[ModMod] FF+Kek-Mod v0.22-alpha

[DarkLunaPhantom]

I have merged Final Frontier Plus with Kek-Mod (my mod of K-Mod).

Advantages of K-Mod over BTS are numerous and can be found on the page linked above.

To apply changes simply paste extracted content to the Final Frontier Plus (v1.9 beta) folder and replace all files when asked. (I also recommend erasing UserSettings folder from Final Frontier Plus folder if you wish to reset your BUG Mod options to K-Mod's defaults, and that folder should be in My Documents anyway.)

Included dll supports 48 civilizations.

Current version: v0.22-alpha (based on FFP v1.9 beta and Kek-Mod v0.22)
Date: 27/Nov/2020

Download here.

NOTE: Normal pitboss cannot be used with this version, you need PB Mod version available here or here. Be sure to check all the other nice stuff they've got there, some of their things will surely be interesting to any pitboss host.

The source code is here as is the commit history. I have not yet written a proper changelog.
In short:
v0.22-alpha - Fixed some bugs (including a serious game-breaking one).
v0.22 - Merged Kek-Mod v0.22.
v0.21 - Merged Kek-Mod v0.21.
v0.20 - Made the rules (primarily the constants in various xml files) behave more like K-Mod and fixed various bugs. WARNING: This breaks savegame compatibility.
v0.10 - Made everything work with K-Mod. WARNING: This breaks savegame compatibility.

What I would like to do next is to move implementation of Solar Systems and Planets into DLL to make full use of K-Mod's superior AI, but who knows when will that be.


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Original post:

Spoiler :

I've successfully merged Final Frontier Plus with K-Mod (more precisley with my modmod based on it). In case there is somebody else who is interested in trying this out, I'll upload the code soon after I finish a few more things.
There are still a few minor issues that I want to take care of first, but currently it is fully playable and stable.

For some time I've wanted to move solar systems from Python to DLL, so I'll probably try to do that next. I did this first because it seemed pointless to go through all that trouble only to end up with bad BTS AI. This way I can try to adjust karadoc's AI to solar systems.
(Benefits of K-Mod are numerous even when it doesn't control solar systems; not only does it have much better AI, but also its DLL runs significantly faster, it contains countless OOS bugfixes and a large number of adjustments intended to make the interface, automation and other aspects of the game more player friendly and much less frustrating.)

I'm actually posting this to try to get some help about one minor thing. K-Mod includes BBAI features including civ leaders' victory weights, so I need to enter some numbers for FFP leaders. For reference, here under "BBAI Victory Strategy" are BBAI/K-Mod victory weight's for BTS leaders. Those numbers influence how likely the leader is to go after specific victory condition. I think that all those weights follow the convention that their sum is 150 (except barbarian leader who has sum 0) and that they are a multiple of 5 between 0 and 70. I don't really know what should I pick there for FFP leaders so that it makes some ingame-universe-sense. Maybe finding a BTS leader with "similar" personality would be a good idea? I would appreciate some suggestions as they will probably be better than what I would pick myself.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

I can't be bothered to come up with exact numbers, but I will give you my opinion on which victories at least should be favored and which put on the back-burner by each leader:

Catherine Shapiro:
To be honest, I think Shapiro is pretty opportunistic and wouldn't explicitly favor one victory over another. I don't think anything really fits her espionage theme, except maybe Influence to represent indirect cultural control over anyone else? Then again, her Civilopedia article (which is really all I have as a source) makes it pretty clear that she likes being in charge, and would probably favor being openly in power over just remaining the shadowy figure behind the scenes. Eh, just make her favor everything roughly equally and rank Human Ascendancy slightly below the rest, it's the only victory I can think of that can't somehow be handwaved as indirect behind-the-scenes or direct top-to-bottom control of the other factions. But then again, I guess it could be justified in a sort of Area 51 top secret science project to gain ultimate control over everything and everyone. So yeah, Conquest>Domination>Influence>Diplomatic>Human Ascendancy makes the most sense I think, but the differences should be pretty low, maybe just 5 or 10 between each.

Hector Alvarez:
I think he should be similar to Shapiro in that he has no clear preference, as there are many ways to demonstrate the superiority and universal right to rule that New Earth claims for itself. In fact, give him the same ranking and low differences as Shapiro, but with Conquest and Domination switched.

John Richards:
Domination>Conquest>Human Ascendancy>Influence>Diplomatic; He should have slightly greater differences between each victory than the previous two leaders, with the biggest jump from Influence to Diplomatic.

Kanji Takeno:
Same order as Richards but with Influence and Diplomatic switched; relatively even and low jumps between each as with Shapiro and Alvarez.

Leonard Pritchard:
Finally, a little variation! Clearly favors Diplomatic, followed by Influence and Human Ascendancy, then a very big drop down to Domination and Conquest, maybe even a 0 for both of them.

Lu Tianqu:
Human Ascendancy heads and shoulders above the rest, the ranking of the others doesn't really matter except perhaps that the peaceful ones should be slightly above Domination and Conquest.

Lukas von Reuther:
Domination>Influence>Conquest>Human Ascendancy>Diplomatic; again with pretty minor jumps between each.

Raul Colombo:
Give Conquest a very high value and Domination a slightly lower one, Influence and Human Ascendancy extremely low and Diplomatic a zero.

Vladimir Korovin:
Domination>Conquest>Influence>Diplomatic>Human Ascendancy; with small differences between each again.

This was more difficult than I imagined, only 3 of 9 leaders seem to have a very clear preference, the rest is pretty muddy and will just go for whatever seems opportune I feel.

 

[DarkLunaPhantom]

Thanks for your input! I'll reply to it soon, but first I want to share one of the weirdest thing I've ever seen in civ. I run automated games to see will they trigger any bugs/exceptions etc. and for days everything was ok, but this happened today:

Spoiler :

That's a 271GB save file.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Wow, I knew Kmod AI was clever, but I didn't expect it to become the origin of the singularity. Oh well, time to welcome our new robot overlords.

 

[DarkLunaPhantom]

I'll post what I picked (before reading your answer). I don't think that these influence AI strategy too much, AI will still go for victory conditions with 0 weight if it thinks that that is its best chance. It's better to think of weight 5 as 105% chance of normal likelihood of picking that victory condition than as 5% chance. So, these are not too important, but they add a nice additional flavor to AI personalities.

First choice I made is that every leader will have one very high weight (70) victory condition to make it easier for me. I also understood Influence as "cultural influence" like in regular BTS.

Catherine Shapiro:
To be honest, I think Shapiro is pretty opportunistic and wouldn't explicitly favor one victory over another. I don't think anything really fits her espionage theme, except maybe Influence to represent indirect cultural control over anyone else? Then again, her Civilopedia article (which is really all I have as a source) makes it pretty clear that she likes being in charge, and would probably favor being openly in power over just remaining the shadowy figure behind the scenes. Eh, just make her favor everything roughly equally and rank Human Ascendancy slightly below the rest, it's the only victory I can think of that can't somehow be handwaved as indirect behind-the-scenes or direct top-to-bottom control of the other factions. But then again, I guess it could be justified in a sort of Area 51 top secret science project to gain ultimate control over everything and everyone. So yeah, Conquest>Domination>Influence>Diplomatic>Human Ascendancy makes the most sense I think, but the differences should be pretty low, maybe just 5 or 10 between each.

"... Catherine Shapiro shares a desire to see a strong human race, united and protected in the shadows by the technology her scientists are developing-- she just believes that the Watchers should be directly in charge rather than answerable to some government."

I understood this as diplomatic solution being preferable as long as she is in charge and if that fails then domination/conquest.

           <iCultureVictoryWeight>5</iCultureVictoryWeight>
           <iSpaceVictoryWeight>5</iSpaceVictoryWeight>
           <iConquestVictoryWeight>30</iConquestVictoryWeight>
           <iDominationVictoryWeight>40</iDominationVictoryWeight>
           <iDiplomacyVictoryWeight>70</iDiplomacyVictoryWeight>

Hector Alvarez:
I think he should be similar to Shapiro in that he has no clear preference, as there are many ways to demonstrate the superiority and universal right to rule that New Earth claims for itself. In fact, give him the same ranking and low differences as Shapiro, but with Conquest and Domination switched.

"... Alvarez believes that New Earth represents the true legitimate authority in the universe as a part of the Earth itself. As such, he feigns diplomacy with rebels over a more direct approach... non-loyal factions are in the way and require elimination.
... his goal is to make New Earth into a model society: an advanced bastion of technological research, with a universally-recognized culture and - if necessary - military might."

Again, it sounds like he would be happy to be recognized as "the legitimate authority" and diplomatic vote for victory is exactly that.

           <iCultureVictoryWeight>15</iCultureVictoryWeight>
           <iSpaceVictoryWeight>15</iSpaceVictoryWeight>
           <iConquestVictoryWeight>5</iConquestVictoryWeight>
           <iDominationVictoryWeight>45</iDominationVictoryWeight>
           <iDiplomacyVictoryWeight>70</iDiplomacyVictoryWeight>

John Richards:
Domination>Conquest>Human Ascendancy>Influence>Diplomatic; He should have slightly greater differences between each victory than the previous two leaders, with the biggest jump from Influence to Diplomatic.

If influence is understood as cultural influence, I think that we're in agreement here.

           <iCultureVictoryWeight>5</iCultureVictoryWeight>
           <iSpaceVictoryWeight>30</iSpaceVictoryWeight>
           <iConquestVictoryWeight>40</iConquestVictoryWeight>
           <iDominationVictoryWeight>70</iDominationVictoryWeight>
           <iDiplomacyVictoryWeight>5</iDiplomacyVictoryWeight>

Kanji Takeno:
Same order as Richards but with Influence and Diplomatic switched; relatively even and low jumps between each as with Shapiro and Alvarez.

Influence is 0 because of the -50% influence penalty in leader trait.

           <iCultureVictoryWeight>0</iCultureVictoryWeight>
           <iSpaceVictoryWeight>35</iSpaceVictoryWeight>
           <iConquestVictoryWeight>35</iConquestVictoryWeight>
           <iDominationVictoryWeight>70</iDominationVictoryWeight>
           <iDiplomacyVictoryWeight>10</iDiplomacyVictoryWeight>

Leonard Pritchard:
Finally, a little variation! Clearly favors Diplomatic, followed by Influence and Human Ascendancy, then a very big drop down to Domination and Conquest, maybe even a 0 for both of them.

I think we're in agreement here.

           <iCultureVictoryWeight>50</iCultureVictoryWeight>
           <iSpaceVictoryWeight>25</iSpaceVictoryWeight>
           <iConquestVictoryWeight>0</iConquestVictoryWeight>
           <iDominationVictoryWeight>5</iDominationVictoryWeight>
           <iDiplomacyVictoryWeight>70</iDiplomacyVictoryWeight>

Lu Tianqu:
Human Ascendancy heads and shoulders above the rest, the ranking of the others doesn't really matter except perhaps that the peaceful ones should be slightly above Domination and Conquest.

I think we're in agreement here.

           <iCultureVictoryWeight>25</iCultureVictoryWeight>
           <iSpaceVictoryWeight>70</iSpaceVictoryWeight>
           <iConquestVictoryWeight>0</iConquestVictoryWeight>
           <iDominationVictoryWeight>5</iDominationVictoryWeight>
           <iDiplomacyVictoryWeight>50</iDiplomacyVictoryWeight>

Lukas von Reuther:
Domination>Influence>Conquest>Human Ascendancy>Diplomatic; again with pretty minor jumps between each.

"... has brought him to the conclusion that the evils in this world can only be vanquished in bloody conflict where one side must be destroyed."

This makes conquest a priority and influence is again understood as cultural influence.

           <iCultureVictoryWeight>5</iCultureVictoryWeight>
           <iSpaceVictoryWeight>30</iSpaceVictoryWeight>
           <iConquestVictoryWeight>70</iConquestVictoryWeight>
           <iDominationVictoryWeight>45</iDominationVictoryWeight>
           <iDiplomacyVictoryWeight>0</iDiplomacyVictoryWeight>

Raul Colombo:
Give Conquest a very high value and Domination a slightly lower one, Influence and Human Ascendancy extremely low and Diplomatic a zero.

I gave ascendancy a higher weight because it is a corporation doing advanced research.

           <iCultureVictoryWeight>5</iCultureVictoryWeight>
           <iSpaceVictoryWeight>35</iSpaceVictoryWeight>
           <iConquestVictoryWeight>70</iConquestVictoryWeight>
           <iDominationVictoryWeight>35</iDominationVictoryWeight>
           <iDiplomacyVictoryWeight>5</iDiplomacyVictoryWeight>

Vladimir Korovin:
Domination>Conquest>Influence>Diplomatic>Human Ascendancy; with small differences between each again.

"...he is known to be very friendly and accommodating, most likely for the purposes of convincing his potential business partners to want what he wants."

This is why I gave a higher diplomatic weight.

           <iCultureVictoryWeight>5</iCultureVictoryWeight>
           <iSpaceVictoryWeight>10</iSpaceVictoryWeight>
           <iConquestVictoryWeight>20</iConquestVictoryWeight>
           <iDominationVictoryWeight>70</iDominationVictoryWeight>
           <iDiplomacyVictoryWeight>45</iDiplomacyVictoryWeight>

Again, these numbers are not too important, they're almost not worth writing a post as long as this one, but I'm more than willing to spend time on these kind of things.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

AstroTech Corporation is a weapons research and development corporation though, not just science in general.

 

[pikmaster]

Hi, this is something I was really loking forward to. Can you upload your mod, so I can try it?

 

[DarkLunaPhantom]

Hi, this is something I was really loking forward to. Can you upload your mod, so I can try it?

I have uploaded it here FF+K-Mod.

I actually had a working version already in April, but I didn't upload it since I am still far from my goal. It is successfully integrated with K-Mod, but there are still a lot of things I would like to fix/change. The source code has been available this whole time on on GitHub (but as a fork of K-Mod so it's missing art files etc.)
Commit messages are a mess because I intended to polish everything sometime later, but they can give you some information about other changes because I didn't write a proper changelog yet.
I hope to continue with this (or at least write a proper detailed changelog), but I don't know when will that be.

 

[DarkLunaPhantom]

I have posted a new version. This one is based on a new version of K-Mod (and my modmod of it) and FFP v1.9 beta.

Unfortunately, I didn't write a proper changelog, but I tried to leave some comments and notes on GitHub. I mainly focused on getting little details more in line with K-Mod as I felt that lots of original constants in xml values were quite a bit arbitrary. I am aware that this might be off-putting to players more experienced with FFP. I am also aware that the number of people who will read this is miniscule, but I welcome any comments/criticisms/suggestions/etc.

Other thing I did are various bugfixes. Some bugs were ridiculous, like using slavery and having the use of sacrificied population for another turn (same was happening basically for anything that increases anger level or decreases population). Planets are not well integrated with DLL's checks in general and I surely missed much more such things.

Hopefully, I didn't introduce any game-breaking bugs, because testing was limited.

WARNING: This breaks savegame compatibility.

 

[DarkLunaPhantom]

I have uploaded a new version, v0.21.

 

[DarkLunaPhantom]

I have uploaded a new version, v0.22.

 

[TheOtherOne]

I have uploaded a new version, v0.22.

Hello DarkLunaPhantom. Thank you for your work on keeping this game alive. Does your 0.22 update represent the definitive version of final frontier? It seems to be as, correct me if I'm wrong, it is an AI update supporting the most recent version of the final frontier plus mod.

Have you tried any other mod-mods for final frontier plus (FFP)?
Babylon 5 mod-mod (https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/a-babylon-5-mod-for-the-final-frontier-mod.261551/)
Star trek mod-mod (https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/star-trek-mod-ii-the-wrath-of-mod.478456/page-15)
Star wars mod-mod (https://www.moddb.com/mods/star-wars-frontier-plus)
Master of Orion mod-mod (https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/download-latest-version.321315/)

May as well keep track of any play-worthy mods out there, but a quick read-over of the star trek mod it seems some people are saying that there isn't much implemented so may not be worth trying.
If I go to the effort of working out what mods are worth playing, I may as well post about it for future players. Only interested in mods that play well, alot of mods talk the talk but then when downloaded seem more like a pot of half-thought ideas with poor implementation.

 

[DarkLunaPhantom]

Does your 0.22 update represent the definitive version of final frontier? It seems to be as, correct me if I'm wrong, it is an AI update supporting the most recent version of the final frontier plus mod.

I wouldn't call this "the definitive version" for various reasons. Unfortunately, in the current state I would actually discourage you from playing this version at all.

My idea was (is?) to have a version of Final Frontier with the added benefit of K-Mod various improvements. Most people single out the improved AI, but that's just a part of the unbelievably extensive list of improvements the K-Mod brings. There are so many under-the-hood improvements that make the game run and work better that it would be a difficult task in itself to even list them all. Being based on the latest version of the Final Frontier Plus, this would ideally make this "the definitive version" or something like that. However, there are many unresolved issues.

First, in the current state there is at least one game-breaking bug that I have introduced: the AI will probably never ever declare war in the current version. Some of these bugs I have actually fixed in the meantime (e.g. the war thing has a really simple "fix"), but I never published the new version with those fixes included. The main reason for this is that this is a somewhat time-consuming process and my group of civ4 playing friends doesn't really play Final Frontier at all, so this has been very low on my list of priorities.

There are many things I would like to do with this, but I am not sure that I will find the time or will to do them:
1) Publish a version without known game-breaking bugs
1) Merge the current version of Kek-Mod
2) Add various changes based on the feedback that I got during my last multiplayer game

I would like to say that I would do this soon, but as you can see the last update I published for this was more than 2 years ago and it might be some time before I get to this, if ever.

Have you tried any other mod-mods for final frontier plus (FFP)?

Regarding other Final Frontier based mods, I have tried some of them and there are some things there that I would maybe like to bring over to Final Frontier proper like ground units and stealth that can be toggled on and off. But as with other things, I don't know will I be actually working on this at all.

 

[DarkLunaPhantom]

I have uploaded a new version, v0.22-alpha.
This version should not have any game-breaking bugs that I am aware of so it should be safe to play.

 

[TheOtherOne]

I have uploaded a new version, v0.22-alpha.
This version should not have any game-breaking bugs that I am aware of so it should be safe to play.

Late reply. I downloaded it and gave it a go and I quite enojyed it. It is very simply compared to a full game of civ, but still enough to play a couple of enjoyable games. It is a good choice for someone who wants to try something different without investing in buying a new game, or otherwise wants to see what can be done with the engine. The resulting game is similar to civ but also very different due to developing multiple planets per star system (city) and space battles that are more like modern era naval combat in civ (IE, combined arm fleets). The new techs and mechanics are sufficient for a couple of games but ultimately lacks the complexity to keep playing for long.

It would be great to see the game further developed along the lines you (dark lunar) already mentioned within its own universe, or by being ported into in a lore-appropraite universe. The inclusion of ground troops, more complex star system development, etc would greatly improve the game.

I've tried two different mods:
Star trek: There has been alot of effort on this collection of star-trek related scenarios with many different different tech trees, civilizations, religions, units, and buildings appropriate for the respective timelines and eras. However, it is simply not an appropriate universe for the final frontier combat mechanics. Star trek lore doesn't make use of combined arm fleets with battle carriers and strike groups, therefore combat is reduced to (largely) mechanically identicle ships attacking each other where the largest group wins (often without losing a single ship due to introduced mechanics). In one scenario, I couldn't even declare war and spent the entire game skipping turns as build ques completed (not a bug, that was a feature). In another I was supposed to recreate the federation, but where I couldn't even form alliances so ultimately had to do it by killing everyone else.
It is very sad to see so much time and effort go into a themeatic mod that just isn't suited for the mechanics of the base game.

Babylon 5: Unfortunately the mod didn't work for me and upon starting a new game I couldn't build anything in a star system so I gave up. It seems like others have the same problem. It may be due to me using a GOG copy. Unfortunate, as I think babylon 5 would be a more appropriate universe.

 

[Aradziem]

I think this modmod should be announced here https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/final-frontier-plus.351012/page-32 because some people may think that final frontier + isn't developed for 8 years, and don't know about this.

Also I have a question- why were starbase missiles production removed? There isn't even an option that was in final frontier+.

 

[DarkLunaPhantom]

I think this modmod should be announced here https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/final-frontier-plus.351012/page-32 because some people may think that final frontier + isn't developed for 8 years, and don't know about this.

You can link it there if you think that someone might want to know. I don't think that I will be making any such posts by myself for now.

Also I have a question- why were starbase missiles production removed? There isn't even an option that was in final frontier+.

Starbases can have squadrons for cargo, but not missiles. You can't rebase a missile to a starbase or load it into it. So when a missile production mechanic would create a missile on starbase plot, it would actually put the game in a weird bugged state because that missile would be on an invalid plot. That's why I removed that mechanic. I intend to bring it back after I change starbases so that they can carry missiles, but that hasn't happened yet.