[BtS] Super Spies

[Trojan Sheep]

EDIT: Nevermind you said you did.

 

[Trojan Sheep]

I'll take a look at it tonight to see if there's anything obvious I can change to make it save compatible (that would be nice for obvious reasons).

I'm pretty sure the culprit is the way I've changed the spy unit itself, but unfortunately a lot of stuff rides on that. I may be able to skirt around it through DLL changes though... we'll see

 

[Trojan Sheep]

Ok I lied, I may not be at home but I can still do XML

No promises whatsover, but give these files a try in your custom assets. Note that if this works these files would *not* be compatible with saves from Super Spies 1.1

View attachment PossibleSaveFix.zip

Again this assumes my hunch is right, and I usually go through a lot of hunches before I find the right one.

 

[DrJambo]

Tried them, same issue. It may just be that the changes are too major to be savegame compatible...Hehe

 

[Trojan Sheep]

Shucks, well I'll still take a stab at it tonight, but if that didn't fix it then I'm not very hopeful.

 

[DrJambo]

Don't know if this will help or not, but the files that cause crashes in savegames are:

UnitInfos
PromotionInfos
UnitClassInfos (from the possiblesavefix)
UnitCombatInfos

These files appear to be ok:

BuildingsSchema
BuildingInfos
BasicInfoSchema
As does the core.dll

Best,
DrJ

Edit: Don't worry too much, as this is only for savegames. If all else fails I'll just have to wait until my current game's finished. LOL. Not too much in the grander scheme of things!

 

[DrJambo]

I may need to clear up the text on that promotion, it doesn't affect the duration of counter espionage, it affects the cost penalty it inflicts and is directly addititve. By default I believe counter espionage increases costs by 200%, with security 1 this would become 250% for instance. The reason the duration looks so long in my screen shot is because I play on Marathon

I'm thinking I'll just make spies a visible unit for testing purposes, should work so long as there's no war and it will be pretty darn funny to watch too.

Actually, the text is fine for security. I just misinterpreted it! With the bonus working as you've explained, I think the text just fine the way it is.

I've been toying around with this mod and it's just so much fun to have spy promotions. If you can get a sound AI, or at least one that will use the promotions and make reasonable use of them (of course, it may do this already!), then this mod will be indispensible!

 

[Dom Pedro II]

Actually, the text is fine for security. I just misinterpreted it! With the bonus working as you've explained, I think the text just fine the way it is.

I've been toying around with this mod and it's just so much fun to have spy promotions. If you can get a sound AI, or at least one that will use the promotions and make reasonable use of them (of course, it may do this already!), then this mod will be indispensible!

Well, the AI automatically chooses promotions when a unit has promotions that can be acquired and is ready to get them, so that shouldn't be an issue. And if Trojan Sheep has added code to the decision-making for which promotion to choose from, then the AI should pick the "best" spy promotions most of the time.

 

[Trojan Sheep]

I did some testing last night and the AI seems to follow a similar pattern each time it upgrades its spies. It really seems to like the loyalty / escape combo as well as logistics and deception. I'd still like to tinker with making AIs specialize their spies, but they don't seem to be doing anything too crazy for the moment.

 

[DrJambo]

I'd love to see an AI spy, fully upgraded down the Alchemist route, poison the water supply! 16 turns of unhealthiness (at Epic speed) would be evil!!

 

[Dom Pedro II]

I did some testing last night and the AI seems to follow a similar pattern each time it upgrades its spies. It really seems to like the loyalty / escape combo as well as logistics and deception. I'd still like to tinker with making AIs specialize their spies, but they don't seem to be doing anything too crazy for the moment.

Well, there's a function the AI uses to determine the value of a promotion... I don't know if you made any changes to this or not since I've not looked at your code changes, but that's where it would all be done. It's actually a somewhat disappointing calculation of promotion preference because it just gives flat values for each promotion benefit for the most part (Blitz, terrain defenses, amphibious warfare, etc.) without really analyzing the situation. It's acceptable, but it means the AI tends not to promote its units as well as it could.

 

[Trojan Sheep]

Yeah the function handling that looks fairly simplistic, the main challenges for AIs with these spies though will have less with how to promote them and more with how to use differently promoted spies differently (security for guarding/counter espionage, alchemist for poisoning ect...). That said, it doesn't look *that* intimidating so I'd imagine I'll have at least some basic logic for actually specializing the spy (previous promotions will add weight to deciding on new promotions), and some basics on deciding which missions and targets to choose by 1.2

Probably my bigger focus though will be on giving AIs some longer term goals for their espionage and focusing that espionage in the right place (generally saving offensive espionage for wars, liberally using defensive espionage on anyone close by it doesn't like or has caught a spy from, and otherwise saving points to steal techs and focusing points against tech leaders).

 

[Dom Pedro II]

I think it'll be fairly easy actually to get them to use promoted spies for their specific missions... the AI knows how to use the espionage missions... so when it's deciding which to use, it's promotion-based strengths should be factored in when selecting an espionage mission.

Long-term espionage goals and effective use might be a bit trickier.. that'll probably require a lot more work since there's a number of variables (generic use of the word) to take into account for the AI when deciding who and how to conduct espionage against.

 

[Dom Pedro II]

Ok, after some inspection, there's a couple of functions that have to be played with. there's the AI_espionageSpy() in the CvUnitAI.cpp file and AI_bestPlotEspionage(...) and AI_espionageVal(...) in the CvPlayerAI.cpp file. The AI_bestPlotEspionage() function returns the best Espionage Mission for that tile based on which has the highest value returned by the AI_espionageVal() function. That best Espionage Mission then is then used in the AI_espionageSpy() function to carry out the mission.

Enjoy

 

[przemuch]

i don't want to whine (ah, hell, i can whine a bit)... is there any particular reason for this mod to send me back to desktop after the first "end turn"?
(standard options, standard mod install, 3.13b oh, and BlueMarble )

also, thanks to my eagerness to fix it myself and my truly impressive abilities i've managed to lose my original 3.13 CvCity.cpp - and now i wonder do i have to reinstall everything because of 300kb file

help me before i fix something else and shoot myself in the process

 

[Trojan Sheep]

Are you trying a new game or loading an existing one? Unfortunately this mod is not compatible with pre-existing saves.

On the CvCity.cpp part, were you trying to merge this with another mod?

 

[przemuch]

It was new game, second new game and third new game tried standard "copy into Mods folder" strategy first

about .cpp - nah, i mistaken backup for original, then deleted wrong one, mod-merging is far beyond my capabilities right now i'm using some forgotten version from old Bhruic's patch files and for some (probably obvious for anyone else) reason - standard BtS works fine


taken from fresh ThemeParseLog:

[Jan 22, 2008 - 19:02:55] Messages while processing 'Resource/Civ4.thm'

Error : Decl - ('Civ4Theme_Common.thm', Ln:401, Col:13) Assignment source propertyId 'SF_CtrlTheme_Civ4_Control_Font_Size3_Italic' not found
Error : Decl - ('Civ4Theme_Common.thm', Ln:402, Col:13) Assignment source propertyId 'SF_CtrlTheme_Civ4_Control_Font_Size3_BoldItalic' not found
Error : Decl - ('Civ4Theme_Common.thm', Ln:408, Col:13) Assignment source propertyId 'SF_CtrlTheme_Civ4_Control_Font_Size1_Bold' not found
Error : Decl - ('Civ4Theme_Window.thm', Ln:3048, Col:9) Assignment source propertyId 'SF_CtrlTheme_Civ4_Control_Font_Size1_Bold' not found
Error : Syntax - ('Civ4Theme_HUD.thm', Ln:887, Col:13) Unexpected '.' in the identifier assignment statement
Error : Syntax - ('Civ4Theme_HUD.thm', Ln:927, Col:13) Unexpected '.' in the identifier assignment statement

(as i said - my only guess right now would be bluemarble - i simply have nothing more)

 

[Trojan Sheep]

Hmm, those aren't files this mod touches, but may very well be ones blue marble does. I've used blue marble in that past, but stopped a while back for performance reasons. I'll try installing it tonight and see if I can reproduce the error (I've been meaning to reinstall it since I got a new PC anyhow).

Regardless it's very surprising that the two mods can't coexist peacefully as they alter entirely different files. I would suggest going through your custom assets folder though and seeing if any files there are in this mod. I'd be very surprised if there were, but stranger things have happened.

 

[przemuch]

well, from what i saw in file lists and folders, BlueMarble should be innocent - no file in "affected" list and in CustomAssets is even close to this mod's - then again i tried to run couple of BtS-native random mods and game refused to crash, so i guess the only way to get a clear answer would be installing everything from the scratch and sadly it's rather impossible atm - so i'll remain thankful that despite my efforts game itself still works and wait - who knows, maybe someone else will have the same problem and solve it for me

(and just in case - to avoid my further ingenious moves - i assume this CvCity.cpp is rather irrelevant and game is working according to it's normal rules when using Bhruic's .dll and Bhruic's .cpp ...well at least this seems logical enough for me )

anyway, thanks for your time, in the worst case i'll have to wait a little for reinstall - this simply will work

 

[Trojan Sheep]

You don't need to worry about the CvCity.cpp unless you intend to do some DLL modifications. That file is just code and serves no purpose other than providing modders the necessary start point to make their own DLLs.

I'll keep you posted after I give this a try myself, I'm hoping it breaks on mine so I can fix it for you, but given what blue earth does I'm guessing something else is screwing it up for you.