AND Mega Civ Pack

[NotErich]

I really have to ask, what am I doing wrong? When I start a game, all the terrain textures are blank. Models, such as trees, resources, waves, units, etc, show up.

It does not seem to be completely broken, as a few times it has worked. Alas, it has not worked when I reopened those saves. It is hard to test, considering the full mod takes upwards of a half hour to load.

 

[jhaganosu]

Hi, guys

I'm getting some runtime errors when I click on certain leaderheads while trying to set up a game. I know it happens with Sargon, probably others but it takes so long to load that I haven't done extensive research yet.\. I scanned through the thread, and found info about runtime errors, but didn't see anything indicating that they were occurring at initial start up.

Is this also going to be an issue with the computer's resources, since I haven't really made it into the game at this point?

Thanks for your help!

 

[JosEPh_II]

What version of AND are you trying to use? Very important to know this.

Initial Load can take a few minutes but should be faster on subsequent loads.

JosEPh

 

[jhaganosu]

What version of AND are you trying to use? Very important to know this.

Initial Load can take a few minutes but should be faster on subsequent loads.

JosEPh

Sorry, that would help, wouldn't it? I'm running 1.75 with patch C. Did a clean install about two days ago because of issues with Mehmed II just showing up red (if you know anything about that, let me know... he's still red).

Like I said, I can get into the game set up screen, but when I click on certain LHs to try and start a game, I get a runtime error.

Thanks!

 

[JosEPh_II]

Did you try to install the Mega pack on top of 1.75C?

I need to look, but I'm not sure the Mega Civ pack was made to work with that version.

JosEPh

 

[jhaganosu]

Did you try to install the Mega pack on top of 1.75C?

I need to look, but I'm not sure the Mega Civ pack was made to work with that version.

JosEPh

I did. So it may be that I need to go back to ROM + AND instead of standalone AND?

 

[JosEPh_II]

If you want to use the Mega Pack I think yes.

JosEPh

 

[StormLord-711-]

I've really liked being able to have so many different possible random civs in my games, thanks for this civ pack. However, I like to play on a giant or gigantic map size so by the Medieval or Renaissance ages I've generally had 50 civs in the game because of barbarian civs and revolutions (I suppose the barbarian world option doesn't help either ). I think this is a shame when I have over 100 civs available to use and maps large enough for them, and I'm having to avoid gigantic map size right now because I'd hate to see a colonial age with no native civs.

I read that this is a dll limitation, but I know it has been extended before (I'm sure glad it's not a limit of 18 civs in this mod). Anyone have any idea how this is done (or better yet, if someone's already done it)? I'm not sure where to start since I've never done any modding. I do have some basic programming understanding, and even if I have to compile something to change this limit I'll try.

I'm playing on 1.75C if that is needed.

TLDR: How do I extend the maximum amount of civs in a game to more than 50? (75 or more might be nice.)

 

[JosEPh_II]

TLDR: How do I extend the maximum amount of civs in a game to more than 50? (75 or more might be nice.)

Rewrite the game engine and the DLL to match.

The game only supports 48AI (Civs), Player, and the Barb AI = 50.

And anyone playing with 50 Civs on a Giant or Gigantic Map is asking for CTDs Mid to late game. And/or MAFs.

Barb World only uses the Barb AI. Barb Civ allows Barb cities when they reach a predetermined size to become a Minor Civ. Then the Minor becomes a Full Civ thru is prerequisites.

Barb Civ and Revolutions can push a game to have a total of 50 Civs (player included). But REV and Barb Civ is Not supposed to let any more than that.

The Mega pack was about allowing more Choice of Civs to Use, Not Allow More in the game.

JosEPh

 

[StormLord-711-]

Thanks for the response. Someone correct me if my understanding is wrong on any of this- I'd like to understand more about this since it seems I like to push the limits here.

Barb World only uses the Barb AI. Barb Civ allows Barb cities when they reach a predetermined size to become a Minor Civ. Then the Minor becomes a Full Civ thru is prerequisites.

Barb Civ and Revolutions can push a game to have a total of 50 Civs (player included). But REV and Barb Civ is Not supposed to let any more than that.

But I've just thought having Barb World on would cause more barbarian civs to pop up than would otherwise spawn because of the earlier cities being more likely to qualify to emerge. That's a tradeoff I guess I ought to consider if I don't want to hit the civ cap in games. I just think that it's a shame when proper rebellions don't occur after the middle game because there are no slots left for a new civ to spawn. It's a good balancing mechanism to bring down the larger civs.

Rewrite the game engine and the DLL to match.

The game only supports 48AI (Civs), Player, and the Barb AI = 50.

So it's more than just the DLL- it's the game engine too? Where is that housed, inside the game executable? (If so then it's a black box, isn't it?) How then has the civ cap been changed in the past? I thought that just the DLL had to be recompiled, or something.

And anyone playing with 50 Civs on a Giant or Gigantic Map is asking for CTDs Mid to late game. And/or MAFs.

I won't deny you there. I can't say I haven't been warned before either.

(I've never seen "MAF" before; "memory allocation failure" seems like a reasonable meaning considering the context though, so I'll assume it stands for that.) What takes up most of the system memory though? I would have thought most of it would be units and cities, and having more civs doesn't really increase these, it only changes the ownership. The real culprit there would be the bigger map sizes.

A lot of civs also end up dying eventually anyway, unless the game is very peaceful for some reason. Do dead civs affect stability?

As far as CTDs what kinds of things cause them? Bad AI logic? If so, more AI's would definitely increase the chances of a crash. I really like the larger amount of civs and larger world though. It's more realistic. I'm even willing to work around increased odds of CTDs by reverting to previous saves.

 

[JosEPh_II]

Barb World places 1 Barb City on the map for every Starting Civ placed in the game. It doesn't generate new civs. That's Barb Civ's job.

Yep game engine, the main workings of the exe and other relevant parts not made accessable to modding by Firaxis.

Yes MAF is short for mem. alloc. failure. The very thing that you mentioned, units, cities, tiles worked, etc. all increase the odds for CTD and exceeding your comps ability to process the data. And of course more Civs in the game means more of all these. Big maps allow you to have even more.

Of course the more data you process the greater the chance of a failure some place in the code so more chances for anything including AI logic to fail.

As for how large you can go, that depends upon your Computer's capabilities too.

The original Civ IV DLL was for 28 Civs but as you can see it's already been pushed to 50.

I don't see where reverting to previous saves will reduce the chance of a CTD. UNless you mean to go back and wipe out some neighbors and reduce the "load".

I really like the larger amount of civs and larger world though

You'll just have to play to see what your limits are. That's how we've all done it. Me I like Big maps too, but I never put more than 15 Civs in a game. I don't use REV or Barb Civ either, but will use Barb World. Just my playstyle.

JosEPh

 

[StormLord-711-]

Barb World places 1 Barb City on the map for every Starting Civ placed in the game. It doesn't generate new civs. That's Barb Civ's job.

Sorry, I should have made it more clear: I understand exactly what Barb World does, but I meant that having Barb World on when Barb Civs is also on doesn't exactly help. It interacts with the Barb Civs mechanic in a way. By having barb cities at the start of the game equal in number to the starting civs, you increase the number of viable cities that can emerge as barb civs because the cities have a better chance to develop and survive since they start while the civilizations are still weak. It's just that I might be able to have less civs spawn if I stop using this feature, freeing up more civ spots for later.

I don't see where reverting to previous saves will reduce the chance of a CTD. UNless you mean to go back and wipe out some neighbors and reduce the "load".

Well, it won't reduce the chances of a CTD, but if the CTD is transient, I can just reload the last turn end the turn again, and it won't happen again, allowing me to continue playing my game. Some of the CTDs are consistent though and will happen every time you end that turn. To continue the game, I can almost always continue if I just load an early enough save and play an alternate timeline, but the trick is finding out how far back is early enough. (It seems to me like I'm just loading a save before some error got introduced). It's better than losing your game.

Anyway, thanks for helping me understand what I asked about. There's only one thing I'm still not clear on. It sounds like the 50 civ limit is hardcoded in the game engine but the DLL has the ability to limit it even further (and so that's how the limit was before extended from whatever it was previously to 50). Is that right? If it's just a DLL limit I might starting checking into compiling the DLL myself, because I'm willing to experiment with some game instability just to have more civs.

Also, sorry everyone. My intent wasn't to take up this thread with something that turned out to be pretty much unrelated. If it bothers anyone, or if this conversation doesn't end, I'll look into seeing if it could be split into another thread.

 

[JosEPh_II]

Well AND1.75c really isn't supported anymore. 45*38'N and I are keeping AND2.0 afloat. But we still try to answer questions when we can.

One last thing about Barb World, somewhere along the line it picked up a Random CTD. If you reload the save you can usually get past it. If you have Logging On then in the Log files if you look at the last 2 lines in the PythonDbg file and see:
PY:City Acquire Event (city name)
PY: Raze City Event (city name)

Then that is usually the cause and place of the CTD.

We're still working on finding out what causes it. 45*38'N believes it may have to do with the City defender getting killed and causing an error in the Python. It's been a tough one to crack.

JosEPh

 

[StormLord-711-]

Well AND1.75c really isn't supported anymore. 45*38'N and I are keeping AND2.0 afloat. But we still try to answer questions when we can.

One last thing about Barb World, somewhere along the line it picked up a Random CTD. If you reload the save you can usually get past it. If you have Logging On then in the Log files if you look at the last 2 lines in the PythonDbg file and see:
PY:City Acquire Event (city name)
PY: Raze City Event (city name)

Then that is usually the cause and place of the CTD.

We're still working on finding out what causes it. 45*38'N believes it may have to do with the City defender getting killed and causing an error in the Python. It's been a tough one to crack.

JosEPh

Interesting. I think I'm going to hold back on AND2.0 though until a version is frozen outside of SVN, support notwithstanding. But I'll be glad when I switch to a more stable RoM-AND, even if stability is the only change, so thanks for working on it!

What about this though? :

There's only one thing I'm still not clear on. It sounds like the 50 civ limit is hardcoded in the game engine but the DLL has the ability to limit it even further (and so that's how the limit was before extended from whatever it was previously to 50). Is that right?

Do I understand that correctly? If so, I can forget increasing the civ cap, unless I want to reverse engineer the BTS executable (which is probably a EULA violation anyway ).

 

[JosEPh_II]

As too your last question about the DLL and 50 Civs, you need to do a Search because several modders have worked on making the BtS DLL accept 50. But I'm not current if they have been able to go past 50.

Afforess for AND recommended only using up to 28. And that was for 1.75c. AND2.0 is based off that and Afforess' start of AND 1.76 betas. He also did some of the C2C and AND DLL merge (but not all) before we left. 45*38'N and I are just attempting to clear up the bugs and the unfinished merge. We have a pretty stable version on the SVN now at ver 610. We are currently testing to see if 45* found the cause for the random CTD when using Barb World.

We are also balancing the play as we go along too. When you are ready AND2.0 will be here.

JosEPh

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

Stormlord, AFAIK as Joseph said it's really not advisable to increase the number of civ. It's not a matter of dll, it's (I believe) something related to the core engine of Civ; so it might be something inside the exe or other files. Civ4 core engine is old and was not meant to process all the data provided by mods like AND or C2C. So while you probably CAN make it work when you start a game, you won't be able to get past industrial era when there are too many variables in the game (for example units, cities and civs increase drastically). As for stability, I guess any of the latest revisions of AND2 is more stable than 1.75C. IIRC that bug with barbarians we're hunting now, was there in 1.75C too. And I can tell you that I've been able to finish more and more games to the transhuman era with AND2, something that with 1.75 happened rarely.

 

[StormLord-711-]

Got it. Thanks for the help and the work guys. I'll be excited to try AND2.0.

 

[Noyyau]

So the Mega Civ Pack is not compatible with the AND 2.0 SVN versions?

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

So the Mega Civ Pack is not compatible with the AND 2.0 SVN versions?

Actually I think it works, although I haven't tried.

 

[Combat Wombat]

This thread should be unstickied since the pack isn't compatible with AND2 anymore and restickied when it is fixed otherwise the stream of unhappy people installing this and breaking their game will only increase.