[MOD] MongooseMod

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LunarMongoose said:
@Lachlan: If you're running the game in French there could be problems like that. I'll look into it when I have time but at the moment I can only promise things will work with the language set to English.

No, the language is already in english...

I have Civ 4 US + Warlords UK
 
Fair enough. I stand corrected. Thanks for the info Teg.

Edit: Okay so the 40 tanks moving across a 10-tile stretch of railroad test takes 1 minute 22 seconds on my machine but yeah, still highly unacceptable. Blarg.

On to the (somewhat, slightly, perhaps not at all) more important matter at hand: I finally figured out what the problem with the CTDs on new units was. And if I'm right it's probably affecting new buildings too. Basically in vanilla Civ you were able to specify an icon for something in XML using just the path to the icon.dds file and not filling in the following AtlasPath, AtlasXIndex, AtlasYIndex arguments. You still can, except that now it crashes when the object is at the top of a city's build queue. So it should still be okay to do this with promotions, but I'm going to have to make my own unit and building Atlas files sooner rather than later now it seems. Bleh, I hate Atlas files, why did Firaxis have to do it this way? Individual icon files are much more flexible, can still contain alpha channels, and can be kept in memory just as easily...

One other thing I forgot to mention that was broken, the resource font needs to be edited again, I changed the order of some of the resources in Civ4BonusInfos.xml and accidentally screwed up how certain ones display in a city's resource box since the font index is apparently based on the XML order.

So anyway, a patch for the easily-fixed stuff, the CTDs, and the city resource box graphics will be up in a few hours hopefully; you'll need to give me longer on the StatisticsMod situation.

@Lachlan: I honestly don't know then. There's no reason the 'Pedia should be empty. Right now I have to focus on the critical problems that're known to affect everybody.
 
Oh my god if i try with Warlords cd and not civ 4 cd ?

shame on me !!!
 
Lachlan said:
Oh my god if i try with Warlords cd and not civ 4 cd ?

shame on me !!!
Gonna have to go with a solid ... on that. :)

Patch posted, version updated to 1.1.1. All known bugs fixed and issues resolved except the StatisticsMod situation, which is up next. It isn't really game-breaking though... it'll just slow down operations with large stacks of units and units moving long distances on railroads (for humans only too, doesn't affect AI nor will AI players doing things slow you down). Also included the new SDK DLL with one new minor component added, cleaned up the Barbarian Civilization's build list a little (adding Warlords wonders exclusion and fixing a typo), and removed the Hanging Gardens movie tag from the Jurassic Park wonder (it's now set to None like it should be).

Btw if anyone cares, the CTDs, which were an icon issue with new units and buildings, didn't actually require an Atlas to resolve. It was a simple matter of removing the initial comma in the <Button> XML tag if you're not supplying an Atlas in the optional 2nd-4th arguments.

Also of note in this patch are three new icons I made myself: one obsoletes the Trebuchet Atlas.dds file so you can delete that now if you want, and the other two are for the MI24 Hind (which had been using an MI26 icon til now) and the AEGIS Cruiser.
 
Hey i am really interested in trying this mod, but 2 things. first do i need warlords? and second:

any ideas?


EDIT: i tried installing the mod and then reinstalling it but i keep getting this... both when i use the patch and when i dont
 
This:

King Coltrane said:
and second:
is the answer to this:

King Coltrane said:
first do i need warlords?
That information was buried in this thread but I definitely need to make it clearer in the top post, sorry about that.
 
Patch 1.1.2 posted. Good goddess this modding stuff is hard work sometimes... <wipes brow> Okay. Here goes.

StatisticsMod:

* Conversion back to plot-based storage, based on Teg's advice and my resulting full understanding of almost everything involved now (finally). Things should be running MUCH faster and smoother now, with one exception. Tracked dead units are still all lumped into a single plot object, however there are only 3 access points to the potentially-monolithic data structure: viewing only occurs in the UnitStats pane of a dead unit via link from the HallOfFame pane; addition occurs when a live unit alrdy in the HoF at least once dies which may bog down a little late-game; and removal occurs when a tracked dead unit gets bumped off the bottom of its last HoF category by advancing-in-score living units. Fixing this is not possible under all conditions (Teg's mod doesn't track HoF ie dead Top10's at all for this reason). Larger maps would support the fix (approximately "Standard" size games and up using the larger Terra map generator map size settings), and I may implement a solution that picks the best option available in a given game in the future. It's some work to do however, and I'm going to wait and see how badly it does bog down in the areas listed first. I'm expecting upwards of 3 seconds per relevant occurance on my machine, roughly estimated, given previous tank/railroad data, but we'll see. Again it won't have any effect at all on anything most of the time (which makes it a hell of a lot better than the previous version).

* Extensive use of sdObjectGetAll/SetAll, for example in the GetUnit- and GetPlayerStatisticsString() methods. This further minimizes pickling beyond what Teg's mod currently does thus speeding things up, however not 100% of available optimization has been squeezed out of this yet.

* Got the minimap fully working!!! Okay so this may not seem like a big deal but it's something I'd struggled with unsuccessfully quite a bit in the past. Partial implementation of Teg's multiple-window-instances solution, using only the necessary two. Also now cleverly redraws the screen in-place to preserve the minimap when using the Top10 buttons in the HighScores pane.

* Added UnitType list to a 3rd graveyard plot. Implementation detail that basically means all information the HighScores and HallOfFame panes use is stored seperately in very-quickly-accessable dedicated plot objects. See above; again, only getting the full dead unit data struct is potentially slow in the current implementation and that's only called up when viewing a dead unit's detailed stats in the UnitStatistics pane.

* Made MP-compatible!!! I actually hadn't noticed it wasn't, til I looked at Teg's current version. Sorry about that. Mine also now uses an improved and simpler test condition: "player.isHuman()" rather than "player == getActivePlayer() or getGame().isMultiPlayer()" which is what Teg is currently doing. His will track all players in the MP case, even with the TrackAllPlayers flag set false; mine will just track human players in that case (which is all that's required to keep desyncs at bay b/c they're the only players that could be running the StatisticsMod to begin with, and thus adding data to the gamestate slash savefiles).

* Fixed Player "UnitsLost" calculation which wasn't being properly updated at all before.

* Fixed Player "Distance Travelled" calculation, which was erroneously adding in a unit's full travelled value instead of its delta increase, when a unit broke its own record.

* Improved AirStrike reporting for both bomb-er and bomb-ee. Includes some bugfixes that might've triggered Python errors before.

Everything Else:

* Changed unit naming from "Warrior (1)" to "Warrior #1". I like it better this way.

* Removed BitMoreNaturalMod mineral occurance rates, restoring everything to vanilla Warlords values of 100 across the board. Personal judgement call, gameplay over realism. Some river-enabling on certain resources is now the only part of that mod I'm currently using.

* Toyed with making all resources have a tech prereq ala Sevomod, and ultimately decided I didn't like it. Sorry. In the process I did make a few trivial improvements to required-for-trading techs: Fish Clams Crabs & Whales from None to Fishing, and Uranium from Mining to Fission (I figure you probably need knowledge of radioactivity and safe storage to be exchanging this stuff with other civs).

* Implemented a few remaining Warlords conversion items I missed the first time through. Barracks are now reduced in cost to 50, and Castles and Citadels have +1 trade routes that expire with Economics (both as per vanilla Warlords). The promotions Drill 3, 4, and 5 have also been given some collateral damage protection as per vanilla Warlords, though the amounts are different (because my drill promotions have other stuff on them alrdy, and b/c they need to not total more than 100% when combined with my version of the warlord Morale promotion).

* Removed some empty/extraneous TXT_KEY_STRATEGY entries and wrote in some basic ones for all my new civics (which actually needed them it seems).

* Updated Willowmound's ActualQuotes mod to 3.0, aka his (her?) initial Warlords version.

* Fixed mess with the Jeanne and Joan d'Arc names. Apparently Firaxis put in Jeanne twice, both as a Great Prophet and a Great General. I had missed that and, assuming they were the same real person based on the first name similarity, applied an incorrect fix before. I haven't actually checked to make sure they AREN'T the same real person yet, but since there are portrait dds files for both I went ahead and corrected Firaxis' mistake, leaving Jeanne a Prophet and making Joan the General. They should both be handled correctly now.
 
Representation is teh 1337
according to the U.N.
 
I've posted a screenshot of the mod's brand new title screen, b/c I felt like showing it off. :) Link and info about the mod is at the top of the thread.
 
I am in the middle of updating MongooseMod to version 3.4 so my friends and I can start using it again, which will take several more weeks. I am not yet promising to post it as maintaining a public version is a major pain, but at the moment I'm leaning towards doing so, and future updates will depend on whether there's any real interest.

TITLE SCREEN PICTURE

Now this is how you do a title screen! ... Damn I'm good. :)

Is that a list of all the mods included in it, on the title screen? If so, this is going to be some kind of wonder-mod, for sure! :)

Screenshots of the tech tree, and gameplay wouldn't hurt...

Notice the new starfield which looks much better than vanilla, and the Silver UI Theme I'm using as of this update. I would greatly appreciate it if the Silver UI Theme were to remain a MongooseMod exclusive, and thus I request that other modmakers not adopt/steal it, but I suppose I can't stop you heh.

Unless I'm mistaken, It's real name is "Coal UI" and it is already used in several mods, most notably, History of the Three Kingdoms.
 
Is that a list of all the mods included in it, on the title screen? If so, this is going to be some kind of wonder-mod, for sure! :)

It's a list of the most major mods from which I've taken ideas or specific things. As a whole it's actually much smaller than something like RoM, and loads/runs very quickly as a result. But I wanted to mention those mods on the title b/c they've been extremely helpful to me, even though they're far from fully included. The idea and the layout is definitely unique, along with my music and the improved starfield and the silver ui it really makes you feel like you're looking out at the planet from some sort of high-tech ship imo. I do need to figure out a better way to convert images into .dds format though as my current method garbles the text.

Unless I'm mistaken, It's real name is "Coal UI" and it is already used in several mods, most notably, History of the Three Kingdoms.

It can't be b/c I just made it from scratch myself yesterday lol. I'll grab Three Kingdoms and see what it looks like; I haven't downloaded and tried out every single huge mod yet b/c there are so many. Nevermind about what I said though I guess; I thought it was an original idea. Blarg. I'm really happy with the exact color I came up with though, which will still be at least a little different.
 
It can't be b/c I just made it from scratch myself yesterday lol. I'll grab Three Kingdoms and see what it looks like; I haven't downloaded and tried out every single huge mod yet b/c there are so many. Nevermind about what I said though I guess; I thought it was an original idea. Blarg. I'm really happy with the exact color I came up with though, which will still be at least a little different.

I guess it's a lighter shade than the Coal UI, after a second comparison. The Coal UI is a bit darker... like coal, lol. In which case, your UI is unique. ;)

I use DXTBMP, which works fine for converting to dds.
 
I have updated the top post with a big new description and lots of screenshots. Please let me know what you think. :)

The actual download is probably still several weeks off as I'm still in a full testing playthrough with my best friend and already have a number of things scheduled to fix or add after that. But it's getting there.
 
I like the idea of leader cycling. It seems pretty neat, but doesn't it mean the AI changes personality often? It could mean a once friendly leader becomes a bitter rival... Does it work that way?

As for global storms, did you change the sound effect so that when they "grow" it doesn't play the Forest Growth sound? If not, I'd look into how I solved it. ;)


I really like the tech tree. It's a lot more organized then mine. :mischief:. It seems like you've thought things out pretty well too. The only thing I'm not so sure about is how so many food resources get revealed by gathering. Perhaps some of them should be moved back a bit... But then I haven't played, so I can't really tell.

The stats mod is cool. I like seeing how my units have done.

I hate the vanilla civic screen, why don't you use StrategyOnly's? It's much much clearer.

Anyway, this mod looks pretty good. Any firm date for release? Beta testing?
 
Release, for the first time in two years, is finally imminent, meaning in the next couple of days. This post is partly to shamelessly bump my thread and drum up pre-release excitement, yes, but also to do the following:

I want an historical document (woohoo, Galaxy Quest reference) I can point to in the future to prove certain things that were my cool and original ideas, really were mine, for those mods trying to use them without giving me credit. Just listing them at the top doesn't work though since the "Last Updated..." dates will be changing constantly. So it needs to be in a normal post down here. Thus, here is an initial list of stuff I am laying intellectual claim to, as of the date of this posting: 26 June 2010. Some of these are relatively recent, and some go back quite a ways. Note: this is not a complete feature list for the mod by any means, however it will give you some juicy tidbits to salivate over... :p

Spoiler :
MAP

* making Ancient Temple, Geothermal Vent and Methane Ice unharvestable resources (though Methane can still be tile-improved with an Extractor) so they can be revealed later in the tech tree unlike features
* PeakMod improvements: allowing Ancient Temples to spawn on peaks; putting peak traversability into a Medieval tech (Mountaineering); creating new, weaker versions of Mine and Cottage-Village for use as peak improvements
* combining terrain and feature damage and healing stats with extra feature types, particularly including Oasis healing and Scrub neutrality vs the normal damage of Desert tiles
* idea to use the old FFH2 water texture with the newer FFH2 secondary water files

LEADERS

* Ferdinand Marcos as a modern Khmer leader, since he's a better LH model than the real modern-Khmer ones (Ho Chi Minh etc), and his empire, the Phillipines, is still close geographically, without having to actually add it as a whole new civ

TRAITS

* Prolific trait: +1 food on tiles with 4 food or more, and +10% city growth rate
* Financial trait: unit upgrade cost discount that doesn't apply when changing types, e.g. Longbow to Musketman
* production bonuses for all National Wonders and most normal buildings across the traits
* production bonuses for special types of units on Aggressive/Protective: missiles, civ-unique units like the Spartan, can-only-defend units like Machine Guns

CIVICS

* Theology moved to Government category (as was shown in the 6 March 2010 screenshot)

SPECIAL BUILDINGS

* pre-Palace "Cradle of Civilization" building with reduced effects vs a Palace
* each player's first Palace made free so it can immediately replace the Cradle when it obsoletes, and be placed where a player wishes his capital to be rather than be locked into his starting location city
* Palace no longer teleports and respawns when lost but must be rebuilt manually, however the Cradle does auto-respawn so a very early starting city loss isn't quite as fatal as it otherwise would be
* 50% extra culture-type city defense from the Palace and all Shrines, and 25% extra from the Forbidden Palace and all Headquarters

WONDERS

* new Jurassic Park wonder that unlocks Dragon units
* existing Dimensional Gate wonder, that now unlocks Jedi/Sith units in addition to its normal stats
* building and wonder stats too numerous to mention, but one clever one in particular: making the Pyramids unlock the Labor civic category instead of Government since it was the ultimate use of human labor in history (and giving Government unlock to the Sphinx instead)

UNITS

* using the existing model/skin from Army of Two for a Mercenary unit, but which displays two men in the unit, one noticeably larger than the other, to accurately represent Rios and Salem
* use of the EE2 Manta model as a submarine/warship hybrid that is limited to 4 per Civ, costs gold, and has privateer functionality ala Liquid's ship in MGS4 which it resembles
* use of the EE2 Light Mech model as a Scout Mech which RoM also did, but as a land-based detector of stealth units that is itself cloaked (thanks to RoM for the idea though with its EE2 Myrmidon "Stealth Tank", which I also used)
* Valkyrie name for the EE2 helicopter model
* Trench Infantry unit with stats same as Infantry (20 str, 1 mv) but with Can Only Defend, First Strike Immunity and Collateral Immunity
* a speed 3 Knight variant called the Marauder with a little less strength but Horse Archer type stats (very cool effect on gameplay)
* a Sandworm unit that cannot capture cities so it is not overly devastating, and is a barb rather than an animal, but can only spawn on desert and will generally stay on desert like an animal
* various sea monsters that spawn at certain points in the tech tree and wreak all sorts of global naval havoc, and that are immune to nukes and the normal AI barb bonus
* setting the rock-hurling Quinquereme ship to be, as one of its primary abilities, a counter to the first sea monster type (the Turtle)

PROMOTIONS

* special half-strength promotions used as event rewards, rather than having events hand out full-strength standard promotions (that you may also already have on your units which would suck)
* special Regeneration promotion for the Sandworm and Turtle, giving significant +heal rate
* special Forest/Jungle Familiarity promotions giving Double Forest/Jungle Movement rate to the Wolf and Panther animals, respectively, as part of their unit balance (being somewhat weaker than other animals)

SDK

* barbarian units behave suicidally in the field and when attacking cities now and will ignore the combat odds facing them in favor of always attacking, which makes the higher barb levels of the DarkMongoose difficulty setting, as well as the Raging Barbarians game option if you choose to use it, a lot more viable as the barbs will no longer mass up to unmanageable numbers first before coming in
* changed map trading to only reveal a player's currently-owned land and lake tiles, and changed Circumnavigation so that only non-lake water tiles count towards completion, so that Circumnav, and exploration in general, are no longer a simple game of map trading but must actually be earned
* added global alert message when techs are finished that give free special units when first discovered (in addition to ones that give free techs, eg Liberalism, which already had alert messages)
* continued refinements to the Mongoose DemolishOwnCitiesMod, including the free settler provided having the name of the demolished city + "Migration", and having only the city created by this specific settler be able to gain the stored stats and items, rather than providing them to the next city that player lays anywhere (which could easily be exploited, nevermind being less realistic); also added additional restriction that a player can only demolish cities that were originally founded by him, rather than any he currently owns, again to prevent exploits like using the system to move captured cities a few tiles into the exact desired tile location
 
I've been looking forward to a mod like this, specifically one that makes quite a lot of changes to make a significant different to the vanilla game and yet will work well in MP games...I will be watching this carefully......
 
Historical document #2:

Spoiler :
* Units do not speak, on selection or action, until Oral Tradition in the Prehistoric Era is researched. Only applies to normal units that speak the language of the civ you are playing, and not to ones with custom sound effects.

* Completion of Circumnavigation plays a wonder-type movie.

* Global alert messages for pirate landing parties, and for all sandworm and sea monster combat that occurs.

* Custom icons (meaning made by me; give credit if you use them) for the U2 (spy plane), MI24 (helicopter), and Missile Cruiser.

Version 3.5.1 has been posted:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=14956

However I am not updating the top post yet as I'm awaiting word on a subforum for this project. I'm also really really tired at the moment. ;) There is a lot of info that needs to be conveyed though as a lot of the features in the mod are not inherently obvious, and I also need to write a full credits file which doesn't exist yet heh.

I've also just now managed to think of a couple things that could stand to be patched, despite my best efforts to think of all such things beforehand; oh well lol. So there will probably be a very minor update in the next day or two.
 
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