[Beyond the Sword] History In The Making

[J.P.Jones]

Have you tried 2.02?

Yes. Cleanded my files, re-downloaded, and am still getting a "failure to load" message. ????

J.P. Jones

 

[stgelven]

why did you put saddam hussein as arabian leader? this hugly man is not arabian but perse. whatever, i enjoy your mod.

 

[Rusty Edge]

why did you put saddam hussein as arabian leader? this hugly man is not arabian but perse. whatever, i enjoy your mod.

I think a couple of the leaders are here to serve as whipping boys, so that you can take out your frustrations when you've had a bad day.

 

[Fr8monkey]

Love the mod! This is what BTS should have been.

I have a small problem I searched for but couldn't find. After playing between 30 -60 minutes, the game goes to a black screen as if the monitor was disconnected. The only way to fix is to restart the PC. Any ideas?

 

[snipperrabbit!!]

MAF ! You even get close of the blue screen ...

 

[Grave]

Hey guys... sorry it's been a while. Real life has been keeping me EXTREMELY busy. So busy infact that I really don't have much time for video games anymore.

But, I thought I'd pop in just to see how HiTM is going. So far, it seems that the biggest bug complaint is the interface disappearing on people. But, I have yet to experience this bug yet... I don't know why, but I just don't run into this.

The problem is the foreign spies. They do cause CTD, in the late game very often (because there are so much).

But if you use the 2.01 civgamecore.dll, this does not happen. You can even replace the 2.02 file with the 2.01 and then load your current game.

Only changes seen so far: the spy promotion won´t work properly and it seems the guerilla unit has no hidden nationality.

This worked at least for me *perfect*. I do have XP and after the dll-change, there was no CTD the rest of the game.

Zoid

So do you think limiting the number of Spies allowed at one time will help?

Mirror Link for Hitm download v 2.01 exe:- http://www.megaupload.com/?d=MCH7NID9

Mirror Link for Patch v 2.02 exe:- http://www.megaupload.com/?d=TYJS87XH

I'll add this to the first couple posts. Thanks Drew!

Spoiler :

Decided to experiment with some quite radical game changes I recently made...here's the info (for anyone interested)..

Changes:- For a looooooong time, I've hated how Archers work in the game. To me, they are just far too powerful. Extremely cheap and well just to cheesy for my liking. (e.g. a City Raider Axe vs A basic garrison I Archer fortified in a city, and the Archer wins every time, and yet the Axe is almost twice the cost, and heaven help the attacker if its on a hill). In a recent game, at the end of an early war, my enemies last remaining city was on a hill, and by the time my force of 6 cats and around 7 axes, 2 spears got there, the ai had whipped/built 14 (I kid you not) archers. Even if I built another 4 or 5 cats and 4 axes to take said city, the cost in and time would be extremely pyrrhic to say the least.

Anyways....

Now with ~"better ai" (sic) it tends to favor mixed troops whenever possible, so I thought, what the heck, and changed Archers as below:

Archers:- 30% City Def, down from 50%, NO hill bonus (which is really a double bonus in normal civ..think about it, the Archer gets 25% def from being on a hill, and then gets another 25% because the city is on a hill..no never really made sense to me either.)

Skirmishers same, but made slightly more expensive. All other UU unique archers similar on city def, slightly reduced bonuses all around

Longbows:- Just removed hill def, slightly more expensive

X-Bows :- Untouched

Quechea bonus down from 100% to 70% vs Archers.

Scythed Chariot down to 30% vs Archers to compensate.

------
The above means several things (Im a huge map/marathon/Emp or so player) btw.

It probably hurts me more in the early days, which can become VERY dicey if you don't have horses or copper.

Walls actually mean something now, as in you had better build them to be safe. Protective gets a nice boost, in that with CIty Garrison II Archers, you have the odds vs the barbs axes and swords one on one, it also gets faster walls.

Metals are MUCH more important now (In my 3 trial "early days" games, the ai actually went well out of its normal settling pattern to get copper . It also built more walls it seemed).

Ok, it makes cheesy super early axe rushes easier, but on huge maps, they are almost always pointless anyway (the other ai's are too far away, and even if you do take a couple of cities, the maintenance will kill you).

Overall, it really makes the early days a lot more colorful, and as I said earlier, the ai chooses to defend with spears, axes and chariots mainly, once it has them connected. In none of the games, did anyone (ais included) lose a city to the barbs.

Changes 2:- Great Wall:- Now needs at least 4 cities with Walls and Mathematics before it can be built. Pushes it back a bit, but in 2 or the 3 games I was beaten to it, so the ai knows what its doing too.

Idea again, was to make EVERYONE (me included) face a decent number of barbs, and takes away cheesy "build no cities, rush to Math, then chop the GW, then expand" strats. Also a slight buff indirectly to protective.

Changes 3:- Pyramids...never liked free city walls (why?). So changed it to a free Generic Temple in every city, seemed as close as I got get to what the Pyramids represented...not completely happy with it though..Ideas appreciated ....now requires Masonry AND Polytheism.

Changes 4:- Egytian Mastaba now gives +5% for each and every of Ivory, Gold, Silk and Incense to represent grave goods...

Idea, well the Mastaba providing a free eng is FAR too much, and the thought of Pyramids now giving a free eng in every city ..so made them into something which is a nice bonus but not overpowering. Also makes the Pyramids more desirable as Egypt (which is right ), especially with say Gold and Ivory for example.

Last Change:- Possibly the most significant. Changed jungle and forest def bonus from 50 to 25%.

Idea, now Guerilla and especially Woodsman III promotions REALLY mean something. Previously, if a basic combat I axe happened to be in a forest,
and a woodsman III axe (who has obviously spent his whole career in forest combat to get the promotion) attacks him, then the WMIII guy will lose almost every time, as the forest def bonus cancels out its attack bonus and the combat I str of the defender wins out. My way, the attacker now gets a 25% bonus minus the combat I of the defender.

It really makes combat more strategic, not just "stick to the forest and hills and we're untouchable". Of course, its still preferable to approach through forest and hills, just now less invincible. It also makes promotions again mean a little more...e.g. Shock promo for an axe will cancel out a forest bonus for another axe. The ai of course knows all the odds, and acts accordingly (I forgot in one game, and got my small stack sitting in a forest outside a Carth city totally masscred by Numidian Cavalry ).

Also makes "fog busting" more tricky, as previously you could just stick an archer with guerilla I in a forest hill, and he'd have +120% in bonus, making him a virtual longbow and almost invincible...now that's down to 70%, which means that its approx 50-50 aganist an axe.....beware the barbs

So, apologies for long post, but since HiTM is my "vanilla" game, thought I'd put it here...Thanks if you've read to here, replies and thoughts appreciated

Drew, you never cease to amaze me with your in-depth scrutiny! I think I may incorporate these changes into the next patch...

Spoiler :

Had a strange occurance yesterday...playing a game actually in the Modern Era (me in the modern era )...saved game before MNF, all fine. But when I reloaded, the game started up with a blank "tech advisor" screen, and then a non existent interface. If I tried to load up a slightly earlier "autosave", got a mem alloc error and a CTD....

Hmmmm...

Thought about it for a while, fired HiTM up again, started a new game (to get interface back), then immediately loaded my "modern era" game, and hey presto, all fine.

EXCEPT, the tech advisor has still gone awol (still a blank screen for F6)...so somehow, the interface isn't being saved properly with some games...

Just a thought then, for any with "CTD interface related games", maybe try what I did (start new game, load up your save game from within that). It isn't in anyway a fix, but might help you carry on a game you're enjoying..

Here's the python err.log (current) for that game:-

Interesting... This must be BUG Mod related, however I really don't want to upgrade the BUG Mod anymore, since it went XML based. It's a real PITA for me to try and integrate into HiTM, so I think I'll leave the BUG Mod alone.

I'm still not getting these weird interface errors....





So, WHAT ELSE can I do for the next patch? Any new flavor units? Mod comps to add/update? It's been a while since I've kept up with all the mods here.

I may do one... maybe two more patches (at the most) before I call it quits on HiTM. Gameplay wise, it's right where I want it. Bug wise... well, I don't run into that many, honestly. But doing all this by myself at this point in my life is near impossible. I just don't have as much free time as I used to.


Anyway guys... glad you all are keeping this mod alive. I'd have thought it would have died off by now, but it still seems to be a popular mod.

 

[mechaerik]

PieceofMind made a Combat odds system that should be incorporated. Great to see you back btw, Grave. This has always been one of my favorite mods.

 

[DrewBledsoe]

Grave :- good to see you back man...I too just dont have the time or patience to look after a whole mega mod anymore (I recently acquired the bastard spyware of all spyware, spent over 100+ RL hours sorting it (basically unpaid). I therefore hate PCs again for a while

Recently got tempted by another tasty little mod (it was giving me the eye)...i.e Rise Of Mankind. Great mod until you actually play it. Even with some personal emergency fixes, I keep finding crazy game breaking (for me) stuff, e.g. there's a civic which allows you to build troops with food. This , and its early starting date, makes war for all intents and purposes pointless. Every single city, can build so many defenders so fast that your only option tends to be to raze everything,,love the extra buildings it does though...

Anyways......., my current bugaboo with HiTM, is I can play a game for as long as I like no prob, but if I save, then reload it crashes every single time within a few turns. I've got this down to either an interface prob, or more likely a prob with Junit religion. It seems even if i disable JunitRel in the HITM.config, its still being turned on elsewhere (and it doesnt work as it should either way)...

So maybe you can look at that, if you will

 

[esemjay]

Love the mod! This is what BTS should have been.

I have a small problem I searched for but couldn't find. After playing between 30 -60 minutes, the game goes to a black screen as if the monitor was disconnected. The only way to fix is to restart the PC. Any ideas?

You are running XP or lower and your video card is crashing.

 

[rwglaub]

I'm finding that the interface disappears in mods where the BUG mod is included.

 

[mechaerik]

I hear that BUG updates have reduced the problem, but i'm not sure.

 

[Rusty Edge]

Thanks for checking in on us, Grave! Take a bow

Vanishing user interface seems to be the biggest issue in the thread.

I still mourn the loss of the seige tower unit, and I'm not too sure about the last round of trait rebalancing that gives legions Combat I , but making HitM run smoothly is an understandable priority. If that means dropping THE BUG MOD ( as much as I like it ), so be it.

 

[Grave]

Thanks for checking in on us, Grave! Take a bow

Vanishing user interface seems to be the biggest issue in the thread.

I still mourn the loss of the seige tower unit, and I'm not too sure about the last round of trait rebalancing that gives legions Combat I , but making HitM run smoothly is an understandable priority. If that means dropping THE BUG MOD ( as much as I like it ), so be it.

Thanks.

Unfortunately, "dropping" the BUG Mod is easier said than done. It takes alot of effort to remove a mod from a big project like this. I just downloaded the newest version of the BUG Mod. Maybe I'll try updating it again. If not... I can try removing the BUG Mod, or maybe even rolling back to a more stable version of it... but that's such a headache of a task!!!!!

Keep posting requests for new modcomps to add/update into HiTM.



More to come....

 

[Sir Ronn]

When starting this mod I dont see any units, but they are there. When I move my mousepointer over them I can click on them and they repond, but I cant see them on the map.

Any ideas?

I have tried to re-install the mod, latest gfx-card driver snd so on.

 

[zoidberg76]

So do you think limiting the number of Spies allowed at one time will help?

No, this may only reduce the number of CTDs, but not eliminate them. Someone wrote earlier, that those spy-related CTDs seem to be caused only by a sucessful tech-steal mission of alien spies.

As Spies can steal techs with the 2.01-dll (but do not get promotions for their sucessful missions) without CTD, there might be the problem in the spy-promo-system for (some) sucessful missions. As I said, I use 2.02 in general, but the 2.01-dll.

I am glad your back, grave. Your mod is great!! Recently had one of my best games ever - naval war, tech race, something for the spy plane to do and even a nuclear war.

Zoid

 

[evliya]

@ Grave;

I can't thank enough to you for this mod, I've been playing it tirelessly for a year and can't think of CIV without it anymore. I really appreciate all you've done.

To all HITM players;

It seems that i can't build special forces units even though I have the tech requirements. AI can build them though. Has anyone encountered this problem?

 

[Dimoncheg]

It seems that i can't build special forces units even though I have the tech requirements. AI can build them though. Has anyone encountered this problem?

You must UPGRADE your marine unit to SpecOps, they can't be build.

 

[Hyronymus]

No, this may only reduce the number of CTDs, but not eliminate them. Someone wrote earlier, that those spy-related CTDs seem to be caused only by a sucessful tech-steal mission of alien spies.

As Spies can steal techs with the 2.01-dll (but do not get promotions for their sucessful missions) without CTD, there might be the problem in the spy-promo-system for (some) sucessful missions. As I said, I use 2.02 in general, but the 2.01-dll.

I am glad your back, grave. Your mod is great!! Recently had one of my best games ever - naval war, tech race, something for the spy plane to do and even a nuclear war.

Zoid

That indeed seems to be the proper approach to this problem. The spy code difference between the 2.01 and 2.02 seems to "break" the game. I also play with the 2.02 pack but with the 2.01 dll. It works like a charm, but spy promotions aren't working naturally.

 

[evliya]

You must UPGRADE your marine unit to SpecOps, they can't be build.

Thanks Dimoncheg.

 

[Cross Cowboy]

Im having no problems with the mod at all..not sure why lol. I certainly wouldnt mind seeing more unique resources. Be nice to see more food types, animals; llamas, camels, etc. Other than that Im still enjoying your mod after all this time! About the only one I play actually. I still wonder if there is a way when you plant a city on a resource (which isnt always what I want to do, but sometimes you have to) that it maximizes that resources as if you put the appropriate building on it. Example would be if you plant a city on wheat, that it would act like a farm and give you the extra food that you would normally get. Does that make sense? I know you get the resource, you just dont get the xtra stuff from it. I usually go into world builder and just put it in, because in my demented mind, a city would use the resource all it could! Thanks again for the great mod and thanks to Drew as well for helping us out!