oh, and the res is 1024x768....I'm running it in a window.

Okay, yeah. Try looking at the Civics and StatsMod screenshots in the second set of pictures in the Download thread btw; they really fit just fine at 1920x1200, and look great being the exact same size as the research progress bar. But yes I was already planning to shrink them, or something, for low resolutions like 1024.

Originally Posted by jjkrause84

Another thing (really sorry to be piling all this on but I'm trying to note things as I'm playing so I don't forget):

I have pretty much not gotten any detailed feedback on the mod at all since last summer (when I first posted this thing publically again after a 4-year hiatus). Please pile on as much as you can; it's great.

Originally Posted by jjkrause84

You may want to revisit how the date advances. According to the game it's 1530AD and no one has really entered the Middle Ages yet (tech-wise). I'm on turn 186 and it feels like it should be more like 800-900AD....I don't know if there's anything you can do about that.

Argh... I just redid the date progression again in 3.6 to accomodate the latest, and hopefully final, new starting year, 100,000 BC. (In v3.5 I was using 48,000 BC, and in v3.2 when I added a Prehistoric Era through v3.4 I was using 10,000 BC.)

It is VERY hard, in an annoying 8th-grade-algebra sort of way, to select a progression rate and sequence that starts on the designated start year, ends on the designated end year (2300 AD for all gamespeeds), AND uses round/even year and month increments in every bracket. I think I probably got the sequence about right on the Eternal gamespeed, but I haven't playtested the others so I was just making intelligent guesses, really.

That being said, even though it may seem like a lot, 1500 AD vs 900 AD is actually not hugely far off given how hard the sequences are to fine-tune. If I tried to make it any more accurate, for example, you would probably not have year increments that were consistently divisible by 2, 5 and 10, so you would have years like 939 and 1441 coming up instead of 950 and 1400. So it's a tradeoff.

It's also different for every gamespeed as I said, so if you want me to look at it you'll need to tell me which speed you are playing on.

Originally Posted by jjkrause84

EDIT: To say something nice for a change...I think the paved roads look REALY cool. :grin:

Those are from one of the vanilla game's scenarios, not sure exactly which, and are thus in the category of things that exist in the vanilla resources somewhere, but aren't used in the vanilla main game. Some other things like that are the Olives resource and the Early Tank unit.

The other custom route type, the Maglev, is from Final Frontier, but was modified a little, maybe had the color changed I'm not sure, for use in one of the other big mods. Still mostly a Firaxis asset though.

[jjkrause84]

I'm playing on 'Normal' speed.

Of course, you could just go in and assign EVERY tun it's own date manually...shouldn't take too long, right?

[jjkrause84]

Playing now and...in addition to the dogs the marauders have the exact same problem (i.e. taking the job of spies, etc.).

[jjkrause84]

Also, units get -5% health when built in cities that have been sited on deserts....this does not seem to be what was intended with the admittedly very cool "tile-does-damge" system.

[LunarMongoose]

Originally Posted by jjkrause84

Playing now and...in addition to the dogs the marauders have the exact same problem (i.e. taking the job of spies, etc.).

True, but the ability fits REALLY well with Marauders conceptually and I'd hate to have to remove it heh. They come a fair bit later than Spies and Open Borders in the tech tree; isn't that good enough? (I'm asking, heh.) Though I suppose the high movement speed would make them ideal for filling in your map... Blarg.

Alright fine, you're right. I may even have to remove it from the Ranger. This will definitely motivate me to add the "limited incursion" type thing you mentioned though, so these units would still have some form of special ability. Makes sense too that they could cross into hostile "frontier areas" but not the hearts of other empires. Gonna be a pain to implement though. (And I'm not sure if the AIs would use it properly, so I'll have to look into that too. Blarg. I don't think one tile would be very useful though; I was thinking more like 5 tiles.)

Originally Posted by jjkrause84

Also, units get -5% health when built in cities that have been sited on deserts....this does not seem to be what was intended with the admittedly very cool "tile-does-damge" system.

No, it was/is intended. It's still desert, and you still get the heal rate of being in a city... no reason it shouldn't be slightly lower for a city on desert (+20%) than a city on grassland (+25%) given the base terrain is more hostile.

[jjkrause84]

The limited incursion thing would be the best possible solution....who knows if it will work though.

The problem with the health thing, from my perspective, is that units are BUILT with -5%, which seems strange. Heck, LA was built in a desert and peopel here aren't any less...wait....well.....that's pollution problems. :wink:

[LunarMongoose]

Originally Posted by jjkrause84

The limited incursion thing would be the best possible solution....who knows if it will work though.

The intent is obviously to clamp down on the ability of these units to perform exploration so they don't infringe on the job of Spies very much. The problem is, then what's the point of doing limited incursion at all? Okay so MAYBE you can steal a goody hut or two from the other player, and kill a few of the barbarians attacking them so you get more experience and they get less. You still can't use it to get a Settler past a territory blockade. It still serves no real military purpose, unless you want to send reinforcements to an ally who's behind a narrow stretch of closed territory (which is possible, but not very likely). Your units will still be kicked out first if a war starts with them. It would be a lot of work to implement a system with minimal value, that I can see.

Originally Posted by jjkrause84

The problem with the health thing, from my perspective, is that units are BUILT with -5%, which seems strange. Heck, LA was built in a desert and peopel here aren't any less...wait....well.....that's pollution problems. :wink:

That's just how it works out, as a consequence of the fact that tile damage is always applied every turn, but healing is only applied when a unit hasn't taken action the previous turn (unless they have March). In the vanilla code which I'm still largely using here, a newly-constructed unit isn't treated as being eligible for healing on the same turn it's created... probably b/c that would never matter in vanilla, heh.

I can definitely change it so new units always start at full health, but I'm not sure I should; full protection from the elements for daily human life, as well as for military training, is more a result of modern buildings and services, and is still definitely not the case everywhere in the world today.

[jjkrause84]

Originally Posted by LunarMongoose

The intent is obviously to clamp down on the ability of these units to perform exploration so they don't infringe on the job of Spies very much. The problem is, then what's the point of doing limited incursion at all?

Make'em like privateers. They can launch raids and attacks without starting a war.

Oooooooh....

Now that I think about it that'd be AWESOME! Plus, you don't have to worry about limited incursion at all....give'em free reign.

[LunarMongoose]

Originally Posted by jjkrause84

Make'em like privateers. They can launch raids and attacks without starting a war.

Oooooooh....

Now that I think about it that'd be AWESOME! Plus, you don't have to worry about limited incursion at all....give'em free reign.

That was exactly my original intent, and what I had done in v3.2 a while back. Unfortunately as I quickly found out, and as has been asked and answered several times elsewhere on this site already, no "land privateer" AI script exists in the vanilla code, and no one has yet written one.

I do refuse to give human players anything in MM that the AIs have no idea how to use, b/c that gives savvy humans unfair advantages. (Other examples of things in this category would be the popular RevolutionDCM mod, and TheLopez's mod for hiring mercenary units throughout the course of a game; mods like these do not generally support multiplayer very well either.) Things that the AIs aren't specifically trained to use but that they can "stumble into using semi-effectively with their existing code" are fine with me, and I've had to do that in a few places, but unfortunately land privateers are not currently an option.

I might be able to write the necessary code myself at this point, but AI programming is the hardest stuff there is in the DLL by far, so I don't want to make any promises yet heh.