Version 1.8 Feedback

[Deliverator]

Dune Wars version 1.8 is out of the bag. You can download it here.

See this thread for post-1.8 developer patches. You are welcome to try these, but they may be a bit rough around the edges.

Please put bug reports and general discussion for version 1.8 on this thread. For bug reports, please list the main version and patch version you are using, and attach a save game if possible.

Proposed New Features
1. Faction unique espionage. This post onwards.

2. Spice Production Victory. This thread.

3. Goody Huts into Botanical Testing Stations. This thread Done! Patch 1.8.0.1

Refinements / Reworking
1. The Dale's Combat Mod Airbomb missions need a bit of refinement. In DCM, there are five different air-bombing missions for air units. (1) "Airbomb defenses" allows you to bombard plot improvements or city defense percentage. (2) "Airbomb buildings" allows you to attempt to destroy one of the city's buildings. (3) "Airbomb Factories" allows you to attempt to destroy one of the city's production buildings. (4) "Port airbomb" allows you to attempt to damage a ship in the port, with a chance to sink her. (5) "Strategic Airbomb" allows you to attempt to damage the current production project of the city. Firstly, we need to decide what to do with "Port airbomb" which doesn't make sense for Dune Wars as it is. Secondly, we need to review the iDCMAirbombMission values in CIV4BuildingInfos.xml. For example, you would expect Guard Station to have a value of 1, meaning it can be hit by the Airbomb Defenses mission, but it has no value. Bombing the Tleilaxu plague is a bit odd, while a lot of things like Palaces seem to be immune...

2. Need to sort out diplomacy text in particular for the following Leaders: both Ecaz leaders, the Executrix.

3. Improve the unique feel of House Harkonnen. Ideas this post onwards. Try out Dom Pedro II's Slavery Mod.

4. Tleilaxu Plague mechanic rework. This post and this post.

5. Bene Gesserit Instructress (trainer unit) rework. this post and this post.

6. Clean up Ixian Weaponry Tech and Resource confusion. Perhaps add PrereqCivilization to Promotions so that the tech is not needed. Done! Patch 1.8.0.1

7. Review iPower and iAsset values for Units. Done! Patch 1.8.0.1

8. Health needs a makeover. Needs to be sensibly thematic and not too freely available. Remove buildings that give additional health from bonuses, except where sensible. For example, Moisture Seals giving +1 Health from Cereal is weird.

9. Try to get AI auto-unload working without going into an infinite loop. Original issue: Auto unload transports when an enemy is in threat range, as long as the cargo units will not drown. This will avoid loss of attack stacks just before unloading.

10. Refinements to Offworld Goods. URs for Atreides and Ordos.

11. Improve the unique feel of Bene Gesserit. Agnostic Trait and Missionaria Protectiva unique resource building.

12. Abomination (Insane) Trait for Alia.

13. Make Technocracy more interesting.

14. Investigate Automate Spice Harvester building for Workers.

15. Make Financial trait into something more trade oriented. Rename Mercantile?

16. Barbarian Crysknife Fighters should not get Sandrider - is it too nasty.

17. Make Fanaticism, Divine Mandate and Jihad techs more desirable - too specialized at the moment. Ahriman ideas here.

Non-Unit Art Ideas
1. Test graphical only Caves feature which just overlays some cave openings on Mesa.
2. Test graphical only Dust Chasms using a reskinned River Texture.

Bugs
1. Semuta Dens. There is a graphics bug where it shows an actual effect of "--1" instead of "-1".
2. Arrakis mapscript occassionally CTDs while generating maps. Fixed (I think) in Patch 1.8.0.1

 

[Jester Fool]

I have the option 'new random seed on reload' set. Tried popping a goody hut more than forty times. The only result I could get was 'found spice stockpile' although there is a small and large version as well. Is this intended? I thought there would be some new results. Or am I missing something (it is turn 2)?

 

[Deliverator]

From my own testing, I think there is a minimum number of turns that needs to pass before Goody Huts will spawn barbarians. I think this may be different depending on what difficulty level you are playing (i.e. set in HandicapInfos somewhere). Also, the chances of getting the different goody hut outcome depend on difficultly level as well. I haven't spent a huge amount of time on this yet, or added additional effects like science or hammers. Really, all I've done is removed things like free tech, settler and worker and made the barbarians a bit tougher.

At least I can infer that 1.8 is working in Vista...

 

[Jester Fool]

Would it be safe to assume 'Botanical Testing Stations' will be implemented in the future? IMO, a little more variety in the results would be better, but I like this base mechanic much better than the old.

 

[Deliverator]

Would it be safe to assume 'Botanical Testing Stations' will be implemented in the future? IMO, a little more variety in the results would be better, but I like this base mechanic much better than the old.

Given that I opened a new thread on the subject recently, I'd say there was a fair chance...

 

[Pickly]

On Semuta den, when it gives the "actual" as --1, rather than just -1, does that actually have an effect, or is it just an odd graphics bug?


(The new graphics I've seen so far are pretty neat, though it took a bit to adjust to liking them.)

 

[Deliverator]

On Semuta den, when it gives the "actual" as --1, rather than just -1, does that actually have an effect, or is it just an odd graphics bug?

There is a graphics bug where it shows an actual effect of "--1" instead of "-1", but the effect is still -1 gold. I will look to fix that.

 

[Deliverator]

As you may notice, I am going to use the opening post as the holding pen for further work on Dune wars. I'll try to link to the relevant more detailed posts/threads where possible.

There are bound to be things missing as so much has been discussed around the forum. Feel free to point me in the right direction.

We used to track issues in a spreadsheet. I've attached the most recent one I can find. I'm sure some issues are still relevant.

 

[davidlallen]

In the category of "better late than never", here is the civcheck output on 1.8. Nothing major, a few missing text keys maybe. The unreferenced art can't be cleared out till 1.9, by which point things will probably be quite different.

 

[Jester Fool]

I have a suggestion - I know from reading the Dune Wars forum that the Bene Teilax plague is *considered* too strong. Is it possible to have an option on the start-up screen where the plague strength could be set? (e.g. mild vs. virulent). I personally like the Teilax plague the way it is. IMO, the BT would be much less of a threat if the plague is toned down.

 

[ono-neko]

I've just downloaded and installed the 1.8 version. I am running BtS with 3.19 patch. After starting up the game, when I click "Launch", the game CTD'ed. Anyone know what may have caused the CTD? Thanks, this is the first time I am trying to play Dune Wars mod.

 

[davidlallen]

Are you able to install and run other mods you have downloaded from civfanatics?

Which operating system version are you using (xp, vista, windows 7)? If you are using vista or windows 7, does it make any difference if you right click on the executable and select "run as administrator"?

Some international players have found problems with non-roman characters in the path to "my documents". Dune Wars and many other mods based on BUG write files in my documents\my games\beyond the sword. There should be a directory under that called "dune wars" which contains many ini files. Do you have any non-roman characters in that full pathname? Does this "dune wars" directory exist?

 

[ono-neko]

david,

I am able to play other mod from civfanatics: TAM and HoTK are the two mods I've been playing for a while.

I am running Windows XP.

I see "Dune Wars" folder in the path "C:\Documents and Settings\Ono Neko\My Documents\My Games\Beyond the Sword\Dune Wars". I don't think non-roman char is my issue though.

 

[davidlallen]

Hm. those are the only three problems I can think of. Some users have reported an "occasional" CTD when starting on the arrakis mapscript. Does this happen more than once, and does it also happen if you select the archipelago mapscript?

The only other thing I can think of is to try the 1.7 version instead. We know several thousand people have downloaded this and run successfully. The 1.8 version is new, and while a number of people have downloaded that and run successfully, perhaps there is some bug we have not observed yet.

If you can, please try the 1.7 version from this link. If neither of them works, then we can try to find out what is different about your machine. If 1.7 works, then we can try to find out what has changed in 1.8 that may cause a problem.

 

[ono-neko]

I've been doing "Custom Scenario", where the only map available is "WBQuickSave". That always resulted into CTD.

Now that you mentioned about arrakis mapscript, I do "Play Now!" and choose Arrakis. This time I am able to play the game. FWIW, "Custom game" works fine too.

Thanks! Now I am playing...

 

[davidlallen]

I am glad you found the solution. I guess our instructions should be more clear that you can not use maps saved from other mods with DW.

 

[ono-neko]

Yeah, actually I wasn't thinking at all. When I saw it says "WBQuickSave", I should have known that it's not something comes default with DW. If I have had been thinking (brain hasn't been working properly), I should have known better. Anyway, it's all good now, and I'll be exploring the dunes for spices. The spices should help with my brain power

 

[Deliverator]

This reminds my of the old idea of having a bundled scenario based on the Dune map from the novels. There is an outline of the map that I generated at this post if someone wants to take up the challenge.

Ahriman's previously made scenario for Dune wars and some discussion on the subject of scenarios can be found from this post onwards.

 

[darkedone02]

I really like how dune war team been doing a pretty good job on making this mod, and how they continue adding in new features, new addition, and fix some bugs that I hardly even noticed (this game is overall stable to me, and hardly seen any types of bugs, but I do discover some annoyances). One of my Annoyances and still is one of my annoyances of this mod is how I don't start off with a Idle build, which I wish this game has so I don't cheat tech all the way to get the wealth build and end up getting two religions as well. I want an Idle build that give me 25% wealth, and 25% research, and maybe but not required, a 25% culture as well (I don't do culture build, as every time my city expands, the build option completes and all my city ask me what to do with it now (and I hate doing that to 25 or more cities... a bit too much)), that just the only thing I need so I don't have to end up deleting lots of unused settlers as my current build and my city not growing because of that.

 

[Leiche]

I'm having some CTD problems ...
I have 2 systems, both run on Win7 64Bit and every other mod runs just fine. Even Dune Wars, but just in single player. If I start a multiplayers session ist just results in a CTD on both systems.
I can see for a short time the faction I chose, and than it crashes without any error message. This occoured on Version 1.7, 1.7.3 and 1.8.
It might be a problem with the CvGameCore.DLL because I had similar multiplayer problems with BULL which is actualy a nice BUG enhancement.

Is there a chance to get Dune Wars without BUG?
Or an other version of the CvGameCore.DLL that I can try?

I would be glad if someone could help me on this