v1.61.0005a (Fourth Release)

[Impaler[WrG]]

I would like to propose Sunday the 22nd as our next release date in accordance with a bi-weekly release scedual. Is this acceptable?

Some resent news, I have been talking with Sevo and he is in the early stages of integrating the CCP into his SevoMod, this is the kind of massive userbase we need for testing and feedback. But we dont want this to blow up in our faces with hordes of people getting Crashes so be extra carfull and test thourougly. I have experienced a rather odd crash inwhich the game freezes and when I alt out I see a "The program has requested to close in an unusual way..contact the vendor ect ect" message and no Dump option. Its happened twice and it seems to be totaly random but very infrequent. Also it seems we still leak memory if running DLL only, everythings fine when python files are included.

I see that in the latest release most of the changes in the MainScreen were removed, I feel some of these are worthy of re-inclusion such as displaying the total Trade Commerce on the TradeRoutes bar. SimCutie could you list and describe the features that are currently off so we can debate which ones to include for the next version. Personaly I like to see lots of extra information so long as its displayed in a neat and tidy manor. Dose anyone else have ideas for more MainScreen improvments? I know I would like to see my raw Research rate up in the Research bar and the turns to completion in the Great People Bar. Also I remember someone made a mod with 5% incrementing of the Commerce Rates rather then 10%, I would love to have that included.

To assist Sevo in his integration I think we should start configuring many of the popular Python Mod components like RealFort and CulturalInfluences and many of the ones by Lopez to use SimCuties EventManager. A package of ready to use Python mods would help not only to demonstrate the usefullness of the Eventmanager but also get people using it for their mods. SimCutie is probably too pre-ocupied with the Unit-Statistics mod integration (any word on how thats going) to tackle this so is anyone else familiar enough with the system to do it?

I'm currently working on about a dozen new Building Tags that will be used mainly to create new Wonder effects. These will get paired up with some artwork by various folks like Gnart and WhiteRabbit to produce a "New Wonders" mod package. I hope to have the code for atleast half the features ready for this next release but and the actual mod package on the following release.

Lets hear what everyone else is currently working on or thinking...

 

[The Great Apple]

Sounds good

I see that in the latest release most of the changes in the MainScreen were removed, I feel some of these are worthy of re-inclusion such as displaying the total Trade Commerce on the TradeRoutes bar.

That was me - most of the removed ones I removed because I didn't have the time to add switches for them, test them, and then make the release. I managed switches on a few though.

I think converting TheLopez's mod components is a good idea, as long as it's ok with him. I'm still working on my AI testbed, and I'm running into a few troubles with dynamically changing map size. I have a feeling it may not be possible. Hopefully I should be able to include that, along with a bit of other AI work, with the next version.

 

[Impaler[WrG]]

I'm afraid I wont have any new mods ready by Sunday, if no one else has new material we should push back this release another week.

On a related note, its cruch time for my Summer Classes so dont expect to see much of me for a few weeks.

 

[The Great Apple]

SimCutie appears to have updated his event manager as well as a couple of demos.

I'm still struggling with my AI testing thing. I think what I'm trying to do may well be impossible though!

 

[Impaler[WrG]]

From the reports I have read on the main C&C page your having a crash when you atempt to change Map sizes between tests? Is it possible to just keep it the same for a round of testing and then the user would have to start another series of tests on another size? So far what is working and whats not, do the working parts serve any usefull purpose on their own or dose the system reguire every part to be of any use?

On another note we realy do need to get the Dev Branch merged into the trunk, who knows how to do this?

 

[The Great Apple]

From the reports I have read on the main C&C page your having a crash when you atempt to change Map sizes between tests? Is it possible to just keep it the same for a round of testing and then the user would have to start another series of tests on another size? So far what is working and whats not, do the working parts serve any usefull purpose on their own or dose the system reguire every part to be of any use?

Everything apart from map size changes seems to work. I'd have to test it a bit more, but that's the only sticking point.

We also have to remember that Warlords is just around the corner (tomorrow, in fact). The next release would have to be before that, else it wouldn't make much sence.

I'll try to have a poke through the files later today and update the zip on the forum thread. As with last time, if I notice anything that doesn't isn't part of an option I will either try to give it an option (if I have time), or I'll simply remove it. You have been warned!

EDIT: And the event manager still doesn't work in my mods folder (only in the My Games one). It does work find when alt-tabbing now though

 

[The Great Apple]

Seems to work fine in the default mod directory now. Not quite sure what was going wrong before.

 

[The Great Apple]

I get the following error message on the latest version: No demo mods installed.

load_module UnitUpgradesGraph
UnitUpgradesGraph import failed
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<string>", line 1, in ?
  File "<string>", line 52, in load_module
  File "CvEventInterface", line 33, in ?
  File "<string>", line 52, in load_module
  File "CvSimCutieEventManager", line 139, in ?
  File "<string>", line 52, in load_module
  File "CvEventManager", line 12, in ?
  File "<string>", line 52, in load_module
  File "CvScreensInterface", line 29, in ?
  File "<string>", line 52, in load_module
  File "CvPediaMain", line 57, in ?
ImportError: No module named UnitUpgradesGraph

EDIT: I get the same with all the demo mods in.

 

[The Great Apple]

I've removed the offending file from the release which should be going out tomorrow (got to test it, and don't have time today).

 

[Impaler[WrG]]

How about including the new DoM screen by lopez and the latest expanded TechWindow, their both nice improvments to the UI that would be easy to include as their whole files we have not yet had in the project tree.

 

[The Great Apple]

How about including the new DoM screen by lopez and the latest expanded TechWindow, their both nice improvments to the UI that would be easy to include as their whole files we have not yet had in the project tree.

I've incorperated them. Will commit soonish.

A new problem with the event manager. I can only work out how to use an event to trigger one function per file. Am I missing something, or is this a limit?

 

[Impaler[WrG]]

looking good TGA

I've been wondering if we should look towards using the DrElmerJiggle EventManager, all of Lopez's mods are configured to use it. Perhaps some cross compatibility is possible? I dont do enough Python coding to know the relative advantages of each but it seems the DEJ eventmanager is/has become the defacto standard. How difficult is translation from DEJevm to SiMCevm?

I'm starting to get the major pieces of my NewWonders Mod together, about half of the new XML atributes are functioning and I'm assembling the content Mod. I expect this will be my last vanila civ mod before I transition to WarLords.

P.S. I'd love to hear more about your auto-gameing system, I think it deserves its own thread on ModComponents page (as I stated in my future course thread this should be policy for major components). Some kind of writeup and description of how to use the system. I bet you could get a lot of volunteers to compile data for you (Think SETI screensaver mass distributed data crunching system)

 

[The Great Apple]

I've been wondering if we should look towards using the DrElmerJiggle EventManager, all of Lopez's mods are configured to use it. Perhaps some cross compatibility is possible? I dont do enough Python coding to know the relative advantages of each but it seems the DEJ eventmanager is/has become the defacto standard. How difficult is translation from DEJevm to SiMCevm?

As long as it can be done without imparing the one we have at the moment I'm for this. I much prefer SC's method myself - makes it alot quicker to set up simple test mods. Having to fiddle in the SDK to set your mod directory is a bit of a pain however (DEJ does it by editting a pyhton file IIRC).

I'm starting to get the major pieces of my NewWonders Mod together, about half of the new XML atributes are functioning and I'm assembling the content Mod. I expect this will be my last vanila civ mod before I transition to WarLords.

Goodo. Looking forward to seeing it.

P.S. I'd love to hear more about your auto-gameing system, I think it deserves its own thread on ModComponents page (as I stated in my future course thread this should be policy for major components). Some kind of writeup and description of how to use the system. I bet you could get a lot of volunteers to compile data for you (Think SETI screensaver mass distributed data crunching system)

Unfortuetley I didn't get to run the first test today as planned. Hit a glitch when running it overnight last night - for some reason my scores are occasionally reported incorrectly (getting negative values). I can't seem to figure out why at the moment, and the occurance is rather rare (about one in every 20 standard size games!), so it's not too easy to debug either .

Once I've ironed out the bugs in the logging program (I thought I had yesterday), I'll probably put it up as a separate mod. It has also just stuck me that I haven't tested it on scenarios/pre-made maps, and perhaps I should...

 

[Impaler[WrG]]

Well if I might rampantly speculate as to the potential causes withour even looking at the code.

1. Integer overflow - unlikley as your score would have to exceed a quintilion
2. Bad Initilization - perhaps its initializing with a negative but in most games the score rises into the positive values, the few negative games are the ones your loosing realy badly in
3. Negative incrementation of a score varaible such as land area or population.
4. A mix up with AD/BC years causing some kind of negative incrementation (I think I remember you mentioning a problem in this area with year 0?)

Happy Debugging, oh and how quickly can your system cruch through a whole game in this Automation mode? I wonder if it could be speed up by skipping a lot of the Python calls that arn't nessary?

 

[The Great Apple]

With an idle computer (Athlon 2200+, 1GB ram) it's about 30-45 mins for a standard size map with default settings (no autosave). Quite a long time unfortunetly.

This is, however, with very few performance enhancements. By cutting down a load of python calls (events, callbacks and interface), lowering the MAX_PLAYERS limit to nearer to what I want to be the max players, and doing a few other things I hope to lower that time by a decent amount.

 

[The Great Apple]

I've done a bit of poking around with the negative scores, and it appears that it's not my fault, although I can't be sure. If a person's starting location is one of those slightly strange ones where you are surrounded by useless terrain apart from the big cross, a negative score comes out for the land score. There don't seem to be any checks in place (although it probably throws up a debug message... still can't compile debug builds...)

Strange that nobody reported has ever reported it. I think it usually happens when the map is slightly overfilled, and where I have a cold climate (more ice). This would explain the rarety.

 

[Impaler[WrG]]

Odd I have always noticed that fat cross of an AI starting location (and hense ware they build) is always full of nice bonuses and usefull terrain EVEN when its located deep in the Arctic, I assumed their was a map function or initilization that made that opening fatcross so nice, not that no such advantage is given to the player. Perhaps its not being run with your mod resulting the the poor locations.

 

[The Great Apple]

The fat cross is nice, just nothing around it is. I've only ever had a start like that once, and I don't remember a negative score.

 

[The Great Apple]

Ignore this post. Turns out it was me being silly.