about the 0.40a patch and "7. Game options are no longer saved"

[pchem]

I noticed this entry in the upcoming changelog:
7. Game options are no longer saved (it just caused to many issues).

If this is going to happen, could we possibly get an option, when starting a new game, to regenerate the world? Some of us (who, me?) are munchkin-like and like to secure great starting spots by generating the world a lot of times, which is easy to do in civ4:bts. But in FFH2, I have to quit the current game, and start a new game, since that option isn't present in the ESC menu.

Having to reset all the options (world size? map type? barbarian options?) makes this process more tedious and slow. If anything, I wish more options would be saved, such as # of AI Civs. Of course, all this is a moot point if I can regenerate the world before turn 1 begins.

Thanks! Love the mod.

 

[Kael]

Probably not. The reason is that FfH does a lot of things fater just generating the terrain. Lairs are placed, unique features, elohim have unique feature plots revealed, etc etc. Regenerate just recreates the terrain, so it doesnt work for us. It opens up a lot of issues, or even worse, it causes a player to play through half a game only to find otu that their arent any of the FfH stuff in the game he was hoping to find.

Because of that we had to remove the Civ4 regenerate feature. Not to say its impossible to code up our own regenerate function, but its not as easy as flipping a switch and there are higher priority things on the list.

 

[xienwolf]

You can edit the files to "save" your settings for you if you always use the same ones. Set the GameOptions to be default ON, modify the WorldSizes to have your preferred number of opponents, and modify any mapscript to have the default options you desire.

 

[Kael]

You can edit the files to "save" your settings for you if you always use the same ones. Set the GameOptions to be default ON, modify the WorldSizes to have your preferred number of opponents, and modify any mapscript to have the default options you desire.

Keep in mind that if you do this you probably wont be able to play multiplayer games.

 

[Methuselah]

You can edit the files to "save" your settings for you if you always use the same ones. Set the GameOptions to be default ON, modify the WorldSizes to have your preferred number of opponents, and modify any mapscript to have the default options you desire.

Thanks for the info. I dislike having to set up the same number of AI each time.

 

[pchem]

You can edit the files to "save" your settings for you if you always use the same ones. Set the GameOptions to be default ON, modify the WorldSizes to have your preferred number of opponents, and modify any mapscript to have the default options you desire.

To Kael: thanks for the replies.

To xien: good info! Which files would these be...? (and where, I guess). I never delved into Civ4 directories, and it can get messy with a steam install. Just a civ4.ini somewhere?

 

[xienwolf]

Assets/XML/GameInfo/CIV4GameOptionInfos.xml
Assets/XML/GameInfo/CIV4WorldInfo.xml


Default options on mapscripts are more involved though, so I'd advise you don't do those unless you are familiar with python already

 

[ushram]

Have to admit i am not very pleased with this decision. Considering in our MP games from the IRC group of FFH players we tend to restart quite often due to starting areas being horrible for one of the 4 or 5 players.

We normally use about 10 options and we usually have to load a game up 5 or 6 times before we are all content with our starting areas. I have to say that this decision will delay further an already long starting process.

 

[Kael]

Have to admit i am not very pleased with this decision. Considering in our MP games from the IRC group of FFH players we tend to restart quite often due to starting areas being horrible for one of the 4 or 5 players.

We normally use about 10 options and we usually have to load a game up 5 or 6 times before we are all content with our starting areas. I have to say that this decision will delay further an already long starting process.

Yes, I definitely understand. Unfortunately the negative of the other side is that players simply cant play game at all (they cant tech, they cant build any buildings, etc). Of the two options reseting the game options is the lesser evil.

 

[xienwolf]

I know it'd be a bit of a PITA, but since Firaxis didn't expose the method of loading the game options for us (though they DID put the boolfromstring and stringtobool functions that are used WHEN loading the gameoptions....), you could create a new function which is exactly like gameoptions, but your own, so seperate from what loads/remembers. Place all the hidden gameoptions in this location and it makes it impossible for them to be set by any method except python control (aka - scenario startscript). It won't work quite perfectly for things which need to be set during map/game creation, but I don't think that too many of the hidden options need that to be the case.

 

[Jean Elcard]

How about saving all the game options to a mod specific ini and overwriting the seetings made by Civilization IV.ini with the ones from the new ini after the Civilization IV.ini options were loaded by the exe? Shortly before reaching the main menu or whenever this is. Xienwolf's civ chooser from Fall Further seems to be able to catch a click on a game option. If you call a function writing to the ini file at this moment, you could effectively save your own options for your own mod. I should check, if this idea is feasible. If I'm correct, it should also work for multi player games.

 

[slowcar]

i would also love to have the option saving back - or the regenerate map feature.

 

[Yaotzin]

Yeah, I was delighted when the BTS patch fixed that. Any solution at all to keep it would be most welcome.

 

[MasterofDisasta]

Related question - Does this fix the problem where FFH games would load your BTS custom settings?

I certainly hope so. I can't tell you the number of games I had to restart because I forgot "choose religions" was still on. Then I had to open BTS, uncheck it, go back to FFH ...

 

[Kael]

Related question - Does this fix the problem where FFH games would load your BTS custom settings?

I certainly hope so. I can't tell you the number of games I had to restart because I forgot "choose religions" was still on. Then I had to open BTS, uncheck it, go back to FFH ...

Yes, it will fix that.

 

[Kolath]

Related question - Does this fix the problem where FFH games would load your BTS custom settings?

I certainly hope so. I can't tell you the number of games I had to restart because I forgot "choose religions" was still on. Then I had to open BTS, uncheck it, go back to FFH ...

If I understand correctly, fixing that problem is the entire reason for the decision to not save any game options.

 

[MasterofDisasta]

Awesome! No more games wasted by my own forgetfullness.

 

[megamanx06]

Awesome! No more games wasted by my own forgetfullness.

ill probably have MORE games wasted by my own forgetfulness to recheck the boxes every time.

 

[Falc]

You know, there's a much simpler solution. Stop hiding options. I just cannot see any reason why this was deemed necessary...

Heck, now that I'm thinking about it, what *is* the purpose of these options? We, as players, can't set them. We can't turn them on or off. So they're either there for debugging (and should be simply removed from released versions) OR they're being turned on or off by some other mechanism besides user interaction, meaning that they don't actually need to be present in the list...

 

[odalrick]

The user interaction that turns the hidden options on or off is Scenario selection.

Scenarios come with their own options, and unfortunately those options are saved until you next start a game.

They are hidden to reduce clutter and stop people asking questions about why one can turn off research and similar.