American Spawn Bugs - Help Please (Mac)

[Drach]

Hi everyone! This is my first post to the forum, so I might as well introduce myself.

My name is Drach, and I'm somewhat new to BTS & RFC, but I absolutely LOVE the mod. Thanks, Rhye, for putting in all those man-hours to entertain and enlighten the masses.

Anyway, I've run into a couple of problems with trying to play as the Americans in RFC. Seeing as how I'm playing on a Mac, I'm using the version of RFC that came with BTS.

Problem 1:
I've edited the WBS files for the 3000 BC & 600 CE starts to play as the Americans. When I load the game (for either start date) the game calendar says that it's some time in the mid 1800's, which gives me VERY little time to get started with America's UHV.

Problem 2:
I downloaded a couple of different quick-start save games from Rhye's wiki. These save-games give me the correct start date, however the cities within normal flip range (Savannah & New York) are not flipping to me. I've tried playing other save-game files for different civs (ie. Germany) and I'm having the same problem - Frankfurt isn't flipping.

Could someone (or everyone!) please help me out with one (or both!) of these problems so I can get on my way to tackling the American UHV?

Thank you all in advance.

 

[killerkebab]

First things first.
Update your Civ IV BTS.
Delete RFC.
Download the latest version.
Come back when that is done. It is now possible to play as America without editing the WBS.

Also, a new patch is due very soon so you'll have to do that process again.

 

[Jarlaxe Baenre]

Don't do what killerkebab said. You are on a Mac, and jmerry's fix messes up the calendar.

 

[Drach]

Gotcha - I think I installed jmerry's fix. That must be the reason my calendar is off. I'll re-install BTS and see what's up.

Thank you for your replies.

 

[Drach]

Okay - I've reinstalled BTS, and both the calendar and city-flips are working - but now I'm running into another slight problem.

When I had jmerry's patch, my new cities started out with 3 pop & a number of pre-built buildings. Now i'm founding Washington (and detroit etc.) and i'm only getting 1 pop and no buildings (maybe one building, but I don't remember. Does anyone know a fix to get the cities to start properly?

 

[virtualpolitik]

it sounds like a python exception to me.

try this:
find your civilizationiv.ini ... usually C:/users/yourname/my documents/my games/beyond the sword
find the line that says HidePythonExceptions = 1 and change it to HidePythonExceptions = 0
start civ4 rfc, found a city as america and post whatever error message it gives you

 

[civ_king]

it sounds like a python exception to me.

try this:
find your civilizationiv.ini ... usually C:/users/yourname/my documents/my games/beyond the sword
find the line that says HidePythonExceptions = 1 and change it to HidePythonExceptions = 0
start civ4 rfc, found a city as america and post whatever error message it gives you

he's on a Mac

Go into finder and type civilizationiv.ini, then do what he said

EDIT: /Documents/Civilization IV Beyond the Sword/CivilizationIV.ini

 

[Drach]

I just edited the CivilizationIV.ini file, started up RFC and founded Washington. No error message popped up.

 

[Drach]

Ok - I started playing around with the python scripts. From what i've gathered, I'm not getting an exception error message because there is no exception!

Turns out, the python scripts that come standard with BTS for the mac leave out a lot of mod's functionality. This particilar "advanced-start" was simply left out of CvRFCEventHandler.py's onCityBuilt method.

Looking through jmerry's readme, he actually fixed a number of code omissions, and did a damn fine job.

Spoiler :

Features:
Excerpt from jmerry's RFC bugfix patch 1.2

Version 1.2:
- Spanish and Portuguese UPs corrected.
Version 1.1:
- Some text changed.
Version 1.0:
- Activated autoplay.
- Activated advanced start cities for late-game civs.
- Activated Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese, and English UPs.
- Activated Chinese UP as a production bonus.
- Activated Mayan UP as a research bonus.
- Added dummy traits that do nothing for all other civs. This lets you see your UP at a glance from the main screen.

Rather than re-research the wheel, I think the wise next course of action would be to re-install jmerry's patched scripts, but instead aim to fix the code that screws with the calendar.

I don't have any prior python experience, but I have a background in Java. If any python programmers are reading this, especially those who are familiar with Rhye's implementation, I would truly appreciate all advice for any part of this mini-project.

 

[virtualpolitik]

kind of hard for me since i don't use a mac but i've seen problems similar to this before. check the xml files that came with jmerry's, CIV4GameSpeedInfo.xml in particular and make sure the data there matches up with the files that came with the bts version you are using. pay close attention to the <gameturninfo> sections as i think these may be causing your problems. unfortunately depending on jmerry's patch this may not be an instant fix but try it nonetheless.

 

[Drach]

I just realized that I uninstalled, then re-installed BTS, and forgot to patch it to 3.19 before using his patch.

Everything works wonderfully now. Now if only I could figure out how to get all those damn oil resources...

 

[Leoreth]

There are usually "free" oil ressources available at Borneo (bring a worker to chop the jungle) and Northern Africa (build your city at a nearby oasis). You can conquer the Venezuelan oil while you battle the Europeans for the Americas. For the rest: go and visit Arabia

 

[Drach]

Yeah, the problem isn't so much where to find the oil, it's getting combustion (and plastics) early enough. I'm finding that the Americans have to expand very rapidly, and are therefore bogged down with very high maintenance costs. I'm having trouble getting my economy strong enough to get the techs I need.

 

[Leoreth]

I had the same problems with America ... but you should get Combustion by 2000 AD, shouldn't you?

 

[civ_king]

Chicago (south of the vertical great lake) and Denver on the oil by the Rockies, and San Fransisco+Vancouver are good cities

 

[killerkebab]

I tend to build:

Washington on start plot
New York
New Orleans (1N of fish)
Chicago (if you take the great lake as having three vertical water tiles, build Chicago 1W of the middle one)
Denver (directly on the oil)
Vancouver (1S of deer)
Los Angeles (1S of cow)
Reno (2E of deer, or 1E of rice when that appears - this city can cover gold and silver that Vancouver doesn't. Build lots of windmills in the Nevada deserts to support the city)

 

[Cosmos1985]

I tend to build:

Washington on start plot
New York
New Orleans (1N of fish)
Chicago (if you take the great lake as having three vertical water tiles, build Chicago 1W of the middle one)
Denver (directly on the oil)
Vancouver (1S of deer)
Los Angeles (1S of cow)
Reno (2E of deer, or 1E of rice when that appears - this city can cover gold and silver that Vancouver doesn't. Build lots of windmills in the Nevada deserts to support the city)

This is my setup aswell. Chicago is better here than S of the lake, if you want to build Washington on the spot, which I guess most people do. (Or is already built by the AI, if you're changing to the Americans from another civ). Also at least one good city spot NW of Chicago/N of Denver, Duluth or one of the tiles nearby.

 

[Drach]

Those are the cities I tend to build. In my current game (and past games, I have played numerous games based on the same start) I found Washington in place, and Jacksonville (French), New York (British) and Boston (British) flip to me on the third turn. I then conquer New Orleans from the French, found chicago, and found Denver. I usually raze Fort Albany and York Factory because they're subpar cities. If the Spanish/French colonize the Caribbean islands, I conquer them too, despite them being undesirable cities.

I usually find that if I raze undesirable cities and negotiate peace, that the AI founds new cities in the same spot, and I have to declare war again. Either way, I'm screwed - either increased maintenance costs, or with the added production and diplomatic costs of waging war.

Either way, I find it hard to get to combustion in time, and even harder to get industrialism & plastics, which is needed to build offshore wells.

It seems as if the American UHV doesn't allow for much deviation with regards to empire & research efficiency.

Any tips for balancing growth, wonders, warfare & research?

My current strategy (the strategy that has brought me closest to victory) is to convert to serfdom right off the bat, and building around 4-6 workers immediately. Then capturing more workers, and converting to slavery. Finally, once I have most of my cottages built, I convert to emancipation to build growth, and then to free speech & universal suffrage to maximize my town's output.

I enjoy building my wonders in their proper historic places (Statue of Liberty & UN in New York, Pentagon in Washington) Since I use Great Engineers to do this, I don't see any harm in doing so. I've also had no problem whatsoever in getting the wonders in time. The only problem I have is getting the techs to build offshore platforms while supporting the production and economy to expand into the middle east.

 

[killerkebab]

I can understand the York Factory raze, but don't raze Fort Albany! It has access to copper (which none of your cities have until you reach the West coast) and can speed up construction of the Statue of Liberty. It also has access to a river and is generally a decent city.

One way to stop reconstruction of unwanted cities in the Caribbean is to raze, get peace, no open borders and leave a rifleman or something on the island. I think that works (I might be wrong). You generally have a little bit of time on your hands anyway - why not focus on getting some decent technology and when the time draws nearer to 1930 just send out tanks and infantry and crush the little islands so they can't rebuild before 1930?

You seem to be doing well with city production (which tends to be my problem) so I can't really offer you any help on that front, but your tech problems could be much more easily solved if you didn't conquer so much in the early game imo.

 

[Leoreth]

You can still enter unoccupied territory without open borders, no matter if there's an enemy unit stationed or not. While I'm not sure about city founding, it might also be no issue there.