[Beyond the Sword] History In The Making

[DrewBledsoe]

Thanks for pointing me to the exact post. I remember reading this post before but being busy and not playing HitM at that time I forgot to download it. Many thanks to Drew for his efforts. He has always been dedicated to HitM and helped the mod's fan a lot.

On the other hand I remember right before the time of 3.17 that I noticed many Python Exceptions arising from events' code. It seems that some part of the code that is repeated throughout the file was badly indented which in python causes a great miss. Such exceptions won't give error message if you keep them hidden through the setting in the ini file, but they will still cause the code they arise from to fail. I am sure this was a cause of many of the missed up events behavior noticed by players.

Since u (I'm pretty sure) know how to code Kali, the cause of many of the wrong events, was that Grave had left some of Dale's RTW code lying around in one of the python call files. This was causing problems, and was incendental to HiTM.Some of the other problems were caused by incorrect indents by JKp from his events..All fixed.

 

[DrewBledsoe]

@Drew

Exactly. I was going to explain this as I felt I wasn't clear enough. The XML and Python files that get overwritten by 3.17 are the ones of vanilla BTS i.e. in Beyond the Sword\assets folder. The ones of HitM are not touched by the patch. Now HitM still uses some files from the vanilla BTS. The point is any file that is modified by the mod will be used from the mod's folder other files will be loaded from Beyond the Sword\assets.

I've gone further with my game and things seem to be working nicely. I will sure report any issues I may notice. Hopefully there won't be any serious issues.

Precisely (I'll see your exactly and raise you one )...I suppose it depends upon exactly what Grave changed, and if anything clashes in a significant way...

Thanks for the help

 

[Rusty Edge]

You're right. I really liked your idea of a ship getting lost as a random event, with the possibility of discovering your descendants later on. For instance, if a Viking ship gets lost and forms their own colony somewhere, maybe that civ could also be a Viking civilization -but with another leaderhead. This would require more LHs for each civ of course. Then they could revolt against you, or become a vassal/colony? I really don't think they should assimilate into the parent civ again, if all contact was lost for generations.

Maybe you could sell someone on the idea of dehorning Ragnar, dressing him in furs and giving him a dye job via re-skin, naming him "Eric the Red" and switching him from aggressive to expansive.

 

[Rusty Edge]

More game experience has provoked some more thought and research about the musketman issue... the weapon evolving and dominating over the centuries.

Currently we get our strength 9 musketman with firearms tech. Didn't Grave have it as base 10 at one point?

Suppose it got an automatic free Drill I promotion with repacable parts, to represent flintlocks.

Suppose it got an automatic free shock promotion with replaceble parts or military science to represent bayonets.

I'd guess it could be coded as a random event(s) with a 100% chance, a modification of this one-

"Event84
Smokeless Powder
Prereq: GUNPOWDER
Obsolete: RIFLING or STEEL or SCIENTIFIC_METHOD
Active/Weight: 40/200
Result:
1.All Musketman units gain the Pinch promotion "

The Unique musket units have built-in bonuses rather than promotions they could carry forward, so I thought that these would compliment them without stealing the thunder of the UUs, the aggressive , or protective civs. Also it would give an incentive to upgrade to muskets from armsmen and macemen, which would seem more realistic.

 

[Hyronymus]

Hows playing HiTM with a 3.13 exe coming along? If only I kept a copy of the 3.13 exe I could've tried it myself.

 

[Kalimakhus]

Hows playing HiTM with a 3.13 exe coming along? If only I kept a copy of the 3.13 exe I could've tried it myself.

It is working for me. I have no game breaking issues. Only thing I noticed a few missing TXT_KEYs for the custom game options. While the options themselves still work as expected. Adding these keys to one xml file in the text folder of the mod should solve the problem.

You can revert back to BTS3.13 and then go through the process I described before. There is also an easier solution but discussing it might not be allowed

 

[Rusty Edge]

I have uranium hooked up, and I have Fairchild -Republic,
but I can't build the A-10 on account of "Requires uranium"

Is this the UN Nuclear Weapons ban, and if so, should it work that way?

 

[DrewBledsoe]

I have uranium hooked up, and I have Fairchild -Republic,
but I can't build the A-10 on account of "Requires uranium"

Is this the UN Nuclear Weapons ban, and if so, should it work that way?

Had precisely the same last night pal, ...you need to research fission first, Uranium is just a slightly glowing useless lump until then .....(In gameplay terms it says you have No Uranium and I had 9!! (never ever had more, popped 5 through incidental mining, damn hugh maps))

 

[Hyronymus]

On that issue: did any of you actually research the GAU8 cannon or was it thrown into your lap?

 

[Tandur]

I am not sure if this was brought around on this thread before. I have updated to 3.17 a long time ago and ever since I have been missing HitM a lot. Anyway, there is an old trick that I used for Vanilla and Warlords when both got their last patches with the release of BTS. There have been a lot of mods I like to play and updating caused them not to work any more. I discovered by trial that using the older executable i.e. Warlords.exe for say 2.08 can still be used to start a mod that was originally made for 2.08. I have tried this with HitM just today and I was able to start the mod and play a game that is 250 turns (Odyssey speed) now.

So to update to 3.17 and still be able to play HitM you can do the following:
1- Before installing the patch go to Beyond The Sword folder and rename the Civ4BeyondSword.exe file to any other name keeping the extension. I renamed it to Civ4BeyondSword313.exe.
2- Install the patch normally.
3- Whenever you like to play HitM start the game using Civ4BeyondSword313.exe rather than the new Civ4BeyondSword.exe that was installed by the patch.
4- You also can create a shortcut that starts the game and load HitM in one step. To do so just make a copy of the Beyond the Sword shortcut you have on your desktop (installed when you install BTS). Right click this copy and choose properties, In the dialog box you will get on Target tab the text box named target will have the following text or similar "C:\Program Files\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Beyond the Sword\Civ4BeyondSword.exe" (quotation marks included). Change this to "C:\Program Files\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Beyond the Sword\Civ4BeyondSword313.exe" mod=\HISTORY IN THE MAKING
You can then use this shortcut to start HitM with the right executable.

Well, that suxors. Because there's no way I can go back to 3.13. I won't go into the details of why.

 

[Rusty Edge]

On that issue: did any of you actually research the GAU8 cannon or was it thrown into your lap?

I plead maybe. I went back to the game to see, and wound up completing it.


My sinus headache interferes with my memory, but as I recall at some point I beelined Advanced Flight, then built the Fairchild -Republic ( which is probably how I bypassed Fission) and I think that gave me the GAU8 tech.

If that's not possible, then I researched it. I was the tech leader at that time.
I wanted the Thunderbolts.

Drew was right as per usual,
They became available with Fission.

Never got to use them, though. I got sucked into a war against Ragnar. The mutual struggle made me popular with the independent/unaligned nations and I won a diplomatc victory in the 1960's.


Other notes- Yes, those Special forces are powerful. Not just for cutting railroads and oil, either. I gave them pinch promotions, which enabled them to attack cities garissoned with infantry . The enemy can't see them to call in arty. support on their turn, either. As a stack, SF are more powerful.

Anyway, I now think a limit of 10 is plenty on a huge map. I tried to change the limit, but had no luck inserting a cursor in the code line . Is this a cut and paste thing?

 

[Rusty Edge]

I wonder if Drew is out buying his #4 jersey....

 

[ripple01]

Favre went to the Jets... Bledsoe doesn't play for the Jets. I don't get it.

Cheers,
ripple01

 

[DrewBledsoe]

I wonder if Drew is out buying his #4 jersey....

Drew is a huge rl Jets fan, and is still jumping up and down like a very excited Easter Bunny ......roll on the season !

 

[DrewBledsoe]

Anyway, I now think a limit of 10 is plenty on a huge map. I tried to change the limit, but had no luck inserting a cursor in the code line . Is this a cut and paste thing?

Find Civ4UnitClassInfos.xml, open it with notepad and scroll down until you find this bit

<UnitClassInfo>
			<Type>UNITCLASS_SPECIAL_FORCES</Type>
			<Description>TXT_KEY_UNIT_SPECIAL_FORCES</Description>
			<iMaxGlobalInstances>-1</iMaxGlobalInstances>
			<iMaxTeamInstances>-1</iMaxTeamInstances>
			[COLOR="Blue"]<iMaxPlayerInstances>-1</iMaxPlayerInstances>[/COLOR]
			<iInstanceCostModifier>0</iInstanceCostModifier>
			<DefaultUnit>UNIT_SPECIAL_FORCES</DefaultUnit>
		</UnitClassInfo>

Change it to this

<UnitClassInfo>
			
			<Type>UNITCLASS_SPECIAL_FORCES</Type>
			<Description>TXT_KEY_UNIT_SPECIAL_FORCES</Description>
			<iMaxGlobalInstances>-1</iMaxGlobalInstances>
			<iMaxTeamInstances>-1</iMaxTeamInstances>
			[COLOR="Blue"]<iMaxPlayerInstances>10</iMaxPlayerInstances>[/COLOR]
			<iInstanceCostModifier>0</iInstanceCostModifier>
			<DefaultUnit>UNIT_SPECIAL_FORCES</DefaultUnit>
		</UnitClassInfo>

and save the file...the only bit you change is the <iMaxPlayerInstances from -1 to 10 to give a limit of 10 Black Ops guys.

 

[Rusty Edge]

Notepad? I'll give it a try.

 

[Rusty Edge]

Thanks! Taken care of. That gives me another idea...

I edited airships to require Aluminum as well as Physics, since airships had aluminum frames historically. This is similar to Anthropoid's idea of requiring Steel and Railroad techs as well as Physics as far as timing.

In HitM, aluminum is revealed with steel. Timing may vary depending on whether you can buy aluminum, or if you have to hook it up. Likewise you can deny airships to your enemies by unhooking their aluminum with spies or pillagers, or monopolizing it. At least this way airships aren't both counterless and resourceless, and pirates should be countered by frigates.

 

[Rusty Edge]

New Topic -

It seems as if this mod gives us more of everything...except civics.

Sometimes there aren't enough viable options for me. So I'll propose some.


LABOR

Union- available with assembly line.

Benefit: +2 , to reflect the historical advances unions have made in safer and healthier working conditions, as well as health care for their families.

Disadvantage- Builds cannot be rushed, or at least not as efficiently, because of contract provisions, and reluctance of the membership to do anything short term that might prove the length of employment or size of the workforce could be reduced in the longterm. This includes chopping- it puts loggers out of work.

And since we have slave revolts with slavery, should we have random event strikes tied to this civic?

 

[DrewBledsoe]

New Topic -

It seems as if this mod gives us more of everything...except civics.

Sometimes there aren't enough viable options for me. So I'll propose some.


LABOR

Union- available with assembly line.

Benefit: +2 , to reflect the historical advances unions have made in safer and healthier working conditions, as well as health care for their families.

Disadvantage- Builds cannot be rushed, or at least not as efficiently, because of contract provisions, and reluctance of the membership to do anything short term that might prove the length of employment or size of the workforce could be reduced in the longterm. This includes chopping- it puts loggers out of work.

And since we have slave revolts with slavery, should we have random event strikes tied to this civic?

Like it, I'd say as you have it, plus Slavery virtually unuseseable with it (bare with me on that in gameplay) maybe +1 (showing worker (assumed) solidarity)..

 

[Rusty Edge]

Like it, I'd say as you have it, plus Slavery virtually unuseseable with it (bare with me on that in gameplay) maybe +1 (showing worker (assumed) solidarity)..

As a labor civic, it's an alternative to Slavery--- Oh you mean some kind of penalty for civs with slavery .... trade boycott -wise or something?

Like when the American longshoremen refused to handle USSR imports such as Stoli, after the invasion of Afganistan ?