[Religion and Revolution]: Mod Development

[raystuttgart]

Once, I get a confirmation, I will checkin the remaining portions of my mod-mod into the R&R SVN along with this.

Ok, go ahead.

But please make sure to merge properly with current SVN version.
(There have been several commits to SVN today. Please don't simply overwrite those fixes.)

Also, please commit features or fixes that belong together separately.
(Don't just throw all you have in your modmod into SVN at once. Otherwise I will not be able to do proper quality control.)

 

[Nightinggale]

But please make sure to merge properly with current SVN version.
(There have been several commits to SVN today. Please don't simply overwrite those fixes.)

SVN should reject any attempts to commit if the client lack one or more revisions from the server. Nothing will be overwritten on the server. However failure to commit due to having an out of date client version can be annoying and updating is always advisable when somebody commits.

 

[raystuttgart]

SVN should reject any attempts to commit if the client lack one or more revisions from the server.

I know.
But you could simply update to the current verison, then overwrite the files without merging and check in your version.

Sadly this has (accidently) happened several times already in the past.
(Which is one of the reasons I do quality assurance on file base using SVN log and diff tools with almost every commit.)

 

[vetiarvind]

Ok, go ahead.

By this you mean just do the "armed" aka "foot-musketeer" code that was there previously for fort defending? Correct me if that's not what you meant.
EDIT1 - NVM, i see you have already done the revert for this and brought back the "armed" units. So, now we cannot use artillery or cavalry in forts to affect the AI native code. However, I would like the colopedia to mention this fact specifically, since it currently doesn't say it only prevents raids when manned by armed infantry soldiers.

However, you have removed the code for selecting the best "defender" and instead brought back the "first" defender. A small while loop in this is not going to affect performance at all.
This affects the relative % of hit chance where the "best defender" should be selected.

 

[raystuttgart]

By this you mean just do the "armed" aka "foot-musketeer" code that was there previously for fort defending? Correct me if that's not what you meant.
EDIT1 - NVM, i see you have already done the revert for this and brought back the "armed" units. So, now we cannot use artillery or cavalry in forts to affect the AI native code. However, I would like the colopedia to mention this fact specifically, since it currently doesn't say it only prevents raids when manned by armed infantry soldiers.

As long as it is ensured, that the units guarding a Fort are military units, I could go with another solution as well.
But I really don't like that a Treasure or a Wagon Train or a Free Settler could guard (activate) a Fort.

However, you have removed the code for selecting the best "defender" and instead brought back the "first" defender. A small while loop in this is not going to affect performance at all.
This affects the relative % of hit chance where the "best defender" should be selected.

Ok, you can put that part back in.

 

[vetiarvind]

^ I think I'm ok with your changes as well (so long as colopedia reflects the code)...Alternatively, we can put the > 1 base strength and exclude town-guards. I'm thinking that's the best, considering how forts are a costly investment and users may not want to use it if it's use-cases are very narrow

Ok, go ahead.

But please make sure to merge properly with current SVN version.
(There have been several commits to SVN today. Please don't simply overwrite those fixes.)

Also, please commit features or fixes that belong together separately.
(Don't just throw all you have in your modmod into SVN at once. Otherwise I will not be able to do proper quality control.)

I sorta wish you had not made any fixes as you had indicated that you will hold off new changes until I merge.

Merging is a lot harder now, for the reason that I will have to go back to the "old version" to isolate my previous features alone, then check if they are not reverting the fixes you have made, and then repeat the process for my new features as well.
Anyway, what is done is done, so no crying about spilt milk.. Just an FYI reg. the problems when this happens.

 

[raystuttgart]

I sorta wish you had not made any fixes as you had indicated that you will hold off new changes until I merge.

Sorry, but I need to work when I have some time to.
(Today and tomorrow I will not have any time to do fixes.)

Those changes are pretty small and easy to isolate.
(Just check SVN log.)

Edit:

Spoiler :

The other positive aspect is, that we now have a revision that contains almost all bugfixes.
It could always be a fallback revision if we encounter serious problems with the new features.

That was why I first wanted to do Bugfixes / Corrections before adding further features.
This strategy allows a much easier searching if complicated / hard to analyze bugs occur.

Also, please do not check in your mod-mod as one single chunck.
Please commit separatly by feature / bugfix.

I know this is asking much, but it is the only way I can really do some good quality assurance.
(If that isn't possible at all though, commit as you can.)

 

[vetiarvind]

I know this is asking much, but it is the only way I can really do some good quality assurance.
(If that isn't possible at all though, commit as you can.)

Thanks for the flexibility but I will try to isolate the features as much as possible.

 

[AbsintheRed]

Originally I was considering to merge some more improvments from other modmods (e.g. agnat's modmod) to the main mod.
But except further bugfixes and corrections (e.g. texts) I really don't want to add any other new stuff for Release 2.3 then.

I really like many of agnat's changes, epsecially regarding traits and leader personalities.
IMO it traits are more balanced between civs, while personalities are much more diverse.
I don't think think these balacing changes affect your bugfixing cycle at all, since there are no new features included in the submod.
Personally I would love to see them included in the final version of RaR

 

[Schmiddie]

Some of the changes done by agnat86 sound interesting, but it would change a lot of the gameplay (due to the fact that nearly all traits have been changed and new traits have been implemented) and it would need a lot of testing and balancing to find the best "final" balancing for the final version.

I think that was not rays intention of a further version only containing bugfixing and some very small improvements.

Therefore I think it will be the best not to add features from other mod mods to the main mod which will contain so much changes.

Personally I don't like most of agnat's changes since - after a closer look - lot's of them require a lot of work for implementation, but I'm not sure if the effect for the player will be worth to do this work.

 

[AbsintheRed]

I don't want to sound rude, but I find agnat's changes already much more balanced, than the main RaR version.
IMO he did most of those changes exactly for balancing reasons, and to fix some inconsistencies in the main mod.
He did a very thourough job on leader personalities, and I think his changes on traits, native relations and founding fathers are also a big improvement.
You are right that these are just small things from an as huge mod as RaR's perspective, but he clearly spent much time on perfecting those minor things.
These are the kinf od changes that can seriosly improve the total immersion for the player.
I strongly suggest you guys to reconsider using at least the most straightforward parts of it in the main version.

Edit: And I'm not the only one with this opinion:

Hi Agnata - I love your mod so much I am currently running a R&R 2.1 just so I can use it hehe. I was wondering if you have any idea when your 2.2 compatible version may be released? Don't want to put pressure rather wondering if you intend to =)

 

[raystuttgart]

I strongly suggest you guys to reconsider using at least the most straightforward parts of it in the main version.

Sorry, but not in Release 2.3.
(And after Release 2.3 I will be busy for a long time again and thus don't really consider / plan to do any modding.)

My vacation is going to end soon.
And even within my vacation I also want a bit of private life.

We have already implemented quite a lot of changes (fixes / corrections) and also merged quite a lot of code from vetiarvind's modmod.
I really want to do some proper quality control and use the rest of the little time I have for testing (and if necessary further bugfixing or corrections).

Seriously, please be satisfied that we are doing Release 2.3 at all and stop making demands.

 

[raystuttgart]

@vetiarvind:

Don't be wondering if you see some changes in XML.

I improved the German texts from your commits.
Also I removed potentially dangerous comments from functional XML.

Within the next days I will try to take a look over your code.
Thanks again for commiting those features separatly.

Are you done merging the changes from your modmod ?

 

[vetiarvind]

@Raystuttgart: I AM DONE!

I have also brought back your "infantry only" feature for forts. After analyzing further, I realized the city defense code uses only infantry for firing in a defense. I did not want to make forts inconsistent with this. Also natives raid forts irrespective of what units are there in it, so if your goal is to make forts a target instead of a city, you can achieve it by just setting a fort in the path between the native city and your town. (What I have described is just pure R&R behaviour ). However, the code you will see will be refactored and you will see a lot of commented out portions to show where the refactors are, esp. in the CvPlot::doForts() and CvPlot::doMonasteries()

Also, AI can now build forts themselves.


EDIT1:
There is a stability issue when I'm testing my old save game. It must have occurred during the merge and after some additional edits as my private mod-mod version was rock solid. Maybe it's not an issue but an incompatibility with some new xml change or something that I'm not aware of? I will try to debug the issue tomorrow.

 

[vetiarvind]

I really like many of agnat's changes, epsecially regarding traits and leader personalities.
IMO it traits are more balanced between civs, while personalities are much more diverse.

Personally I would love to see them included in the final version of RaR

Just chiming in to say "me too". I'm really intrigued by Agnat's changes as well (other than a few things like giving sweden an agricultural boost which seems unrealistic) but would love to see atleast part of his changes as part of 2.3 or above.

 

[Marla_Singer]

@Raystuttgart: I AM DONE!

Congrats!

I'm really happy you've been able to bring this new feature.

Just a question, does your fort will generate culture? I'm asking because that's really a key element for me to build them:

• When you build a city which is distant from your core colonies, the road in neutral land is often destroyed by the natives. With forts generating culture, there would be no need anymore to build a intermediary dummy colony.
• Generally speaking, the player would be able to build sparser colonies instead of grouping them all one next to the other. This would be a great feature, especially on gigantic maps.
• With culture comes Visibility. If the Fort generates culture, then they could be used to see the danger coming. It would really be useful.
• And as a last point, expanding the empire through forts would make the game more realistic. In Colonial History, forts have been mainly used to claim distant territories. I never understood why such a feature has never been Vanilla neither in Civ4Col nor in Civ4 for the matter.

Please tell me we could do all that!

 

[vetiarvind]

Congrats!

I'm really happy you've been able to bring this new feature.
Please tell me we could do all that!

Thanks! And yes, you should be able to do that, although I was unaware of natives destroying neutral land's roads upto this point.
However, like I said in the previous post, there is still a bug causing a CTD remaining from the merge that I've yet to spot (whether it is an incompatability with my old save game or an actual bug, I've yet to determine). I'm 99% sure it's not a code-related one as my old save game lasted for more than 150 turns without a crash, whereas now I'm getting a crash while ending the turn.

However, I've not been able to crash a new game started with the latest R&R code...so maybe it is an incompatibility Anyway, I'll look into it tomorrow when I'm not sleepy.

 

[raystuttgart]

However, I've not been able to crash a new game started with the latest R&R code...so maybe it is an incompatibility Anyway, I'll look into it tomorrow when I'm not sleepy.

Ok, I will wait until your done checking.

After that, I will do some quality assurance on code level.
Then I will fix 2 small bugs that are still open.

 

[vetiarvind]

I've fixed the bug. It was due to some improvements not having the new "isFortifyable()" attribute. I don't know why it only happened after the merge. Anyway, I realized that since isFortifyable is obsolete for R&R (we have things like isFort(), isMonastery()), I've swapped out isFortifyable with R&R specific checks and game is back to stable.

That's all the checkins from my side now.

Edit - I also checked in the 2 cases for PR\Africa not enabling shift-key for trading yields

 

[Schmiddie]

Just chiming in to say "me too". I'm really intrigued by Agnat's changes as well (other than a few things like giving sweden an agricultural boost which seems unrealistic) but would love to see atleast part of his changes as part of 2.3 or above.

hm...

Have you already tested his changes ingame a lot?

What I definitely not like are these changes:

- Greatly expanded city lists, and corrected some historical errors in city lists (most notably the Blackfoot).
- The requirements in Sailcloth, Rope, Tools, Cannons and Blades have been changed both for ships and for land transport units.
- Slaves and Converted Natives now also get a production bonus for Stone.
- Dragoons get the Leadership 2 promotion for free (as it was in previous versions of the mod).
- Mounted Braves and Armed Mounted Braves get the Dragoon promotion (higher withdrawal change, attack bonus vs Cannon Regiment).
- Expert Farmers get a 100% bonus for Barley instead of +3.
- Cocoa plantations can now be built on hill tiles with bananas or coconuts (so the food yield from such tiles can be increased).

I think most of these changes are already outdated due to Release 2.2 as well. IF we decide to implement some of agnat's changes (as described here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=531413) we should only focus on the traits, new promotions and changing of FF order.

However, I cannot support in this regard (maybe only German translations) and I assume ray has also no time for it.

Furthermore we should completely finish all bugfixing before we start something new.