A Few Forgotten Modding Questions

[Ozymandias]

Hey Gang,

1. Is there any way to continue unique Tech Trees, for a Civ, beyond the first Era?
2. Is there any problem with allowing worker jobs to be allowed at different Techs during any Era?
3. Likewise, is there any problem with revealing the same Resource, with different Techs, at different times?
4. Is there any limit to the number of different, unique, Tech Trees for the first Era?
5. Once upon a time, later turns on large maps could stretch well into the minutes. Is that still the case today, given how much greater the horsepower is of most PCs?

Thanks,
Oz

 

[Jorsalfare]

Hello, Oz.
Here's what I've gathered:
1: I think that should be possible, since a tech can have a prequisite tech from an earlier era (with Quintillus' editor). This works with "common" tech-trees, but I haven't actually tested this with unique tech-trees.
2, 3 and 4: These are questions I also would like to get an answer to.
5. I believe the turn times has shrunk - at least in my experience. I bought a new computer some 5 years ago. On the old computer (XP) it could take like 30 minutes on a 360x360 map with 31 civs and all trade route-possibilities active. Now (Win 8, 64 bit), a similar map (same self-made mod) usually is processed within 5 minutes - even in the last era in archipelago maps with all trade route options available..

Wishing you a (continued) nice summer!
Sigurd

 

[Ozymandias]

Sigurd, what a delight! TY.

1. Ergo, I'm going to take the liberty of dragging the magnificent @Quintillus into this
2. I know that there is an alternative here: to use use Quint's editor to add worker jobs to later-in-game Workers with those jobs ...
   • Which leads to another forgotten matter: Will the AI upgrade Workers?

... 3; 4 ...

5. 5 minutes???? I'm running a Windows 10 machine with a 3 GHz Intel processor and 64 GB RAM ... from anyone else ... ?

 

[Jorsalfare]

Regarding workers: The mod I'm playing has 4 levels of workers and 3 levels of slave workers (captured workers), but i have never seen AI upgrade any of those worker type units.I have however - on a very few occasions - seen AI upgrade it's POW-workers to gladiators. Both POW and gladiators have been given defense strength, so maybe that's what triggered the upgrade on those occasions.

 

[Civinator]

Likewise, is there any problem with revealing the same Resource, with different Techs, at different times?

Oz, this is not possible. The appearance of a resource is set in the resources menue - not in the tech menue of the editor. In the resource menue you can set only one tech as the prerequisite of that resource. Alternative techs here are not possible.

You can set two (or more different resources) with the same resource icon and the same values of that resource and different techs for each of them - but they are different resources and units, buildings, worker jobs demand the specified kind of that resource in the game.

 

[Ozymandias]

TY - I now recall a mod where the appearance of a "second type" of Horse-equivalent Resource, called Mustangs, appeared, instead, well into the game.

 

[tjs282]

Once upon a time, later turns on large maps could stretch well into the minutes. Is that still the case today, given how much greater the horsepower is of most PCs?

As I understand it, while modern CPU-chips are significantly faster than those from 20 years ago, the vastly increased processing power/speed of modern PCs primarily results from using parallel processing through multi-core processors. But Civ3 was coded when single-core processors were still the norm, and therefore was not designed to exploit that ('new') multi-core ability, so playing Civ3 on a modern machine might not reduce the interturn processing-times nearly as much as might be expected/hoped — especially if running other programs (such as CivAssistII or CRpMSuite) at the same time.

TY - I now recall a mod where the appearance of a "second type" of Horse-equivalent Resource, called Mustangs, appeared, instead, well into the game.

IIRC, that was either @Rhye's mod, or @Kal-el's (DYP/RAR?).

 

[Rhye]

yeah, it was mine

http://rhye.civfanatics.net/civ3/teaser_res.php

 

[Blue Monkey]

As to tech trees - There's the commonly used "zero-era" tech trick. In your case techs of later eras could have that zero-era tech as a prerequisite. With different zero era techs for different civs, you could have multiple unique tech trees. The logical upper limit for unique tech trees would I assume be the same as the limit for number of civs.

 

[Civinator]

I have never done such a radical unique techtree, where each tech is not needed for reaching the 'next' era in all four eras. As far as I remember, the future techs must be reachable for all civs in a game. If all normal techs in the techtree are set to be 'not needed', the civs should be able to research the future techs at once, giving a fifth 'endless' tech era in the game, that can be researched immediatetly. As I haven´t found in the different editors a way to set different future techs as a prerequisite for a building, an unit or something else, one problem could be to prohibit the AI from researching relatively useless future techs.

 

[Ozymandias]

Interesting ... My recollection was the same as Civinator's

 

[Ozymandias]

yeah, it was mine

http://rhye.civfanatics.net/civ3/teaser_res.php

Why am I not surprised

 

[Rhye]

Why am I not surprised

LOL, I even forgot about that! You made me go to check and remind it

 

[Ozymandias]

As I understand it, while modern CPU-chips are significantly faster than those from 20 years ago, the vastly increased processing power/speed of modern PCs primarily results from using parallel processing through multi-core processors. But Civ3 was coded when single-core processors were still the norm, and therefore was not designed to exploit that ('new') multi-core ability, so playing Civ3 on a modern machine might not reduce the interturn processing-times nearly as much as might be expected/hoped [...]

Shouldn't the (increasingly common?) Solid State drives make a considerable difference as well?

 

[Vuldacon]

Shouldn't the (increasingly common?) Solid State drives make a considerable difference as

Yes indeed Big difference.

 

[Ozymandias]

 

[Virote_Considon]

I have never done such a radical unique techtree, where each tech is not needed for reaching the 'next' era in all four eras. As far as I remember, the future techs must be reachable for all civs in a game. If all normal techs in the techtree are set to be 'not needed', the civs should be able to research the future techs at once, giving a fifth 'endless' tech era in the game, that can be researched immediatetly. As I haven´t found in the different editors a way to set different future techs as a prerequisite for a building, an unit or something else, one problem could be to prohibit the AI from researching relatively useless future techs.

IIRC, you can't research the future techs (which are just placeholders anyway) while you still have techs with no era requirement available; but this would only leave you in the fourth era anyway.

Hey Gang,
Is there any way to continue unique Tech Trees, for a Civ, beyond the first Era?
Is there any limit to the number of different, unique, Tech Trees for the first Era?

As has been said, the zero-era tech trick works.

However do remember to take into consideration things like the 256 Improvement/Wonder limit - too many unique techs can start forcing your trees to look sparse!

Likewise, is there any problem with revealing the same Resource, with different Techs, at different times?

Always works with bonus resources - just add a second/third/fourth resource and give them different requirements.

Works with strategic resources the same so long as they are:
a) only used to build units, and
b) the units requiring the resources are doubled up, e.g. if you had two different Horse resources in the default game, you'd need two identical Chariot units, one requiring each resource.

It could take a lot of work if you're doing this with many resources; on the other hand so long as you keep the units identical you could potentially cheese the ghost resource bug.

Works with luxuries in the same way as strategic, but with further caveats:
a) must be on a pre-placed map
b) can't have any sea or air trade, have to block off any land trade between the different versions of the resource
c) can't cheese the ghost resource bug with them - this would end up duplicating the happiness effects in affected cities[/QUOTE]

 

[Gojira54]

I love it when I decide to get back to modding, dig up some old, helpful friends, and find some of my favorite people still active...

 

[Ozymandias]

 

[Blue Monkey]

WB Gojira! Read your comment in the other thread. That must have been a very rough period. Glad you made it through well enough to be back here again.