New HOF Mods Released!

[BakeliteRules]

Was out for a couple hours and just finished re downloading....and... Up and running!! No errors with asset checker and successfully loaded3.17.001 from BTS Advanced menu. Methos and Denniz thankyou for your help and patience. Don't know why the CivFanatics downloads didn't take but the Link Methos gave me got the Job done. Now on to to BTS GOTM(9) where I will get utterly annihilated

Again------------

 

[MarkM]

I'm happy to report that I got the latest mod working without too much difficulty on my Vista box for BOTM9 purposes, but ... I'll have to be honest, it made me a bit nervous what I had to do, and I'm still not sure I'm totally comfortable what I did. I don't have any doubt that the HOF mod team has anything but the purest of intentions in making me relax security on my box, and I'm sure they made effort to minimize the chances that there is some back door now open on my box. But I guess I feel the same way about Microsoft too, and it goes without saying that they are ALWAYS discovering vulnerabilities with their code, even though they have huge experience and a control system for finding and eliminating these as a normal course of development.

I'm not sure what great new anti-cheat feature required all of this, but I urge you to find a better way in the next release, if at all possible, to implement it without forcing players to relax their OS security in order to participate.

 

[ruff_hi]

I have a couple of suggestions for Mapfinder (which I love, btw):

• the file naming convention generates some very long names - I find that it is very hard to tell one file name from another when I am trying to load directly from Civ4. Suggestion: Allow the user to specify the naming convention - however, you should force the numbers at the end.
• I often load up generated saves based on my 'rules' only to find that when I settle, my start goes from a good start to a GREAT start (resources in the fog). As such, I've decided to open each potential save, determine where I want to settle, settle and see what I get, then save (if I want to keep it) and re-evaluate later. However, each file wants to save with the same name. Suggestion: Modify the player name with the save number. EG If I was looking at file 'blah blah 154_13', then modify my name to 'Ruff 154_13' before generating the mapfinder save.

 

[Denniz]

I have a couple of suggestions for Mapfinder (which I love, btw):

• the file naming convention generates some very long names - I find that it is very hard to tell one file name from another when I am trying to load directly from Civ4. Suggestion: Allow the user to specify the naming convention - however, you should force the numbers at the end.
• I often load up generated saves based on my 'rules' only to find that when I settle, my start goes from a good start to a GREAT start (resources in the fog). As such, I've decided to open each potential save, determine where I want to settle, settle and see what I get, then save (if I want to keep it) and re-evaluate later. However, each file wants to save with the same name. Suggestion: Modify the player name with the save number. EG If I was looking at file 'blah blah 154_13', then modify my name to 'Ruff 154_13' before generating the mapfinder save.

I think we have you covered on the Player name thing for HOF Saves. I can't do anything about the manual save file name.

 

[ruff_hi]

I think we have you covered on the Player name thing for HOF Saves. I can't do anything about the manual save file name.

Not quite. I was hoping that the game could do this ...

• mapfinder regenerates map
• mapfinder compares map to rule, decides this version is a keeper
• mapfinder renames player name from 'Ruff' to 'Ruff_X_Y' (where X is the save number and Y is the regen number - or the other way around)
• mapfinder creates save, jpg, txt, etc

With this setup, I can open the save, see if I like it and save it as an approved start to my HOF starts folder without having to edit the player name so that I can tell the starts apart. No biggie if you cannot do this - or it doesn't have enough priority - I'll just keep with the manual version.

Re the long file names - I'll write my own little macro to shorten them .

 

[Denniz]

Not quite. I was hoping that the game could do this ...

• mapfinder regenerates map
• mapfinder compares map to rule, decides this version is a keeper
• mapfinder renames player name from 'Ruff' to 'Ruff_X_Y' (where X is the save number and Y is the regen number - or the other way around)
• mapfinder creates save, jpg, txt, etc

With this setup, I can open the save, see if I like it and save it as an approved start to my HOF starts folder without having to edit the player name so that I can tell the starts apart. No biggie if you cannot do this - or it doesn't have enough priority - I'll just keep with the manual version.

Re the long file names - I'll write my own little macro to shorten them .

They way the player name thing works is it name the files as playername plus date, time, regen #, and save #. (ie Denniz_Aug-31-2008_06-10-05_45_31)

It sounds like you want the player name that shows up in the game to change as well. Right? I guess that is possible. I've never looked at it.

 

[ruff_hi]

They way the player name thing works is it name the files as playername plus date, time, regen #, and save #. (ie Denniz_Aug-31-2008_06-10-05_45_31)

ahh - will give that a try - sounds just what I am after.

It sounds like you want the player name that shows up in the game to change as well. Right? I guess that is possible. I've never looked at it.

yes - that is what I was after.

 

[Mesix]

I like mapfinder the way it is. All of my games keep the player name that I selected when I originally set up the game parameters and decided to run mapfinder.

After running mapfinder for awhile, I close Civ IV and run up the mapfinder utility program. From there I can see all of the games that were saved according to my rules set. Like any good databse, the utility allows me to view the save games in different orders based on user input (i.e. I can click on a particular resource and all of the save games will be listed by the number of that resource present near the start location). If I like some I can either play them at my liesure or save them to another directory for later. At this point I can rename the files whatever I want to name them.

If you are going to fix anything in mapfinder, please take a look at the screenshot. For some reason, Vista does not like to play well with the screen shot portion of mapfinder. I get screenshots fine on my XP PC, but my Vista laptop either shows a black screen or a picture of my computer desktop. I know that Unclethrill has the same issue with his Vista machine too.

 

[HolyHandGrenade]

If you are going to fix anything in mapfinder, please take a look at the screenshot. For some reason, Vista does not like to play well with the screen shot portion of mapfinder. I get screenshots fine on my XP PC, but my Vista laptop either shows a black screen or a picture of my computer desktop. I know that Unclethrill has the same issue with his Vista machine too.

I agree here, this is the only thing which need a little bit rework. One problem with the current method of taking the whole screen as screenshot leads to a lot of black screens at the moment the screensaver hits. I don't know whats the effort to replace this method with the civ4 build-in functionality. Only the staff can help with an answer here.

 

[Mesix]

I don't even run a screen saver on my laptop. It seems to be a problem with Vista. Both my desktop and laptop are setup the same way with no screen saver. My laptop runs Vista and gives no screen shots in Map Finder. My desktop runs XP and the screen shot function works as designed. I can't really give any more input than this as I am not a software or programming expert. HOF Mod works great on both machines for playing games. The laptop actually works better for playing since it is newer and has more power to keep up with system demands running larger maps.

 

[Denniz]

I don't even run a screen saver on my laptop. It seems to be a problem with Vista. Both my desktop and laptop are setup the same way with no screen saver. My laptop runs Vista and gives no screen shots in Map Finder. My desktop runs XP and the screen shot function works as designed. I can't really give any more input than this as I am not a software or programming expert. HOF Mod works great on both machines for playing games. The laptop actually works better for playing since it is newer and has more power to keep up with system demands running larger maps.

My new vista system does the same thing. Try running civ4 in a window rather than full screen. That worked for me. I just changed the CivilizationIV.ini file to have it ask if I want to use full screen or not. It is an extra prompt but it makes it easier to remember to switch when I am using map finder.

The issue is probably with the image processing library we are using to take the screenshots. It probably needs to be upgraded to a newer version that supports Vista better. I have looked at it before but the complexity deters me.