Meaningful Colours

Like always... So do you want to split mods? Or we just leave tgem as they are?
 
CS part still works.
 
I just thought I'd pop in (I'm the RCI creator) and mention that I'm interested to see if a solution can be found, because I don't have the technical knowledge to figure any of it out myself. I must admit I'm more comfortable with the visual stuff than coding and figuring out mod interactions.

If a method is discovered to avoid the annoying bug, and there's anything I can do to make it easier to implement, I'd love to contribute. Ideally, I'd upload a DLC modpack or some standalone thing that works better than the current implementation.

I will say that, from what I remember--I haven't played in a while but I'm getting back into it--when I used RCI, I literally copied files into the assets folder and overwrote what was in there. Obviously that's not a great solution, but it avoided the issue with civ colors returning to defaults. I'm not even sure if the most recent changes I made were ever uploaded in that form, so if that's something I need to do, I can.

I also want to thank you guys for enjoying my mod. I never expected it would be popular enough that people would want to integrate it into other things, and I regret that I'm not experienced enough to be much help.
 
dylansan said:
I just thought I'd pop in (I'm the RCI creator) and mention that I'm interested to see if a solution can be found, because I don't have the technical knowledge to figure any of it out myself. I must admit I'm more comfortable with the visual stuff than coding and figuring out mod interactions.

If a method is discovered to avoid the annoying bug, and there's anything I can do to make it easier to implement, I'd love to contribute. Ideally, I'd upload a DLC modpack or some standalone thing that works better than the current implementation.

I will say that, from what I remember--I haven't played in a while but I'm getting back into it--when I used RCI, I literally copied files into the assets folder and overwrote what was in there. Obviously that's not a great solution, but it avoided the issue with civ colors returning to defaults. I'm not even sure if the most recent changes I made were ever uploaded in that form, so if that's something I need to do, I can.

I also want to thank you guys for enjoying my mod. I never expected it would be popular enough that people would want to integrate it into other things, and I regret that I'm not experienced enough to be much help.
Click to expand...
Welcome back to Civ V! :wavey: Could you make a short text tutorial on your overwriting method?
 
I was absent for a long time so my opinion didnt change much. If you decide to split mods then I will take my part (cs colours) and continue working on it.
 
If Gazebo makes the changes to luxuries in the next patch, The current DLC version of RCI should work as DLC at that point without breaking worker actions.

I have been looking into solutions for the "last played civ uses default icons" bug, with no success. So for the foreseeable future, RCI probably won't work correctly as a Mod unless you're willing to clear your cache every time you play. Though it can still be included in DLC modpacks without that bug. I suspect that even without the Luxury change, RCI would work now if it were packed in a DLC with all intended mods, rather than a separate DLC while using VP through the Mod Manager.

However, I will look into creating a DLC without MPMPM, as it sounds like that will probably be more compatible in general with other mods. It would certainly be more convenient than dealing with these bugs or packing it with other mods with MPMPM every time you want to try a different mod combo.

I still haven't given up on fixing the issue when it's a mod, but I'm unlikely to solve it myself. I've gathered some discussions about the bug, though they're not exactly full of solutions. I've noticed a trend of pointing out how much work has gone into solving it, and I believe it, though it's amusing how little information has resulted from such a notorious problem. My guess at the least cumbersome solution would be fixing or replacing the (lua?) files that handle icons incorrectly, so that any mod updating them will work correctly without needing it's own fix. The trouble comes if other mods rely on or change those same files, but I'm not sure how precisely we could target just the broken parts while leaving as much intact as possible. If anything, some mods might need compatibility files to work properly.

Here's some other (sparse) info:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/weird-bug-some-dds-files-simply-stopped-loading-have-no-idea-why.561104/#post-14114544
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/civilization-icon-change-not-working-properly.531192/#post-13365700
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/issues-with-updating-vanilla-civs-and-their-artwork.528733/
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/hall-of-fame-always-shows-correct-civ-icons-somehow.421502/

@ryanmusante
If you're aware of any resources for creating a DLC without MPMPM, or info on how to make it work, it would be a big help. In the meantime I'll look into how other mods do it. I'm not familiar with TTE, but I use EUI, so hopefully I can glean something from one of those. If you know of any smaller UI DLC mods that aren't MPMPM, that would be valuable, too.
 
I think I have a working DLC for RCI that's much simpler than a MPMPM pack and therefore more compatible with other mods. I'll upload it tonight.

I'm hoping an added benefit is that it wont have to be packed with other mods, but can stand alone. One less thing to consider when making a modpack.
 
dylansan said:
If Gazebo makes the changes to luxuries in the next patch, The current DLC version of RCI should work as DLC at that point without breaking worker actions.

@ryanmusante
If you're aware of any resources for creating a DLC without MPMPM, or info on how to make it work, it would be a big help.
Click to expand...

This is an external tool that appears to assemble mods together minus the support of SQL. I was wondering if this could be tweaked to create a build that would work without going the MPMPM route.

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/mp-mod-manager.518874/

http://civ5.jaiiderherr.de/
 
ryanmusante said:
This is an external tool that appears to assemble mods together minus the support of SQL. I was wondering if this could be tweaked to create a build that would work without going the MPMPM route.

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/mp-mod-manager.518874/

http://civ5.jaiiderherr.de/
Click to expand...
I looked into that, but it didn't seem to be an option, as RCI modifies the game database.

One advantage RCI has over Meaningful Colors is that it's pretty standalone. It doesn't need to know about what other mods change, and it doesn't change anything other mods need to know about. MPMPM is required when one mod relies on having another mod's data in the database to update properly--a mod that changes ALL wonders, for example, would need mods that add or remove wonders to be in the database when it runs.

Unless a mod needs to do something to ALL icon atlases or colors or something, it won't matter if RCI is loaded because it only updates the civ table, it doesn't add rows or anything. Now, if I added more content for mod civs that depended on whether they wre active, a seperate DLC wouldn't work, and it'd have to be packed together every time. Maybe. I wonder if it could just include everything regardless of which mods were active. Or have separate folders which could be deleted if necessary.

I haven't looked inside meaningful colors so I'm not sure what's possible, but including other mods definitely gets more complicated.
 
I made a DLC version of RCI as I described here:

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/redesigned-colors-and-icons-rci.549830/page-3#post-14828110

However, this (and the install-into-Assets version that I based it on) had a very serious bug:

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/redesigned-colors-and-icons-rci.549830/page-3#post-14860419

In the course of validating all of the XML files, I made a second version with a single folder containing the xml files for all the civs and the colors, and a single copy of the icons artwork. I have been using this with BNW and with VP without any issues, but some work would be needed to make it compatible with vanilla and G&K.

Currently, it doesn't work very well when I build a modpack with MPMPM with it active. However, I believe that the mod version of RCI works perfectly when included in a full modpack in any case.

Would it be helpful to upload my version somewhere (and if so where) for information?
 
psparky said:
I made a DLC version of RCI as I described here:

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/redesigned-colors-and-icons-rci.549830/page-3#post-14828110

However, this (and the install-into-Assets version that I based it on) had a very serious bug:

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/redesigned-colors-and-icons-rci.549830/page-3#post-14860419

In the course of validating all of the XML files, I made a second version with a single folder containing the xml files for all the civs and the colors, and a single copy of the icons artwork. I have been using this with BNW and with VP without any issues, but some work would be needed to make it compatible with vanilla and G&K.

Currently, it doesn't work very well when I build a modpack with MPMPM with it active. However, I believe that the mod version of RCI works perfectly when included in a full modpack in any case.

Would it be helpful to upload my version somewhere (and if so where) for information?
Click to expand...
I'm uploading the newest version tonight, and I'm going to be putting it up on Github at some point. I would wait and see if my version works for you, and if yours is an improvement, I would definitely want to take a look.

Unlike the Beta (and your implementation, I think), the version I've got working doesn't replace entire assets files, but updates specific columns in the table for each civ's icons. It's actually just the mod version, loaded as a DLC, but without copying the entire database via the MPMPM. Therefore it shouldn't have any issues stemming from the Mongol assets.

This version seems to fix/avoid the following problems:
  • Last played civ has default icons instead of RCI's (when installed as a mod)
  • Improvements can't be built on More Luxuries tiles (when installed as MPMPM DLC - this seemed to be true of all MPMPM packs, not just RCI)
  • Game crashes at Renaissance due to Mongol errors (when installed by overwriting assets)
  • Uninstalling assets is a pain and requires keeping a backup
I am unsure about it's interactions within or alongside other modpacks, but I am optimistic that any issues could be solved by using a different method. All of these are options:
  • Create a MPMP while RCI is active as DLC
  • Create a MPMP while RCI isn't active, then put both in DLC folder (I'm hoping this works as it would be very modular)
  • Create a MPMP with RCI as one of the mods (less convenient, but unlikely to cause problems)
If the first two don't work consistently, I imagine it would always be possible to fall back on the latter, as you've found. It's also possible that changing the load order by tweaking priority values could resolve some problems.

As far as compatibility when not using all DLC, I haven't really considered it. That's a tougher problem, and I'm not particularly worried about it, as most people who would use this mod have all the relevant DLC. But if there were a simple enough solution, I wouldn't avoid implementing it. Honestly, I assume deleting/commenting out the unowned civs from the XML rows that update them would probably be enough. Certainly it'd be simpler than the assets method.
 
I'll be very interested in seeing how that version works! I tried to use an 'update' technique both for this and another DLC but couldn't get it to work - the only thing I've got to work is where one file hides another with the same name.

Did you find somewhere that explains what 'priority' actually does? I'm fairly sure it determines which one of several files with the same name to use. But, based on my current observations, I don't think it affects the load order - I certainly could be wrong about that though!!!
 
psparky said:
I'll be very interested in seeing how that version works! I tried to use an 'update' technique both for this and another DLC but couldn't get it to work - the only thing I've got to work is where one file hides another with the same name.
Click to expand...
It wasn't a trivial process, by any means. I'm a bit flummoxed that it works at all. Originally I tried using other DLC as a reference and modifying the Civ5pkg to to use my files, but I couldn't get it to do anything. At some point I gave up trying to determine what minor detail might be responsible, so I just threw my mod directly into a copy of Expansion2 and added a few lines to the Civ5pkg to load my xml files. When that worked without any obvious issues (to my surprise), I gradually removed pieces I could do without to see how far I could go before it broke. I assumed at some point I'd delete something that was required, some lua file or a line in the pkg, but what actually happened was I deleted all files but my mod and removed all references except the four xml files in the Civ5pkg. And it still worked perfectly. Maybe I had a formatting error, or the GUID was wrong. But I can't explain what was different between the result and my initial attempt. Either way, it worked, so that kind of troubleshooting seems pretty valuable. It's a lot easier to change something until it breaks, than to change something broken until it works.
Did you find somewhere that explains what 'priority' actually does? I'm fairly sure it determines which one of several files with the same name to use. But, based on my current observations, I don't think it affects the load order - I certainly could be wrong about that though!!!
Click to expand...
I might be remembering the wrong field. It's different from the priority used in .modinfo. It's in the Civ5pkg and I think it determines the order of the DLCs. Expansion 2 is 200, for example, and I think EUI is 250. MPMPM defaults to 300 if I recall. I actually don't know if that means higher numbers load later, but it seems that way. I'm using 225 for now, but I haven't experimented with other choices.
 
Tried it in a new BNW game and in my current VP game (in place of my hacked version) and works OK. I'll probably finish my current game with my previous solution just in case though :mischief:. Haven't tried it with either new or existing modpacks yet.

Looking at the Civ5Pkg file, I notice two differences. Firstly there is no list of folders to be used (would only be one in this case) which I always thought was needed, but apparently not! Secondly, the use of GamePlay and GameData tags to add files (as opposed to replacing existing files), which I think I tried once but never found the correct combination. I'll revisit some of my other work at some point armed with this new info. Well done on making it work :)
 
v8 with RCI cut and new CSs from UCS v4!
 
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