Requests for new components (and features)

[·Imhotep·]

@EF:

I know I'm pestering you... but ... how long will it take to code the techs into the Civ4lerts alerts ? Please do it...

 

[ruff_hi]

Can we have it as an option because I don't have any problem pressing F4 when I get the 'new techs' alert. However, one thing that I think I did notice is that I get this alert if he drops a tech from the 'will trade' group.

 

[EmperorFool]

Not only did you prove that your God is better than his god, you made him believe it.

 

[EmperorFool]

@Imhotep:

The current tech alert is pretty slim on details:

New tech(s) to trade: Saladin, Montezuma, Bozo the Clown
​

Here's the opposite end of the spectrum:

Stalin will trade Bicycling, Mockery
Isabella won't trade Gambling
Yogi Bear has acquired Park Ranger Evasion
​

The second one is a new alert, telling you that Isabella is no longer willing to trade a tech that she was willing to trade earlier.

The third one isn't even related to trading, but it is information readily available by hitting F4 every turn. Of course you won't be told about techs that you cannot research yourself, same as on the trade screen. I'm not actually in favor of this -- it's rarely that important save for a few key military techs, and in the one in a billion chance they'll trade it immediately, you'll be told about it anyway. I put it here just to be complete.

I for one like that each AI gets a separate alert rather than grouping them all together. As well, the point of the alerts is to alleviate the need to open the screens.

@Ruff: While it can be made optional, there is a point where we can have too many options. We don't want the options screen to become unusable. I don't know if this crosses that line, though.

Also, I'll take a look at the bug you mentioned.

If we can arrive at a consensus, I'll gladly add this feature.

 

[·Imhotep·]

@EF:

I'd be totally happy with options 1 and 2. Just as you said it spares opening the tech screen if you know it's a junk tech you don't want anyway. Would be great if you could put it in. On the matter of options: You could always just make it optional in the ini-file and leave it out in the Ctrl-Alt-O overview. I know that's not the intention of the overview, but I guess most of the people would turn the enhanced tech alert on anyway.

Imhotep

 

[Balderstrom]

Might as well make a script to manage yer cities based off of the alerts. And not "play" at all.

 

[·Imhotep·]

Now that would be cool. Can you code one ?

 

[EmperorFool]

Might as well make a script to manage yer cities based off of the alerts. And not "play" at all.

Don't tempt me! You know, the best sign that someone is a great coder is being very, very lazy. Soooo lazy, in fact, that they'll go to great lengths to avoid doing the same thing twice. I'll often spend far longer to automate a repetitive task than it takes to do that task 20 or 30 times . . . and then use that automated method four times.

Seriously, the fun I get in playing Civ comes from making the decisions and planning -- not opening screens over and over, checking for some condition to be right or performing rudimentary mathematics to calculate the optimal time to whip. BUG is there to do the things that computers do well: processing information. I do the parts that humans do well (and this one enjoys): analyzing that information and making decisions based on many factors at once.

Do you think good world leaders spend their time calling up foreign powers to see if they've learned the secrets of Telekinesis? No, they have spies and ministers for that.

 

[Amra]

Hi Guys,

Since BtS now has a Favorite Religion tag for each leader I was playing around with the Sevopedia Leader screen and managed to add the Leader's Favorite Religion with a link. See the image below for an example.




I've never done anything like that in python before, so this is quite a (small) accomplishment for me and I thought I would see if it was something you might want to add to BUG.

If so, the modified Sevopedia file is attached. Obviously, you guys are the python experts so I'm sure you can improve upon it if desired.

 

[ruff_hi]

Nice - I'll leave it to our code fiend EmperorFool to fold this one in.

 

[alerum68]

How was it playing with the Pedia Amra? I tried and gave up.

 

[Cammagno]

If we can arrive at a consensus, I'll gladly add this feature.

My vote is YES for the first two, NO for the last

 

[Balderstrom]

Now that would be cool. Can you code one ?

I could But logic exceptions are a PITA. And most times I'd rather deal with CMD Batch than the mess that is AutoHotKey.

I really don't see how alerts should proactively tell you information that you should have to consult the relevant ADVISOR for.

 

[EmperorFool]

I really don't see how alerts should proactively tell you information that you should have to consult the relevant ADVISOR for.

That's quite a pile of should you've got there. That's why we added options for everything, so you can turn all these new fangled alerts off.

BTW, the game already tells you when wars are declared, peace is signed, wonders are built, religions are founded, some religions are spread, etc. All of this information is available via an advisor, so should those alerts be removed?

 

[EmperorFool]

My vote is YES for the first two, NO for the last

I was kidding about #3, btw. I've committed the changes to SVN, so please keep an eye on those alerts in your games over the next few days. I did some testing, and all seems to work, but we're trying to get out a release, so test away!

 

[Amra]

How was it playing with the Pedia Amra? I tried and gave up.

I'm sure Ruff & EF will laugh but that seemingly simple change took me at least 2 hours of trial & error, I'm embarrassed to say.

 

[·Imhotep·]

@EF:

It works great, thanks for the effort !

 

[EmperorFool]

I'm sure Ruff & EF will laugh but that seemingly simple change took me at least 2 hours of trial & error, I'm embarrassed to say.

Without any sort of documented API, I'm surprised anyone makes any of the mods that are out there. The only reason I was able to do what I've done is by looking at what others did first. There are quite a few features I'd like to add where I simply have no clue how to approach them or if they're at all doable.

In any case, I'll merge in your changes today. If I get the gumption and you don't mind, I'd like to change the text to icons and split the area into two since there's enough horizontal space.

 

[EmperorFool]

I was thinking about Raw Commerce and how with Raw Production now it seems a little odd not to have Raw Food. With the introduction of corporations, there are now sources of food other than the worked tiles and the Supermarket and settled Great Merchant bonuses.

Also, it would probably be nice to split the "toggle" button out into three buttons so you can click directly on the view you want to see. I'd shift the values back to the left where they were before and put the three "buttons" vertically in the space to the right of the values.

Any thoughts on this? This is low priority on my end since I just don't use it and it isn't even useful until fairly late into the game, but I'm putting this out there in case anyone has a burning desire to see it added.

 

[The Doc]

Sounds good. Food can be added for the sake of completeness, imho. But the new button placement would be really nice. I don't like it how it is right now, like in the middle of nowhere.