ExtraModMod continued

[lfgr]

Is it intentional ForceGameOptions is still 1 by default?

Yes, that's the only way to ensure people don't end up with the hidden scenario options enabled, for now.

E2: Installer seems compatible with Steam now, no issues running the (un)installer or playing a game.

Very nice, thanks for testing.

The blessing of Baal and also bugs protect us from the Ash Cough! This is with the latest version

Wild guess that the game gets confused when an event that's supposed to kill pop hits a city with no pop to kill? Same thing that sometimes happens with experience events and golems. I vaguely recall the goblin event turning a golem into an orc too, although that might've been another weird racial like undead or demon. It can definitely override living racials like elven or lizardman on latest version. Almost any unit on the same tile as the actual combatant seems to be a valid target, although I don't seem to recall it ever targeting a worker. Now I'm tempted to see if I can turn Auric Ascended into an orc...

Yeah, the problem is the 1 pop city. These "buggy event" messages are shown when an event triggers, but no event options are available. In this case, the "remove 1 pop" option is unavailable because the city has only 1 pop, and the other options are unavailable for different reasons.
Vanilla FfH (and MNAI, for that matter) simply let the event fizzle in this case. This makes it harder to find bugs and takes away the event slot, so I opted to show this message instead.

Elohim's maphacks.

You are referring to unique feature visibility, right?

 

[kvaak]

Yes, that's the only way to ensure people don't end up with the hidden scenario options enabled, for now

Alright, I mostly use the same settings each time so I guess I can just modify the XML directly. In case anyone else wants to save their preferred settings, look no further than BTS/Mods/ExtraModMod/Assets/XML/Gameinfo/Civ4GameOptionInfos.xml

You are referring to unique feature visibility, right?

Yeah, it's a feature unique to Elohim AFAIK.

And it turns out yes, you can indeed turn Auric into an orc.

 

[DuskTreader]

Yes, that's the only way to ensure people don't end up with the hidden scenario options enabled, for now.


Very nice, thanks for testing.



Yeah, the problem is the 1 pop city. These "buggy event" messages are shown when an event triggers, but no event options are available. In this case, the "remove 1 pop" option is unavailable because the city has only 1 pop, and the other options are unavailable for different reasons.
Vanilla FfH (and MNAI, for that matter) simply let the event fizzle in this case. This makes it harder to find bugs and takes away the event slot, so I opted to show this message instead.


You are referring to unique feature visibility, right?

Why isn't the "2 to Armageddon Counter" option available?

 

[lfgr]

That one requires a Mage guild (I should change that requirement to XML so it's displayed).

 

[DuskTreader]

Ahh cool! Good to know

 

[kvaak]

Okay, I just remembered why I found the Illian ice/workshop thing so weird.

Here's a slave routed to an ice tile not adjacet to a river. No option to build a workshop.
Here's the same slave standing next to a river. The option to build a workshop does show up.

Workshops don't interact with rivers in any way for other civs so no idea what's going on here. It's not a huge deal for me since I don't generally bother with Illian temples, but it's nice for stabilzing the tiles around a fully developed city to prevent random tundra tiles from popping up.

 

[lfgr]

Workshops don't interact with rivers in any way for other civs so no idea what's going on here.

Looks like in theory, rivers (or any fresh water) enables workshops for all civs (same as in BtS). But workshops are enabled on every terrain except ice and burning sands anyway, so the only restriction that usually matters is the 1 food. I guess there is no harm in enabling workshops on snow, since non-Illians will not be able to build them on normal (0-food) ice tiles.

 

[DuskTreader]

So is there something wrong with my BUG settings? Before the update I saw combat odds when hovering over a unit to attack, and now I don't. First screenshot is the (lack of) combat odds. Second screenshot are my BUG odds settings.

 

[kvaak]

A sort of hard to pin down issue I've noticed is the AI sometimes freezing huge chunks of its army in a single fort and refusing to budge no matter what - here it's only a couple, but the one DD that wasn't stuck caused me basically more trouble than the rest of the Khazad army combined. Once the AI gets access to national units it tends to make sure they're always capped even when you keep killing them over and over again.

I'm not sure when the DDs got stuck there, but since I never saw more than one at a time and they didn't move until the Khazad got wiped out I'd assume it was right off the bat. The AI didn't even bother Crushing the units that were pillaging in spell range.

Usually it's a big pile of axemen or such, although that might just be due to most of my games being over at this point.

 

[Tielby]

A sort of hard to pin down issue I've noticed is the AI sometimes freezing huge chunks of its army in a single fort and refusing to budge no matter what - here it's only a couple, but the one DD that wasn't stuck caused me basically more trouble than the rest of the Khazad army combined. Once the AI gets access to national units it tends to make sure they're always capped even when you keep killing them over and over again.

I'm not sure when the DDs got stuck there, but since I never saw more than one at a time and they didn't move until the Khazad got wiped out I'd assume it was right off the bat. The AI didn't even bother Crushing the units that were pillaging in spell range.

Usually it's a big pile of axemen or such, although that might just be due to most of my games being over at this point.

Just to add some data to your issue for troubleshooting purposes, I've never seen that happen in my games. It might be tied to a setting or settings you're using. I'm going to assume you use a variety of strategies in various playthroughs. I don't, because I'm lame. So again, for troubleshooting, it might be true that I never triggered that type of behavior from the AI because my strategy is consistent and the AI never felt it (erroneously) needed to do so. If this behavior doesn't happen every time, can you think of any commonalities in the games when it has happened?

(Just trying to be helpful.)

 

[kvaak]

Off the top of my head the only two settings I can think of that could cause quirky AI behavior are Flexible Difficulty (which I honestly should stop using) and Epic game speed. There's a fairly similar pattern among my games regardless of civ and map, although obviously starting on an island with Charadon or Tasunke tends to lead to something vastly different than starting next to one or more other civs on the same continent. The two instances that I'm 100% certain of only have one specific thing in common that doesn't happen too often, that being the fact I was the aggressor in a surprise attack against a civ that had a significantly superior army (statistically, <=0.6) and a positive attitude. Bad relations are far more common than good ones and an army disparity of that size tends to merit aggression on the AI's behalf with almost no exception, which makes a combination of the factors even rarer.

Anyway, here's a zip with logs and three saves. First one's turn 1 (probably not very useful), second one's the oldest autosave I have and third's a manual one where I'd already seen the stuck DDs (ignore the name it's turn 360-something).

This issue isn't prolific from what I can tell, but obviously it can go under the radar a lot of the time since the game needs to reach a certain point and you need vision of the fort. It's also possible the instances aren't even related, but it's certainly a puzzling decision in part of the AI, in particular with respect to the DDs not even casting Crush.

E: Also, is there any particular reason why barbarians sometimes just run in circles? I know non-recon units seek to pillage improvements, and for particularly aggressive ones like Orthus it certainly makes sense, but when this happens with Lizadmen it's annoying due to its randomness and the lack of an anti-recon promotion.
E2: I also noticed Doviello Beastmen with March. The extra healing is still useful, sure, but it still feels like a mostly wasted promotion.
E3: This was mentioned in MNAI's bugfixes, but I still got an error with the Lizardmen vs. Dwarves event. I chose Lizardmen and neither faction spawned. Save + logs. Autosave is three turns prior, manual right after error.
The error:

Spoiler :

Traceback (most recent call last):

File "CvRandomEventInterface", line 423, in applyExploreLairDwarfVsLizardmen2

File "CustomFunctions", line 1032, in findClearPlot

AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'getX'
ERR: Python function applyExploreLairDwarfVsLizardmen2 failed, module CvRandomEventInterface

 

[lfgr]

@DuskTreader: I can't reproduce that, unfortunately. Maybe try deleting your BUG settings? (Documents\My Games\Beyond the Sword\Fall from Heaven 2 - ExtraModMod)
@kvaak: Thanks, I was going to ask for saves.

Anyway, here's a zip with logs and three saves. First one's turn 1 (probably not very useful), second one's the oldest autosave I have and third's a manual one where I'd already seen the stuck DDs (ignore the name it's turn 360-something).

Looks like this was fallout from my attempts at making the AI guard forts better in v2.9-beta2u. All the units on the fort in your game are "patrol" units, which are only auxiliary fort defenders. Unfortunately, they don't recognize each other as proper fort defenders, and think they are the only one guarding the fort. I fixed this for the next version. In your save, there will still be a single druid stuck on the fort, since the AI neither understands the concept of abandoning forts (which would probably be correct here), nor is it good at sending proper fort defenders. The spell thing will also probably stay an issue for now.

E2: I also noticed Doviello Beastmen with March. The extra healing is still useful, sure, but it still feels like a mostly wasted promotion.

I think that's fine, as long as the AI doesn't overuse it (as seems currently to be the case with city raider). I don't want to hardcode the AI to not ever use underpowered promotions.

E3: This was mentioned in MNAI's bugfixes, but I still got an error with the Lizardmen vs. Dwarves event.

Thanks, I forgot to port this to EMM.

 

[DuskTreader]

Unfortunately, they don't recognize each other as proper fort defenders, and think they are the only one guarding the fort. I fixed this for the next version.

Everyone: "I feel like I'm the only one doing any real work around here"

 

[Tielby]

Could I ask you to double check that Living World (double events) is working in this latest version? I'm getting an unusually low number of events in my current playthrough, my first using this version, compared to previous games.

 

[kvaak]

Not sure if this is a bug but I just noticed stone has mining as a prerequisite while quarries require masonry although I guess vanilla already has a precedent in sheut stone and mana.

 

[lfgr]

Could I ask you to double check that Living World (double events) is working in this latest version? I'm getting an unusually low number of events in my current playthrough, my first using this version, compared to previous games.

I did two AIAutoplay games for 200 turns on a small fractal map with 5 players. Without living world, I got 34 events, with living world, I got 82. So it seems to work fine.

Not sure if this is a bug but I just noticed stone has mining as a prerequisite while quarries require masonry although I guess vanilla already has a precedent in sheut stone and mana.

I believe that is intentional, to differentiate it from marble.

 

[DuskTreader]

@DuskTreader: I can't reproduce that, unfortunately. Maybe try deleting your BUG settings? (Documents\My Games\Beyond the Sword\Fall from Heaven 2 - ExtraModMod)
@kvaak: Thanks, I was going to ask for saves.


Looks like this was fallout from my attempts at making the AI guard forts better in v2.9-beta2u. All the units on the fort in your game are "patrol" units, which are only auxiliary fort defenders. Unfortunately, they don't recognize each other as proper fort defenders, and think they are the only one guarding the fort. I fixed this for the next version. In your save, there will still be a single druid stuck on the fort, since the AI neither understands the concept of abandoning forts (which would probably be correct here), nor is it good at sending proper fort defenders. The spell thing will also probably stay an issue for now.


I think that's fine, as long as the AI doesn't overuse it (as seems currently to be the case with city raider). I don't want to hardcode the AI to not ever use underpowered promotions.


Thanks, I forgot to port this to EMM.

I tried deleting my BUG settings and still didn't get combat odds. Then I tried to delete everything in that settings folder and also still didn't get combat odds. I can post the save if you want. I'm stumped...

 

[Akbarthegreat]

Hi, it's really nice to see Extramodmod still being developed .

I had a couple of questions on game settings.

I've played 5-6 games recently on the latest beta (no bugs/issues whatsoever). My settings are:
Monarch difficulty, Epic speed
Large Erebus Continent map script
Low sea level, all others default
2 extra civs (for a total of 11, including myself). Out of these, 2 good 2 neutral 2 evil, all others random.

First, in all the games I played, I noticed that the much-awaited AV vs good fight never really came about at all. Mostly nobody bothers founding the Ashen Veil, if they do they don't convert to it, and if they do convert to it they just get pummeled by another AI (damn SoK stacks!) before they can summon the Infernals. Basium never gets summoned either, so it feels like I'm missing out on a really fun aspect of the game (units dying and being reborn, the world turning to hell, Basium killing demons, etc.) Does anyone have any tips on what game settings could bring about this late-game good vs evil, Infernals vs Mercurians fight? Any specific civ combos/map scripts/even maps? One thing I've tried is to keep Tebryn in the game, but even then he very often gets killed before he has the chance to get AV rolling.

Second, out of the games I played, one game particularly stood out because I faced a strong runaway AI. Falamar took an early tech lead, wiped out 2 or 3 civs (incl. AV Tebryn), and went on to win a Domination (Quick) victory (!) before I could stop him. I don't remember the last time I saw the AI win domination in any Civ4 game, so that was pretty impressive! But it turned out this game was an anomaly. In all other games, I didn't really face any challenges from a runaway AI. After pre turn-200 wars, the AIs just seemed to settle into the game and not really do anything much. I want to raise the difficulty, but I'm sceptical of playing on emperor because fighting massive early-game warrior stacks makes it really not fun for me. Any suggestions on how I could increase the chance of getting runaway AIs, without actually raising the difficulty? Sorry this may sound like I'm trying to have my cake and eat it too, but I've abandoned too many games now because there was no challenging opponent by the mid-late game, and I really want to use the cool archmage/high priest spells

 

[lfgr]

I tried deleting my BUG settings and still didn't get combat odds. Then I tried to delete everything in that settings folder and also still didn't get combat odds. I can post the save if you want. I'm stumped...

Maybe try reinstalling everything? Your installation might be corrupted. If that doesn't help, please post a save.

@Akbarthegreat: I would try the "Last Days" and "Increasing difficulty" gameoptions. Starting in the classical era is also an option to get to the lategame stuff more reliably.

 

[kvaak]

Spoiler :

Hi, it's really nice to see Extramodmod still being developed .

I had a couple of questions on game settings.

I've played 5-6 games recently on the latest beta (no bugs/issues whatsoever). My settings are:
Monarch difficulty, Epic speed
Large Erebus Continent map script
Low sea level, all others default
2 extra civs (for a total of 11, including myself). Out of these, 2 good 2 neutral 2 evil, all others random.

First, in all the games I played, I noticed that the much-awaited AV vs good fight never really came about at all. Mostly nobody bothers founding the Ashen Veil, if they do they don't convert to it, and if they do convert to it they just get pummeled by another AI (damn SoK stacks!) before they can summon the Infernals. Basium never gets summoned either, so it feels like I'm missing out on a really fun aspect of the game (units dying and being reborn, the world turning to hell, Basium killing demons, etc.) Does anyone have any tips on what game settings could bring about this late-game good vs evil, Infernals vs Mercurians fight? Any specific civ combos/map scripts/even maps? One thing I've tried is to keep Tebryn in the game, but even then he very often gets killed before he has the chance to get AV rolling.

Second, out of the games I played, one game particularly stood out because I faced a strong runaway AI. Falamar took an early tech lead, wiped out 2 or 3 civs (incl. AV Tebryn), and went on to win a Domination (Quick) victory (!) before I could stop him. I don't remember the last time I saw the AI win domination in any Civ4 game, so that was pretty impressive! But it turned out this game was an anomaly. In all other games, I didn't really face any challenges from a runaway AI. After pre turn-200 wars, the AIs just seemed to settle into the game and not really do anything much. I want to raise the difficulty, but I'm sceptical of playing on emperor because fighting massive early-game warrior stacks makes it really not fun for me. Any suggestions on how I could increase the chance of getting runaway AIs, without actually raising the difficulty? Sorry this may sound like I'm trying to have my cake and eat it too, but I've abandoned too many games now because there was no challenging opponent by the mid-late game, and I really want to use the cool archmage/high priest spells

I play on a fairly similar set of options and I can certainly see where you're coming from. lfgr made some good suggestions, you can additionally try normal speed, no building or level requirements or a huge map, although none of those change the fact the AI simply performs better with evil/neutral civs than good ones on average. Barbarian leaders in particular tend to outperform everything else and they're all evil or neutral. You could also try slower XP in place of normal speed since the AI is fairly helpless facing any decent-strength unit with a pile of first strikes barring tech advantage or spellcasters. Slower game speed delays both of those with no effect on unit movement or XP gain. I've had Hyborem eat triple-digit stacks without a scratch while having less than a tenth of this monstrosity's XP.