Alexanders' Conquests Testing thread

[Keroro]

I need a few good testers. I have little idea of whether my mod is balanced, and I need people to give me a hand with it. Original thread is here.

Volunteers so far:

Virote_considon
Blue Monkey
bd41094
dferrill
Gaias? Anyone heard from Gaias?

Anyone else?

 

[Keroro]

Download is up. 176 MB. No music for now.

DOWNLOAD IS DOWN. New version is available, check the last post of this thread.

Hope that the downloads work OK. You probably all know how scenarios are installed, but just in case , you should get a folder called 'AC v 1 00' and 'Alexanders' Conquests V0-8.biq' in your Civ 3/Conquests/Scenarios folder, then play it from the 'Civ Content' option on the title screen.

EDIT - Note post 15, make sure the files have ended up in the correct places.

EDIT - First patch (for Civ 3 Complete users) on post 38.

EDIT - Small patch in post 49 for Roman Triarii problem.

EDIT - V 0.9 is out on post 115...

EDIT - ...and the fix of the biq for V 0.9 on post 120...

EDIT - ...and another fix on post 132.

 

[TopGun]

Man I wish I had more time... but I'm already "behind" on my unit production, thanks to EJ's AoI ...so I will have to pass up.

 

[Blue Monkey]

This will be my first effort as a full-blown tester. Please be sure to post hints as to what specific feedback you are looking for.

 

[Synobun]

I guess I can do it Just say what you want to know about.

 

[Keroro]

Slightly bad news guys - I'm getting some trouble with the game hanging in between turns. The turn times are generally good (2 mins or so) but I came to one last night where I waited for 15 mins and the AI still hadn't finished. This is a problem that regularly comes up in Civ 3, but it happens pretty early in this scenario so I really want to get to the bottom of it - I know from RFRE how annoying it can be to need to abandon a game in mid flow. I have a feeling that the hang is something to do with the Phoenician navy - it seems to hang in their turn while they're moving their craft around. Reminds me of RFRE when one of my games hung in the Carthaginian turn (bloody Punics ).

I'm not sure if I can release it for testing if it has this problem - sorry guys. I'll take another look tonight and see if I can work around the problem.

 

[Virote_Considon]

I had the same problem with my Greek scenario the other night. About 1/2 way through with Mycenae. Getting rid of all the land barbarians seemed to do the trick, though...

 

[Keroro]

I might have ironed out the hanging problem. I guess we'll find out when people start testing for real.

I've got the main body of the scenario uploading to 3D downloads now (if anyone has trouble with 3D then let me know). I'll post the link as soon as I have it. Hopefully this side of Christmas.

I can upload the .biq to the CFC site tomorrow night - I'll keep working on it till then. I recon I can get most of the obvious bugs ironed out. Then it will be over to the testers.

I'm assuming that Gaias is unable to get to a computer ATM, I think that he uses one at his college. If I don't hear from him then we'll go ahead with the testing regardless.

Tomorrow - same time, same place.

 

[El Justo]

hi Kerero. i've seen that problem you've had w/ turns lagging like that.

first, did the lag ever end? i mean, we you at least able to resume playing or did it lock up?

two things maybe:

1.) do you have any immobile land units w/ the "Load" function? i know that the AI will try and load immobile units onto TRs if they have the function. i always remove the load flag from immobile units if they're in the vicinity of a coastal city and/or a TR.

2.) i had some issues w/ some mp3 music files when arranging the AoI soundtrack. for some unknown reason, certain mp3 files locked up the game. i would remove them and the problem would disappear.

hope that helps

 

[Keroro]

1.) do you have any immobile land units w/ the "Load" function? i know that the AI will try and load immobile units onto TRs if they have the function. i always remove the load flag from immobile units if they're in the vicinity of a coastal city and/or a TR.

2.) i had some issues w/ some mp3 music files when arranging the AoI soundtrack. for some unknown reason, certain mp3 files locked up the game. i would remove them and the problem would disappear.

hope that helps

Hi El Justo, nice to have someone of your massive experience drop in. Thanks very much for the suggestions. The hangs lasted for at about 30 minutes (on my old AMD 2100), compared to an IBT time of about 2 minutes in the turns before that. If I had more time before Christmas then I would experiment more, but I'm working tomorrow then driving 300 miles to see family, so my time is very limited. I wanted to get the test version out before I leave.

1 - I'm pretty sure that none of the immobile units have the load flag, but just in case I'm going to go back through the .biq tomorrow to make sure.

2 - I had no idea that the music would effect it. I'll do the rest of the testing without the music in, then add the music in the final part of testing.

BTW - you know what the worst part of modding is? It's not getting the time to play other people's mods. When I've got a first version of this that I'm fairly happy with I'm going to reward myself with some quality time on AoI. I downloaded V3 a month ago and have still never played it. Very frustrating, knowing that it's just sitting on my hard drive.

All the best.

 

[El Justo]

Hi El Justo, nice to have someone of your massive experience drop in. Thanks very much for the suggestions. The hangs lasted for at about 30 minutes (on my old AMD 2100), compared to an IBT time of about 2 minutes in the turns before that. If I had more time before Christmas then I would experiment more, but I'm working tomorrow then driving 300 miles to see family, so my time is very limited. I wanted to get the test version out before I leave.

1 - I'm pretty sure that none of the immobile units have the load flag, but just in case I'm going to go back through the .biq tomorrow to make sure.

2 - I had no idea that the music would effect it. I'll do the rest of the testing without the music in, then add the music in the final part of testing.

BTW - you know what the worst part of modding is? It's not getting the time to play other people's mods. When I've got a first version of this that I'm fairly happy with I'm going to reward myself with some quality time on AoI. I downloaded V3 a month ago and have still never played it. Very frustrating, knowing that it's just sitting on my hard drive.

All the best.

it's my pleasure dude

immobile units with the "load" flag is a notorious bug w/ civ3. however, the dilemma w/ this is that w/out the "load" flag, units can not be assigned "AI Strategies" (ie 'offense', 'defense', etc). as a result, a unit such as a "City Guard" or "Border Guard" in AoI (flagged exactly as such) just sits there for the AI b/c no strategy is assigned to it (ie it doesn't fortify itself w/in a city or trench). nonetheless, this is a small price to pay in order to assure that the silly AI doesn't try to load these units onto TRs.

i had an excruciating time assembling the Sounds folder for AoI, more excruciating than any other road block i've ever faced modding civ3. crashes and lags occurred w/ mp3 files that fit all of the civ3 sound file specs. it was so bad at one point that if i had a song qued up in, say, the #2 slot in the order that it'd crash but if i had it in slot #4 it wouldn't i was so damn mad at one point that i tried a variety of different sequences w/ the music text file to no avail. and of course, i tried plugging different mp3 files of the same tune but still nothing. anyhow - my suggestion would be exactly as you suggested: remove the entire Sounds folder and test the scenario out of the default civ3 Sound folder instead. this way, you can start from ground zero and then isolate any potential problematic mp3 files.

also - if you go into the AoI/Sounds folder, you'll find an mp3 file named "dummy". it is a blank mp3 file that i used in spot #1 of the music que. as you may know, the civ engine automaticly plays whichever mp3 file that's in the #1 slot twice in a row. now, w/ the "dummy" file, the civ engine plays literally nothing twice and then moves onto slot #2 and then 3, 4, etc.

the last mod outside of my own that i actually played (play-tested actually) was the Storm Over Europe mod a few months ago. before that, it was Rocoteh's WW2 Global. but yes, it is tough to find time too busy

 

[Keroro]

I might have found the problem with the hang times - I had a few immobile units flagged with load. Thanks to El Justo for suggesting that could be the problem. If any testers do get problems with the turn times, then please upload your .sav file here and I'll take a look.

I've got to get on the road right now, but happy holidays everyone. I'll try to get time tomorrow or the next day to give any testers more of an idea of what they need to look for. Cheers all.

And I like these smilies.

 

[Blue Monkey]

If any testers do get problems with the turn times, then please upload your .sav file here and I'll take a look.

I've got to get on the road right now, but happy holidays everyone.

I must be slow; it took me few minutes to figure out that this means
The Beta is posted for download in post #2.

 

[Virote_Considon]

Downloading now.

 

[Blue Monkey]

Hope that the downloads work OK. You probably all know how scenarios are installed, but just in case , you should get a folder called 'AC v 1 00' and 'Alexanders' Conquests V0-8.biq' in your Civ 3/Conquests/Scenarios folder, then play it from the 'Civ Content' option on the title screen.

Downloaded fine for me. Everyone note: the "AC v 1 00" is buried in a "V 0 8" folder and needs to be moved out in order for the biq to find it.

Edit: That last may be an artifact of Zip Genius. You may get the folder out in the open.

 

[Virote_Considon]

Found a bug strait away *gasp* Sogdiana's leaderhead is a cross between Medieval Sumeria guy, and Modern Sumeria guy!

 

[Blue Monkey]

Bad News:

No .WAVs, can't start the scenario. There's no sound files at all in the folders I've checked.

 

[cubsfan6506]

it's my pleasure dude


the last mod outside of my own that i actually played (play-tested actually) was the Storm Over Europe mod a few months ago. before that, it was Rocoteh's WW2 Global. but yes, it is tough to find time too busy

\
who cares your mods are the best there is.

 

[Virote_Considon]

@Blue: I kept getting that error. I think it's a difference between civ versions. What I did was manually change all the units that used the swordsman fortify.wav, and put a space between "fortify" and ".wav". that seemed to work.

 

[Blue Monkey]

@Blue: I kept getting that error. I think it's a difference between civ versions. What I did was manually change all the units that used the swordsman fortify.wav, and put a space between "fortify" and ".wav". that seemed to work.

1) I don't know which files you are talking about changing.
2) Before we start individually editing the mod on our own, wouldn't it be better to let Keroro make changes and distribute patches? Otherwise how will we know we are all playing and testing a consistent version.